[LWN] 🐍 When Nightmares Become Reality...

Lunch With Norm's Weekly Newsletter - TikTok Ban, Powerful Warranties, and the Best AI Tools

March 18, 2024 • Estimated Read Time: 14 minutes

🐍 A Real Snake in the Grass

A high school hangout descends into a nightmare, leaving a lasting impression and a new phobia

What you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:

  • 🐍 A Real Snake in the Grass [True Story]

  • 🚨 NEW AI Product Listing Release

  • ✅ My Favorite Tweet of the Week

  • 🎙️ What You Missed Last Week

  • 🗞️ Amazon News & Updates

  • 💰 How to Sell a $9.99 Product at $55.99 [Case Study]

🐍 A Real Snake in the Grass [True Story]

Back when I was in high school, after class, my friends and I would head to our favorite hang out spot “Black’s Bridge”.

Not wanting to smoke at my parent’s house (sorry mom and dad), I’d pick up a pack of cigarettes, then hike down under the tracks.

By the way, this was back when a pack of cigarettes was 75 cents!

Anyway, this time, we jumped down under the bridge and noticed something very wrong.

The grass beneath us was moving…

We looked down and saw thousands upon thousands of garter snakes!

This isn’t the real picture but it’s close to what I saw

The snakes completely surrounded us. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

If you've ever watched The Simpsons, think of Homer Simpson going, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

There was no way out except going across this 20 by 30 foot field of snakes…

Thousands of slithering snakes, below our feet.

It was crazy, and I think I'm still traumatized to this day.

I looked into it and it’s called a mating ball / frenzy.

Fun fact… There have been cases of these snake frenzies finding their way into basements of homes.

So that's my snake story.

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter.

— Norm

What's your biggest fear?

(You can add a comment after you click "other")

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

My favorite tweet of the week

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THE BEARDED GUY?

Can you find Norm in the picture below? Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to see the answer!

 

🔍 NEW AI PRODUCT LISTING RELEASE

This tip is courtesy of Ecomtent

Two years of feedback from customers, and Ecomtent 2.0 is now live! This is one of my favorite AI softwares for Amazon product listings.

⏰ Speed & Scale: Integrate via APIs; one-click listing creation including lifestyle images, infographics, and copy; and one click to publish content to your chosen marketplace.

🤖 Auto Prompting: Leveraging extensive proprietary data, Ecomtent introduces 'auto prompting' for instant, high-quality lifestyle image generation.

📈 Enhanced Infographics: Includes one-click generation of dimensions and competitor comparison infographics

🔍 AI Search Optimization: Proactively optimized for Rufus and other AI-powered searches, ensuring your listings remain discoverable

What Does It Look Like? 👇

When you sign up to Ecomtent, you can connect your Amazon account via the integrations tab. From there, your listings will pop up in the product page overview:

To generate content for a specific listing, click on it, and then you will be taken to that item’s page to generate lifestyle images, infographics, and optimised copy:

From this, click on ‘add visual content’, and click ‘Generate’ to create an infographic. This will create an infographic with one of Ecomtent’s templates, pulling the image and key details from your Amazon store via API. The Graphic’s created are fully editable (like in canva). Once you are done, you can click save

For lifestyle images, you can use our new ‘autoprompt’ feature, or if you feel comfortable with AI, try your own. Again, once you are happy with your output, click save.

You can select the order of your generated content, or delete any unwanted images, by clicking on the photo icon by your pictures. Once you are happy, you can click publish to Amazon!

Check out the video demo → here 

🚨 Exclusive 7 day free trial for Lunch With Norm Subscribers → here

WHAT YOU MISSED LAST WEEK

👇 Highlights from last week’s Lunch With Norm podcast episodes👇

Power Warranty Marketing on Steroids

  • Implement “an Extreme but Believable” Warranty ✅ Differentiate your product with a warranty that stands out for its generosity while remaining plausible to consumers

    • This fosters brand loyalty, encourages repeat purchases, and enhances product launches by building trust and reducing purchase hesitation

  • Prioritize Customer Service - Just Say Yes 🛍️ Adopt a customer-centric approach by approving nearly all warranty claims

    • This policy builds a strong brand reputation, encourages positive reviews, and turns customers into brand advocates by making them feel valued and supported

  • Market at a Premium Price Point 📈 Sell your product at a premium allows for better margins which can cover the cost of warranty claims

