1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn how to list, sell, and scale your new hardware product on the Walmart.com 2 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:09,880 Kevin Mako: online marketplace from an agency owner that has marketed hundreds of hardware products. 3 00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:19,660 Narrator: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. 4 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:24,540 Narrator: Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups. 5 00:00:24,740 --> 00:00:33,100 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today I'm very excited to introduce Will Haire to the show. Will is the CEO of BellaVix, a marketing agency focusing exclusively on scaling 6 00:00:33,100 --> 00:00:42,300 Kevin Mako: emerging hardware brands on Amazon and Walmart.com. After years, as a military technician and in supply chain management, Will has spent the last 10 years in digital marketing. 7 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:46,820 Kevin Mako: Today, Will is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what Walmart 8 00:00:46,820 --> 00:00:55,680 Kevin Mako: .com marketplace is, how to list your product onto the platform and best practices for succeeding and scaling with your new hardware product. Now, on to the episode. 9 00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:04,560 Narrator: This show is produced by MakoDesign, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, 10 00:01:04,780 --> 00:01:13,020 Narrator: small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now on to the episode. 11 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:14,820 Kevin Mako: Hi, Will, welcome to the show. 12 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:17,900 Will Haire: Hey, Kevin. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. 13 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:24,800 Kevin Mako: We're excited to talk to you today about getting a new hardware invention onto Walmart Marketplace. 14 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:29,720 Kevin Mako: Walmart online, which many people don't actually know is actually different from the store. You've got 15 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:38,420 Kevin Mako: the retail change that everybody knows, but there's also a very vibrant online marketplace that has many items that aren't in the stores and sometimes vice versa. 16 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:45,620 Kevin Mako: So today we're talking about getting onto the platform best practices and even how to scale your growth on that platform as 17 00:01:45,620 --> 00:01:50,140 Kevin Mako: another avenue to sell a new invention idea to the market. There's a hardware startup out there, 18 00:01:50,380 --> 00:01:54,400 Kevin Mako: whether you're at the early phases of development or whether you're looking for new avenues to sell 19 00:01:54,400 --> 00:02:00,460 Kevin Mako: product, this episode is going to be very powerful because this is a massive channel that is growing quickly as well. 20 00:02:00,740 --> 00:02:08,820 Kevin Mako: And who better to talk to then we'll hear on the show today. Will, you've been doing this a long time. Before we get into all the nuts and bolts about best practices, just give 21 00:02:08,820 --> 00:02:14,760 Kevin Mako: us a bit of a history. How did you get from where you are many years ago to the success story that you are today? Yeah, absolutely. 22 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:23,940 Will Haire: And I'll give you guys the cliff note version. Essentially, I've been working in advertising agencies for the better part of 10 to 12 years, give or take. I like to say 23 00:02:23,940 --> 00:02:33,800 Will Haire: Google is the gateway to marketplaces like Walmart, Amazon, and Target. So start up doing SEO, have ADD, and I just don't have the attention for that. 24 00:02:33,940 --> 00:02:41,080 Will Haire: So I needed something a little faster. So I started doing advertising, Google, pay-per-click, which led into Amazon, which then led into Walmart. 25 00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:50,680 Will Haire: And I've always been focused on products and helping e-commerce brands either launch into marketplaces or achieve some type of scale. So it's been an incredible journey. 26 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:58,860 Will Haire: And back in 2018, I'm like most entrepreneurs. I was like, you know what? I think I could do this better myself. In 2018, we decided to start 27 00:02:58,860 --> 00:03:04,900 Will Haire: our own company, Bella Vex, and where we're hyper-focused on helping brand scale on marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon. 28 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:13,560 Kevin Mako: Well, much appreciated. Lots of wisdom to share there because, yes, of course, the whole digital marketplace relies on Google, SEO, search, pay-per-click, etc. 29 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:20,480 Kevin Mako: That feeds the beast in many ways that helps to amplify and really helps you to understand how do marketplaces works. 