Amazon is trying to destroy competition like Teemu

and eBay. And why are they doing this? Because they want you on their

platform. And if you're a brand owner, you should be taking advantage

of Amazon's Launchpad program right now. When

you go into Amazon, you have the opportunity to do PPC, which

is pay-per-click advertising. Ultimately, Amazon is

there to make money on PPC. So why would they tell

you how you can reduce your costs On PPC, it's

a bit of gloss from Amazon to sort of say, oh, we're

here to help you. We'll provide you this guidance. They're not going to do the

PPC for you. Let's just make that clear, OK? They're going to tell you

what you should or shouldn't do. But you still have to spend money. I'm

Matthew Fraser. And this is Amazon Ecom

Secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from

millions in debt to an eight-figure entrepreneur. If

you're ready to escape the nine-to-five and live life on your terms,

let me show you the way. Hey guys, welcome to Amazon Ecom Secrets.

My name is Matthew Fraser. And if you've been following me on

this channel for some time now, you're probably thinking, wow, where

are you? Well, I'm in the showroom. This is where I keep all my

car collection brought to you fundamentally by

Amazon. Thanks to Amazon, I now have a car collection, including this cool

hangout. And I thought I'm trying to incorporate what is

really special to me outside of Amazon, but

including it in the Amazon episodes. So hence why

I'm now sitting in just some place to sit back and

relax and talk to you guys about all ways to make money through

Amazon and e-commerce. Now, today's episode, I want to dive

deep into this thing that Amazon has launched. And I've

got on my phone here, I'm going to go through the details of Launchpad

or Amazon Launchpad. That's what it's called. Now, from

the outset, it sounds good, but let's break down what

this really means to people, especially those who are new

to Amazon. And will the Amazon Launchpad program

really benefit you? I can say this Launchpad program hasn't

been around for that long. When I started in 2017, there was no

Amazon Launchpad program. Back then, it was

fairly basic and I think over time, Amazon

has tried to, one, improve the

platform for consumers and sellers as

well. They've also tried to, from

a seller's perspective, try to get rid of some of the fraudsters.

Sometimes you'll have people who come onto the Amazon platform, maybe they're trying to

copy your product. Maybe they're copying your product, but

they're not even selling anything, right? So they're just stealing people's money. Maybe

people are coming on there and copying your trademark or your patents. And

there is a program separate to the Amazon Launchpad program, which

is brand registry and transparency programs. And

those programs are designed so that if you do have a trademark for example on

your product and someone else copies that trademark name,

like a word name, then you can report that to

Amazon and Amazon will actually take action. Before that

existed, you would probably have to go through some

sort of lawyer or attorney to

take action. But you'd have to even find out who the seller

is and that can be quite difficult. So I think you have

to give props to Amazon for trying to protect sellers and your brand on

their platform. I know for myself, I've used, I am brand registered

on the Amazon platform. and I use it all the

time. There's always people coming on to Amazon copying or

infringing on the trademark and I simply let

Amazon know and usually within 24 hours they're

gone. Okay, so it does work. But

I want to talk to you about this latest program,

Amazon Launchpad. Now from the outset, I'm going to read some of

the information here and we'll give you my two cents on what I think. What

we can see here, the program is invitation only.

So what does that mean for you as a seller? It means

that you've actually got to create your listing, put

your product up on Amazon, start making some sales, and

then at some point you can apply to Amazon. to

be a part of this Amazon launchpad program. So don't

think from the outset, you actually might think, Oh,

I'm going to go and create this product. And then I'm going to

go to Amazon and see if they want to launch it for me before

you've even actually opened an account or put your product on Amazon. It's not like

that. It's the other way around. You've got to go and create the product. Perhaps

you're already selling on Shopify or something like that outside of Amazon.

So you've got to create the product, you've got to be the brand owner as well. And

