In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – Hymie Zebede - Hymie Zebede Agency - talks about how to play and dominate the Amazon sellers conversion game and also more information about his life's journey. #hymiezebede #ecommerce
About Hymie Zebede of the Hymie Zebede Agency -
-12 years of experience creating and scaling brands on Amazon.com.
- Proven track record of creating and launching individual listings that sell over $1M+ a year.
- Top Level understanding of the art and science of the Amazon.com algorithm.
Yoni Mazor 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Prime talk today I'm excited to have a special guest today I'm having my man. Hi Miss Zebede. Hymie has a really special guy because he has a boutique agency that partners with Amazon sellers, but it focuses on hyper-growth. So Hymie, welcome to the show.
Hymie Zebede 0:20
Thank you, Yoni. Glad to be here.
Yoni Mazor 0:23
My pleasure. So today's episode is going to be the story of really high visibility and showed us everything who are you? Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? Where do you go to school? How do you begin your professional career? Station to station until we hit two? We're where you are today, especially in the world of E-commerce. So without further ado, let's jump right into it.
Hymie Zebede 0:42
Okay, great. Where should I start? We're here. When you're born, man, where were you born? I was born. I was born in New York, New York City.
Hymie Zebede 0:53
I moved. I lived in Jersey my whole life. I do.
Yoni Mazor 1:00
Dirt. Yeah, Monmouth County, New Jersey Shore.
Hymie Zebede 1:03
Exactly. My whole life. When I was 18 years old, I moved to Brooklyn for a few years. And I am actually on a vacation. When I was 18 years old or 19 years old. I was in Florida, and I met my wife. And after that, a matter of Florida. She was vacationing, she lived in Brooklyn, and I live in Jersey.
Hymie Zebede 1:29
And we both met up at the same place we met in a gym. And after that, I started I moved straight to Brooklyn just so we can be closer together. And during that time all my friends were in college. But I was working by doing for work. So I was working in my father's art gallery. And all my friends were in college and I was I went a little too forward actually before I'm aware.
Yoni Mazor 2:08
Something already very interesting to me. Right? Did you say Art Gallery for your father? Yes. The moment to the family environment. When you growing up, your father was into artists. What's the background story there?
Hymie Zebede 2:17
My father had it. He was always into that business and art and jewellery. And you know, it's very old things like that antiques and owns a lot of my family members have had was in that business, my father and my uncle.
Yoni Mazor 2:38
So how do they find these antiques? And how do they sell them? And how that does do maybe influenced you or your entrepreneurial spirit since you're an entrepreneur, you always have to be on the move to find unique things. But even more than that the unique buyers’ rights are so take us a little bit to that journey as far as you perceive it.
Hymie Zebede 2:56
That had to do with my like works. And I never worked for anyone in my life. Like I always my father had his own business his whole life. So that's what I've always seen. My parents got divorced when I was young, and my stepfather who I also love very close also has an antique store. So he has so he also was in that same business and is also an entrepreneur and my uncle has an antique store and art store and like my whole family. It's crazier in this
Yoni Mazor 3:27
And all these antique stores. It was in the New York area, New York,
Hymie Zebede 3:31
Miami, New Jersey, and just I've always been around people working for themselves and having their businesses. And I never, I knew anything else. Really. I never. I never knew anything else. And my whole life. I was working very hard and just my parents didn't give me them they gave me love and things like that. But everything was always on me.
Yoni Mazor 3:53
Financially, it was always on you to want to get your money and do it to get whatever you want so
Hymie Zebede 3:57
Yeah, I had to just take care of myself. Well, I want to go back to that because I went a little too fast forward when I graduated high school. I went to Israel for a year. Yeah, to yeshiva. And that's what I lived off of just all the money ahead from my Bar Mitzvah. And after that, I came home. And my parents are like, what are you doing here? And I'm like, what do you mean, I just got back from Israel. They're like, Okay, you're an adult. Go out. Go move somewhere. So yeah. Oh, man. That's it. Yeah. So So basically, that's when I actually before I moved to Brooklyn, I was my friends were on Rutgers.
Yoni Mazor 4:35
Rutgers is the State University of New Jersey. Yeah, so if you're New Jersey born it's a bit more affordable to go there. Plus, it's a really good school. But of course, it takes us outside people.
Hymie Zebede 4:44
But I wasn't a student of rockers. I was that I was working. I was working in the city at my father's antique store. And I live in my friend's dorm and there in their room, that they rented a house and I actually paid rent and I stayed there err, I just commute to the city every day to work. Yeah, so I didn't go to Rutgers University, but I wanted the college experience, I wanted to just hang out with my friends.
Hymie Zebede 5:11
So I would sleep there, they rented a house. And I went to work every morning, you know, like just partied every night with them. And then when everyone was like, still sleeping, I would just get myself ready to hop on a train and go to the city and work. And, you know, I got a little college experience like that. It was fun. And I was also making money and taking care of myself. Yeah. And then
Yoni Mazor 5:35
The next step, so you're working, you know, the family business. You're in a mansion, right? The antiques. Yeah. Okay, what was your next session, though, in terms of, you know, spreading your wings?
