September 21, 2016

How to Find Out if Your Product will Sell on Amazon with Heather Terveen

Nicole C

Heather Terveen is the founder of Adornlee, an online store that sells totes and bags for brides-to-be, new moms, and travel lovers alike. She sells primarily on the Amazon Marketplace in addition to her own website. She also consults with others looking to get their physical products on Amazon.

How to find out if your product will sell on Amazon @heatherterveen @adornlee #blissfulbitespodcast Click To Tweet

In this episode you’ll learn:

- How to figure out if your product will sell on Amazon.com
- Where you should look to figure out your product
- How to become a go-to resource in your field

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Tell us a little bit about you, Heather Terveen, and what you do.

I own Adornlee, which is an online brand that sells totes and bags targeting brides-to-be, new moms, and travel lovers. I’m also a mom with three young daughters. I started my online entrepreneurial journey just over a year and a half ago.

How did you decide to sell totes and bags?

I actually narrowed it down to a niche. I knew I wanted to sell physical products online. I targeted it down to selling to brides, and I was actually initially going to sell bridal jewelry. I took an online course that helps you get your initial physical products online. I did a lot of keyword research. I knew I wanted to start on Amazon because being a mom with three young children, I didn’t want to actually carry inventory at my home. After ordering a few thousand dollars worth of jewelry to sell, the jewelry category closed on Amazon. I quickly pivoted and found another physical product to sell that was targeting the same audience. Within 30 days I got the bridal tote bag on Amazon and it ended up being sort of a home run. I sold over 3,000 units of that bridal tote within four months.

Why did you consult Google keyword first to start a business?

It was strategic. I wanted to have an idea of what the market was like for any of the niches that I was potentially going into. I looked at products targeting moms and brides because I knew I wanted to target a female audience that I could resonate with the marketing to. I did keyword research so that I could confirm what types of keywords people would be searching for in order to find the physical products they buy online.

What you actually look for like the metrics when you use Google keyword tool?

Use a free keyword tool. You don’t need to buy any other software. I go to SEO Moz to get tips. I used a program called Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro. I looked at the pagerank for the top 10 and searched for certain keywords. For example, if I was looking at the keyword bridesmaid jewelry, I would look at what is the pagerank for the top 10 brands that are showing up in search for that particular keyword. Are they all huge brands that I couldn’t possibly compete with? Did they all have a really long history? From there you can go and find really diamonds in the rough of keywords that have enough search volume but also aren’t too competitive.

How did you figure out that you wanted to go the Amazon route instead hitting up your local boutique?

First, whether you’re heading up your local boutique or you’re starting with your own branded website, you typically have to have more than one product because they’re assessing that you have a line of products. On Amazon, the shopper isn’t looking at that. If you only have one product, they don’t really notice that you don’t have a whole line. This makes the barrier to entry, as far as initial investment, easier. It also provides the traffic for you. To go to the boutiques you have to physically go out and meet with boutique owners. You also have to find ways to get traffic to your own online site. With Amazon, it provides traffic for you. It gives you the opportunity to really vet out whether or not there’s a market for your product.

What else have you done to grow your business?

We use Instagram. We also collaborate with other bloggers that are mom bloggers or bridal bloggers and will give away free product in exchange for them providing pictures. We have a couple of brand reps were working with on Instagram right now. We also use Amazon pay-per-click as well. Amazon pay per click is similar to Facebook ads or Google pay-per-click The huge benefits of Amazon is that the intention of people who are already on the Amazon channel. If you’re shopping on Amazon and you type in baby bib or paleo granola, you see the search engine populates all these products at the top and at the sidebar. Those are Amazon pay-per-click ads that brands are paying for to have their products show up in the top part of search. We bid on certain keywords on Amazon and pay to have our products show up and search for certain keywords.

Can you just share a little bit behind your idea to start the Amazon consulting services?

It happened pretty organically. I’m in other groups where there are other small online shop owners that are selling physical products online. The majority of them aren’t actually selling on Amazon, but they’re looking to get their products on Amazon. In a couple of these groups I have kind of been the go-to person who gets tagged with questions to answer their questions about Amazon. I started answering questions and then some of these conversations just naturally came offline into emails. It just organically happened that there is a need out there for shop owners that are trying to get their physical products on Amazon. I’m putting together consulting services and working one-on-one with brands to help them get the products that they already have onto the Amazon Channel.

How did you become that go-to person?

By engaging. Being active in the groups. When you see a question, being really generous, honest, and transparent and giving value and not expecting anything in return.

Heather Terveen is the founder of Adornlee, an online store that sells totes and bags for brides-to-be, new moms, and travel lovers. She has thoughtfully designed a collection of darling canvas totes and makeup bags for life’s next big adventure.Heather has her own website and also sells her products on Amazon. She recently starting consulting services for entrepreneurs who are interested in selling products on Amazon.