which is actually interesting because for me, I'm not the brand

owner. And if you don't know that little bit of history,

I have a product that I sell, it's a healthcare product. I sell

it across the globe. It's now done nearly $50 million in sales. I

sell it on many different Amazon platforms and Shopify

and a host of other marketplaces around the world. But

what I did, and this is one of the little secrets that I reveal, is

that I went and got a exclusive distribution

on this product. The product is manufactured in Australia and

And I just then I took that distribution agreement and

then went crazy and just started selling it everywhere. And, but what that

does though, it gives me the rights to sell that product on

Amazon in USA, Canada, and a whole host of other things,

uh, exclusively. So no one else can come in and try and cut

my grass for me now. So

in that particular case, because I'm not the brand owner,

I'm just essentially just a reseller. I

wouldn't be able to join the Amazon Launchpad program. Okay. So

just keep that in mind. You've actually got to be the brand owner. It says,

we use Amazon's, this is Amazon now saying, if you join their program, they

use the world-class expertise in

global infrastructure and powerful marketing tools

to help you tell your story and deliver your products. Participation

in Amazon Australia Launchpad is linked to

your selling Amazon account and listings associated

with the account. So as I mentioned before, you've got to already be

active in the Amazon space before applying to be in this program. And

it's also to help you jumpstart and accelerate your

Amazon business. Their mission, Amazon's mission is

to support entrepreneurs and startups that

create, sell and deliver innovative products to Amazon

customers. So let me just talk about that. Innovative

products. Hmm. I wonder what that could mean. I tell you what it's

not. You can't go to China and

get a cutlery set or

a yoga mat and then put it into Amazon and

then say, here's my, I'm the brand owner of

XYZ yoga mat. And I'd

like to join the Amazon launchpad program. So please take

me on. They're going to look at that and say, well, what's

innovative about that? It's just like every other yoga mat.

If you had though a yoga mat that was that maybe it

included artificial intelligence somehow it somehow had

some like electrical component in it and it could help

you Maybe it talked to you as

you were doing your yoga poses and maybe it

showed you in the mat. Maybe there was like some screen in the mat that

showed you the different positions you could do. And it gave

you a score, like a rating or something like that. Now that

would be innovative because that doesn't exist. Okay. And so

that is the type of product. that you

could apply for the Amazon Launchpad

program. And it could also be not just

like a physical type of product like that, but it could be like a food

product. If you had created some amazing chocolate bar

or amazing, I don't know, tomato relish or something under

your own brand, that could qualify. I did

look before this and saw something that was quite interesting and it was a

guy who'd created a particular type of food product

that was using Aboriginal native

ingredients is basically what they said. And so that

type of product was unique in the marketplace, therefore it

would fall under innovative. And that was something that Amazon was willing

to take on. So have a think about that. So

what does Amazon provide to you if you qualify? It

says they provide tools and services such as onboarding

support, marketing consultations, enhanced

brand merchandising and account support to

help brands maximize their success on Amazon. Well,

let me just tell you a little bit about that because there

are Amazon consultants that actually call me like regularly.

But I find that they're not actually that good, right? Here's

an example. When you go into Amazon, you have the opportunity to

do what's called PPC, which is pay-per-click advertising.

And all the time I'm getting contacted by these consultants who

will, hey, Matthew, we really want to help you maximize your sales by

giving you some tips and tricks of how to do your PPC. Now,

I actually outsourced my PPC to someone else. To

tell you the quick history, I started doing my own, I educated myself

on doing PPC in the very beginning. And once I, it was

probably about, I think 18 months or two years into my

journey, I realized I'd exhausted my scope

of PPC. I knew there was someone better out

there who would do it, who would do it better than me. And I just didn't want to have to really worry

about it. And then I found my own PPC guy,

who I've now been working with for years and years, who took my sales at the time, which

were $50,000 a month, all the

way, I'm talking like in the space of a month, from one month to the next month,

from $50,000 a month to $100,000 a month. Yeah. So

let's just say the investment in having someone who's an

expert in PPC was well worth it. But so

I've got these people now from Amazon calling me and I

keep pushing back at them, you know, why don't you provide this? Why don't you provide that? Why

don't you give me the insight into this? And they don't really do it.

Right. And I think it's a bit of gloss from

Amazon to sort of say, oh, we're here to help you. Um, you

know, we'll provide you this guidance, but ultimately. I think

you could find a, they're not going to do the PPC for you. Let's

just make that clear. Okay. They're going to tell you what you should or shouldn't do,

but you still have to spend money. Right. And I guarantee you,

and I've asked them, so if I do what you say and I don't make

sales, does that mean you're going to refund me the cost of the PPC? Of

course they're not. No, no, no, we're not going to do that. Okay. So

therefore I think, I think it's so important that you

take the power back into your own hands and not rely

on Amazon because ultimately Amazon is there to make money on

PPC. Okay. So why would they tell you

how you can reduce your costs on PPC? Right.

They want to, they want to make sure that you spend way more money. And I think some

of the other things too on here, things like marketing, the

onboarding, of course, well, think about it. In order even

to apply for Amazon Launchpad, you've already got

to be onboarded and operating on Amazon.