30 00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:28,300 Kevin Mako: How do people who are looking for your product end up finding your product. So what better avenue and experience to learn the ins and outs of the marketing side 31 00:03:28,300 --> 00:03:36,460 Kevin Mako: so that you could be very strategic and successful when it comes to the actual deployment and execution side of getting those new hardware products to market via these platform, 32 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:45,040 Kevin Mako: Walmart and Amazon, which are the most massive online marketplaces, especially for emerging and up-and-coming brands. So let's talk about Walmart marketplace specifically. 33 00:03:45,180 --> 00:03:47,280 Kevin Mako: Just describe what it is. Yep. 34 00:03:47,620 --> 00:03:55,940 Will Haire: So Walmart, similar to Amazon, similar to Target, they have the ability to showcase and sell products digitally online. 35 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:06,100 Will Haire: Walmart.com, or like 3P, however you want to position it, is Walmart's ability to showcase products. And the products that are on the website aren't always 36 00:04:06,100 --> 00:04:12,140 Will Haire: necessarily available in stores. So it's an opportunity for brands to come in and to showcase their 37 00:04:12,140 --> 00:04:20,460 Will Haire: products and show Walmart that these are products that have an audience, that they solve a specific problem and the opportunity to kind of grow from there. 38 00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:28,500 Will Haire: We have seen brands scale their sales from just a 3P relationship to working directly with Walmart reps and to getting into 39 00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:34,420 Will Haire: 1P. So it's a great way to prove the value of your product and what you're doing and to prove that 40 00:04:34,420 --> 00:04:41,820 Will Haire: there is a minimal viable product or an MVP and an audience for that. Walmart is where you shop online and something really interesting. 41 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:48,980 Will Haire: We always talk about Amazon, Walmart, who's the bigger, who's bigger, so on and so forth. And obviously considering retail in general, Walmart is much 42 00:04:48,980 --> 00:04:57,680 Will Haire: figure. But when it comes to online only, Amazon is roughly 50%. It always changes of all online transactions or online e-commerce sales. 43 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:06,280 Will Haire: But something that's different for Walmart is that they've been aggressively pursuing online and retail, online or digital commerce. And so to give you some 44 00:05:06,280 --> 00:05:13,440 Will Haire: perspective, right now, give or take, I believe there's like 500 fulfillment centers within a hundred miles of every major city for Amazon. 45 00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:23,120 Will Haire: So that's how they're able to do same day shipping, multi-day shipping. What's really interesting about Walmart is there's like 4,800 stores within 10 miles at every major city. 46 00:05:23,300 --> 00:05:32,380 Will Haire: So you can just hear that like right now, they have the infrastructure, in my opinion, to really crush Amazon or put Amazon's feet to the fire. Walmart is still 47 00:05:32,380 --> 00:05:37,840 Will Haire: very small. They just surpassed eBay recently in terms of e-com, like their percent of the market 48 00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:44,720 Will Haire: share that they own to e-commerce, but they're investing and they're scaling and there's a huge opportunity for any brands they're getting in early. 49 00:05:44,940 --> 00:05:52,260 Will Haire: I consider this a first mover opportunity. So this is like the equivalent of getting into Amazon 15 years ago. I know tons of people that 50 00:05:52,260 --> 00:05:59,460 Will Haire: would, you know, give up a lot of what they own to get that opportunity. And that opportunity is here with Walmart. I think it's going to be around for a long time. 51 00:05:59,660 --> 00:06:06,560 Kevin Mako: I've heard that a lot. I've heard that Walmart really is aggressive at trying to compete with Amazon as well as to other retailers and 52 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:14,520 Kevin Mako: other players. They're leading the charge as a store-based retailer due to that infrastructure. It's hard to compete with that when you've got that massive infrastructure. 