Hymie Zebede 5:44
So after that, I actually, met my wife in Florida on a vacation. And we started dating and her family had a manufacturing company, clothing and they also had some retail stores. So I tried working out working by the retail stores for a little bit. I was supervising like eight stores, just going to Harlem, Queens, the Bronx, like every day, going on managing a bunch of different stores who's that's pretty hard. Yeah, it was extremely tiring. And it was working every single Sunday. My only day off was Saturday, the Sabbath. And a hard experience. And then I thought
Yoni Mazor 6:27
Why that was take me to the year that's slapping the years on this? So what year was that when he started working for the retail stores? In the New York area, or New York City area?
Hymie Zebede 6:36
This was when I was 20 years old. So I don't remember what the year was but
Yoni Mazor 6:40
Was the 1980s are
Hymie Zebede 6:43
Born in 88. So what is that?
Yoni Mazor 6:45
So this is 2008. So this is all during the recession, you always work in the city during the recession. So we thought was good, though,
Hymie Zebede 6:52
Was retail good? We sold very, very cheap things, you know, business dollar to dollar, you know, is all very, very dirt cheap things. But I didn't like that business. And I didn't want to work for anyone. So what I started to do was I started to buy the clothing from my in-laws and throw it online. And
Yoni Mazor 7:18
Online. It was Amazon was eBay both what was though
Hymie Zebede 7:20
Mark, it was everything it was made on a website, eBay, Amazon, and they all think God was doing pretty well. But Amazon was just taking off like fire was just unbelievable.
Yoni Mazor 7:34
This is already 2008 or a bit later on 2000, maybe 2008 2008 As a result selling on Amazon. That's cool. Wow. 14 years,
Hymie Zebede 7:44
Maybe not going to record this or maybe 2009. Okay,
Yoni Mazor 7:48
One year. All right. So it's been about 13 years now. Wow, it's pretty impressive. We get 2009 Amazon and e-commerce is knocking on your door, you buy your inventory and business. So all these marketplaces plus your website, what was the next milestone for you?
Hymie Zebede 8:02
And then after that, the next milestone for me was on I just say I got these listings that just caught on fire and just started making me crazy amounts of money. Because, you know, it's like, most I had maybe 30 items listed. But all the items that were making me money were like five or five listings in total, you know, the 8020 rule.
Yoni Mazor 8:21
Right. But this is, these are brands that you're reselling, or these were like your own private label as far as you perceive it.
Hymie Zebede 8:27
So it was my private label because I was like brands that I was buying, but I would rip off the tags, I would rip off the tags. And I would just put in my brand name on Amazon. And since the items were so cheap, people didn't know it was like I'm selling Nike
Yoni Mazor 8:44
Stock. Commodities are almost commodities. Yeah. So they
Hymie Zebede 8:47
Don’t care what the name of the brand was if it's if I'm selling something so cheap like that. So I started off ripping off the tags and just sending it in with no tags. It did that for like a year, maybe two. And then I got to a level where I started having them come in with the tags and making them from China.
Yoni Mazor 9:08
What's your label with your private label?
Hymie Zebede 9:11
With my private label? Yeah,
Yoni Mazor 9:13
Got it. So you took out the tags just to see if there's a demand on the platforms. And once you discover the demand you've already kind of upgrade to the realm of having your label made directly in the factory.
Hymie Zebede 9:24
Exactly. Just wanted to test it out for us because not everything is a home run and now want to see what works and what didn't and then there's just a very easy, very easy way to test it out. You know, take a few cases and see what hits. Nice. Make sense. I tell people to do that all the time.
Hymie Zebede 9:39
By the way when people you know I still tell people you got to say buy from somebody in the industry by seeing what moves before you start making a very big order to China. And then after that if you see some things moving on to under somebody else's brand. You could eventually bring in your brand and start to market yourself if you can't get an exclusive with them. But like testing out first before you just take a giant risk on something
Yoni Mazor 10:00
Yeah, celebrate production just do this covertly though. Yeah. Okay, good. So it's always the next milestone, though. You will you know, you, you make a big pure purchase order and blowing up or what was the best trajectory.
Hymie Zebede 10:14
So I was doing that, I got married. And I lived off of Amazon, like, that's how I bought my house. For my kids in school, like everything was from Amazon, and was really from like, three listings, like leggings and a few shoe listings, you know. And after that I started, when I ordered from I ordered a container, I remember it was like 30 $40,000 worth of goods for like one product.
Hymie Zebede 10:44
And the whole thing came in smelling like fish. Yeah. And then I realized that I don't know anything about sourcing, but I was very good at Amazon, I got the listing in the US selling hundreds of pieces a day I'm living off of, you know, I'm doing almost $2 million a year from two, three listings. And I didn't know how to source I didn't know how to get the best price. I didn't know what quality control you were supposed to do like checks. You know, I didn't know any of that stuff. So that was the was like one like a big hit on me.
Yoni Mazor 11:17
So what do you do with the smelly container? What will happen? I
Hymie Zebede 11:20
Don’t know. It's probably because I don't even know where it is. I don't even know. Just
Yoni Mazor 11:24
Like that. Yeah, he's just Oh, yeah, sure. So what was the raw, there's no internet. So what do you do next? I guess perfect, you're sourcing for that point. Now was this a pivotal moment for you?