So the opportunity for them to help you with the onboarding, that's been

and gone, okay? And could they help you

maximize other things like keywords, because the main things that are going

to work for your listing Keyword optimization, which

is in the title, the bullet points description. Also having amazing photography

is key. You may even have video content on

there as well. So there are some things that they could potentially

help you with if you were completely green on

operating on Amazon. Okay. And maybe some of these brand owners are,

I will say. Which is funny because I

have spoken to many, many brand owners, not just brand owners who

are on Amazon, but just inventors and brand owners over the

years. And I will say there is

definitely a big learning curve from not being on

Amazon to then operating on Amazon. And I can understand why

so many brand owners find it daunting to

think they've got to take some steps to go into the Amazon realm because. As

you can appreciate, if you are someone who's in business, you're busy.

Especially if you're a brand owner and you're manufacturing your

own product, you're flat out just doing that. And maybe

you're selling it through a Shopify store, so you've got your own fulfillment thing happening, or maybe

you're even selling it through your own bricks and mortar store. To

then think that, hang on a second, I've now got to go learn the

whole Amazon system marketplace. It's like, oh

my God, I just don't want to think about that. But

guys, listen to this. That is where the opportunity lies.

Because just like what I did, I was able to secure a product

that wasn't on Amazon. And you're going to say, well, how did you do that? I

was actually doing videos of just like talking about me

selling on Amazon when a local gentleman reached out to me and

said, Hey, I see you're selling on Amazon and

I'd like to get my product on Amazon. Can we please meet? And

that's literally what happened. So after that, I started, I

realized that there was all these companies and

brand owners out there that wanted to be on Amazon, but

didn't know how to do it or didn't really didn't really want

to do it, right? Because like I said, they're too busy manufacturing their

product. And it'd be a bit like, you

know, they want to get into Coles or Woolies, but

they don't know how to do it, right? And they

don't go and open up their own Coles or Woolies, they just simply give

it to Coles and Woolies to sell in their own stores. It's a bit like what

I've done, they just give it to me to go and sell on Amazon. And

so that is where the, maybe for you, the $50 million

opportunity could lie if you get the right product. So

let's go back into this Amazon Launchpad. What are the requirements?

You must be the brand owner. I've already said that. You will also be

required to register your eligible products in Amazon Brand

Registry. Now, there are people out

there who are brand owners, who invest all this

time and energy in actually creating the product. doing

all the R&D, taking it to market in whatever platform

or method that is, and they don't even go and get their

brand name trademarked. Can you believe

it? I've met these people. And so I

remember talking to one guy years ago, He

actually had a tent peg company and the

tent peg itself was something unique. It had a patent on

the design. Apparently the Australian military was even using

it to fasten some of their, I don't

know, their military gear on airfields and airstrips, maybe

some of the lighting or something. It would keep them locked

down on the ground. And so I spoke to him

about taking his product into Amazon. I said, okay, great. Well, obviously

you've got, Trademark right on this brand. I can't remember the

brand and he said No,

I don't have it. I said what really and

so once I dig some I did some digging That brand

because we wanted to launch this into the United States that brand had

already been taken So then I had to go back and talk to him about

well, maybe we're gonna have to rebrand even if we just did

a rebrand for the USA market Cut

a long story short, he didn't want to do that. It caused a lot

of problems. Now, Amazon now requires most

brands to have brand

registry, which means you've got to have a patent, mainly

a trademark on your brand name. which

means it gives you, in case you don't know what trademark is, basically

you're going to register your brand and it could be Matz Yoga

Matz. That name is going to be registered with a trademark

entity, which is the government entity, and

they will then give you protection. Now, as you can appreciate, there's

a lot of brands that have been taken up by now that

are already trademarked. So you've come up with something pretty unique. That's

why you see a lot of brands these days come up with words that

have just a little bit of miss misspelling. Um, what's

a good example? Like, like Insta, you know, it might be

like I-N-S-T-A, but you might change it to I-N-S-T-E-R. Yeah.

Or vice versa, depending on what sort of word it is. those

types of words, variations of words, um, can easily

then be trademarked. And so once you have that trademark, it's,

it's applies to the territory. So it would be a USA trademark.

The USA trademark is not protected in, uh, UK,

right? So you've got to get different trademarks for different territories and there

are ways to get trademarks even for like a global

trademark. But here's where it gets

a bit, um, get more complicated is that You,

when you're starting out in a brand, perhaps you're not sure if

it's going to be a big thing. And so

therefore you, it's about investing the money, right? Every time you

go and invest money on a trademark, it costs more

money. Now let's just say you don't end up going to the UK, but you

then went and spent money in the UK trademark. Well. So be it, right? So

it comes down to money. In the beginning, you don't generally have a lot of money. And

so that can be a problem. So back to Amazon, in order

to have this brand registry, you've got to have a trademark. Okay.

