#675 - Zero to $3M: Her Amazon Seller Story

#675 - Zero to $3M: Her Amazon Seller Story Bradley: Today we talked to a seller who began as a newbie on Amazon asking questions in the Helium 10 Facebook group way back in 2019 to now being on pace to do $3 million of sales this year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we are going to the other side of the world, as we often do, for a seller first time on the podcast. But she has been in our community for a long time. Amina, how's it going? Amina Solohova: It's going very good. Lately, recently, I was able to relocate to Ireland. Bradley: Ireland alright definitely on the other side of the world yes and the weather is not as bad as I expected to be honest it's pretty what did you expect to hot lots of rain oh lots of rain yeah yeah that's true that's true okay all right well before we get into how You're journey to Ireland, it's interesting to know how I knew about her. There's a handful of people that those of you who are in our Helium 10 members Facebook group and some of our other Facebook groups have been around forever and those of you who know them, you've got like Jake Paulson out there who's been posting for years in our groups and a handful of others. But Amina was one of the first ones and I actually just now right before we got on this call looked at when her first post In the facebook group was it was october of twenty nineteen we are now in twenty twenty five six years ago let me see if i can pull it up here. Here she is, October 24th, 2019. I didn't even reply to this post, but I've replied to others. I've interacted with her a lot in the Facebook group, I know. She says, Hey, I'm new in this group. Nice to meet you all. I've been selling on Amazon for six months, Helium 10 user. And I noticed some crazy, what she noticed was the Amazon search shuffle that was very prevalent back in the day. And she was talking about her ranks and everything. But again, this is how I knew about Amina. She has been, I wonder if there's a way I can actually see how many posts you have done. I'm going to look in their admin section here. Is there a way? No, it doesn't say. I think you broke it. How many comments you have made, but it's been many. And I think this is important because I've been telling people so long, go to conferences, join groups, whether it's Reddit, Facebook group, because you can get a lot of benefit by immersing yourself in the community and asking others. I think you are probably one of the best examples of that because I've seen you consistently post. Let's go back before 2019 though. Where were you born and raised? Amina Solohova: I was born and raised in Russia, St. Petersburg, a northern part of the country, very cold. Bradley: That's a very cold place. Amina Solohova: Yes, very cold. Bradley: Growing up there, did you live throughout your high school and college or university years there or did you move away at a certain time? Amina Solohova: Yes, I leave there till 2022 and then I decided to relocate to Thailand first. Then I moved to Spain and now I'm in Ireland. So I had changed. I have changed three countries. Bradley: So you live there most of your life, though, in St. Amina Solohova: Petersburg. Yes, yes, yes. Bradley: And that's when you started your Amazon business. You were there. Yes. Did you go to university there? Amina Solohova: Yes. Bradley: What did you study? Amina Solohova: I studied international relations in the State University of St. Petersburg. Bradley: What was the idea? Did you have some kind of career in mind for that? Amina Solohova: Yes, I was full of dreams as all young people are. I wanted to work in the embassy of Russia, somewhere in the western part of the world, being responsible for the establishment of these international relations with other countries. But to be honest, I got disappointed with this idea. Later, when I went to the internship, and I worked there in the government of St. Petersburg, and I understood that this is extremely boring. And the salaries were miserable, you know, and then I understood that no, I should definitely try something else. So that's how I went to a trading company and I worked there as a customer support specialist. I spent there four years. Yes, as I were able to speak English and French, I I worked there for about four years, and then I changed my position from customer support specialist to affiliate manager, but the idea was almost the same. I had to reply emails. And later on, I got bored again. Bradley: You get bored easily, I see here. Amina Solohova: Yes, this is the worst feeling in the world for me. I absolutely hate when life gets boring. Maybe this is why I changed three countries of my life throughout the past three years. I left my job and I decided that I want to move somewhere else. I even didn't have a minor idea that I could run my own business or something like that. I wanted to build a career and I desperately wanted to go to the United States so I applied to different job positions but unfortunately I didn't get any offer. I don't I can understand why because I didn't have any decent specialization at that time and I have had nothing to offer to businesses in the United States and they just didn't want to do this paperwork for