Hymie Zebede 11:34
So that was a horrible, horrible event. And then I started, I just kept continuing and kept grinding away, thank God made like the other styles, and I was still able to keep making money. And then maybe I had another issue with sizing on one of my items, you know, like, the sizing was off. This was like a second quality issue.
Yoni Mazor 11:57
So the idea was, like, more like a small and the large. Everything was
Hymie Zebede 12:01
Coming in the wrong sizes, I was getting killed with bad reviews. Killed. And at that point, this was like, maybe four or five years. And we saw it on Amazon. I said you know, like, I don't know anything about all this stuff. And I'm, I may I'm making a killing off of two, or three listings. Why don't I try to work with somebody who has experience in sourcing and, in this type of thing, manufacturing?
Hymie Zebede 12:32
Because I've never been in that business. I know, I know, Amazon, like why am I focusing on dealing with all these things for the suppliers, it's not my strong point. So that's really where I started working with other people, you know, just people that have goods, if there's a lot of big wholesale companies, manufacturing companies, they don't know, they don't have any presence online, or they're on Amazon, and they're doing nothing, and I would talk to them, and I'd be like, you guys are doing half a million dollars or less on Amazon.
Hymie Zebede 13:02
And like, I'm doing $2 million on Amazon with two styles. Three styles. Why never the whole catalogs? Yeah, yeah, you have a whole catalog, why are you guys not moving any good? Right. So like, people gave me a chance just to build up their business. And I thank God, like, I've built up a lot of businesses.
Yoni Mazor 13:22
While he was that, when he kind of reached out basically up to that point, he said, for five years. So this is around 2014 2013 14, where you're in your bubble, you know, trapped, you know, and a good but we're position where you figured out the marketplace how to you know, bring to the consumers in and, and grow with revenue,
Yoni Mazor 13:42
but the source thing was a weak point for you and it's consuming so he said, let me open up a little bit or, you know, burst my bubble reach out and reach out to the players, these wholesalers or manufacturers that have a good catalog of quality going on, but they don't have the market. Right? So you put that as an opportunity for both sides, and you're going to have a win-win situation. So why was that when you opened up to help others you know, in partner basically to with manufacturers or other distributors,
Hymie Zebede 14:09
This might have been maybe 2014 Something like that, maybe 2014 Maybe 2015 14
Yoni Mazor 14:18
So what was the impact? What were your results?
Hymie Zebede 14:22
I partnered up with a shoe company. We grew that business to like a million dollars within a few months. And that was like my first time partnering with somebody and I realized I made a bad deal. You know, because I didn't know I didn't still move to it like I didn't know what I was doing. I was deal off of profits you know, but basically when the Prophet when he's working on now just because you don't know what the profits are and you know the warehousing and things,
Yoni Mazor 14:51
They can tell you any price you can't validate the cost because it might cost him $2 To make the shoe but it tells you it's costing $8 In units only 10 cents. Is $2 property might be $8. You can't you’re not privy to the actual numbers, the book sale.
Hymie Zebede 15:03
So yeah, so that wasn't you know, that was just a learning experience for me on what not to do for the next coming deals. But thank God by doing that, you know, one door, one door closes another one opens next for me doing that people realize that I said I had a lot of good, a lot of good and I had a very good experience in what I could do. And people gave me other chances. And then I went on to the next person and like I've been doing this for years, just always getting hired better and better results. Thank God
Yoni Mazor 15:36
Give me a little bit of the approach, I want to also kind of gauge differences between 2014 15 what was required back then, and what is required today, which I assume is much more complex, much more enhanced, and sophisticated. So take us through the use of 214 to 15 to 16. When you partner with these, with these companies, and he put them online on Amazon and what was required back then what was the main drivers of growth back then. And if we can touch a little bit about today, it'll be an interesting experiment here,
Hymie Zebede 16:03
it was, it was so different back then it was unbelievably different. I want to just put it put out there that the listings that I was living off of the years that I bought my house with that I took care of everyone with, they had like one image made maybe two, and they were like pixelated images like horrible, disgusting and all and they just sold because back then you didn't need to have magazine quality images as you could just whatever you if you put up something good and you just make your proper SEO and everything like it just would sell. Nowadays, it's a different, totally different game,
Hymie Zebede 16:40
but it's just crazy how everything back then, you know, used to give away products used to be able to give away products for free and get reviews, you know, that's how you would jumpstart a listing, right? And then that was like for years, you could do that. And then all of a sudden Amazon changed its rules. And they said you can still do it. But if you're going to do it, you have that the reviewer has to put a disclaimer, we have received this product for a review, you know, we are testing this product out and return for a review.
Hymie Zebede 17:12
And then I remember like and this was a big practice, like everyone used to do it. It was 100% allowed, right? And then I remember it was like I think it was like 2016 like I think it was 2016 Maybe like Rosh Hashanah, like right before like the High Holidays or Yom Kippur war, and everyone got an email. And it's like, you are not allowed to do this anymore. We are going to start policing it and everyone was like, Oh my God,
Yoni Mazor 17:36
No, yeah, Happy New Jewish New Year we're going to
Hymie Zebede 17:42
Be shutting off the phone now you're sweating? Do you know what's going on? It was so scary. And then everyone I promise, like, everyone's like, wow, that's it Amazon is over. Like, there's no like, this was like
Yoni Mazor 17:53
The game is over. Yeah. We're going to be able to jumpstart, you know, listings and generate revenue and stuff like that. Well, we don't have reviews. Yeah, they were
Hymie Zebede 18:00
Like people who people are like, yeah, so you can't, there's no way to make money on Amazon anymore. It's going to be too hard. And it's like, it's crazy, because so many years later, and you can still thank God
Yoni Mazor 18:10
Shut down what was the next door that opened up and was a key revenue job or PPC, SEO, what was the cure for that?