You can then use that trademark, lodge it into Amazon. So

that Amazon, like I said before, will protect your brand. Now

here's the other qualification. your brand's

trailing 12 month gross sales has

to be under $10 million. Now I

know some of the stats on this, you know, because I've, I've done, um, you

know, in one single year, I think I did nearly, you know, 15 million

odd dollars in a single year. And I was like, well into like

the top 1%, not many people on Amazon are doing those sort

of numbers. So if you are going to be doing under

$10 million, obviously you will easily qualify for that. It

then goes on to say, to delight our customers with the prime

experience, your orders must be fulfilled by using fulfillment

by Amazon at all times during your participation of

the Amazon Launchpad. Now, what does that

mean? It means that you have to

have your product in Amazon's warehouse so that they

can hold it, Fulfill it and

then ship it. Okay. Now, why is that a benefit to Amazon? Well,

they get paid more money, right? Because when Amazon's holding

onto your stock, you're going to have to pay them storage fees, fulfillment fees,

potentially return fees, restocking fees. and

then obviously the shipping, right? Now, no matter where you are, whether it's

in your own fulfillment center or even if you're packing these out

of your own home, you're gonna have to pay for postage, okay?

So the only benefit really to Amazon is that they're gonna

get paid on those other things. But also by

being in Amazon, you can, you

can qualify to be like a prime seller. Okay. So

let me go back a second. This is quite powerful is that. Amazon

provides a program for, for, uh, the

consumer, which is called prime. I'm a member of prime and I think it costs

about $99 a year and I get free shipping

on everything. I even get like the Amazon prime TV

channel. Okay. You get a whole host of things. And,

but if you're going into, if you're, if you don't have your products

in Amazon, you potentially don't qualify to

be shipped out for free, which means the customer's now going to have to pay. If they want to buy your

product, they got to pay for shipping. And one of the filters that

customers can do when they go into Amazon is they can say, only

show me prime products. Yeah.

Meaning products that, that will get free shipping on. And if you don't come up

in that filter, well, you're not going to get the sales. So there's

pros and cons for everything. I have, you're going to

ask me, well, Matt, what do you do? All of my products that

I sell on Amazon are in Amazon FBA. They're in the

Amazon warehouse and I let for pure convenience

and also to be able to be on the prime program, I

have it all fulfilled by Amazon. So

the conveniences, and I have done both, I've gone from

testing products, packaging them up and shipping them

out of my garage, all the way through to sending

the product into Amazon and just saying, okay guys, you

can handle it from here, right? So every time I make sales, I don't have to run around and do anything.

Amazon picks it, packs it and ships it and handles the

customer, everything. So it is really the benefit. And

one of the key things actually, why I even joined Amazon in

2016, because ultimately I thought that's

actually what I want. So definitely something that you

should be doing. So for these guys here, you have to have your products

if you want to go on this Launchpad program in Amazon FBA. The

other thing it says, have a unique differentiator which

makes your product stand out from the crowd. So this goes back to what I

was talking about with the yoga mat, for example. You can't just buy

yoga mats from China, ship them into Amazon, say, okay, I

want to be on your Launchpad program, right? Because there's nothing unique about it. You've got

to have something that will differentiate you. If you had your AI

somehow built into the yoga mat, that is going to be clearly something

that's going to be a differentiating point. So

the other thing when thinking about a differentiated product, it

can't be just the brand name. You

can't just buy products off the shelf in China. And

even if you said, yeah, but the color's different. You

could argue the point and say, yeah, there's no other fluorescent colored yoga

mats in Amazon. So therefore I've got a unique name and a unique color.

So now therefore it's differentiated. You could try it,

but I don't think it's going to fly with Amazon. I think they're looking for something a bit more

powerful and innovative. than just you change the

color of the yoga mat. So that is something to definitely consider. So

let's just say that you are a brand owner and you do have an

innovative product and you qualify based

on all the Amazon requirements. You

are the brand owner, you've done under $10 million a year, you've got

your trademark in place, you're already operating on the

Amazon Australia marketplace. Should you apply

for the Amazon Launchpad program? I would say, why

not? Who knows what they could provide you?

