Repricing Strategy on Amazon ⎜ SellerLogic ⎜ EP 178

Ryan Cramer: What's up everyone? Welcome to my corner of the internet. I'm your host, Ryan Cramer, and this is Crossover Commerce presented by PingPong Payments. The leading global payments provider. Helping sellers keep more of their hard earned money. Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Crossover Commerce. This is episode 178 of my corner of the internet. As the intro stated, this is where I bring on the best and brightest in the Amazon e- commerce space. Today is no exception. With that being, we are going to go ahead and kick off. Just before we get started we obviously of course, want to give a shout out to our presentees. We are a cross border payment solution company, helping people send or receive money more cost effectively, putting money back to their margins. When you're sending out money to your supplier, manufacturer, your VA, or just entities overseas in different currencies. You get your money quicker when you pay in localized currency, instead of waiting for banks or other entities to transfer that money over to you. Use a solution that's quick, effective, and going to help you save time, money, and effort, and that's with PingPong Payments. You can do that by signing up for free on the link below, in the comments section, or if you're listening to us on your favorite podcast destination, that's going to be right there in the show notes. Or you can just go to usa. pingpongx. com/ podcast. That's where you can watch this episode when it becomes available on audio format, with all the transcripts and all the key takeaways. Everything like that, all the previous 177 episodes, including this one will be available there as they become available. Go ahead and check it out. Again, this podcast is really great because we bring on so many different people, not just on Amazon, in different parts of e- commerce, but it's not just in one country, it's all across the world. That's what's the beauty about podcasting and technology, is that we get to discuss on a different capacity of business internationally, and that's what this is all about. As you grow your business, as you grow your brand, it's important to know that there's lots of different moving parts and going into what we're going to be discussing today, as you sell on multiple marketplaces and multiple platform basics and what it's going to take to improve your business moving forward. Whether it be competing with pricing or competing with another competitor, for example. You want to make sure that you're competitive in multiple different ways, right? Of how your product is packaged, what qualities and what kind of benefits it's coming with it. Then also just and foremost, what is going to be beneficial to the inaudible. But there's solutions out there that helps it make it a little bit easier, of course, like PingPong that helps businesses keep an eye on those certain major things that help your business grow. That is SellerLogic. SellerLogic is a partner of PingPong Payments, making sure we let everyone know that. But there's also different things to know why people are unfortunately scared of using repricing tools and other solutions out there that have the ability to help you in certain capacities. We want to debunk those myths today. We want to discuss why it's important to work with solutions that have an eye on all the different marketplaces and solutions that you might have. Believe it or not, because this is live. If you have questions about anything that we're discussing today, you can actually write in your own questions. That's right. In the comment section, if you're watching this on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter, you can ask your own questions, let us know where you're watching from. If you want to just say hi, or if you want someone to build on what we are talking about or have them clarify a little bit more, we can also do that as well. That being said long introduction. Now, cutting down to, of course podcasting is great because I get to talk with typically one- on- one, but this is a special day where we're going to be talking with two different people from SellerLogic. Their name is Monica and Daniel of SellerLogic. Just a quick little bit introduction for them before we get started. Monica is a former Amazon employee with six years of experience in e- commerce and Daniel on the legal side, after finishing his legal studies, he started out as a copywriter and now is working with SellerLogic as a content manager for SellerLogic. Different capacities, different parts of the brain. We're going to be talking about with SellerLogic and repricing strategies. That's why we call today, wait for it, Repricing Strategy on Amazon. Without further ado, let's go ahead and bring on Monica and Daniel of SellerLogic. Guys, welcome to Crossover Commerce.

Monica: Hello.

Daniel: Hey Ryan, thanks for having us today and thanks for the great intro.

Ryan Cramer: Well, of course, and that's beauty of doing this life, right? Is you get to really talk about people. I think it's polished enough, but we're... I can only say so good things about you guys because you guys are both fantastic. You bring so much high level to the content that we were talking about pre- show and our previous meetings before this, but for people who are unfortunately not aware of you guys, or have heard of SellerLogic, or just been graced with your presence on Business Wiser personally. Tell us, where are you guys talking to us from and where, where are you based out of?

Monica: Yeah, we're actually located in Dusseldorf that's in Germany, and Daniel and I, we have a pretty international profile. When it comes to the international strategy for SellerLogic, that's when we come in. On my side, it's more on the development of the whole partner network for the company, international wise and also the sales. On your side, Daniel...

Daniel: Yeah exactly. I do more the marketing side. Basically what we do at SellerLogic is we try to think of the question, what kind of solutions, what kind of software solutions will make an Amazon sellers life easier? How can you save time and how can he, or she save money. On our portfolio the main two solutions right now are the repricer, which we'll be talking about today. We also have a reimbursement software called Lost& Found, which we can also cut upon today if we still have time left. But actually we'd like to focus more on the repricing today, as it's the title and everything, and yeah. That's inaudible.

Monica: That, I think another interesting thing that we could highlight about SellerLogic is that both tools were developed by an ex Amazon seller, our CEO, Igor Branopolski. He used to be an Amazon seller and he actually developed these two solutions with the thought of, " Okay, this is what I'm struggling with." I mean, these tools existed already, but he gave it that twist of, " Okay, how can I make it..."

Daniel: Improve.

Monica: ...not better. Yeah. " Improve it a little bit. Or how can I personalize it more to the Amazon seller's needs?" I would say.

Daniel: So that it feeds the needs of my company. The thing is this company was already created with a problem that it could solve. Basically it was not just a company created just some software that was built, " Okay. Now let's try to solve some problems." The problem was already there and they built the solution around it. Yeah, just as a little bit of back info maybe to SellerLogic and what kind of vision we pursue. Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Before we get into that, I'm curious for both of you. Monica, you said you worked at Amazon, have either of you both... either of sold on Amazon or you just worked specifically for Amazon?

Monica: No, actually my Amazon experience, it was, yeah, it was with Amazon itself, but it was with ebooks, which is an Amazon marketplace that specializes in the sale of books. Amazon was born with the whole selling of-

Ryan Cramer: Started with books.