Hymie Zebede 18:19
Just everything you just got to keep innovating, you have to just have a proper title, you have to have you have to do the research, you have to do PPC you have to do clip coupons you have to create Lightning Deals Seven Day deals, you have to have beautiful images you know, the images are everything but there's nothing more important than the image because now it's like nowadays like the customer wants to know that it's a good quality item and they have to see the quality like through the image you know, they have to the image that has to be that good that they can see wow, this is a nice item I can see how soft it looks I can see how nicely looks like that is so important.
Yoni Mazor 18:58
You also utilize infographics for that so it has this layer of this product or cotton or material
Hymie Zebede 19:06
100% you need infographics you know if you don't have the right infographics and especially on a size chart, the returns will be like disgusting you know like you need all these things to prevent the customers from being confused about what the product is. And to know how it fits and how it
Yoni Mazor 19:23
Looks everything what about video is that also a big impact or
Hymie Zebede 19:27
video is a video is important now you know back then it wasn't as important now as videos getting very important I feel like you know especially everyone has nice beautiful video ads and it's just something you know you it's something you need almost as much as images like your are the main thing like beautiful images, but like soon I think it's going to become that you're going to need videos like you're going to need them.
Yoni Mazor 19:54
Okay, so once again 2015 16 You open it up, things will be more basic Just, you know, get reviews a bit more easily that door shut down and take us through, you know, the past, I guess six years, major milestones for you or your clients as humans, especially things that happen. Go ahead.
Hymie Zebede 20:12
So I've always thanked God built up businesses to like nice levels. 123 $4 million, you know, and people just know me like that. A few years ago, maybe like four years ago, 334 years ago, that was like, the big one of my big jumps is when I, I brought a business from two to $24 million within two years. Yep. Yeah. So that was like, and then after that, people just stuck my name, thank god exploded, people just said, wow, this guy built up this listing. And this listens, and this listing is doing a million dollars a year like crazy things.
Yoni Mazor 20:52
So that's somebody that he texts for two months about over 20 over 20. So what kind of category was that? What was the impact? What was the difference? Well, how would you go about doing it within a few short years to make him spike like that?
Hymie Zebede 21:04
So, it was men's clothing. And it was, it was a hybrid, it was a hybrid model. It was a private label. And somebody came up to me and they saw what I was doing. And they said, Come build my listings. For me, it's a private label. But we have exclusives with a lot of brands. And you're building up a listing, you're building up a listing from scratch, you're going to do the research, you're going to Kickstarter with the PPC, but it has a brand name, to help you give it that extra edge.
Yoni Mazor 21:41
So that was a brand name that has already a presence outside of Amazon and brick-and-mortar stores or other channels.
Hymie Zebede 21:47
So yes, so exactly. So I can give you the brand names if you want to. If you search on Amazon, Levi's, men's underwear, I made all those listings. For every Levi's men's underwear listing, if you search champion, big and tall, I made all those listings feel big and tall, I made all those listings. So I would, I would research all the big and tall guys. Corner, I would just go through all these guys. And it's a
Yoni Mazor 22:14
Brand name. It's, you know, it's an art in a high volume, in terms of rotation, and actual units sold category, we're saying was a little bit of a niche, which is large and tall. Yeah.
Hymie Zebede 22:26
Big and tall. And also the lever, the underwear, Levi's underwear, I was just, you know, specific categories that you could do. But like, if you look up other listings from those people like they don't sell as well as the ones that I need, you know, like Amazon, they just listed themselves. And they
Yoni Mazor 22:45
Won’t be on the Amazon retail team. They listed themselves but it doesn't get as effective results.
Hymie Zebede 22:49
I was doing Yeah, they don't know what they're doing. You know, as my listing has like 9000 reviews in like two years, you know, we never bought any fake reviews or anything. And that was
Yoni Mazor 23:00
A difference between wanting to like the retail team of Amazon and listening to them and listening to you, man, and a few points to consider.
Hymie Zebede 23:07
I don't know what they're doing. But I'm looking and digging into all the data and all the competitors and I'm focusing on it like my baby, you know what I mean? Like, every day I'm tracking I'm seeing where it ranks for this keyword, like organically? Where's the rank for this keyword? Every day? Like I'm helping the nourishment.