Especially if you're someone who is new to Amazon. For

me, I look at all these different things that they're providing. It's like second nature

to me. It's like, it's not a big deal. But if you're brand new,

I think if you can get any leg up,

above the competition. And I think too, it'll save you

having to go invest maybe some time and money into getting those

skills yourself. If they're going to help you, then why

wouldn't you take advantage of that? Some of the reasons why I

think you should take advantage as a new seller on Amazon with

this Launchpad program, are some of the key benefits that

Amazon is going to provide you. Let me go through them and tell you why they're important. So

first thing they talk about is A-plus, premium A-plus

content for your products. And this is where they're going to add video

content, a whole bunch of extra marketing material that

will help make your brand more attractive to the consumer. They'll

also help run ads for you and it says here, showcased

in the Amazon's collections like new

and noteworthy, customers most love and

internet famous. So that's some extra little bit of marketing

that will help your brand and ultimately help some sales. You

can also get access to get

the cost of two lightning deals or best deals waived each week,

right? So that's an actual, like right there, that's money in

your pocket, right? That no one else is getting that. Enroll

in unlimited number of products in Amazon Vine at no

cost. Wow. Now that is

special. You're going to say, well, Matt, what is the Amazon Vine program? I

don't know how many times I've said this, reviews equals money,

okay? And when you're on the Amazon platform, the only way that a

consumer can tell if your product is worth buying,

because they can't pick it up off the shelf, right? They're not walking through a department store. The

only way they can tell is by looking at the reviews that other

people have left about your product, because they're unbiased

reviews. So customers will sometimes

read those reviews, but you'll also get a review score. And

if you've got just a lot of reviews and it gives you, they also give you

a star rating. So let's say you're four and a half out of five stars and

you've got 6,000 reviews. Sometimes the customer

won't even look at the reviews because automatically that tells them that there's a lot of

trust in this brand and product. Now,

when you're first starting out on selling on Amazon, that is the problem, right?

You have to get the sales to get the reviews. So what Amazon

does is they provide you with what's called the Vine program, which

you give free products out to Amazon customers

so that they will leave a review. What

this is saying under this Amazon Launchpad program is, enroll

an unlimited number of products in Amazon Vine

at no cost. That's incredible because

if you're not in the Launchpad program, you can't do unlimited and

it does cost you money. Right? So this is really,

really powerful. It also says here, receive

10 to $25,000 in AWS activate

credits. Okay. I didn't even know what that is, but

it sounds good. It also says access

$2,000 in sponsored ad click credits. Now, this

is when we're going now deep into this Amazon Launchpad initiative

because that wasn't in the last lot of information

that I saw. So that is actually money

in your pocket. So now I'm starting to really love this program, especially

if you could take advantage of it. What else does it say? Grow

with support. Access the Launchpad portal, which

is our resource hub for emerging brands. Troubleshoot

with help from Launchpad support team. Review data

insights to improve your product catalog. Get

help creating product variations. That could be powerful. Stay

up to date. What's a variation you're going to say? Let's say you're doing

yoga mats. You've got an innovative yoga mat. A

variation of the yoga mat could just simply be the color. That's

how simple it could be. A variation of, or

it could be sizing. That lady I mentioned before about doing some

of the sporting wear, if she had different sizing, that would

be a variation of her product. It says, stay up to date with

Launchpad benefits, education, monthly newsletter, and

protect products with a dedicated offer. Guys,

I think overall, now that I've read the real

detail about this Amazon Launchpad program, I think if

you can qualify, clearly there's going to be some actual

money benefit to you, which could grow your business into

the future. Let's do it. Some

might say, what is the catch? But you're going

to think of it from Amazon's point of view. They want you to be on the Amazon

platform, right? They would rather you not be on any other platform and

just come to Amazon. So they're going to offer you incentives

to come to the platform. They also want to have innovative

products on the Amazon platform. That's why they're trying to

encourage you to come to their platform rather than the

Amazon competition, potentially in Australia, things

like eBay and Catch. And

they don't want them on there, right? They want you to come to Amazon. So

that's why they are providing you some benefits, some

incentives to get in there and help grow

your business. So ultimately guys, if

I had the choice and if I was the brand owner, which I'm not, I

would definitely try and take advantage of the Amazon Launchpad program. All

right, guys. Thank you so much. Hope you've enjoyed that. Get out

there and get your Launchpad program happening if you qualify and

look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Take care. Tuning

into Amazon Ecom Secrets. If you enjoyed this

episode, the best way to show your support is to give a

five-star review on Apple Podcast and Spotify, and

make sure to subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss an

episode. You can also find more at I'm

Matthew Fraser on all social media platforms. Thanks