The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: any eCommerce operator who is early into the adaptation and use of any new tech that’s unlocked by these marketplaces has a first mover advantage on the marketplaces
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[00:01:15] Intro: Hey folks. Welcome back to the eCommerce leader Today we had a, another Hot Takes panel discussion with Chris Green Jason Miles, Kyle Hamer over in the States at myself, Michael Vi, over in London, England. And we discussed the latest updates from Amazon, from Kyle’s, Been at the Amazon Accelerator, convers, or Accelerate conference I should say.
[00:01:36] and really what the implications are for people who sell on Amazon, but also those who sell off Amazon in their own direct to consumer website. Lots of interesting changes and today we’re really knocking around why is Amazon doing this and what are the implications for us as eCommerce operators? So interesting stuff.
[00:01:51] Very important as Jason says, to stay up to date with the latest updates. And so this is us keeping you up to date. Enjoy.
[00:02:00] Jason: Hey, so we should talk about the buy with Prime thing, cuz that’s a hot topic in my view. By
[00:02:06] Chris: I love Buy With Prime. It’s, it was a little complicated to set up.
[00:02:09] They actually, we had to do like a screen share and like copy code and it injected in the liquid theme or . I don’t know how to do it. It took a while. We had to like, keep pacing in different places before we found out to make it work. So it’s definitely like early in terms of, I guess not the super easiest thing to integrate.
[00:02:24] But it works and it’s tied to U FBA inventory. I think it’s complicated enough that a lot of people are gonna sleep. But it’s simple enough that the ones who actually put it together are gonna be like, This is ridiculous. And to me, it’s just very ingrained in me at this point to give my customers the prime experience.
[00:02:39] And if I can give them that with my own products and collect my own customer information, it’s like the dream come true. I don’t see a world, the foreseeable future. I will sell something without the prime experience
[00:02:49] Jason: and the fulfillment. Where do you have it installed right now? What shop?
[00:02:52] I.
[00:02:52] Chris: I changed it to book.sale, which this is like a coming out party. Nobody knows that I bought the domain book.sale. Yeah. So I put the Shopify site up there. And, it only has the two products. One that’s not prime eligible and one that is, it’s got a nice big prime eligible button. And I’m trying to this week figure out how to like, run a promotion where, Cause I want people to join the Author Printer Challenge by buying the Entrepreneur Blueprint from my Shopify.
[00:03:18] Through the Buy With Prime button. So they get prime. I’m still playing around with like how to do, if I could do like a special, like a discount or a price thing and how that information’s gonna come through. But that’s where I wanna funnel the sales. And yeah, I got big, You could do a whole other episode about book.sale and Yeah, that you guys, the first three people to know that I bought that.
[00:03:36] There you
[00:03:37] Jason: go. Top secret. Here’s my thesis on, the Buy with Prime thing. I think it’s chess. I think they’re playing chess with shop. I think they knew that as soon as they released that as a code option, that it would violate Shopify’s tos and the Shopify would clamp down on it. And I think they did it because they want, W Commerce or Big commerce, or the WordPress derivative, e-commerce sites to be.
[00:04:01] The alternate choice for Amazon sellers and shift away from Shopify. I think it’s a, I think it’s a chess move, and they thought two steps ahead because it’s clearly, it clearly, Shopify immediately said, this is a violation of our two terms of service. If you do this, your account will be in jeopardy of closure on shop.
[00:04:20] So they had to know that Shopify was gonna come back at ’em real fast with that. So that means that Shopify sellers will not do it if they have velocity on their Shopify site. They just won’t, nobody’s gonna jeopardize 10, 20, 30, a hundred thousand dollars a month of sales velocity for installing shop in Buy with Prime.
[00:04:40] But the, but it’s really the Amazon sellers who won an off Amazon oper option that I think it appeals to, and they then therefore will not be able to Shopify. That’s my little cloak and dagger thesis on what’s happening right now. I don’t
[00:04:55] Chris: know. I can Shopify make that into their terms of service.