Yoni Mazor 23:25
Yeah, you go. You nourish it and you prep it up. Maybe Amazon's retail team just put a picture in a few words. And this is a little just, you know, dormant just
Hymie Zebede 23:36
Checking it out. I'm checking mine at midnight, you know that Amazon retail team, and they’re not waking up in the middle of the night. Let me look on my phone and see what place I'm in for men's underwear. I'm like you get I get very obsessed with it. That's what makes me like I get like I can't stop looking at I need to make sure that it's a winner. And
Yoni Mazor 23:53
Masa massages and Crossman nourishment enhancements, we'll make that 10x impact. That's amazing. Because when you got it for 2 million, it's probably because of what Amazon did that listens they created and we came in and give that the TLC the tons of loving care that it needs were a 10x impact. It's pretty impressive. When I do these dimensions, trying to understand the difference between how Amazon does it or a third-party Amazon Seller which you know, has a lot of focus and attention what's the impact on the marketplace?
Hymie Zebede 24:21
I just think that I just think you know, they probably maybe they're dealing with too much or they're not is you know, my work my name is behind you know, that's what I have. It's my name so I needed to make sure I do a very good job I need to make sure it's unbelievable and that that's my promotion that's how I get business by doing a good job for people other people want to work with me. Amazon retail, I don't know you know, they don't care who was making it I don't know who made it and
Yoni Mazor 24:45
It’s not listening and for worse, if it doesn't the next victim you know, they don't care.
Hymie Zebede 24:50
Exactly. So I built up a lot of those listings and then after that other people wanted to work with me, you know other people that also had different brand exclusives, you know like I did some things for Nautica, I did some things for Altec, Lansing, for BB just for different. A lot of different brands, just people started calling me up. Hi, can you build my listing? Can you build my listing? Can you like, what does it take? It just all went blood from there?
Yoni Mazor 25:22
What about a team? Are you always doing it by yourself? Or did you start building a team? What was the setup for you?
Hymie Zebede 25:27
So up until the past, up until like, four years ago, it was always myself. And then I realized that I need to build up a team, you know, so now I have a team of four, my project manager and few people under her and that like I like that, that's our team.
Yoni Mazor 25:45
Got it. So we need to do all these images, stuff like that you book with the studios or you already send the client or the or your partner, sorry, your partner is what's your approach, if let's say, I'm hearing this, and I want to reach out why what's usually done dynamically to set things in motion.
Hymie Zebede 26:01
So if you guys don't already have images, I have, I have a few photographers that I work with, and they'll take good care of me and know exactly what type of images and quality I need. And, and I will just, you know, I'll work together with them to get it done the same thing with videos if I need somebody you know, but I'm not a videographer, but I know very good video biographers who can help. You know, I'm the guy, I'm the guy who builds up the sales. And these are all my tools. So everyone does what they're good at. And I make sure I use the best of the best
Yoni Mazor 26:33
Got. And then if someone wasn't well, you know, everybody could just reach out and you'll help them out or you get more selective these days. Because you're handling all this volume, what's your approach at this point, so I have?
Hymie Zebede 26:43
To be very selective about who I work with. Because like I said, we’re a small team. And also, I need to make sure that it's something that's going to, that's something that's going to take off, I need to make sure it's something that I can already
Yoni Mazor 26:56
Know that what you do what is going to the marketplace and try to research and
Hymie Zebede 27:00
I have to look at that product, I have to look at their product and see the potential, and I have to make sure that they paid the right amount for the item. And also the person's mindset, you know, like, how big does the person want to grow this to like, how much are they willing to invest? Where do they see it going? When I'm working with somebody, like a brother, like where we whoever I work with, we speak on the phone, they call me on my cell phone, we talk on What Sapp, it's like, you know what I mean? It's like we're a family. We're not we have
Yoni Mazor 27:28
Constant engagement. It's a real partnership contract. Where you are the e-commerce branch?
Hymie Zebede 27:33
Yeah, we have to make sure we work well together. It's like a marriage. Got
Yoni Mazor 27:37
It, whatever they want to sell on eBay, Walmart, or their website, what's your poster that you help with that as well, you have a network of partners that you will refer them to, I'll
Hymie Zebede 27:45
Refer them to somebody else. My focus is Amazon. And I want to be very tunnel vision with that. And you know, that's, I don't want to do things that I'm not a professional. And I know I'm an expert at Amazon, that's what I focus on. And that's where I want all my time. So that's why I spend 1012 hours a day on Amazon. That's why I'm so good at it, you know, I wasn't born just knowing Amazon, if I started to do a little bit of Walmart, a little bit of eBay a little bit, I'm going to lose track about what's going on and Amazon world and everything is always changing. There are always different things that you have to be on top of.
Yoni Mazor 28:19
I read 100% that he loses touch, once you start sprinting out, you lose that magic touch within that core marketplace, which brings most of the results up to this point to e-commerce businesses. So you're saying I'm hyper-focused on a vision and Atlanta and I'm exporting it, I keep compounding the ways and the abilities that I have to quit hyper-growth and significant growth for your partners. And that's it. This is your duty, this is your focus, and nothing distracted with that.
Hymie Zebede 28:44
Exactly. You need to be in that you need to be in like I'm in telegram groups, I'm in What Sapp groups, I'm always talking to other sellers and other service providers just to see what techniques are, you know, things are always changing. It's crazy things from months ago. Everything is changing. It's like I just found something from last week that changed. It's crazy. It's never-ending. It's never-ending.
Yoni Mazor 29:08
Just embed yourself in all the communities and all the old or the industry activities. Sponsor just kept absorbing and in real-time be able to adjust to the changes and keep kind of the edge going forward for the listeners and the revenue to deploy.