Monica: Yeah. It started with books. Yeah, that's how I got to introducing the whole Amazon ecosystem because I was not only acquiring sellers, but I was also assisting them with their inventory on the platform. This is when I started getting familiar once again with the Amazon ecosystem and everything that has to do with repricing and the buy books, even though in that sector, it's not really needed because they have this fixed price by the editors. There is reprising, but not much because the margins are very low if the books are used. But yeah, that's kind my story, how I began getting familiar with the whole repricing strategies on Amazon.

Ryan Cramer: Absolutely. Well, thank you for that background. Now I'm curious, so what brought you either or both of you to SellerLogic? Obviously everyone road is windy. I hear lots of people who step away from Amazon, they go to businesses, whether they find their passion or they find the opportunity. What led you guys both to work for SellerLogic, if you don't mind me asking?

Daniel: inaudible.

Monica: Well, I can start on my side it was really simple. I already started working with the Amazon environment. I enjoyed it. I saw that there was a lot of, I would say... it's a wonderful experience, adventure for the sellers, but they know more than me that there's a lot of struggles and pain points. I'm very oriented on problem solving so that's why I wanted to continue to pursue getting more familiar with the Amazon ecosystem, but from another side. That's how I arrived in SellerLogic.

Daniel: As for me, you already mentioned it a little bit in your intro. I've always looked for new challenges. As I said, I studied law, afterwards I worked at a law firm. But then after I kind of found like I wanted to go into more creative direction, that's when I got into the startup seat in Cologne. I've been in the SaaS area for a couple of years now. In the Amazon bubble, I'll be honest, how long have I been here for a year?

Monica: A year.

Daniel: I've only been here for a year or so. But the thing is like after I was in the... I always like to take little parts of the jobs that I really liked and then try something new again. This was just kind of like a new step and opportunity that opened up. I said, yes, this is kind of, " We're still a young company. We have very flat hierarchies, but we have this product and we're trying to sell this." I was like you know what? It sounds interesting. I might have never... The thing is to your previous question. I, myself, I've never sold a single thing on Amazon right? And people would ask me, " Yeah. But don't you write stuff about that?" I'm like, " Precisely." That's reason... The sellers, the time that they don't have is to actually go into the forums and look for niche products or take the time to really know a tool inside out. That's the time I have, that's what I have eight hours a day. That's exactly what I do. I can kind of bring something, a new perspective to their seller lives that they don't have the time to acquire. That's the kind of, yeah, that's the plus point that I try to bring at this point.

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. Absolutely. I see a lot of myself in those capacities too as well, right? When you're not busy growing your business or entrepreneurship, you have a lot of more time to do more research. To have discussions amongst other, either service providers, industry professionals, or experts outside or inside of the space. That really helps paint a picture that's different than you being in the weeds, working on your singular brand or brands or growing that capacity. Again, different mindsets, neither are wrong. However you spend the time equity that you have every single day can be applied to different aspects of either education or working on your own business. Of course thank you for that background. I'm curious. Let's start from the beginning, repricing strategy. When I see that and the seller is listening to this, they think repricing, I'm changing around the cost of my product being sold on Amazon, or being sold on a marketplace. A lot of people might think, oh, that's great in theory. But Amazon doesn't like when there's fluctuations all over the place. You want to have a consistent nature of, " Hey, this is the lowest press possible across the board. If it's higher than other entities outside of Amazon, they're not going to look favorably on myself, so why would I even want to consider repricing." First and foremost, what is repricing in the eyes of you guys? And then how do you combat that initial maybe scare mentality of maybe I shouldn't have to play around with my pricing model in that regards?

Monica: Would you like to...

Daniel: I'll get started. Well, yeah...

Monica: Yeah. I think we should maybe begin with maybe how does it work and then link it to, why are they afraid of the repricing?

Ryan Cramer: Yeah. Let's start with that. Let's start with the basics. How does repressing work?

Daniel: Yeah. Do you want to start with... I mean...

Monica: I could say that sellers... I frequently I do sell, so I frequently use... talk to the sellers, and the first thing, when they hear repricing, they really quickly jump into the conclusion that it's all about the buy box or it's all about lowering the prices as there are no more strategies in there. Their biggest fear comes to when it's about time. How much time is this going to require me to install, to configure the whole repricing strategy or the tool? Then there's like different levels, right? There's a time, they're on the other hand, they're talking... They're also afraid, like you were saying about Amazon being always on the loop of what are their prices? Are they competitive on their platform? They're too high, they're too low, are... they're competing with myself. They're very concerned about how would Amazon would act regarding how they're changing the prices, but also on a client perspective. They're afraid that for example, a client realizes that a product they we're looking at during lunchtime, it has changed prices when they have come back home from work, you see. That if that person actually buys the product and gives a bad review, that will give them a bad image because they're changing prices too much. Yeah, there's a time fear, there is the client and Amazon concern. What are they going to think? And then there's also the lose of control. They think they're going to lose the control of their margins. As you mentioned earlier, it's really important for sellers to keep track of their margins. I understand that they need to have a control on their margins to create revenue, to increase profits. I would say that, yeah, the main fear that they have, it's time clients, Amazon and losing the margin control. But usually when I speak to them, what I try to guide them through is that it's okay to increase and to lower your prices. It's really not a tendency anymore, neither on Amazon or anywhere else to have always the same prices on your products. One, because of competition and two, because even clients don't be afraid of it because clients, sometimes they're not really looking into the price only, it's also the shipping delay. Or they're very brand oriented. If they like a brand, they don't care how much money they have to invest on it, if the product is good. Another important fact that we need to take into account when it comes to Amazon, is that prices they change. I remember seeing an article about it, like 2. 5 million times.

Daniel: That's right.

Monica: Per...

Daniel: Per day.

Monica: It was per day.

Daniel: Yeah.