[00:04:59] Jason: It already. They already,
[00:05:01] Chris: they enforce, like you can put a sign up that says, No, black people can come in our store. But you can’t force it.
[00:05:06] Jason: No. no. That’s not the same thing at all. Every one of these platforms has tos, but
[00:05:10] Chris: someone of them can get in, non-competitive and consumer protection.
[00:05:13] Kyle: Now the term there’s limit issue is regarding checkout. Yeah. They control.
[00:05:19] Jason: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Chris: Yeah. I understand. I’d be surprised. I would be surprised if they enforced it. I won’t share the numbers, but there’s a lot of the Buy with Prime people are using it, or on
[00:05:27] Jason: Shopify, I guarantee you that as soon as it becomes a shot across the bow and a few accounts get closed down, it will, they’ll run like, the roaches out of the roach motel because they not to be negative on ’em, but they will flee from that because it’s a real risk.
[00:05:42] Yeah. If they have big Shopifys why, and they think Shopify’s gonna shut them down for a TS violation, that’s really an unforced error. ,
[00:05:50] Kyle: No way. They’ll never do it. Here’s where, it’s a weird thing though, because Amazon, I’m sure with the Buy with Prime, they’re using Amazon Pay.
[00:06:00] which has been around for years and years and years, and fully integrated into Shopify with no issue. So it’s because I was, I saw a little bit what Shopify was saying about it, and they’re like, It’s a security issue. And Amazon’s We’re using Amazon Pay. We’ve used it, for the longest period of time on your stores.
[00:06:14] We don’t see what the security issue is, so it’ll too far. They’re pushing the envelope. Here’s what. Yeah.
[00:06:21] Chris: If I’m move and that’s actually what’s happening, Jason. That’s the game of They’re playing. Yeah. I’m begging people to come over. I know because that prime experience is bigger than Shopify.
[00:06:30] If I have to choose between my Shopify store with Buy with Prime, or here’s the problem. Buy with Prime at all. I’m choosing Buy with Prime on any other platform. I don’t care. I have zero loyalty to Shopify.
[00:06:37] Jason: Here’s the problem. Sophisticated eCommerce sellers that are off Amazon have already explored BigCommerce, WooCommerce, all the derivatives.
[00:06:45] And alternates to Shopify, and if clearly crowned Shopify as the king forever installed as the best off, marketplace. Direct to consumer eCommerce, system. It just is. There’s honestly, there’s no debate.
[00:06:59] Chris: I agree with you except for one word, forever.
[00:07:01] Jason: Baked it well, right? But people who are baked into Big Commerce or WooCommerce are only there because of their legacy install and their brittle like connection to it.
[00:07:12] Shopify one like 10 years ago. And everyone knows that. So now Amazon’s trying to do something that gets Shopify to have a competitor. It’s really, it’s a genius move
[00:07:23] Kyle: in. Here’s, I like
[00:07:24] Michael: a bit of feedback from, I mean from the, much more ignorant about the fine side of shop. I’ve had clients who based their business on Shopify, but most of the guys work with Amazon sellers, some of whom are big on Shopify and their d c site.
[00:07:36] Some of them are, I swear, by. WordPress, we commerce, they may be full. That’s a perception question that I’m not here to answer whether the Shopify is the best or not. I know that you’ve got firm relief, more than I do, but it’s perception question, isn’t it? If of say one, whatever, you got 2 million Amazon sellers, maybe, a hundred thousand of them are doing significant numbers that make it and move the needle.
[00:07:54] Okay, if of those 70% don’t really care on our like crisp, perhaps rather platform agnostic, then it does become a genuine threat to Shopify if you get, or at least a substantial counterweight. So it’s interesting that there’s a difference between the experience people and then the perception amongst people who don’t have experience and don’t have also a brand loyalty to Shopify as their platform.