Hymie Zebede 29:23
Always I'm absorbing knowledge. It's the most important thing to me and I want to even set out I need to set up more time if there's not enough time. Like I need more time to learn more like that's how much I That's how much how important it is after the after doing Levi's underwear and the champion and the Nordic and things like that I actually built up a product eight months ago, started eight months ago and it's an electronic item. It's doing $300,000 a month in sales now. So that was like another
Yoni Mazor 29:54
Goal. This is your brand. You're saying no I wish I wish the other thing is so what's the twister the five is a different category that's electronics and not like
Hymie Zebede 30:03
Apparel. No, I just, I was in apparel I was doing, I was doing the apparel for the Levi's and the champion and things like that. And then I and then I told you other people reach out to me and asked me to do the same thing for them. And I have to be selective with who I work with. And a recent person that I started with was an electronic was going electronic company. And we built I built up their listings to do a tremendous amount within seven months. So it was, it was one listing and an accessory, and I brought it from $0 to $300,000 a month,
Yoni Mazor 30:37
You want to be a different approach when it's electronics and compared to, apparel or beyond this is set mechanics on the Amazon side.
Hymie Zebede 30:45
So it's the same thing. It is crazy how it's just really it's just like, it's always the same with Amazon like and it's the same thing. It's the same thing as what was years ago, just you have to be better at it nowadays and just more focused on it. But the only difference with the electronics is there are guys like now the class is doing 300,000 a month. But the competitors who have a crazy disgusting amount of reviews, 20,000 reviews, 30,000 reviews, they're doing 3 million a month. So like I'm getting the crumbs, you know what I mean? I'm getting the little leftovers. But that's still such a huge amount that's still, you know, huge business.
Yoni Mazor 31:25
Yeah, it can be murderous. So you're, I guess mission and challenge now are how do you test it again? Because you from scratch the 300,000, which is about over 3 million a year. It's where it started. The crumbs are great, but one product? If one isn't? And how do you get another Chrome How do you get part of the dish? Yeah.
Hymie Zebede 31:42
So you just it's so competitive. These keywords, by the way, with the PPC are like $10 a click, like, horrible, like, you know what I mean? Like, we got baby steps, you know what I mean? I can't compete against somebody who has 30,000 reviews right now, like, that's not the place that we're at, maybe in a year or two, we'll be able to, I don't even know to be on that $3 million month level, you know,
Hymie Zebede 32:06
Apart from an ace and every you know, you just got to take it to where you are I even ranked for the main term, I got to rank for the main term. And it stayed for like, a few weeks, and then it just dropped down. Because we didn't deserve that spot. We didn't deserve that spot, yet. We have 300 reviews, and the other guys have 30,000 you know, like, we don't belong there. But like, step by step, day by day, you just got to keep getting better and better. And, you know, as long as it's going in the right direction, and I'm happy, you got to
Yoni Mazor 32:36
Keep grinding it. But do you have any approach for driving traffic outside of Amazon into Amazon? Is it something you deal with at all? So that yeah, of
Hymie Zebede 32:42
Of course, it's very hard to do that. So I do everything I do. PPC is very important. Running deals is very important. You know, Lightning Deals, Seven Day deals, promoting it on YouTube, you know, and I like to like, so they can direct the link back to Amazon, Instagram. Like, there's the review, there are websites where like, though, they'll tell you, this is the number one item, this is the number two item, this is the number three item, you know, though, and they take a commission of the sales, like
Yoni Mazor 33:13
Locations where they kind of recommend the top 10 or top 10.
Hymie Zebede 33:18
Like that, and also editorial recommendations, everything I can do, you got to be very competitive, the competition is doing everything you know, and you need to do everything. Also, if you want to stay on top, I always tell people like, we need to run deals every week. And it's like, well, they don't want to run deals every week.
Hymie Zebede 33:35
But the competition is running deals every week. And every time somebody searches for a keyword, they see the competition with a very nice badge that has a deal. They're going to buy from them, and now you're losing it. And every time they get the sales, it's like points, you know, that's what the sales are. It's just like you're a video game and you're getting points and you're just getting a better high score and you can lose out on that like the conversions are everything. I don't know if it's everything traffic is very important also, but conversions it wants to
Yoni Mazor 34:02
See other good traffic with a good listing that will have, you know, a good conversion. It's all interconnected. But at the end of the day for Amazon for the algorithm, the conversion is good as it does the health of the ACE and the listen because if it's not good, they can all the traffic is not making money to anybody, they're going to attack you and put you on the side-lines.
Hymie Zebede 34:23
Exactly. And then it's like it hurts you for like, you know, long term it's very bad. That's why I always tell people you're going to start an item on Amazon. Make sure you started at a very competitive price. Don't start at like a high price and be greedy in the beginning. Because you don't have any reviews in the beginning you're a brand new product you need to get in there and build up the momentum and then you can start to inch up the price week by week.