Monica: Every 10 minutes prices are changing. Imagine if you have, I don't know, 1, 000, 5, 000 SKU inventory, and you have to do that manually. Not only you're losing time, or you're taking the risk of making a mistake. And mistakes here could be very... it could have a very negative impact on your brand image, on your profits. While using a repricing strategy or a repricing tool, the machine will actually do it for you. It does require a minimum work and an investment from the seller, because it has to establish the minimum and maximum price. Because he needs to know in what range of prices he can work with. He can also track his competitors prices in order to establish that range of prices. I think that's really, really an important detail to take into consideration. How does the repricing work, or why shouldn't we be afraid of. At the end of the day, we want to stay competitive on the Amazon marketplace. It's a must, regardless of you use a repricer tool, or you do it manually, you need to do repricing and you shouldn't be afraid of it.

Ryan Cramer: Gotcha. The reasons why you would reprice your product would be those external factors. To be competitive with other competition, Because of shipping delays or any other external cost prohibitive measure outside that, that you need to increase, or cost of goods go up so you have to increase cost. What other things are there that sellers might need to do and to encompass or think about when it comes to repressing their products? Is it how often they're doing it? Or how... What are those other factors that might need to be thought about before changing your price?

Daniel: I can actually take this one, if that's okay.

Monica: Yeah, sure.

Daniel: Okay, sure. Well, there's a couple of factors that you can also take into account, for example, what kind of repricing method will you apply? Well for one, maybe just to like sum up what we, the last question, like basically repricing is nothing else than price optimization. How can I fit my price so that I can make the most revenue? There's several ways how you can do that. You can do it over manual repricing, there's static, repricing and dynamic repricing depending on how big your store is or what kind of store you have. Either variant, maybe the most suitable for you. Let's say, for example, the manual repricing. Manual repricing is basically completely old school, no software, no nothing. You retain full control over what you do of your pricing strategy. There are no cost because of course you don't have a software that you have to pay. But then also, depending on how many SKUs you have might take a lot of time to do that. Then the question is, does the time that you have to invest, do all that manual repricing actually compensate or recompensate for the cost that you don't have to spend on the software. If you're a company with, I don't know... If you're only selling like a couple of items on Amazon, we're not going to be the people to say, " Hey, listen you're selling 10 articles on Amazon and you're changing your prices 10 times a day. Maybe you should think about automating that process." We're not going to do that. We're going to think, okay maybe in this specific situation, manual repricing is the right thing for you. Static repricing is basically... This is where the automation comes in. You have an automated software that as Monica already said you have a minimum and max price. You have a lot of SKUs. You don't have the time yourself to basically do this every day manually because you have, of course you have other things on your plate. Of course the final price is the most important thing to take care of if you want to, if you want to get the buy box. But there's also 12 other metrics that you have to keep in mind. That of course will take up a lot of your time. If you got your prices set, if you have a software that does that for you, you have your head free for other things. For your 12 other metrics, or for just watching Netflix or whatever. Static repricing is of course, then the answer for you. However, the thing with static repricing is that's why it's called static. There's only one algorithm behind it, and that's set the price lower than your competition. If that's the only algorithm you have, then at the end of the day, what's going to happen? You're going to have price dumping. If that's the only solution you have, if your only tool is a hammer, every problem you see is a nail, right? So the thing is the prices will keep on going down and they won't keep on going up. At the end of the day with static repricing, what will happen is that there is only going to be one winner and that's going to be the buyer and the platform on which you sell, but it's not going to be the sell inaudible.

Monica: Yeah. If I can add something to what Daniel is saying because when I speak to sellers often when they are beginning their adventure of selling an Amazon, they start using the Amazon repricer, which actually works with that rule. With that strategy that Daniel is talking about. Coming back to what we're saying before, why sellers are so afraid of using repricers, is because most of the time, either they start doing it manually, the repricing strategy, or they start using this repricer. Which is good to begin with when you're starting to sell on Amazon. But when you start having more and more inventory it gets tricky. I think we also need to keep in mind that Amazon developed that free Amazon repricer, not also thinking about the seller, but like Jeff Bezos always say, think backwards from the client perspective. It's really to optimize the buying experience for the buyers, for the clients. It's really focused from my opinion or from what I have heard from sellers on the buyer experience on the buyers, not on the seller. At a certain point, they need to evaluate when it's a good time to switch to dynamic repricing.

Daniel: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Right. More to emphasize on that. It would be more optimized on price, where it's best of web pricing. There's no thing that's going to beat it in that regards. Is that what you're mentioning Monica, when using that?

Monica: Sorry, I couldn't hear.

Ryan Cramer: When you use the Amazon tool, it's always going to push the price to the point where it's the lowest on the web. That's what its job is there to do. Is that what you're saying? Is there's no other real solution that it's there to do other than make sure that you're offered at the best price possible. If it's your competitors or anything like that, you're just going to be the best of web or the lowest possible on there.

Daniel: inaudible.

Monica: Exactly. With the lowest. That's why, I mean, it's not bad because if you think about it, when you have a new product and you're launching it on Amazon, or when you are starting to sell on Amazon. I think it's a good tool to use in the sense that, okay, you can use an aggressive strategy, lowering the prices to increase sales really quick and to give more visibility to your product. But when time runs and your product is already known and you know your competition or more competition is coming in, this is when a dynamic repricing fits better I would say.

Ryan Cramer: Gotcha. When there's crosstalk more factors at play. Yeah. You can do it manually, or you're not trying to be best of web, you need to utilize a solution like this. Interesting. Okay. As a seller and I'm going to put myself in the seller shoes. I'm working through this, I have a hundred SKUs. I'm working with myself. I can't keep... They range anywhere from 5. 99 all the way up to a hundred dollars. Like you said, there's competitions and different capacities on different types of marketplaces. Is this something that it's going to affect different currencies, different marketplaces or like for example, is this price going to be different on amazon.com versus Amazon De or UK or any of those marketplaces that for example, SellerLogic looks at all encompassing marketplaces and is going to be fluctuating no matter what marketplace or country you're selling? Correct?