me. So yes, I was left like in a limbo. I didn't know what should I do next. I was running out of my savings and this is how it was just like a miracle. I heard the story of a Ukrainian guy. I started my business on Amazon and it sounded so simple at that time. You had just order products from China, put your own label, send it to America and then you can choose the private jet you want to fly on. Bradley: It all sounded so simple at that time and I was kind of naive. Amina Solohova: But I decided to try this opportunity and this is how I shared this story with my boyfriend and he supported this idea and he told me that that was great. We should definitely try it and we started like business partners at that time. And yes, he was the one who chose the whole niche, the first product and later he registered the company in here in Ireland. Bradley: What kind of product did you make for your first one? Amina Solohova: Well, I have to admit that it was a bad product. Bradley: That's what we like to hear. We like to hear the good stories and the bad stories. No problem. Amina Solohova: Yes, my story is full of up and downs. The first product was the silicone case for AirPods. Bradley: Okay, and it's even sounds bad, you know, because you know, hey when you're new like 2018 2019 Maybe I could understand how that and so how much did you invest when you when you first started with that with that one? Amina Solohova: It costed really cheap. Maybe a few like 20 cents per case. I don't remember. Maybe the first order was costed us $500 and for the whole product we invested a few thousand dollars and we had to spend quite a lot on advertising on Amazon and I had to do it all on my own. We didn't have any money to hire, you know, a specialist or an agency and I understood that I have to deal with it and I have to make it work. Bradley: This was Amazon USA? Amina Solohova: Yes, because starting in Europe is a different story. Yes, it's so much harder. This is how I went directly to YouTube. I started googling different videos about how to sell on Amazon. I have never done anything similar to PPC before that. This is how I came across you, Bradley. Your videos, Helium 10, and I decided to open my account on Helium 10. I have been your client for the past six years, I guess. I took your amazing PPC course. It helped me a lot because I was the person who didn't understand a single thing about what should I do here, what should I click here, how do I make it work and your course was great for me. I also watched your case study with coffin shelves. It was also very useful. Bradley: Now that you had Helium 10, instead of just picking a random product, how did that change how you chose your next product? Amina Solohova: Well, it changed my PPC approach because now I have the tool that helped. At that time, there was no anything like brand analytics on Amazon account and I had no idea what the search terms are there on Amazon right now. So this tool helped me a lot. The magnets, Cerebro are my favorite ones for sure. And I was using them to launch my ad campaigns because my niche, as you can see, is very saturated, was very difficult, and I had to go with the longer keywords, the long term. Bradley: So you stayed in that kind of like phone accessories kind of niche and things. You didn't get completely, you know, a lot of people are like, oh man, this is way too competitive. So how were you able to to compete in such a competitive niche all these years then? Amina Solohova: Yes, it was not easy, but we decided that we are going to position our product as a premium solution for our customers. So our product costs higher than the products of our competitors, but it is designed for those who, for example, previously bought the cheaper solutions and were not happy with them because our Our product is really better. We worked hard to find the product of a premium quality and for us it's impossible to sell at the price of our main competitors. We cannot go with the price like $10, $12 because we produce it for quite high price. Bradley: Is it in China where you're producing the product? Amina Solohova: Yes, it's in China. Yes, and we have designed, you know, the best user guide for our customers. We have designed the best package. We work hard to provide all these materials so that our customers would have the best experience with our product. And yes, as long as we had a higher price, we could afford to spend more on PPC. And this is how it is profitable for us. And we use lots of sponsor brand. We produce lots of videos, custom images, and we are focused on these type of ads at the moment. So yes, this is how it works for us now. Bradley: Okay. Now fast forward, we're going to fill in the gaps a little bit too, but fast forward. What was your, which year was your best year of sales? Like, is it going to be this year? Like, are you on pace? Was it last year? Was it, you know, during COVID? What year was your best? Amina Solohova: This is our, definitely our best year. Bradley: And so what are you on pace? Well, you know, if things keep going as they do, what do you think you will end this year with your gross sales? Amina Solohova: I hope that we are going to reach 3 million Euro of our revenue this year. Bradley: Wow. That's