Hymie Zebede 34:45
Like right now like you're going to do ads on a new product with no reviews. Every time you don't get a sale. It's like you're losing points. Yeah, we tried. It didn't work. We tried it. It didn't work and Amazon is writing it down in their notebook. This product is not doing well. Today it had 2020 people clicked on the listing and nobody bought it. You're getting you're killing yourself, you know, that's horrible. It's very important to get on with the
Yoni Mazor 35:10
Notebook is called the eight, nine, and I'm a book or the no algorithm division Amazon has internally and that's the book of all books, you know, the algorithm, it writes everything remembers everything and manages the whole crazy marketplace all the same time. And everything updates every hour, Amazon's BSR, bestsellers, rank updates every single hour across the board for hundreds of millions, if not billions of listings, or billions of agents, just unbelievable, unbelievable machinery that Amazon has created.
Yoni Mazor 35:39
And the way to succeed is decoding it and constantly decoding it because it changes every hour to keep, you know, scoring the best points out there and generating good revenue out of it and good profit and a good living. That is pretty much the name of the game that as far as Jaime can see implodes in that domain. Exactly, I focused
Hymie Zebede 35:57
On that so much like that's where I spend most of my time is looking at, you know, like, I'll look at Helium 10. And I'll look at the keyword tracker, and I'll look at every app, but the boost button on so I could see every hour on the hour what's going on with my listing. Like, like when I first started selling, I'm selling a lot of leggings. And then all of a sudden, I saw that I started selling fewer leggings and I didn't know what was going on. And I'm like, Oh, it's just nature like I don't know my age, I guess it's just the time, you know, I was phasing out. And then I realized, no, there's a whole algorithm and there's a whole Amazon is moving up my position and moving down my position. So basically my competition, they're making more sales on this keyword.
Hymie Zebede 36:37
And they took my spot and Amazon had to push me down and not make space, I lost my real estate. And when you lose that real estate, it's not so easy to get back. Do you know what I mean? You could that's like, you lose your position. So important to keep it in to make sure that you never lose it, because that's where all the sales come from. When people type in words, that's like our sales are coming from, like 10 keywords, you know, so you got to really, that's all it is I just focused on those keywords, make sure you're not losing or slipping.
Hymie Zebede 37:06
If you see your matches slip, you got to change your PPC, you got to make sure you know what maybe my competition is a little cheaper, let me add a little clip coupon, let me see what's going on that I'm losing that before it gets too late. Once you have lost, I've had people who lost their positions. And it's so hard for them to get it back, you might never get it back. Because now the competition is making sales every day. It's hard to not come down. Yep, they're
Yoni Mazor 37:32
Running away. Whereas on top of that more and more fuel power to the distance going to get to catch up. And every day that goes by they're a bit further away. So you have to have a tremendous amount of energy focus and abilities to catch up. Usually, there's through the PPC, but also outside traffic that is if you go with that it can give you that thrust and booster to annihilate the competition. But it's not so simple, because you're relying on other sources of publication and stuff like that. You don't own that audience, right? But, if you have really good content, a really good product, or a good budget to keep spreading the stuff in the best publication, maybe we'll be able to catch up. Yeah,
Hymie Zebede 38:09
100%. And he and even the traffic is so important. Both are important. But like the traffic, you could run a simple Google ad to your listing. And even if you don't get any sales, you'll just start to see Amazon starts ranking you for different keywords like before the sales come in. And it's like crazy, like the traffic, even if there are no conversions in the beginning, once they see the traffic, they just start to put your places. And then obviously you need the conversions, or else it's going to have a negative effect. You know,
Yoni Mazor 38:38
This is kind of a different angle he gave here. So once you put in a Google Ad Amazon's algorithm starts to be kind of spiritual too, with all these keywords and ranking there. So you as a seller have to spot out which keywords these are and nourish them and build that up. So you get the impact. That's kind of the name of the game there wasn't.
Hymie Zebede 38:57
So exactly. So basically, once you have the traffic onto the listing, Amazon is going to start to put your places but then you have to make sure you show them the conversions. Also, once you show them the conversions, like let's say you start converting on uncertain terms. They're going to do an auto campaign like with PPC and we're going to start you know what he's people are purchasing him when they search for men's t-shirts.
Hymie Zebede 39:20
So now let's show him Let's rank him up higher for T-shirts for men and men's white t-shirts and T-shirt size, like all different things. And then you start seeing Wow, this keyword is doing good, this keyword is doing good and like things are rising and you got to say, you know, what should I target this was an exact campaign. What should I do? Should I tell an influencer to market this like, like, like, like you have to like as soon as you see it going up as you can just start to get them onto your folder and start to attack them?
Yoni Mazor 39:49
Man, it's complicated stuff, man, but it's good. I'm happy to share that. Okay, so this is kind of a daily flow. This is daily, I guess, grinding atmosphere and it seems like you're very passionate about it and it's ramified and you enjoy the game and you've kind of mastered it because you see all the elements that are moving and can grab them and put them the right trajectory in the tour's Hopper growing the revenue and the sales of yourself and your partner's essence. And as far as you're concerned, because you mentioned, you know, you had a $2 million plus business and over the years, and he started to partner with others, you kept that business are you detached at some point?
Hymie Zebede 40:20
So I sold that business. I sold it before all the aggregators were all over the place. So it's a little bit of a touchy subject. I wish I waited it out. But thank God, it's all from God. You know, one door, one door closes, and another one opens. And you know, now nowadays, I'm making very big moves. I'm happy where I am.
Yoni Mazor 40:40
And what year did you sell? I said before they are good days. Why was that? When did he sell?