[00:08:13] So agree that it might be more of a problem for Shopify than the current situation, which again, to your. They’re playing a masterly chess move, which is typical by the way of Amazon. That’s why I’m asking, why is Amazon doing this? I was on look at what are the drivers behind Amazon actions or any of these big platforms in order to align myself with what’s gonna be a sustainable way of doing it, rather than this gonna last for three months.
[00:08:36] But this does look like a sustainable push they’ve got on a sustainable battle, which benefits us. Then seeing conclusion. Is that a
[00:08:42] Kyle: fair.
[00:08:42] Jason: In our prior conversations, I don’t know if it’ll be on the podcast prior to this one, but Kyle, you’ve been using your FBA system inside the back end of your Shopify site to fulfill orders for a long time.
[00:08:53] So the technical steps of using, the third party seller tools to fulfill Shopify orders. Kyle, maybe you can explain the difference between what you’ve done for a long. Yeah,
[00:09:02] Kyle: for sure. Essentially, so back in the day, it was a really smooth, easy, turn it on Shopify, plug in your FBA fulfillment, and you could one click button, send stuff off to FBA and fulfill all your Shopify orders.
[00:09:18] It was super simple in the last 18 months. Shopify and Amazon have said, Eh, actually we’re not gonna support this natively anymore. This used to be this, we’re friends, we’re holding hands, not so much anymore. And so they actually deprecated the ability to do it at the level that they had.
[00:09:38] Now, what that means is that you had to use a third party. Like a ship station, like a shipping, easy to actually serve as the go between, between Shopify and, fba. But multichannel fulfillment still works really well and you’re gonna be hard to actually beat it from a shipping cost standpoint.
[00:09:56] Like even if you are have your own three PL warehouse, it’s hard to beat Amazon’s pricing to actually move products even. Even multichannel fulfillment, not through as an FDA seller. So what I think is interesting about this, vco, acquisition for them is that they basically are taking that and they’re trying to scoop all that stuff back up again and, and really own that, that multichannel fulfillment, through their platform.
[00:10:20] And what was also interesting about that is that, they’re trying to build that into keeping like loyalty even as an Amazon. And keeping you plugged into their system. Like the average price point for that shipping software that they bought was like $450 a month. And now as an Amazon seller, they’re offering it to you for free.
[00:10:38] They’re saying, Hey, you get this as a free, just being an Amazon seller. So stay with us. We keep selling on Amazon. If you’re a multichannel seller and use this shipping, Tool this, just this shipping software and we’ll actually give you our discounted rate. So they’re trying to bake them in a little bit more into it.
[00:10:53] And I think that’s in response to some of the breakup that they’ve had with the Shopifys of the world and some of the other issues that they’re facing.
[00:11:00] Jason: So that’s a play against Ship Station Shipping easy, but the founder of Ships Station and Shipping Easy have a new tool. I’ve just been getting sales materials about it.
[00:11:09] That’s another alternate to. Those original products and it’s, it is like they’ve created another new thing. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head. Interesting. Yeah. So they’re all in this cat and mouse game to try to figure out who controls
[00:11:22] Kyle: shipping.
[00:11:23] Michael: Mean in a way I kind of trust if I’m gonna try and predict, and what seems to take advantage, as you say, Chris, like the bar with Prime badge at the moment.
[00:11:30] There seems to be just no downside to it for us as DT owners, unless of course to Jason’s point, you get your Shopify site. So spenders to keep us posted on that. But apart from that major downside, I, and what interests me is to just make sure we align ourselves with the Battle of the Titans and benefit from it rather than getting crushed underfoot, so to speak.
[00:11:47] And I think that. Is consistent about Amazon’s culture, as you say, Chris, a violent change of culture in a way to share customer data with us, our sellers, which they never did, and is the biggest, reason to have your own d c in many ways, I think. But the overall Amazon culture of trying to own the game and to buy something that somebody else would do as their entire industry, like creating entire movies in order to keep me as an Amazon Prime subscriber, they create an entire movie studio, that doesn’t make a profit , which is insane, and has Hollywood quaking in fear and Netflix and whoever else is their competitors.