excellent. And all starting from a failed product launch that you invested $500 of silicone, silicone, uh, AirPod holders cases, and, and now in a very competitive niche, uh, you know, scaling to this, that that's pretty impressive. So what are some, um, What are some other big failures of the last six years? Amina Solohova: I had lots of failures. I have to admit that once my account got suspended, my listings got suspended, my payouts got suspended in Q4. It happened a year ago. Bradley: What were some of the reasons of account and listing suspension? Amina Solohova: Design patent infringement. I didn't do it in purpose. But this happened to me. Yes, unfortunately, I violated the trademark. There was a trademark misuse or something like that. And I had to write these emails to Amazon, please unblock me. I'm not going to do this again. And I was lucky my account got reinstated. Wow. Bradley: Okay, so that was some scary. Bradley Sutton: Thinking about selling on TikTok Shop? Or maybe you are already in it and you're ready to scale. Unlock all of Helium 10's brand new TikTok Shop tools with our Diamond Plan. Everything from bulk Amazon to TikTok listing conversions, To instant Amazon MCF fulfillment. Best of all, you use the code TT10 to get 10% off Diamond for six months, even if you've used a coupon before. So go ahead and upgrade and let Helium 10 do all the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on what really matters. For more info on our new TikTok shop offerings, visit h10.me forward slash TikTok. Amina Solohova: I'll see you there. Bradley: Are some of the things that I talked about the beginning of the episode, how it's important to be in the network and get help from other people. Anything stick out in the past, like where you were able to get help from the Facebook group or community of Amazon sellers that really saved you or that really helped you out when you couldn't figure something out? Amina Solohova: Yes, absolutely. Whenever I have any trouble, I go instantly to these Facebook groups. I get lots of help from people there because now I have lots of friends thanks to these groups like Helium 10. For example, it's always a tricky part when you need some help from Amazon support. You can barely get it from them. And people gave me different types of advice how I can reach them. For example, they gave me an email of a verification team and I wrote my case directly to this email and my case got solved after that. Bradley: Okay, so do you have is it just you two or do you have employees VA's? Amina Solohova: No There's me my husband and we I also have a PPC specialist okay, and and so this is. Bradley: You and your husband, this is all you do right now. You guys are 100% Amazon. How much time between you two do you spend on the business? I assume maybe it's not like a 50-hour a week for both of you, but how much time does it take to invest in this? Amina Solohova: Maybe about four or five hours per day. I spent on PPC and everything related to the product launch, the product designs and managing the whole business. The times when I spent 8-10 hours, they are in the past, luckily. I don't have to spend as much time. Bradley: And your husband, is he still actively working on things or he's still mainly investing in product design and stuff like that? Amina Solohova: He's working but he's not related to any marketing. He, for example, helps us to find new people. We are now actively searching for a new PPC specialist, for example. He launches these apps on LinkedIn and stuff like that. Bradley: I should train you guys with Helium 10 ads so that you don't need to hire somebody. I think you should give that a try. If you're in this state right now where you had somebody doing it and now you're trying to find somebody else or you have nobody, maybe there's a way that you guys can do it. That's the whole point of Helium 10 Ads. Now, of course, later you want to scale or take some time off. But like me, I don't sell as much as you right now. Obviously, this is not my full-time job. But still, I have more than 200 campaigns. I manage three different accounts. Not quite a million dollars, but it takes me maybe 15 minutes a week to do my advertising. So for you guys, yeah, it could maybe take an hour or two hours a week if you know how to use Helium 10. So after this, let's talk about it and let's see if we can save you guys from having to buy or buy to hire somebody out there. Amina Solohova: Okay. That would be interesting. Bradley: What's kind of, you know, being in a very competitive niche, you did say you have a higher price point. What kind of profit margins are you looking at usually, you know, this year, last year, et cetera? Amina Solohova: 30%. Bradley: So even in the state of Amazon now, all the new fees and advertising more expensive and you're in a very competitive niche. After everything's done, you are still able to have about 30% profit? Amina Solohova: Yes, especially in Europe. No, I wouldn't say that in the United States is the same. Maybe it's around. Bradley: Oh, so now you are selling. You launched in US, but now you're also selling in Europe. Amina Solohova: Yes, yes. We started about five years ago. And this is the reason why we opened business in Ireland, because we