Monica: Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't only even take the currency aspect, but also the demand on each market might be different for that product. That's also something that they can take into account and maybe not apply for example, a buy box strategy, but other strategies are more adapted to that market. I think that's also something that is important when sellers are looking for a repricing tool. What strategies is this repricing tool offering me, especially if they're working international and with different markets.

Ryan Cramer: Gotcha. What are the benefits? Besides the cost factor and you saving money on the buyer side, if a buyer's trying to get the best price out there. What are the benefits that people don't talk about when using a repricing strategy with a tool like you guys? Is it just to optimize competitiveness when people are still buying, no matter what the price is? For example, " Hey, the velocity at which you're selling, isn't going to decrease. If you increase a dollar or 50 cents or$2 or even more." Is it going to look at that velocity at which people are buying your product online, and tweak it up a little bit more to find that sweet spot? Or what is the optimization techniques in terms of finding the" right price" to sell on Amazon on a day to day basis.

Daniel: Exactly. That's exactly. You said that correctly. The dynamic pricing tool basically works like the static repricer, only with a little difference that after of course it goes down with the price. It finds the most competitive price. It wins you the buy box. Afterwards, of course it looks at, " Okay, we don't want to sell at the lowest price. Of course we want to have the highest margins possible. We want to sell at the best price possible." That's exactly when that little tweak that you just mentioned comes in. The tweak just goes as far as there's a signal sent to Amazon, " Hey, if I just pull up the price by, let's say, I don't know, 50 cents, will I still be in the buy box?" And if it gets a signal back, yes, it goes up with the price. It goes up to that point where it says, " Okay, if you go up any higher, you lose a buy box and you lose sale. You lose revenue." That's when it stops. That's when it stops going. The big difference is that you don't sell at the lowest price, but you sell at the best price possible. That's the main difference between the dynamic and the static.

Ryan Cramer: Gotcha. When people think about buy box, is there... obviously that's kind of the Holy Grail, if you will, to get in there crosstalk for a seller, right?

Daniel: inaudible on my blog as well, actually.

Ryan Cramer: Well, I was going to say it, it's very important to get into there. Once you have the ability to be a seller in the buy box, it becomes a lot easier to win that, that purchase, if you will. Again, myth or fact is price the only factor to consider when Amazon is looking at all available sellers for that one product? Is price the number one consideration they're looking at, or what are the other maybe externalized factors as well that they might consider? Is it how it's being fulfilled? Is it longevity being on a platform? What are all those things that take into account when putting that seller into the buy box?

Monica: Yeah, I think we don't have a number one factor, but they all complement each other. I would say that among those criteria that you need to qualify for the buy box, the price is definitely one of the most important ones. But there are other aspects to take into accounts such as the shipping time. I mean, if you're an FBA seller, or if you have the prime tag or FPM, but you have the prime tag, of course you're running already in the course with an advantage. There's also the reviews that you might have on that product. The seller-

Daniel: Seller rating of course, yeah.

Monica: Seller rating is very important as well.

Daniel: But even apart from that, I don't know, I've seen... As I said, we've spent a lot of time on forums and we've seen the buy box taken away for apparently no reason at all. Maybe it's just, I don't know, maybe this person had a stellar review, but then one bad review comes in and it's kind of Amazon dinging a person away for... But yeah, in general, I would definitely go with what Monica says. I would actually say that price is one of the main factors, but it's definitely not the sole factor. crosstalk Definitely not. Of course, if you're going to have a competitive price, but your shipping is disastrous or your customer support is really bad, of course you're not going to win the buy box with that either. It's kind of like a conglomerate... yeah, in order to achieve the, so all holy grail of Amazon. Yeah. But...

Ryan Cramer: What's interesting too, because now Amazon's becoming even more transparent. I'm not sure if you guys saw on the desktop version, Amazon's making it... It used to be very faux pas right? Of how you were getting a product, whether it be from Amazon itself. Everyone, if you're outside of the industry thinks, Amazon's selling me the product, therefore it's Amazon's product. They own it. It's not the case. If it's bought and sold by Amazon fulfilled by Amazon, of course. Coming from Amazon is actually being sold by Amazon, from them buying the goods or anything like that, that's for a different story. But when it comes to a third party seller, they're now making it more apparent on desktop versions, as well as I believe mobile has rolled out, they're saying how it's being shipped from, and has even a graphic or icon in it. Who's selling it? You can actually see the seller, the storefront, a lot more apparent in that regards to. Has that had any effect on your team, or what do you think Amazon's doing in that regards, trying to make it more forthcoming to buyers? Is it to be more transparent of, " Hey, this is another outside entity that's selling this product," or is that just something that they're just tweaking around with the UI? What do you think the play is there for making it more apparent of where it's coming from and who's selling it?

Daniel: I would definitely join in with what you said. Of course, I think it's also part transparency, but of course also part that's... Yeah, they're trying to signalize okay, these are also third party seller to kind of get rid of that myth, " Hey, if you buy from Amazon, you definitely buy from Amazon." No, you're not only supporting the big multinational conglomerate, but you're also supporting the mom and pop shop who happen to sell over Amazon as well. That is a great thing. If you make it clear to people and you be like, you think, okay, of course Amazon it's super comfortable to buy from Amazon. The shipping is safe, the reimbursement claims are safe, but I don't feel... I don't know. Do I really want to give my money to a company that is so huge? But if they make it transparent that you're not actually giving the money to them, but actually, they're just the carrier or the delivery service, that's a nice tone to set. I think they also have the sellers in mind at that point as well, because it makes it gives a... yeah. It a definitely gives a buyer a better, a different intention. Yeah, that's my two cents on the mater.