    In-Depth AI Tool and Software Breakdown

Main Takeaways:

  • Prevent Prompt Drift and Hallucination 🥴 Regularly review and refine AI prompts to prevent inaccuracies with AI. Use techniques like summarization to maintain focus and keep AI aligned with your objectives

  • Claude vs ChatGPT 🥊 Claude's large context window allows for extensive data processing in a single query. Claude also offers more human-sounding output

  • Perplexity vs ChatGPT 🔦 Perplexity offers an AI-driven approach to web searches, compiling comprehensive answers from multiple sources. Use this tool for more clear cut defined answers. Think of it as a more refined search engine

Making More Profit and Improving Cash Flow

Main Takeaways:

  • Accrual vs. Cash Accounting 📝Understand the difference between accrual and cash accounting methods

    • Focus on accrual accounting as it provides a more accurate picture of financial health by recognizing revenue when earned and expenses when incurred

  • Understand Profit Margins and Benchmarks 📈 Set targets for gross and net profit margins as well as refund rates. Strive for a refund rate under 4% and gross profit margins around 70%, after accounting for cost of goods sold and Amazon fees

example of an average breakdown of an Amazon brand

TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE  

Elite Seller Society, France 2021 📍

Memories of Howard Thai's Elite Seller Society which was held in Paris at a 9th century castle. Great event, great people and this is where Kevin King and I came up with the concept of the Collective Mind Society.

THREE UPCOMING PODCASTS

You can watch all episodes on YouTube or on my Facebook page at 12 pm ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

**Guests and topics are subject to change**

Monday - How to Unlock Customer Demand Year-Round

Watch LIVE 👉 Sign up here

AI Wednesday - High Converting Sales Copy With Promptless AI

  • Jon Benson - Founder of BNSN

  • One of the top copywriters and sales copy strategists in the world

  • Creator of the video sales letter, which ushered in a new form of selling on the Internet

Watch LIVE 👉 Sign up here

Friday -  HE+RO Branding for Ecommerce: Leveraging AI for Creative at Scale

  • Amara Omoregie - Revenue Operations Expert

  • Hubspot Gold Partner Agency CEO

  • Trains internal teams from Digital Marketer and Hubspot & certified agency partners for both as well as Proposify, Databox, Google, and more

    Watch LIVE 👉 Sign up here

🗞️ AMAZON NEWS & UPDATES 🗞️

What’s happening in the world of Amazon today…

How to Sell a $9.99 Product at $55.99

This case study is provided by Ecom Product Finders newsletter!

Look at those 2 products:

Product ONE

Over $40K+ on PPC + over $76K on Amazon fees. Would you believe that their COGs is below $0.7 per unit landed in the US? Because this is how much they have if we subtract just those 2 numbers.

Look at the right column. Proof of PPC spend for this Brand.

Product TWO

Just $19 on PPC per month + $3,990 - Amazon Fee = $4,009 are the expenses. Around $6K is their take home money from Amazon.

Proof of Brand#2 PPC spend

Both of these are desk organizers. Both can store papers, pens, and pencils.

Both are targeted for similar keywords. Both are probably paying the same amount per click.

In one case, we have negative profit; in another case, positive.

Have you been trapped by those revenue numbers?

Solution:

Create an opportunity for the right avatar.

Do not chase the biggest unit amount to sell; chase the product that is being missed by your customer avatar, and scale it.

A lower amount of revenue can make you a larger amount in profit.

Get more tips by subscribing to Ecom Product Finders 👇

Ecom Product Finders#1 Newsletter about product research, development, and validation in e-commerce

🌎 UPCOMING EVENTS

MARK DOWN THESE EVENTS! 

April 3 - Sofia Bulgaria - Starting at $220 - Use NORM10 for 10%

May 1 - 2 - New York City - Starting at $397

May 18 - 23 - Kauai - Hawaii - Starting at $4997

Looking for events? Get the full list of events in the Amazon Ecom space put together by Danan Coleman

→ FULL CALENDAR ←

Results from the poll from last week’s story 👇

And that’s it, Beardos!

Let me know what you’d like me to feature in the newsletter by replying back to this email.

P.S. Make sure you don’t miss any updates by joining our community here.

See you next Monday!

- Norm

Interested in sponsoring the Lunch With Norm Newsletter? Reply back to this email for more details.

Reply

or to participate.