53 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:20,600 Kevin Mako: So inevitably, as time has ticked on, they've looked at some of the things that other major players are doing like the eBay's, Shopify, 54 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:28,300 Kevin Mako: personal websites, other retailers, and of course the big giant Amazon in the room. And they're trying to see, well, what can we do to differentiate and compete? 55 00:06:28,300 --> 00:06:36,940 Kevin Mako: What a great opportunity to be a part of that journey with new products. New products are one of the best things that any online retailer can do to compete. 56 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:44,960 Kevin Mako: And believe it or not, it's a two-way street in terms of competitiveness. you as a startup with a great product, especially as a new hardware startup, you're so eager to 57 00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:51,400 Kevin Mako: get online and it seems like this massive giant world and feels like you have to go out there and beg and plead to get some early sales. 58 00:06:51,560 --> 00:07:01,180 Kevin Mako: But keep in mind that out there, it's the job of these major players to find great new products to showcase on their platform so that they can 59 00:07:01,180 --> 00:07:04,860 Kevin Mako: start eroding market share from some of the other competitors. So know that it's a two-way 60 00:07:04,860 --> 00:07:08,400 Kevin Mako: street. And if you've made a great product that has a great product market fit, you've got 61 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:16,860 Kevin Mako: customers out there that want it that may not know they even want it right now. There are many platforms out there and this being one of the big ones out there that you can get on 62 00:07:16,860 --> 00:07:25,120 Kevin Mako: in order to be a player in the space. Now, let's dive a bit deeper into that. How do you specifically get your product onto Walmart.com? 63 00:07:25,340 --> 00:07:34,040 Kevin Mako: Like what are some of the actual tactical things that you need to do as a hardware startup in order to be both approved by and placed onto it? And then we'll talk about scale 64 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:41,100 Will Haire: after that. So it's actually fairly simple. They've actually proved the process tremendously. I think like three or five years ago, it was a process. 65 00:07:41,340 --> 00:07:48,900 Will Haire: It was like you had to submit a request. You had to fill in all this information about your business, submit banking information. And it literally 66 00:07:48,900 --> 00:07:53,860 Will Haire: took six months to get approved just to get onto the platform. And getting onto the platform was 67 00:07:53,860 --> 00:08:00,420 Will Haire: all kinds of messy because it was evolving as they were getting more brands onto the platform. Now it's a little more streamlined. 68 00:08:00,780 --> 00:08:09,360 Will Haire: Generally, you can have your Walmart account up and active in three to five days. Similar process, you're going to go to Walmart and you just submit a form 69 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:13,820 Will Haire: that essentially has your business information, you know, your EIN, your business address, so on 70 00:08:13,820 --> 00:08:22,920 Will Haire: and so forth. And the whole purpose of that is their trust and safety team need to evaluate your products and what you're selling. If you're selling in like the supplement space, 71 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,980 Will Haire: anything topical or ingestable, I like to say, they're going to have you submit COAs or 72 00:08:27,980 --> 00:08:32,360 Will Haire: other certificates to make sure your products are going to injure consumers, you know, provided 73 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:38,540 Will Haire: you have all that documentation submitted, you'll get access to the platform pretty quickly. And then from there, it's kind of involved. 74 00:08:38,820 --> 00:08:45,500 Will Haire: So we see a lot of brands do to get started. Generally, they'll already be active on Amazon or they'll already have an active website. 75 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:54,340 Will Haire: And they'll use a software solution like listing mirror. And they'll just take all their listings and it'll pull from the Shopify or Amazon and it'll pull over to Walmart. 76 00:08:54,540 --> 00:09:01,300 Will Haire: And then you have all your listings. You have all your information. And then it's just optimizing so on and so forth. However, it's good to get started. 