Ryan Cramer: Well, yeah, and it makes it just more apparent. I think it's demystifying the notion, like you said, Daniel, if it's going to be coming straight from Amazon. Let's look at seasonality. I'm curious right now, as Q4 is, we're in the midst of it. If you're listening to this, we're November, let's look at the... 10th pretty much across the board. We're still November 10th for you guys. It's November 10th here in the United States, as people are waking up across the country. I'm looking at this and there's so many different factors at play. People and retailers are advertising earlier. They're telling people to buy their goods earlier because of sourcing logistics problems and just the possibility of running out of inventory for a specific good or item, anything along those lines. For repricing strategies, this would make it more apparent it needs something in this regards, with a software that's looking at data every single day, instead of me as a seller, guessing on a day to day basis. How can I either optimize my price, whether they're raising it or lowering it? Is this a time of year where you see lots of sellers drop their price, or is it actually stay consistent, or even maybe just surprising people all across the board with the data you're seeing, raise their prices because the buyer intent is more heavily happening now more than it would be in the middle of the summer? Does that make sense?

Monica: Yeah. I think on a general basis, what we have experienced, at least on my side, I would say that they start preparing themselves with this kind of strategy or tools. Taking aside everything that is going on with the supply chain and Black Friday at the moment, or these key dates, I think they always start preparing for Q4, I would say in the summer. Late August, we start experiencing already some more demands on information. " How does it work? How can I apply it?" Yeah, I would say that it's not really... it's with the context that we're on, but on a general basis, no matter what always for Q4, they try to boost the price strategy that they have.

Daniel: Yeah. Well, what we can see also...

Monica: crosstalk-

Daniel: Yeah. What we can see also is that... and I think this is not only the case for our clients, but generally sellers on Amazon, that they try to also emulate what Amazon is doing. For example, that it is not just a Black Friday sale, but that they kind of already started in November, which of course also had to do a lot with the stock and with freeing up the stock and everything, and they tried to emulate it. They dropped the prices as well. But what we can see specifically is that people, especially around Christmas and after, or before Christmas and around these big sales days, that not a lot of people get a reprice, or cancel their subscription because they're just too busy with actually selling stuff. You know what I mean? That's also... I don't think really that there's a lot of thought about how they can improve, depending on what solution can I use. Now that actually happens in the times when there is not a lot going on you, when they think, how can we optimize already existing processes? Because when the processes are going, they're just selling as much as possible, I guess. Yeah.

Monica: Or another frequent ask, a question that they ask often, it's, if I'm doing deals at the moment for Black Fridays or Cyber Monday, or if I'm launching deals with vouchers, etc., how is the repricer going to work with it? It's going to create a conflict for all.

Daniel: Good point.

Monica: I would say that, yeah, this time of the year, like I said, they anticipate on August already, maybe September, depending on the sector, too. If they're seasonal, they have the tendency more maybe to do it or not, but I would say it's more after Christmas. It's kind of after that whole shopping fever is over and people have no more money. They're like, " Okay, let me do something about it to begin the year and to boost the sales to start a good year, and let me implement such strategy or such solution."

Ryan Cramer: To be more poignant, I guess, to clarify, I'm curious, too, are you seeing sellers... is this strategy... Obviously, with the help of your tool that you built out, are sellers actually increasing their prices during Q4? Or do you see it more to keep the same or drop it?

Monica: I mean...

Ryan Cramer: Is there any data to back that up?

Monica: I could maybe generally speaking, no, we don't have any data that we could show or I have seen myself, but we need to take into account that within our solution, there are different strategies, not only the buy box. There's, for example, the push and daily push strategies, which are strategies that are based on the number of orders that they're receiving, or the demand, or the revenue. Based on that demand, I mean, if I was a seller, yeah, I would increase the price, but then again, it depends on the situation, the scenario that each seller has for their products. But yeah, with this strategies, based on the demand of your product, you can increase the price. It would recognize it and they would establish a range of products, and based on that demand, they would optimize the price...

Ryan Cramer: There's rules in place where if you get a certain threshold, it would increase it just to either slow down, or to still optimize in that regards, you're saying?

Monica: Exactly.

Ryan Cramer: The sales. So like if I'm getting 100 a day, I only have 500 left in inventory and I don't have any on the way, it's going to raise the price so that it would, in theory, drop the sales down to-

Monica: Close off.

Ryan Cramer: ... 50a day or 25 a day. We try to hit that sweet spots until you get more inventory in there. Correct?

Monica: Exactly. That could be a scenario, a possible scenario. If we take into account the key dates that we are experiencing right now, Cyber Monday, Singles Day, Black Friday, and crosstalk-

Ryan Cramer: Singles Day, which is now 10 days long or 11 days long. crosstalk.

Monica: Oh yeah, that's...

Daniel: Right.

Ryan Cramer: It beat out Prime Day, which is now two days, Singles Day, which is a week plus of the deals and whatnot, so understandably so. Yeah, I'd be curious. Maybe that'll be a good data set to pull from in Q4 for next year, or for this year to see if actually more people are increasing prices, or if they were actually keeping them the same or decreasing their traditional pricing. Because a lot of what I'm hearing, and again, from a seller's perspective, as sellers run into the issue with inventory, they're consistently trying to not run out of inventory. That's the number one key that you hear from people. Our run out inventory game is over because you would have to put in more inventory, or more cost to re- ranking your product. Amazon's going to look unfavorably to you because you ran out of inventory. You never want to run out. That's rule number one, and how you manipulate that system, whether it be to, again, raise a price so that people are buying less of it, you're spending less on PPC. There's lots of different factors, but a lot of people are actually making sure that they can last through Q4, so their inventory does land. Therefore they can not run out. If running out would be nightmare scenario number one, so I'm curious what the data would show if there's actually more people increasing their prices on than a traditional year versus this year in itself. It'd be curious. I guess that's a content idea for you, Daniel, to see at the end of the year. But we're coming up with marketing ideas for crosstalk. I'm curious with the data. We actually, like I mentioned before on the podcast, if you're listening or joining us live, we have Monica and Daniel of SellerLogic in Dusseldorf, Germany joining me here in lowly Indianapolis, Indiana, in the middle of the United States. But that beautifulness of this format is we get to ask questions and I have our audience ask questions in to us. We actually had one that come up, came up from Jennifer. Jennifer actually asked for both of you, let me drop this down real quick. Is it really possible to increase the price after a seller wins a buy box? Wouldn't the seller be able to immediately be replaced by a competitor if the price is higher? Great question, Jennifer. Thank you for asking it on LinkedIn.