wanted to have an account on Amazon Europe. It was not as easy as with the United States. And now, yes, we actively selling products in almost every single country here. And we have recently registered a VAT number in Sweden, too. So, yes, we are trying to... Bradley: Ireland has an Amazon now. Did you start there yet? Amina Solohova: I am planning to start, but unfortunately, we don't have ads, like ads account there yet. And I just wait when they will launch it. And then I'm going for sure. Hope on this opportunity. Bradley: Any other marketplaces other than Amazon, you know, like Walmart, TikTok shop, et cetera, website. Amina Solohova: We are fully focused on Amazon, but this is what we want to work on during the nearest time. We are planning to launch a new brand and we would like to take out the profit as much as possible this year and to reinvest it to our new brand. And yes, with this one, I hope that we are going to finally have our own website. We will explore other opportunities like TikTok shop, for example, but for now, no, only Amazon. Bradley: Being in like, you know, I used to be in the cell phone case, like I used to do cell phone cases and accessories. It's a little bit different than other markets. Like you asked about the coffin shelf. I'm selling the same coffin shelf as 2020 or whenever, you know, we started. But when you're in the cell phone case, obviously like, hey, it's the iPhone 14 and the next year it's the iPhone 15 and then it's the iPhone 16. So how do you manage that kind of thing where products don't have that long of a life? Like, are you adding like variations and then putting it in the old parent so you keep all the reviews or just every two years if it's for a different cell phone or a different accessory like you're starting from scratch like a brand new listing? What's your strategy there? Amina Solohova: Yes, we start a new listing for sure because all other approaches are We started a new listing and to be sure some of the very old aces still performing pretty well right now. For example, iPhone XR, I don't know when it was introduced, maybe in 2017 or 2016, but we still have a decent amount of sales for these products for a mobile phone like this. But yes, once Amazon, Apple introduces a new iPhone, we are always there to start new listings, to bring new products and to launch sales. Bradley: Since you just said you're launching new ASINs, so it's not like you're just putting new variations on existing listings, what is your launch strategy like? Do you have an offline community as well that you've built up that you're telling people, hey, we've got a new product, or you are just doing fresh launch, 100% only on Amazon, just How do you launch nowadays? Amina Solohova: Yes, we do absolutely fresh launch. So I always try to push more on sponsored brand because I like how much placement they take nowadays in the search result. These videos, they are everywhere nowadays. We make the shooting of a new product and we put it almost everywhere on Amazon and it helps us to drive traffic for a lower cost than sponsored product. Bradley: You focus on sponsored brand headline and sponsored brand video or only sponsored brand video? Unknown Speaker: Both of them. Bradley: What's your strategy as far as how you're doing your creatives? How do you do the videos? Is it AI? Is it you're hiring photographers to do video shoots and then the custom creative for the sponsored brand headline ads? How are you guys doing those? Amina Solohova: I was absolutely lucky to find a very talented team of designers two years ago. And since that time, they have been creating lots of materials. We're using 3D design for all that we are using on Amazon. And this is why our listing looks like slightly better than the listings of our competitors because all our images have really high resolution and they are highly detailed. And we also produce 3D videos for our products and it helps to drive really lots of traffic. Bradley: OK. Interesting. Interesting. What are some other unique things you are doing? Like, you know, sponsored brand that will help get visibility and traction. But maybe not 100% is getting you to page one on organic. So like, how are you getting to page one for your main keywords? How are you scaling these products after launch? Because you know, again, like it, not anybody can just go into a competitive market like cell phone accessories and have success. So you obviously must be doing something a little bit unique or different. So can you share some of that? Amina Solohova: Yes, for sure. The main goal of Almost every Amazon seller is to have a high conversion rate. So the way I do this and this is probably my main secret is that we translate all the listings, all the images to the local languages. So in Germany, you will see that all images are in German language. In France, in French, in Italy, in Italian and so on. And this is really that that was a game changer for us. And it helped us to really increase the conversion rate. And this is how the PPC, for example, I noted that now it costs less than it costed before. Bradley: Localizing is definitely important. Amina Solohova: I think that not many sellers are talking about that. Recently, for example, when I started selling