77 00:09:01,300 --> 00:09:08,380 Will Haire: If you don't have a lot of resources, you're new to it, it's a great opportunity just to get it up there and you can kind of worry about it as you have time. 78 00:09:08,500 --> 00:09:17,120 Will Haire: But the correct way to do it would be obviously to launch each product individually because search engine optimization, how Walmart indexes your products and even 79 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:21,400 Will Haire: how shoppers search and find your products are going to be slightly different than they are 80 00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:29,780 Will Haire: going to discover you on your Shopify site or how they're going to find products on Amazon. And consistently, which is kind of crazy, we find not with all brands, 81 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:35,840 Will Haire: but a vast majority of brands is that the products that are really popular on their website aren't necessarily going to be the 82 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:44,680 Will Haire: same products that move on Walmart or Amazon or Target or any of these other platforms. It's really interesting, kind of the dichotomy of the Walmart shopper and 83 00:09:44,680 --> 00:09:50,700 Will Haire: that experience for that shopper. So that being said, it's super easy to get started. We highly recommend that even if you 84 00:09:50,700 --> 00:09:56,940 Will Haire: have limited resources, just open the account, list your products, use one of these software solutions, progress, not perfection. 85 00:09:57,260 --> 00:10:04,740 Will Haire: So just because it's not 100% right, as long you're not doing anything egregious, violating any rules, stuffing any keywords that don't belong in there that 86 00:10:04,740 --> 00:10:11,840 Will Haire: might get you in trouble, you'll be good. The list that will be up. And as shoppers shop to discover your products, they'll shop where they're comfortable shopping. 87 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:17,960 Will Haire: They'll search you on Google. They may buy it on your website. They may buy it on Amazon. They may buy it on Walmart. But it's better 88 00:10:17,960 --> 00:10:23,240 Will Haire: that they're getting it directly from you than from a third party wholesaler who may not have your 89 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:31,900 Will Haire: brand in mind, well, we may not care about the customer the same way that you do. And a lot of times when we take over Walmart accounts from brands, we'll find that it's 90 00:10:31,900 --> 00:10:37,220 Will Haire: just, especially if they're dealing with wholesale, they really don't care. And then if your product's not selling on a wholesale 91 00:10:37,220 --> 00:10:41,540 Will Haire: perspective, it's not going to get the attention it needs. And then you'll get negative reviews 92 00:10:41,540 --> 00:10:48,520 Will Haire: because of shipping, you'll get all these negative KPIs that'll affect your ability to index, to advertise and all that other fun stuff. 93 00:10:48,540 --> 00:10:54,800 Will Haire: So it's a little bit of a journey and a long-winded way for me to say it's super easy to get started. Let's get started today. 94 00:10:55,040 --> 00:11:02,540 Kevin Mako: That sounds great. It's amazing that the platforms have become essentially startup friendly because as you know back in the day, if you want to get a 95 00:11:02,540 --> 00:11:12,120 Kevin Mako: product into Walmart stores, it was a long process. And typically they wouldn't even take one skew products. Basically product brands that only had one independent product. 96 00:11:12,340 --> 00:11:18,780 Kevin Mako: But a lot of that has changed because of the success of some of these amazing innovations that are coming from hardware startups themselves. 97 00:11:18,780 --> 00:11:27,420 Kevin Mako: All of the big players have been looking at this and saying, how can we be more friendly to these up-and-coming disruptive products that are desired 98 00:11:27,420 --> 00:11:36,740 Kevin Mako: by the world, but not necessarily backed by a Fortune 500 product company? And it's just nice to hear from your perspective as well, being in the space on Amazon and 99 00:11:36,740 --> 00:11:43,500 Kevin Mako: Walmart marketplace. It leads me to a question now about the fulfillment side of things, because let's assume we've got the product posted. We start to make sales. 100 00:11:43,540 --> 00:11:48,760 Kevin Mako: What are some of the best practices of our requirements that make sense in having your fulfillment, 101 00:11:48,780 --> 00:11:54,000 Kevin Mako: set up in order to best service that Walmart transaction or sale. That's great. 102 00:11:54,220 --> 00:11:59,340 Will Haire: So there's tons of applications that will funnel a sell from Walmart API and I'll label it 103 00:11:59,340 --> 00:12:05,160 Will Haire: as a Walmart sale so you make sure you're shipping it properly and doing your due diligence. But there's a couple of options. 104 00:12:05,540 --> 00:12:13,780 Will Haire: So typically what we see is that most sellers will do Walmart fulfillment services, WFS, which is the equivalent of Amazon Prime. There are a couple benefits. 105 00:12:13,860 --> 00:12:18,720 Will Haire: You get some badges like two-day, next-day shipping, the ability to get a pro-seller badge. 