Monica: There it is.

Daniel: That's a really good question. Super interesting, and yeah, normally you would think that the seller would immediately be replaced by someone with a more competitive price, but as we already discussed, the price may be a relevant factor, maybe the most, but not the only factor. It might be that the other seller doesn't have, I don't know, as good customer support or is not using Amazon FBA, which you are, which then would basically allow you that, even though the other seller has a more competitive price, would still make you the person to be the most viable to win the buy box. Because you still, all in all, taking all 12 metrics into account, you still offer the buyer a better deal, a better all- round experience. Yeah, at the end of the day, it is still possible. Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Very cool. Awesome. If anyone else, and Jennifer, if that answered your question, if you have another one, feel free to send that in the comment section. It's always good to just start the trend and then multiple people up asking questions. Jennifer, great question. That was something I was actually thinking, too, of once you're in the buy box, how do a lot of people, and maybe demystify this for me, Daniel and Monica. What are people's tendencies when they're in the buy box and they own the buy box right now? Is that they think that they can lose it if they change their price. Or is that a consistent factor that you're hearing from lots of customers or sellers is, " Hey, I have the buy box right now. I'm afraid to change anything because that might kick me out of the buy box." Is that something you hear consistently or what are some other things that you hear as a maybe a myth that we can demystify today?

Monica: I would say that-

Ryan Cramer: Anything come to mind?

Monica: What I often hear from sellers, it's when they have a very strong competition, they're scared to lose the buy box somehow if they go below the price or above the price of the competitor. I would say that's the main concern that they have. Who is the competitor that they have in the buy box.

Daniel: Well, of course from in the experience I can draw from, of course, if you're in those forums, you always see people complaining, " Why did I lose the buy box?" Of course that would suggest, I possibly think that everybody's scared of losing the buy box. But the ones that are in the buy box, they're not going to be writing on any blogs or any forums, so I'm not really sure. But I think that what Monica is saying, there is a big fear of once you have the buy box, and of course you want to keep it as a long as possible because that's bringing in your revenue, is that you're then afraid to go higher with your price because naturally you think like that's yeah... It was Jennifer, right? As Jennifer just said, " Hey, is it even possible to keep the buy box if I'm not the one with the most competitive..." Then of course you would never think of, " Hey, I'm just going to stay with my price right now," even though you could be making more money. I think that's a fear that I can imagine a lot of sellers have. That they think, okay, now if I have the buy box I'm just going to play it safe. I'm just going to stay with the price I have right now. Not try anything too risky and just ride out the buy box, as long as I can. All the while they're losing the money. It might not be a lot. It might be a lot. You won't really know because of course, right? inaudible.

Monica: Yeah. But some of them, they really don't like that because they really lose margins just by fighting for the buy box. They really hate going into the, the prize wars. They always tell me, " I don't want to go into a prize war with my competitors." I know that one of the strategies that we have in our solution, they can actually, for example, include or exclude the competitors they want to compete with that way they can stay with a competitive price in the buy box. That could be an option. Nobody gets kicked out or they start losing margins in the buy box.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome. Jennifer started the trend and we have a couple more questions coming in. for people who are listening on the podcast, let me go ahead and bring up question number two. It actually came in from YouTube, from Rena. Rena asked, " We have increased price for our product, but our organic sales drop drastically. We are getting sales from PPC now, but more than 50%. What do we do now?" That's a great question Rena, and thanks for asking on YouTube. Do either of you have an idea. I think this seems without knowing all the official details of what category, what product you're... things like that.

Monica: Yeah, that's the thing. We don't know what product it is. This is a really good question. What I would suggest, can you submit the question to us because this is something we can look into it with our customer success management team who might have more experience, I would say with the verticals of different products. Also we have partners that deal with PPC campaigns. Like I see different elements here that are combining the question, which is really good.

Ryan Cramer: We'll make sure we make sure at the end of the podcast Rena, that you can contact either Monica or Daniel and get in touch with the customer success team, and make sure that we can get an answer one way or another, because that is a great question. I think once you increase the price organic sales drop, which is interesting, if that was the only thing that changed and what effective nature that had to deal with organic sales, so interesting question. Actually, Jennifer came back with another question for the first answer on LinkedIn. She had asked, do you have some numbers from the experience with clients about how much price increase is possible? Adding onto our initial question of how much is relevancy in terms of how much you can increase the price in the buy box without upsetting the, the gods of Amazon as buy box basically?

Daniel: We can't give out any specific numbers of course. I mean...

Ryan Cramer: I'm assuming that would depend, right? Would that be another generalized question? Depends on the product.

Monica: Yeah, it's a very good question. The thing is that it's very general. What I could say, how I can answer to this, it really depends on the kind of product that you're selling, how many competitors that you have. Even what kind of seller. Are you a brand? Are you drop shipper? You're a wholesaler. Otherwise, if you want information, Jennifer, about maybe the percentage of how much percentage you can increase on the buy box or some numbers, we have some success stories from our clients on our website. Maybe you can look into the ones with the repricer. There we have some numbers because we have been authorized to talk about by the client who we are doing the success story on.

Daniel: Yeah. We also have to be really careful with giving away data of any sort here in Germany, because they're really strict about that stuff.

Monica: inaudible we are in Germany.

Daniel: Yeah. We don't want to tread too far in any way. But Jennifer if you're really interested in trying it out yourself, you can use our repricer two weeks for free and no strings attached at all. You don't even have to cancel it or anything and just see for yourself, but it would be in your specific case.

Monica: Right. Yeah. That's a inaudible.

Daniel: As Monica as said, of course we could... Yeah, as we don't know what kind of... how many SKUs you have or how much revenue you're making, of course we couldn't really place it or make an estimate here, but yeah.

