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Welcome back to Amazing FBA. I’ve got part two of my interview with Chris Rawlings of Judoluanch, and today we’re talking about product launch on Amazon. Â If you missed part one of our conversation, you can find it here.
What is Judolaunch?
Chris started Judolaunch as a way to help brands expand internationally. Often people have a pretty good idea of how to get started and grow a business in their local environment. Everyone speaks their language, and the market is right out in front of them. In a new environment that’s foreign both in language and in culture, it can be easy to feel lost. Judolaunch is the solution to these problems. Not only does Judolaunch help growing businesses launch their brand internationally, but they’re also there every step of the way after successful product launch to help automate the day-to-day workings of the new international companies they’ve helped to create.
How Does Judolaunch Work?
Say you’ve got a product that you want to launch in Japan, but you’ve got no idea where to start. That situation is prime for Judolaunch. If your inventory is already in Japan, Judolaunch can get you onto the platform and be selling within a day. If it’s not, Judoluanch has a partner network that can do everything it takes to get you and your product into the Japanese market fast. Judolaunch sets small to medium sized brands up with everything they need to grow in the international marketplace. Judolaunch dedicate agents will take care of everything. Japanese consumption tax? Done. European Union Value Added Tax? No problem. Customer service in the local language? You bet. Judolaunch is a turnkey operation for international expansion and automation.
Step-by-Step, What Happens After I Partner with Judolaunch?
You’ve decided to take the leap. You’ve got a product that’s doing well in the U.S. It’s being manufactured in China, and you want to send a test order of 500 units to Japan. You’ve got no idea how to get started. You call Chris at Judolaunch. Immediately you’ll be given a step-by-step itemized to-do list with everything that needs to happen before you can start selling in Japan. Judolaunch will analyze the market and give you an idea of the demand and competition in your specific niche.
Their proprietary algorithms will tell you exactly what to expect post-launch. Chris has developed a tech-based solution to international expansion with all the communication benefits that come with having a human point of contact plus all the cost-savings you’d expect from a tech-based scaling solution. Tech-enabled service. Brilliant.
After you’re set up, you’ll upload a link to Judolaunch. The service automatically sources all of the information about your product. You’ll then provide discount codes that steeply discount the product–lots of customers need to be incentivized to buy your product very quickly. Judolaunch sends out your listing over a period of seven days using a cadence that will tell the algorithm whether the product is gaining traction in the market. If the product is catching on and entering a positive feedback loop, Judolaunch will help scale appropriately both on the supply side and the marketing side.
What Should I Expect Judolaunch to do Themselves, and What Should I Expect to be done by a 3rd Party?
Judolaunch takes care of launch and account automation. They don’t do things like freight forwarding, but they do partner with market-specific freight forwarders versed in working with Amazon and Amazon based sellers. If your product is produced in China and sold in Japan, Chris and his team will put you in touch with freight forwarders that work specifically with Amazon-based sellers using production facilities in China that ship to Japanese fulfillment centers. If you’ve ever dealt with shipping or manufacturing blunders like the ones I talked about in Episode 239 10 Lessons from a Freight Forwarder C***-up, you know exactly how valuable this experience can be.
Say I’ve got 1,000 units that cost $3 manufactured and $5 landed in Japan. Is it worth it to use Judolaunch’s services?
That depends on your intentions after launch. If you want to grow your brand slowly over time, Judolaunch probably isn’t the right service for you. Judolaunch is designed for brands that want to proliferate. Slow scaling isn’t part of the Judolaunch platform. If your 1,000 unit test run is something you’d like to scale as fast as the market dictates, Judolaunch can undoubtedly accommodate.
What can Chris and Judolaunch Offer That Goes Beyond Expansion and Scalability?
Strictly private label is on its way out. This ecosystem moves fast. Launching a product on Amazon in 2018 is different from launching in 2017. Launching in 2017 was completely different from 2016. The job for Chris and Judolaunch isn’t just providing a service for the here-and-now. The products with the best branding, distribution model and partnerships (i.e. influencer marketing) are the ones that are going to win in 2018 and into the future.
Judolaunch just launched the beta of a service called List Boom which gives anyone who launches as a partner of Judolaunch complete access to the data from their customers. It’s more important now than ever for brands to have their own ecosystem of customers. When a brand partners with Judolaunch, they now have a plug-and-play customer base tailored to their specific niche.
Other Productive Marketing Techniques to Drive Sales and Get Reviews
This strategy isn’t for everyone, but for one of my clients, the idea of starting a blog or podcast fit her specific niche perfectly. Â Blogs and Podcasts are great funnels for driving sales for your business, Amazon or otherwise. I’ve used whitepapers to rank on google for specific keywords and drive traffic to my blog, podcast, and in turn my Amazon coaching and mastermind services. *A whitepaper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution.
You can use this same technique to drive sales on Amazon. Including quality affiliate links in a whitepaper can both help you to gain legitimacy in your niche and if done artfully, drive sales for your Amazon brand.
A third-party software solution like overGrowth can also be incredible for driving new traffic to your Amazon listings and keeping existing customers coming back. Â Â
Don’t miss part three of my conversation with Chris Rawlings of Judolaunch coming later this week. We’ll be talking about challenges and strategies for competing with Chinese sellers on Amazon.
Here is a resource on how to write a Whitepaper: https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/how-to-write-white-paperÂ
*Definition courtesy of HubSpot
Watch How to Launch a Product on Amazon with Chris Rawlings
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