106 00:12:18,780 --> 00:12:25,260 Will Haire: There's lots of reasons why you'd want to be on WFS and lots of reason why Walmart would want you on WFS, which is a great opportunity. 107 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:32,260 Will Haire: And it works like FBA, so you'll pay a percent based on the category. Another option is using a third-party logistics company. 108 00:12:32,560 --> 00:12:41,000 Will Haire: Any third-party logistics company that does the direct-to-consumer portion or the last mile, shipping will be able to identify Walmart orders, fill it, and send it out. 109 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:48,760 Will Haire: And then on the back end, we're tracking it. So similar to other marketplaces that have strict guidelines on your order defect rate, late ship. 110 00:12:48,780 --> 00:12:57,260 Will Haire: shipments, making sure it's shipped out properly, damage goods, all that other fun stuff. So they're tracking that as well. And they can be negative KPI. So you want to make sure 111 00:12:57,260 --> 00:13:01,300 Will Haire: similar to your website, similar to what you do on Amazon, that you're considerate and 112 00:13:01,300 --> 00:13:06,060 Will Haire: you're putting your best products and your best brand forward when you're fulfilling these orders 113 00:13:06,060 --> 00:13:10,320 Kevin Mako: with Walmart. I mean, quality is paramount. And it starts with manufacturing as well, right? 114 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:18,980 Kevin Mako: Make sure you have a fantastic product, well designed, well engineered for the market that you're selling it to well tested, et cetera, makes your manufacturing is sound 115 00:13:18,980 --> 00:13:24,100 Kevin Mako: and then quality control on your manufacturing is sound. And then that goes all the way through to where you have it stored, 116 00:13:24,260 --> 00:13:31,080 Kevin Mako: how you have it packed and picked and shipped and all the rest because all of those little details, which are well within your control, any one of them falters. 117 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:38,120 Kevin Mako: And it gives a negative experience to the buyer. So especially as a new product brand, you don't sell that many units. And the advantage 118 00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:43,300 Kevin Mako: there is that you can have a tremendous amount of personal control as a startup over the quality 119 00:13:43,300 --> 00:13:47,340 Kevin Mako: control. Whereas as you get bigger and bigger, you're going to need more systems and processes in order 120 00:13:47,340 --> 00:13:51,320 Kevin Mako: to manage quality control, especially as you get into the tens of not hundreds of thousands of 121 00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:57,020 Kevin Mako: units. But as a small startup, and especially as you're getting your initial orders, reviews are goal, especially for a brand. 122 00:13:57,020 --> 00:14:05,480 Kevin Mako: The best thing you can do for many reasons, not just for subsequent sales, but also just for your brand equity valuation, your product valuation, is getting 123 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:13,280 Kevin Mako: great reviews online from customers that really like and enjoy your product. And it 124 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:20,280 Kevin Mako: So spend the care, spend the attention, especially as a hardware startup, to put the extra effort, especially on those early orders. So you can start gaining that traction. 125 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:26,360 Kevin Mako: Let's talk about best practices here in terms of scaling up and really doing a good job on the platform. 126 00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:35,400 Kevin Mako: Assuming we've got a quality product and it's being fulfilled well, how do we actually continue to amplify the sales and coverage of the Walmart platform for 127 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:36,620 Kevin Mako: your particular product? 128 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:45,600 Will Haire: So a pro tip on that is you want to make sure if you're selling on your website, you have existing. thing, there are apps you can use that are 100% legitimate that will pull your 129 00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:54,480 Will Haire: reviews from Shopify and post them to your Walmart. If you decided you were going to get on Walmart, it was less of a priority and you have a lot of reviews on products. 130 00:14:54,660 --> 00:15:03,720 Will Haire: That can be a shortcut to boost your initial sales because we know that reviews, similar to Amazon influence sales, which influence ranking. So it all kind of works together. 