William Ellis has run a successful Amazon business since 2017, selling a variety of products such as essential oils, vitamins, and kitchenware.
Like many others, his business took off during COVID-19 lockdowns, when more and more shoppers turned to the internet for their purchases. Now his business, It's Good for Your Home, gets about 50,000 to 65,000 orders on Amazon per month.
A significant part of his success is leveraging the right software tools to help run his business efficiently and profitably. Among those are three tools by eComEngine: FeedbackFive, SellerPulse, and RestockPro.
The lack of seller feedback on their store meant that It's Good for Your Home wasn't winning the Buy Box as often as their competitors. "Price and everything was the same; the outlier was feedback," shared William. "It was really a no-brainer to go with FeedbackFive."
He sells a few private label products as well, and FeedbackFive helped these listings gain product reviews. "I was able to customize emails for those products, telling the brand story and asking buyers to review the product," William shared. The products have become successful, selling consistently.
“I can’t see us having the sales we have without the reviews we got from FeedbackFive."
Besides gaining more reviews and feedback, FeedbackFive has helped address negative feedback too, keeping his feedback score healthy. "The biggest plus for me is I get a text anytime I have a new neutral or negative feedback. Due to that I’ve been able to remove 100% of the negative feedback in the past couple years because it violates Amazon’s policies in some way,” said William.
When he got the invitation to test eComEngine's new product monitoring tool, SellerPulse, William was eager to try it.
"I'm very hands-on," said William. "I am looking at the products and what we have and our sales probably 10 to 15 times per day." But even so, it's impossible to stay on top of everything with a business of this size.
William found that he had missed when a few of his slower-selling products started to run low. The Out of Stock alert in SellerPulse notified him, and he found that, although they weren't selling as many units as some of his top products, they were profitable.
"SellerPulse was a good way to wave and say, 'Hey, this is out of stock. You might want to look,'" said William.
"It actually prompted me to go through a lot of my slower-selling things to see if they're profitable and what the sales velocity was, and we restocked some items," said William. "It's a service I didn't realize I needed until it started working."
It's a service I didn't realize I needed until it started working."
Though the Out of Stock alert was the first alert he used regularly, William has tried others, including the Listing Status Change alert, Listing Content Change alert, and Buy Box alert.
He found the Buy Box alert most useful, especially for assessing whether his automatic repricing software is helping him win the Buy Box more. "I get lots of email notifications about it every day. I want lots of emails, because I want to see that our autopricer is really aggressive and working properly," said William.
On the other hand, the Buy Box alerts sometimes show him that he needs to turn off the autopricer for certain ASINs. Suppose one item is always having Buy Box changes. In that case, William shared, he will investigate and see whether it's better to let the competitor win the Buy Box temporarily and sell out, rather than racing to the bottom on price. This way, the Buy Box alert protects his profit margins and makes him more money in the long run.
Last but not least, it can even show him that there might be a bad actor on the listing. Occasionally, he'll notice a certain competitor pricing an item drastically lower than anyone else. When they win the Buy Box, their offer details are displayed in the SellerPulse email alert, showing that the price is abnormally low. "That's a red flag. Maybe it's nearing the expiration date, or maybe there's something else wrong," said William.
William gave the example of a vitamin product. He noticed a competitor consistently selling it for about half the price any other seller charged, including Amazon. Amazon eventually removed all sellers from the listing and had them get re-approved to ensure the items were legitimate. "I would be aware of issues like this much faster now with SellerPulse," said William.
Overall, SellerPulse has given William more insight into his competitors and business. "It helps me analyze the product more. I love that," said William.
Although SellerPulse provided him with an Out of Stock Alert, William now uses RestockPro for more robust FBA inventory management. He particularly relies on the ability to filter his catalog by profitability and velocity parameters and prioritize restocking the things that will be best for his business.
He appreciates being able to set parameters, such as minimum and maximum days of inventory on hand, especially with Amazon's new minimum and maximum inventory metrics released in March 2024. "The parameters fit with Amazon's requirements, which is really nice."
Along with Getida for FBA reimbursements, these tools by eComEngine are a huge part of running William's profitable Amazon business.
"We compete with a lot of bigger sellers...For smaller sellers like us, I found having access to the data as quickly as possible, being able to respond to it--that kind of gets us in those nooks and crannies where we can make money," said William.
Thanks to William for sharing his story! If you'd like to share your experience in our next case study, contact us.