[00:12:23] And, Doing the same kind of playbook with the multichannel fulfillment thing that you were saying. Kyle’s gone for four $50. Cost to zero is consistent with Amazon, basically in primitive turnstone and own the internet, or to own the infrastructure, to own the structures around eCommerce. It’s fi, you knows, I guess whatever you call it, vertical integration, whatever.
[00:12:42] It’s to own all the infrastructure around them that is consistent. So if that’s what they’re playing, in a way, now I see what the game is. I I’m more inclined to to play along. I mean that, that’s my kind of gut feeling.
[00:12:54] Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s really, even some of the tool sets that obviously are currently even there on the shipping side, like you get integration with Amazon, you get shipping automation, you get, you can brand your shipping, right?
[00:13:05] Because you’re have it set up through this, v quote system, but they’re also rolling out, Inventory syncing across Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify reporting and forecasting. So they’re actually, it’s actually gonna do some forecasting for you, which you end. You typically end up paying for paying someone to do all that stuff for you as well.
[00:13:23] So they offer that as another free tool tied in as well with the Amazon data. If they can pars some of that for volume, that’s a huge win as well, that they’re gonna then again, offer to free to sellers that are selling on it. I think overall what my big takeaway from this is Amazon definitely wants to take more in the direct consumer space and kind of protect, Its protect its market share, but also the result of that is I think that it actually improves some of the valuations.
[00:13:55] If you have an Amazon focused. . Like one of the downsides I think of having just a brand on Amazon was the fact it’s only on Amazon, right? And there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a D to C site. Shopify store building your, that’s just good business and it increases that valuation, of the business.
[00:14:13] But I think the having the ability to effectively email. Your Amazon customers, and I think having, if they sort through the, buy with prime on the DC side and can actually make it work and not cause too much of a blow up with Shopify, that might end up being a split and force some consumers to go a different path.
[00:14:32] I think that elderly, they’ll. , it raises the valuation potential of Amazon focused businesses. And I think that was my big Oh, that’s interesting. And to Amazon’s benefit, cuz the bigger it can and more value it can make some of the ecosystem businesses that are, that it runs on. It’s just a better benefit to Amazon as a, as an overall whole.
[00:14:51] Jason: That’s interesting. I’ve never thought about that. So if you have the ability to email your customers in the Amazon system, then is your business more valuable. if you’re an Amazon seller,
[00:15:01] Michael: I would say it de-risks it for sure. Yeah. I think that’s one of the main reasons to have a d c is to have a way to reach the, your customers.
[00:15:06] In the end, I suppose it de-risks it in the sense of Amazon shuts your account down. If you’ve got an email list of a hundred thousand people that have bought from you and other products, then you’ve got a, you got a de-risk there. Yeah, I agree with Kyle and even operationally, it means you can keep the lights on hopefully during, before you make an exit.
[00:15:24] So what are your, so that’s an interesting takeaway. What are your takeaways, Jason and Chris, we ought to wrap this one up here for the big takeaways. Chris,
[00:15:30] Kyle: go ahead.
[00:15:31] Chris: I just like the buy with prime. Like Kyle was, multi-channel fulfillment’s been around. It was 15 years ago I think I did a presentation about multi-channel fulfillment.
[00:15:39] Now it was incredibly underpriced. I met the MCF guys in Seattle, and they were like, No one’s ever told us our prices are too low. I’m like, I’ll shut up about it if you want. Jake, the two day. And the overnight options were something that, back then, sellers could not compete. It was amazing.
[00:15:54] And so having, the prime experience or having the option to be for the prime experience on your site was great, but Buy With Prime takes it a step further where it’s the Amazon login, it’s one click checkout. It just, it’s so much simpler. Instead of you have your site and you say, Look, if you buy, you’re gonna get the, we ship with Prime and you’ll get it fast and you know you’re gonna expect, so it integrates just even more.