131 00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:11,220 Will Haire: Outside of that, advertising is probably the next best thing you could do to scale your brand. What's unique about Walmart, which to 132 00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:16,080 Will Haire: compared to Amazon and other platforms is just a little different, is that you want to make sure 133 00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:23,100 Will Haire: when you go through the guidelines for search engine optimization, because it is tied to ads. You want to make sure you follow the guidelines very specific. 134 00:15:23,380 --> 00:15:31,300 Will Haire: So there are negative KPIs. And a perfect example is like your title should be less than 70 characters, give or take, no matter what your category is. 135 00:15:31,460 --> 00:15:40,940 Will Haire: But your bullets and description is really where you're able to add in the keyword, the strategic keywords you want to rank for. And the user experience will be good. 136 00:15:40,940 --> 00:15:46,580 Will Haire: you just don't want to stuff that top part. Typically, in Amazon, it works a little different. You'll get 250 characters. 137 00:15:46,900 --> 00:15:53,540 Will Haire: And I bring up Amazon because a lot of brands will start on Amazon. And so a lot of times they just take their Amazon listing and they just copy it verbatim. 138 00:15:53,700 --> 00:16:02,500 Will Haire: But it actually negatively impacts their listings because they're violating all these policies. And I am in no way endorsing keyword stuffing. You should be strategic. 139 00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:09,740 Will Haire: We should identify a handful of root high quality keywords. And root keywords would be like Bluetooth speaker is the root. 140 00:16:09,740 --> 00:16:18,040 Will Haire: Whereas like for shower, whatever else is ancillary to the root. So you want to identify what's most relevant, what has good volume, so on and so forth. 141 00:16:18,140 --> 00:16:28,020 Will Haire: You can advertise on competitors directly. So like I couldn't do like brand A as an ad. The keywords need to exist inside my listing to some degree in order for me to 142 00:16:28,020 --> 00:16:35,920 Will Haire: buy ads against those keywords. So if something's relevant but it's not mentioned in my listing, then I won't be able to advertise on it. 143 00:16:35,940 --> 00:16:44,280 Will Haire: And then a lot of what happens with scales and a lot of your inventors will get kick out of this market it's all data like we're data science we're testing hypothesized 144 00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:51,320 Will Haire: tests hypothesized tests and there are great softwares helium 10 has expanded their software capability to include 145 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:59,660 Will Haire: walmart keyword research so you're able to get an idea of like how searchers search for your product which root keywords should i target based on relevancy and search file how can 146 00:16:59,660 --> 00:17:06,640 Will Haire: i bake them into my listing and using natural language and showcase the unique selling proposition of my product 147 00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:15,920 Will Haire: and then double down with some advertising walmart similar to Amazon. You can do pay-per-click ads, which is money. That's getting people as they're shopping for your product. 148 00:17:16,180 --> 00:17:23,900 Will Haire: That's as bottom of the funnel. Beaufu, as we like to say, at Belivix, that's where it's at. But they also have a programmatic platform that's DSP. 149 00:17:24,220 --> 00:17:31,860 Will Haire: And so that's your ability to use display ads to target customers using Walmart's data on and off the platform. So somebody who maybe 150 00:17:31,860 --> 00:17:40,300 Will Haire: viewed your product but didn't make a purchase is now in my audience. And I have the ability to serve them ads on mobile devices on own and operated properties. 151 00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:46,500 Will Haire: And it's a great way to kind of hit scale. It's not something you would do as a launch. You're going to want to focus on return on 152 00:17:46,500 --> 00:17:54,060 Will Haire: ad spend, return on investment and being as efficient as possible as you're validating the market and understanding, is this something shoppers want? 153 00:17:54,240 --> 00:18:02,320 Will Haire: Am I solving a problem strong enough that they're willing to pay? So that's kind of how we would look at scale. And we really don't do anything off the platform. 154 00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:11,160 Will Haire: There's opportunities with influencers. We know companies that work with influencers that drive traffic. There's ways to leverage Google, YouTube, and other platforms. 155 00:18:11,420 --> 00:18:21,140 Will Haire: But we have been able to achieve scale with brands on Walmart, focusing on listing the product correctly, optimizing it for search and coming up with an ad strategy to help 156 00:18:21,140 --> 00:18:26,660 Will Haire: them get the initial sales and hit the KPIs they need to hit in order to grow over and over again. 