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Podcast (10k-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:42 — 32.4MB)
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What does it take to scale European Amazon sellers? How does language play a part in expanding businesses in Europe? Find out in today’s podcast.
Augustas wants to bring sellers together which is much harder to do in Europe.
Every country has its own culture and gets isolated, especially European Amazon sellers.
Rumanian sellers communicate with Rumanians; Lithuanians with others etc.
Most Europeans are excited to meet other nationalities.
You find different perspectives on how people see the same thing.
For example, in China – big learning -visiting China for 3 weeks 20 years ago. In Europe we say “round table” – if a Chinese person looks at it – it’s an “Ellipse”. From the side, it is an eclipse.
Brits often have a disadvantage as they are mono-lingual.
Even Germans tend to speak German and English.
It opens up information that is shared among those people for European Amazon sellers.
Even if you don’t speak German and sell in Germany – you’re going to need to hire a translator.
Recently Augustas was organising an event in Israel – and he didn’t realise how hard it would be to organise!
He was relying on the business partner for marketing. He couldn’t read any of the Hebrew.
There weren’t systems in place to translate quickly and easily for European Amazon sellers.
Especially Central and Eastern Europe, he holds lots of events in Russia – Georgia in a few weeks.
Ukraine is more known in the Russian community.
Lithuanian Amazon sellers run away when he tells them the price.
They think it should be €200-300, not €700
Eg selling in The USA?
European marketplaces?
He was a programmer who went into the Amazon industry
Not native English speaker – got known with virtual summits
Now does live events.
Events (English language)
Augustas jumped into the arena about 3 years ago and has done 6 virtual summits.
In 2019, he started doing live events.
He’s done several events so far:
He has done one event in Prague – for European ones “European Seller Conference.”
One in Israel – Sellerfest -for local sellers.
He has also done one event in Lithuania – Sellerfest
Uses the same event name for multiple countries.
Lithuania is serving different market segments: Some intermediate sellers;
However, the PPC Congress in Oct 3,4 in Amsterdam will be only talking about Amazon advertising.
This will be the first of its kind. There are conferences around Google ads etc. but not yet Amazon advertising. Hopefully he will attract some agencies who help a lot of Amazon sellers.
Augustas is looking to serve 3 types of companies: Amazon sellers, agencies, software.
He’s bringing interesting speakers who will talk about PPC strategies; but he’ll also have a slot for sharing experience in running an agency Liran Hirschkorn, Danny McMillan.
Speakers Brian Johnson, Liz Martin Adamson (known in the advertising industry)
Then less-known names but Augustas always asked friends about their opinion.
He’s also serving different regions – 10 speakers in Israel.
In Lithuania, he’s bringing in 14 speakers from 9 different countries.
What are the pros and cons of doing this?
Augustas is trying to help people first of all. It’s not driven by Monday.
March 2019 Prague – mentally he prepared 2 years in advance.
There were 8-9 months of planning for this.
Augustas’s first thought – creating an event or a conference.
But every event has 200 microtasks! Eg ordering lanyards, ordering VIP dinner for speakers.
This can drive you crazy if you don’t have a good assistant.
Augustas has an event organiser for the PPC Congress – he just has to approve possible venues.
Next year, 2020, he’s planning Seller Fest USA in January.
Everything is happening faster than expected!
Whenever you repeat the same process, it’s easier. It’s a lot.
It’s lovely to bring happiness and value!
Maybe for each event, it might make sense to have an event manager.
Augustas’s challenges are that there are different challenges in different countries, eg VAT, language etc.
For Prague he hired a really great person on Upwork.
He also hired an assistant from Lithuania – it’s easier to communicate in own language even though the marketing work is English.
About a year ago, really burned out, Augustas hired a great guy in the Philippines. He didn’t stick.
Filipino lady was too slow so he fired her.
His Czech assistant was really good and Augustas realised he wanted to use Europeans.
Timezone plays a part.
Maybe data collection or video editing would make sense to outsource to Asia.
So maybe $4-5 an hour makes more sense.
Pricing is pretty affordable.
For agencies, it’s a little more expensive.
Besides these, there will be software providers and find out how they do
There is no other place to be – and it’s very handy.
The USA or Australian sellers might have a mental block around taxes or languages.
Augustas suggests you have to get sorted out with a service supplier who can handle these issues.