in Sweden, we all believe that people in Sweden, they speak English and English is enough. But when I downloaded my first search term report from Amazon, I noticed that 90% of search terms were in Swedish language. So this is how I believe it's extremely important to work with to localize your listings in all of those markets where you work, especially if you have plans for Europe. I noticed that not all of my competitors are doing this now. Bradley: For some newer sellers, they might think, wait a minute, if we're using the same ASIN, it's just using the same images in all of the marketplaces. So how do you change the images in the unique marketplaces? What would you tell them? Amina Solohova: You can do this in your account. It's a hidden feature. You go to upload images and then you will see the link, country specific images. You click on it and then you can upload different images by marketplaces. Bradley: Going back to your sponsored brand strategies, what is your basic strategy? When you launch a product, how many creatives are you doing? How many different videos are it? How are you choosing what to target? How do you decide what your budgets are? Because obviously, like you said, you're very profitable with this strategy. Amina Solohova: My goal is to target as relevant as possible. So, for example, if I'm selling, let's say, a case for iPhone 16 Pro Max, I only want to use search terms, the keywords containing 16 Pro Max. I don't want to target, you know, any 14 Pro Max, 15 Pro Max, and this is how I avoid this waste of money. Bradley: I don't like exact targets. Yes. And do you even negative match already like some of those other ones or it's not needed or you do need to negative match from there? Amina Solohova: Yes, absolutely. We need to negative. And when we do the broad targeting, we used this plus modifier. So to make it to narrow the amount of search terms that we can get. Bradley: What's that for the people who don't know? Explain how that works. Amina Solohova: We've had some people on the podcast talk about that, but this is essential for my niche because, for example, if I put iPhone 16 case, Amazon is going To substitute 16 with all other numbers. So I basically have to use 16 to make it fixed, you know. So that Amazon will attract the search terms containing 16. They will not substitute it for 15, 14, 13. And I will work with these search terms only. So this is how it works in my niche. Explain how you do the modifier though like how you put the arms in front of the number phone phone model number so plus sixteen iphone case. Plus 15 iPhone case. I use these things like this and they are extremely helpful for me. Unknown Speaker: Yes, I guess a lot of people have used it. Bradley: That's good. That's good. Because yeah, with Amazon nowadays, you think exact is exact and exact sometimes is not even exact. Amina Solohova: No, no, no. This is what we have noticed recently. For some reason, exact targeting is not exact anymore. And even when I go with iPhone 15 case, I see iPhone 14 case, iPhone 11 case. With the exact targeting. Bradley: Yeah, it's crazy. People don't realize what's happening. Are you using broad and phrase at all when you're doing sponsor brand or you just doing the exact with the modifiers? Amina Solohova: I do broad with modifiers and I do exact with modifiers. Nowadays, I don't see any sense in using phrase targeting because the broad targeting drives the same amount of search terms and traffic to my product. So these are just the duplicates in my case. Bradley: Are you doing anything as far as unique packaging or to have a nice unboxing experience or just using generic packaging? What are you doing as far as that goes for branding? Amina Solohova: Yes, for sure. We have worked hard to design a very attractive package. And I attended the conference about a year ago, and they were talking about how important the main image is. And the thing that we're using right now, we put the product together with a package, and on the package, we try to write the main benefits of our products. And it has proven to work pretty well in our niche. And our recent product launch was pretty successful in the United States because of that. Bradley: Do you split test your your main image before you launch? All right. So guys, you know, like We've got that in Helium 10 audience. Also, it's powered by PICFU. So that's something that I think so many people are sleeping on is don't just like, all right, I'm going all in on this main image. The main image is so important, like she said, for conversions. And if you can have two or three different variations that you test in Helium 10 audience before, it could have a huge effect on your conversion rate and your sales down the road. Amina Solohova: Yes, absolutely. I love A-B testing on Amazon and we test different things, the titles, bullet points, the main image. We even test the order of the images in the listing. So we try to improve our listing on a daily basis. Bradley: How many SKUs are active now approximately? Amina Solohova: About 60 on each of the markets and we have about 500 campaigns in each of the markets. Bradley: Have you expanded at all to like Middle East or Asia or Australia? Amina Solohova: Our recent country, the new