157 00:18:26,940 --> 00:18:30,700 Kevin Mako: Yeah, that's great. And what's such a global marketplace, once you can really try and nail those 158 00:18:30,700 --> 00:18:34,720 Kevin Mako: variables, like how do you get eyeballs on your product and then how do you best convert those 159 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:44,180 Kevin Mako: eyeballs, essentially is the day of the game and ideally improving return on ad spend. So once you can figure out those fundamentals, that gives you the ability to scale so 160 00:18:44,180 --> 00:18:52,960 Kevin Mako: large, especially on these big platforms, because the audience, even for a small niche product, the audience is massive worldwide, especially, let alone just in the US. 161 00:18:53,260 --> 00:19:01,560 Kevin Mako: What tremendous opportunity to figure these things out, do your A-B testing, really find those optimizations, nail it specific to each platform, whether 162 00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:08,940 Kevin Mako: it's Walmart or Amazon or anything else that you're selling on. One of the big lessons coming out of here is make sure you're doing it right for that particular platform 163 00:19:08,940 --> 00:19:12,900 Kevin Mako: and the types of buyers that are on that platform and test we can refine until you get it right. 164 00:19:13,100 --> 00:19:20,380 Kevin Mako: And that really will lead you to really clear variables and growth opportunities for scale. Last thing before I let you go, I know we're running out of time here. 165 00:19:20,540 --> 00:19:26,760 Kevin Mako: Talk a bit about what Belavix do to help emerging hardware startup brands and where can people go to learn more. 166 00:19:26,980 --> 00:19:34,700 Will Haire: Awesome. Yeah, we appreciate that. So we are a full service marketing management agency. We're a turnkey option. Once that inventory shipped out the fifth phone. 167 00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:39,960 Will Haire: Center. The team will make sure that you're maintaining account health. We're working with your third party logistics company. 168 00:19:40,360 --> 00:19:47,880 Will Haire: We're building out the marketing and advertising strategy. And we're hitting the KPIs that are important to you as a brand based on where you are in terms of your 169 00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:55,400 Will Haire: maturity. Obviously, a launch is going to have different KPIs than somebody's been in market for 10 years. We get clear. We try to act as your platform partner. 170 00:19:55,600 --> 00:20:02,360 Will Haire: So the best way to think of us as your fractional Walmart partner or fractional marketplace. And come check us out. We're BellaVix.com. 171 00:20:02,360 --> 00:20:11,140 Will Haire: That's B-E-E-L-A-V-I-X.com. The website is where you can best reach us. And we post on our blog a few times a week on just tips. 172 00:20:11,300 --> 00:20:21,040 Will Haire: So if you're a small business or you're launching, you may not have enough funds to hire a full channel agency to manage. We have lots of information to help you get started. 173 00:20:21,260 --> 00:20:27,220 Will Haire: What are some things to consider? Here's what we do for software. I'd say use our blog to get started. It's a great resource. 174 00:20:27,420 --> 00:20:30,460 Will Haire: And we also have a newsletter that syndicates a lot of that same stuff. 175 00:20:30,460 --> 00:20:36,480 Kevin Mako: Will, much appreciated for sharing that. And as always, I will put the links to that in the show notes below so anyone can just click through. 176 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:40,980 Kevin Mako: Thanks again for sharing all your words of wisdom today, Will, and we'll look forward to talking to you again soon. 177 00:20:41,060 --> 00:20:42,200 Will Haire: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Kevin. 178 00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:43,800 Kevin Mako: This was a pleasure. Thanks, Will. Take care. 179 00:20:43,980 --> 00:20:52,360 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit the like button and subscribe. 180 00:20:52,760 --> 00:21:00,580 Narrator: If you have any questions, yes, suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to us anytime at our email, podcast at MakoDesign.com. 181 00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:10,180 Narrator: This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's leading expert on product development for hardware startups, and the podcast is produced by Mako Design, the original 182 00:21:10,180 --> 00:21:17,840 Narrator: firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. 183 00:21:18,140 --> 00:21:25,180 Narrator: Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com. 184 00:21:25,180 --> 00:21:28,160 Narrator: Thanks for joining and see you again soon. Thank you.