Monica: There's not a right answer I would say, or a measurable, tangible answer. It really depends once again, on many different factors.

Daniel: True.

Monica: Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: Like all good answers, it depends. crosstalk. We come across this... This is not for people who are watching and listening to this. This is not uncommon. The beauty of Amazon is every person, every brand is truly unique in the situation in itself, you have to have many data points to understand the background of what the history was and then how you plan to move forward. That helps paint the picture for either a guest or for any service, or tool, or expert if you will in this space to help you get a better, clearer answer. It really does depend. I think what a lot of people... My question I get, they're pretty simple of how often you can change your price, because I wouldn't think on a day to day basis that you can just change it every hour or anything like that. Are they're simplistic things that you guys have to tell clients all the time of, " Hey, it really just depends." Or is there just a playbook that it's Amazon only likes it when you change it maybe once a day or once an hour? Is there natures of that, that we can go a little bit more broad in that capacity? Or do you really see clients that are changing it as often as every 30 minutes an hour? Is there anything that crazy?

Daniel: Definitely. I mean, as Monica-

Monica: Yes. Yes there's-

Ryan Cramer: Really?

Monica: ...the crazy things. Yeah. If you remember what I said earlier during our conversation that Amazon itself is... The algorithms internally they're changing and prices are being changed 2.1 million-

Daniel: Times a day.

Monica: ...times a day. I always... I'm like-

Daniel: [ crosstalk 00:49:15 is that really that high, that number? I always crosstalk.

Monica: Is it really that high?

Daniel: Yeah. But it's true. It's not like there's drastic changes. It's not going to try... the price has changed like as... That the prices dropped by$ 5 every hours. Maybe it's just a couple of cents. It depends on the time of the day. Of course they are different, there are different factors that also Amazon takes into account.

Monica: Of the product also. Or the product-

Daniel: Of the product exactly. The product can be super cheap in the morning, but also, but more expensive in the evening when everybody's home sitting on the couch and browsing, " Hey, maybe I need to buy this new..." I don't know, whatever.

Monica: Yeah. Or there's some products that, or sectors that the product might have... It changes more often than others, I would say. If your brand is going to change maybe less than a wholesaler, for example, that is selling many different products under inventory. But we always need to remember that Amazon is changing. Prices on Amazon change every 10 minutes. So yeah, if you have a huge inventory mind how many times those prices... I think we have that written on a success story yeah of the reprice rates. The numbers can scale up really quick.

Ryan Cramer: Well, I have more questions because we have about 10 minutes before the top of the hour and I want to make sure we answered everything. Again if you have a specific question, feel free to send that in, on social media. If we run out time again, we'll make sure we point you the listener and the viewer to make sure... in the right direction of both Monica and Daniel, and their team as well. A couple more questions, Amazon in favor of looking at pricing, do they look... Which would be more favorable? Having a price that's constantly having a coupon that will drop the price, or having something consistently stay at a price where there is no discount, whether it be dropping on the price or there's no added click to drop the price further? Does that make sense? Does it look favorably on just having it consistently, that is the sales price that is what it will be? Or if you had a more consistent nature of having a product with the option of adding that coupon on and people would just have to click and opt into that discount, if you will? Does it look at either differently or the same? Or what the differences in price in terms of that strategy look like?

Daniel: I think, well, as part of the coupon question or the voucher question is always difficult for us because we can't really arrange it with our repricing tool. But as far as I know is I think the-

Ryan Cramer: inaudible. Okay.

Daniel: Yeah the consistent price I think would be the more... Because I think the vouchers that are more... Those are more to trigger the buyers themselves and not... I think the consistent price would rather be the one with which Amazon would go. As far as I know, and this is only me, I'm not the technical person. I'm not from the customer support team. Maybe you have to reach out to one of our agents. But as far as I know, the vouchers really don't have a big of an impact, right? From your experiences, well, they don't really have a big of an impact on whether you or your competitive pricing or crosstalk.

Ryan Cramer: Because if we were to... I would put this scenario in play. I've seen a lot of people who have the pricing higher and the coupon option will drop you a cent or two below or maybe 50 cents or something like that, not a huge difference. But if you don't click and opt into that, you're still buying at a higher-

Daniel: At a higher price, crosstalk.

Ryan Cramer: ... a highercost. No one really thinks about that because of tax and that everything that you add onto that. There's always this buyer mentality and theory of it's really under the customer at the end of the day, if they want to obtain this discount or not. But if they don't, then it's more money, higher margins. It looks better on me and they're not applying to coupon. It's not automatically applied in Amazon. But when you don't have that capability, that's the price and that's what it is. If you ultimately get to the same price no matter what, I'm curious to know, and again, we don't have the answer to that today. Which one Amazon looks more favorably on, if there's some purchases that are higher and they don't use the coupon to get to that same price, like to 29. 99 to 25, or if it's just consistently sold at$ 25. Is there a factor of which that Amazon looks favorably on one versus the other?

Daniel: No.

Monica: It would be like the secret recipe of Amazon. I don't...

Ryan Cramer: Food for thought, well it ultimately gets it to the same price, right? Of, it's not gaming the system. It would be more of does Amazon see a favor of offering a coupon and it being applied in that nature and it's technically it did counted product sale or would you rather be selling it at full, full price, and that's the cost of it? You would think it'd be the full price nature instead of the coupon being offered. But the price is still often the same and conversions could still happen out of a higher price point. Not a bad thing for Amazon. They'll still get more money.

Daniel: inaudible. Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: I'd be curious that would crosstalk more case studies that I'm putting on your plate, Daniel, it's fun with the podcast. I guess, in the minimum amount of time that we have left with you both, I'm curious, what's the feature looking like in the world of repricing as brains grow, as there's more complexity to multiple marketplaces and natures? What do we need to be on the lookout for? What would be like your maybe minute tip that you would have sellers implement today, if you'll? Or just tips in general. What are your quick hit tips to end the year and then going into 2022?