Hymie Zebede 40:44
I sold it. And I sold it maybe like four years ago? I don't know if it was before the aggregator days, but
Yoni Mazor 40:49
It was 2018. That's right. Before Yeah,
Hymie Zebede 40:52
I think I was smart enough to, you know, figure out how much I can get. I don't know, yam know,
Yoni Mazor 40:57
the industry hasn't matured, thanks to the Igreja days, they kind of made the industry mature in a way where they understand that you know, you can build a big corporation based on how the professionals utilize the marketplace and Amazon Marketplace to launch brands with the following and created results and revenue and profit and bundled it up to get your portfolio brands. Okay, so I want to kind of do a quick summary and see what we got so far. And then we'll take it to the last steps of the episode.
Yoni Mazor 41:24
So one reason New York City, you know, when you're about 18, you want more one’s for you to Israel to learn to study, when you came back home, your parents said, That's it, you're on your own, you know, God is our life. So you also found your wife, your wife in Florida, you know, you're both from Europe, but you have to find each other in Florida being at the gym. And once you got out of the house, you kind of balanced working, you know, within the family business in the city, but also living, I know, college dorms with all the Rutgers students are, you know, a liveable place. So you're getting the college experience, although not learning in college, but you know, doing business in the city, with all the antique shops, but after you got married, they allow you to manage eight retail stores in New York City or discount stores.
Yoni Mazor 42:05
And that was around 2008 and 2009. But a year into the mix, realize that you know, you can buy the inventory yourself, take the tags off, and can offer it online with your website and Amazon and that kind of stuff. And that you saw a real opportunity for real revenue, real income, and real business. So really branched out and then you know, use the factories to create your brand and label, the business grew very quickly at over $2 million a year, that gave you the financial freedom to do your own thing, do your businessman, you got married, you had kids, you bought a house, that's a great impact.
Yoni Mazor 42:37
Then around 2014, you know, you realize that you're not so good at sourcing, you know, we had all these tragedies happen at a $50,000 container that smelled like fish that, you know, all this crash and burns a major and standard, you know, maybe you should keep growing and excited and are selling in the marketplace. There's an opportunity to work with other manufacturers or distributors, especially the ones who have maybe licensed to establish brands, but they're not getting the maximum impact that the marketplace can give them.
Yoni Mazor 43:06
And they start one by one and having all these partnerships with them and achieving great tremendous growth for them and yourself. But of course, the early ones were never the margins weren't that good is there was an issue with for your understanding what are the actual like profits or costs. So I assume you change your model also to rev share as opposed to profit sharing. Probably also based on growth, I would say, but also 2018 you cash out of your own, you know, retail operation with your brand. So you can fully focus on partnering with other brands and helping them grow, you know, hyper-growth in the marketplace. This is the domain that you're and this is where your lizard focuses. And tunnel vision is the Amazon game on how to really grow, nourish, and daily manage all these brands with all these keywords in the whole magic that you know and the landscape that keeps on changing. That's where you are today and we get everything correctly so
Hymie Zebede 43:55
Far. How are you so good with the dates? Scary writing all this down?
Yoni Mazor 43:59
No, this is just a story. I'm just kind of here to listen to the repeat itself. Wow. And it was thank you so much for sharing that that was good. And I learned a lot I appreciate it. I hope also the other you know listeners did. But now I want to touch on the episode last two points of the episode the first one is if somebody wants to reach out and connect and engage with you, where can they find you? But the last thing would be is what is the message of hope and inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there.
Hymie Zebede 44:22
If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, you can search my name Jaime's DVD, you could also go to my website Hi Nice tv.com you can email me, Jaime, at Jaime cbd.com and hope and inspiration is it's never been an easier time to make money. Amazon gives you all the info you need they give you all the data there's never been anything like that where you can just see how quickly can a product down sell how much money can you make off a product? What is your competition doing? Exactly what are they doing?
Hymie Zebede 44:56
Like you can see everything and you just have to be able to study all this info is data and it's amazing how you can work from anywhere in the world and Amazon. They'll ship the goods for you though how's it for you? They'll take care of it. It's the best business in the world. Like it's crazy how and it's not easy. It's not easy, like nothing, you know, you don't just get rich, easy, nothing is nothing worth anything happens easily like that. But it's the best because it's such an amazing business model. And if somebody wants and if somebody wants to make money and this is in they want to be an E-commerce, like Amazon is just unbelievable how much opportunity it is unbelievable.
Yoni Mazor 45:40
I love it. I love it. Because you know if I recap this opportunity, definitely there it's all data-driven. It's all a game, dive into the game, learn all the data points, use it to your advantage, make your moves, play hard play well, and you're going to achieve great financial results if they're going to have to hustle for it but is there so you got to put your mind into it. And like you said also that you know, tunnel vision focus, it's crucial.
Yoni Mazor 46:03
If you can't do it yourself. Reach out to solution providers out there or partner with them happens to be the homiest BD is one of them. So you know, feel free to reach out and connect like, Egypt has information where you can reach out to him after you listen to this, so that's it. Jaime, thank you so much. I hope everybody else enjoyed the stay healthy. Thank you very much. Once again, thank
Hymie Zebede 46:25
You too, Yoni. Take care