[00:16:13] So yeah, I’m tamped on that in a big. For, you for the foreseeable future. At the same time, like hedging my bets, yeah, I don’t, like if they shut down my shop, I say I don’t like you said, Michael, align yourself with where the future’s going and see like what moves they’re making.
[00:16:25] Kind of use Jason’s, foresight to be like, what kind of chess are they playing? And yeah, draw from all our advice here. I think we’re all on, on a similar page, but seeing it from a different point of view and which is a good thing because if there are different sellers out there with different priorities and different platforms, yeah.
[00:16:42] It’s good to see what’s out there, where your competition might be and where you might want to take care of it. I can tell
[00:16:47] Kyle: one more. Oh, Michael, go
[00:16:48] Michael: ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say one reflection on that, just is another way, just a theme that’s emerging from what Kyle was saying and what you were saying, Chris, is for you, your Shopify’s site is a disposable thing if it gets shut down and gets shut down for what you were saying, Kyle, the opposite, if you like, of an Amazon focused business.
[00:17:05] If it has an email list or a way to any forms of contacting the consumers directly, or even followers, Prospective consumers, then that adds to the value of it cuz it’s more defensible. So I guess one, one of the things is where is a choice, which is always the choice of where you put your focus.
[00:17:21] What’s your, gotta hang on to this, defend it for your life. And while it optional channels or things that are nice to have, not much tab. And I guess that this shifts the matter of that a bit, to the point that you’re making there, Jason, about the sh the battle between Shopify and Amazon.
[00:17:34] Maybe,
[00:17:35] Jason: No, I guess my sum summation of this whole topic is, any eCommerce operator who is early into the adaptation and use of any new tech that’s unlocked by these marketplaces has a first mover advantage on the marketplaces. That’s just a, that’s an absolute for sure. True. You might try something that they.
[00:17:56] And it doesn’t really work well or it doesn’t really produce anything materially for your business. But there are many examples and all of us could talk about each one of our own eCommerce sales growth where there was a feature that was unlocked. We, tried it out, we saw early success and then that success.
[00:18:13] Fueled us a step or two ahead, helped us with sales velocity and with, positioning ourselves more effectively in terms of, selling to our core customers. So I would just encourage everybody, You can’t gloss over this stuff. You can’t, you gotta lean into the new, unlocked. Aspects of these part, platforms and marketplaces because there is, extreme value, there’s upside value in the early adoption of those, those pieces.
[00:18:42] And and what happens if you don’t do that is you literally are trying to sell the same way we sold on eBay in 2007 or 2008. And if you don’t take those tech steps inside these marketplaces, you’ll end up being in. Set up with an outdated set of steps of processes and tools, that you just won’t know what the current thing is and you’ll have competitors run you by and they’ll just pass right by you and you won’t even know how they’re doing it.
[00:19:11] And it’s because they’ve adapted the newest things. And that’s just the reality of being current, with the technology. That’s one of the downsides, I guess you could say, of being in the e-commerce space. But, being current is incredibly.
[00:19:25] Michael: Yeah. That leads me to a beautiful segue into, first of all, saying thanks to everyone for your thoughts, always in education to be part of this panel.
[00:19:31] I’m privileged to be here. If you wanna stay current and make sure your competitors aren’t passing you by then, you better stay tuned to this channel. We are available. All good podcast or near you, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, you name it, we’re on it. So do join us there and, subscribe to the show.
[00:19:48] Also, if you can give us a rating out five stars to let other people know that this is helpful stuff on Spotify or Amazon, sorry, Apple Podcast, I should say, then that would be really great. And thank you so much for listening to the eCommerce leader,
[00:20:01] OUTRO: That was the eCommerce Leader podcast with Michael Veazey in London, England, in Jason Miles in Seattle, Washington. If you liked this content, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on your podcast app for free resources, including PDFs and videos on topics like traffic products and sales channels. Just go to www.theecommerceleader.com.
[00:20:27] No hyphens, just as it sound. Thanks so much for listening.