Daniel: Yeah. Well, of course one of the questions we get lot is like, " Okay, sure." If you sell over wholesale, you might make really good use of a repricer. But what exactly... what happens with brands? What happens if you sell over private label? Maybe you want to expand on that?

Monica: Yes. I would say that, let's say if they're looking for a repricing solution to really take into account... The features that we could highlight that a repricer must have in order for the seller to have a successful repricing strategy, would be for them to be able really, really important to fix a minimum maximum price, and what is the velocity of recognition of all those price changes on Amazon. On top of that, as Daniel was mentioning wholesale brands, private label, we have seen an increase of brands registry on Amazon. Obviously if some private label sellers they have the impression that they don't need every pricing strategy, but they actually do because the competition is still there. Even though they have a brand there might be other brands selling the same product. That's on one hand. On the other hand, I would recommend those sellers who are brands that when they're looking for a repricer to look at the strategies that they have. Can I customize my strategy? Does it have a strategy that is adapted for me, not only the buy box strategy? I can maybe vary those changes based on the demand like we were talking a little bit earlier.

Daniel: Yeah. I would also say like in the world, that's rapidly changing today. Of course the business world is changing. The business environment is changing with every day, and of course a seller has to adapt as well. You need to find a tool that is just as versatile as your own company. That means as Monica just said, watch out for strategies, look for other factors like, " Hey, if you're doing your own customer support, if you're not selling over Amazon FBA, does the repricing, or does the tool, or does the solution offer customer support in the language that I need?"

Monica: Yes.

Daniel: Stuff like that. Always look for the best tool that suits that... or that can custom tailor to your specific needs. And at the end of the day, that doesn't need to be out... Just take every tool. Every tool offers, I don't know, a two weeks free trial or something. Do that first. See if that works out. Try a lot of them. Then once you found the one, once you found the sweet spot, go with that, but don't just go for the first best or with the, I don't know, with... yeah, with the biggest company. Because there's so many companies out there with so many different features that now you have the option or the possibility to see which one can offer me the best solution. That's what we would offer. But that's what we would say, that's what you have to look out if you're looking for a repricer for your company. Yeah.

Ryan Cramer: But now I think... Yeah, go ahead.

Monica: I wanted to mention what you said it's really good and really important because when I talk to sellers, that's something that they highlight to me. Because I mean the repricing tool, yeah they automate part of the work, but there's still a minimum investment on the sellers side that they have to put in for that strategy to work properly. If you can be guided and oriented by a customer support team that speaks your language, that's really something that they also should take into account, not to hire the services of a repricer and then found themselves without any guidance to use the tool, because it could be something very challenging for them. Especially, if they're switching from the Amazon repricer, let's say to a dynamic one.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome. Well, those are great tips, I think from both of you two. If people have more questions, more impact obviously. If they ask the questions and they want to get some specific information-

Daniel: That'd be great.

Ryan Cramer: How do they reach out to you guys? How do they get in touch with SellerLogic or both of you?

Monica: I would say the best way it would be-

Daniel: Add Monica on LinkedIn.

Monica: Yeah. Drop me a message on LinkedIn. Otherwise on our website, we have a contact section where you can contact directly also with our customer executives.

Daniel: Exactly. We're also on also big social media platform, so LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook and-

Ryan Cramer: Awesome.

Daniel: ...yeah. That's...

Ryan Cramer: Of course because you're multi... you're all over the world. If you go to sellerlogic. com they will point you into the right-

Daniel: inaudible.

Ryan Cramer: ...the right inaudible. Yeah. The website is also the best way to do that. Learn more information is breadth of knowledge on the website and it'll point you to the right translation website, if you're in a different part of the country or the world. I think that's super impactful as well. Both of you, thank you so much for hopping on Crossover Commerce today. So much information that you guys are pumping out in terms of thought leadership. I think it's a great service that as again, as brands and businesses continue to grow in the capacities, whether it be more products you're selling online. Or just more places that they're selling online, you need tools to help work for you to help you engage in that, optimize your time, money, and effort and that is one of the ways to do that. Two weeks of free service, you can't really complain with that. You can obviously take advantage of that two weeks of free trial with SellerLogic. Yeah, thank you so much. You're both now friends of Crossover Commerce, I would say. Thanks for coming on and-

Monica: Thank you for having us.

Ryan Cramer: ... sharingyour knowledge today.

Daniel: Yeah. Thank you so much for having us Ryan. It was really fun and...

Ryan Cramer: Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much again, and we'll have you guys on here probably in the near future. I'm sure something will change on Amazon.

Monica: Thank you for the tips on the content.

Daniel: Exactly.

Monica: inaudible.

Ryan Cramer: I was going to say, man, I feel like a...

Daniel: inaudible thanks for that.

Ryan Cramer: You're welcome. You hit your quota for the day so you can go home now. Well, thank you so much for both hopping on today. We appreciate your time and your thought.

Daniel: Thank you so much, Ryan.

Monica: Thanks.

Ryan Cramer: Awesome. Again, everyone else who's watching on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter or tuning in for the first time, or if this is your 177th time, again we appreciate... 178th time. I got to get my episodes correct. Thank you for hopping on another great episode in my corner of the internet that I like to call Crossover Commerce. Again we talked about lots of different ways to implement things to your Amazon and e- commerce business, and today was a no exception. I think there's lots of things that to unpack. I took away lots of capabilities of... Amazon does have a lot of repressing that's happening on a hourly basis, minute by minute basis. That it's always tweaking little by little. To do that across multiple possibly thousands of different skews, that can only be tedious and be a full- time job. But having tools like SellerLogic, obviously, certainly a very important thing to take note of and apply to your business, to help you grow it, obviously put more margin back to your bottom line, or help you grow in your business, or just optimize and win the buy box. There's nothing wrong with that. With that being said, thank you for joining and tuning into my corner of the internet, I like to call Crossover Commerce. This is episode 178 and I'm Ryan Cramer, the host of this show. We'll catch you guys next time on another episode. Take care.