recent country was Sweden. Yes that would be absolutely fantastic if you could add magnet and cerebro to Sweden as well because you don't have it there yet and it's a little bit tricky for me to work with this markets. Bradley: Yes i will will have that on our list. Obviously, I think everybody's favorite tool is Cerebro. How are you using Magnet to kind of like round out your keyword research in addition to Cerebro? Like you mentioned that a couple of times. Amina Solohova: Yes. When you work with European markets, it's getting harder because obviously I don't speak all of these European languages. And for me, Magnet is a real help because we just add our main competitors and we are able to take out all the main keywords that they are ranking on. And we can then launch our campaigns using these keywords. And for example, when my PPC manager, she came to me and I told her that you're going to be responsible for Italy. She asked, how is it possible? I don't know Italian language. I told her, calm down. We have Helium 10. We are going to do that. You're going to speak Italian. That's going to be fine. Bradley: Did you see we have a translation now in Cerebro and Magnet where all the keywords, you can now have a new column where you can say, all right, like if it's Italian, like, hey, put this in English or something. So make sure she knows that. Amina Solohova: I saw something like that. Yes. So in different languages, this is how I do it. I always do this. I lived in Spain and, you know, I remember how the attitude of people dramatically changed when I switched from English to a very poor Spanish. They were happy that I was trying to speak Spanish and they were really open hearted. Bradley: Yes, that's very important. Like Amazon Japan, by the way, is I would suggest you to launch there. It's like it's bigger than almost all European markets other than Germany and the competition is so low, but it's dominated by Chinese sellers. But the Japanese sellers do so much better than the Chinese sellers, even though they're outnumbered because Because to japanese people is very similar what you said what like they they don't want the listening to seem like it's it's somebody not native or has too much english or or or like you know it's obviously like chinese japanese or chinese just like chinese english we have in in america so. If you can have like native looking listings in in some of these marketplaces like japan like spain like she said it. The coach culturally they did absolutely i mean i appreciate like what i mean when i'm shopping on amazon here in the united states and i see a listing that uses like broken english or it's obviously just like. They didn't care about the images like it turns me off like even though the price might be good i'm not gonna buy it i'll probably gonna buy another one so this is like a universal thing don't just hey let me put my listening google translator just let me lose the same images here and there is very important point a mention there so i like that yes absolutely yes. Any plans this year to come to like amazon accelerate or any other conferences i'm not sure yet maybe if any event occurs somewhere try to come to accelerate that's like the biggest one of the year it's put on by amazon if you have any amazon issues at all you can get fixed in like customer support like they have representatives there that can get stuff fixed so for you and anybody else listening uh there's no like affiliate link this is just a short link that we have it's called h10.me forward slash accelerate i think that will take you guys to the to the um to the page to register for it but i i highly recommend it's the one place where you can meet two three thousand We're Amazon sellers in one space. We're going to have Helium 10 Elite. I'm wearing my Helium 10 Elite shirt today. Helium 10 Elite workshop there right before. So Amina, you and your husband, I'm personally inviting you guys. Make sure to come to the Amazon Accelerate this year and then we'll do like a podcast meetup or something. But I really think, especially for somebody like you who values networking and community and stuff, I think it will be a great place for you guys to meet other sellers. Amina Solohova: Thank you so much for the invitation. We will consider that. And you come to Ireland. Ireland is a new market for Amazon, so it might be interesting. Bradley: Yes, I did one meetup a couple of years ago. I took my family to Ireland and then I had a meetup right outside of the airport with some Irish sellers. So yes, it's time for me to go back to Ireland, so I'll be seeing you there. Alright, thanks Amina. Maybe your husband should come on the show together with you next time. So next year, let's see if you were able to break your sales record like you said you're going to this year. And maybe talk about some other marketplaces like TikTok shop or something that you expanded to. Amina Solohova: Sure. Bradley: We'll see you then. Bradley Sutton: Absolutely. Amina Solohova: Thank you so much for inviting me. It was such a pleasure to have this conversation and I hope we will meet in the future. Bradley: At Amazon Accelerate. Yes. And also next year on the podcast. All right. We'll see you later. Amina Solohova: See you. Bye bye.