What is This Product?
The product we launched is an accessory to a top selling medical product.
When Did We Launch?
We launched this product on Dec 11, 2015. We would have launched about a month earlier, but as soon as we got the first shipment into our Amazon Prep Center (GDW Inc) Amazon blocked our listing. They said they weren’t allowing this type of product to be listed on Amazon. We went back and forth for a while and eventually found out that they wanted an OTC FDA approval form. We were able to get it from our supplier and get the listing unblocked. But we were worried for a while that we had just purchased $15,000 of dead inventory.
How Did We Launch?
We asked the Ecommerce Empire Facebook group for some help launching. We had 14 people buy our product at a discount along with the top selling product. We then gave them a rebate on that top selling product. This gave our product launch a little boost by showing up in the “frequently bought with” section on the popular product listing page. Then we simply ran an automatic and broad match PPC campaign.
The Results
As you can see, we’ve sold 342 units since launching. We’re hovering around 10-20 units a day right now with expectations to triple that within a few months. Our ROI is a measly 72% (I like to shoot for 150%), but that’s because we are selling for a full $5 less than our target price. Estimated profit is $1974, which isn’t too bad for a product that’s 45 days old. You can also see a steady drop in our BSR. We’re hovering around 11,000 now. We’ve managed to get ranked in 3 different subcategories, so that’s cool.
Best of all, people seem to love the product. We’ve had a single 4 star reviews and 13 5 star reviews not including the promos. We’ll be reordering soon and we’re going to add 2 additional products to the line at the same time. That’s how you see really big growth!
Graph: HelloProfit
Awesome results! Do you think it was key that you launched and made sure that buyers also bought your top product at the same time? How do you think the results would have fared without that part?
For this product launch it was only moderately successful. The other frequently bought with products kinda pushed us out pretty quickly. But it was helpful. Other launches have seen great success with this method.
Thanks! Trial and error seems to be the best way to find these things out.
How did you create a coupon for the top selling product? How would you suggest I go about using this method on social media? Is it not possible unless you’re refunding afterwards?
Thanks so much!
-Sufi
This is a little bit of a tricky topic. I’m not completely up on Amazon’s TOS regarding rebates as part of a promotion. I know you can’t have someone purchase your product and then refund them in order to get a review, but plenty of big businesses do rebates.
So your buyers purchased your product and the exact same product from the #1 selling product. Or did they buy a #1 selling complimentary product? Seems like a great strategy. Can’t wait to try it. What discount did you provide on your product?
They purchased my product and the product that mine acts as an accessory for. So I guess I would say the #1 complimentary product. I think we did a $2 purchase price on our product with a rebate on the main product.
Hi Ben,
Excellent article and congrats on your success.
Did you PL your product immediately after the samples?