Decoding Amazon Success: Inside the Strategies of Izabella Ritz and Don Heing

In this episode of Amazon Made Simple, Izabella Ritz is interviewed by Don Heing, a famous personality in the US mortgage industry. Having been in the mortgage business for many years, Don Heing has built and sold several mortgage companies, such as American Home Mortgage, with over 6,000 employees.

According to Izabella, the key to achieving success on Amazon lies in creating a story for your product, focusing on the customer avatars, and offering a product people are willing to pay for. Moreover, she is of the view that conducting business on Amazon has evolved over time. Therefore, it requires sellers to focus on insights, keyword density, and other advanced techniques, which was not the case when she began on Amazon.

In this podcast, Don interviews Izabella on the topic of e-commerce within Amazon and, in general, discusses what opportunities the platform provides and how to avail of them.

Decoding Amazon Success: Inside the Strategies of Izabella Ritz and Don Heing

Izabella Ritz started working on Amazon in 2015, when she launched her first product. However, her life story is one of defying all odds and conquering feats unimaginable to some in the industry. Before coming to the United States in 2015, Izabella lived in Russia. Working hard from a young age, she started several companies and businesses. She went on to sell quite a few of her businesses as part of her success story.

Being from Russia, where business and financial opportunities for women are few and far between, Izabella became the beacon of hope for many Russian female entrepreneurs. When she landed in the United States in 2015, she found Amazon to be a newly popular business in the market. Hence, she began with a positive approach, and 9 years later, she is one of the most well-respected individuals in the industry. Today, Izabella belongs to a worldwide group of Amazon masterminds. A group of 70 of the most successful Amazon entrepreneurs have achieved unbelievable success on the platform.

Izabella’s Strategies and Insights to Succeed on Amazon

Amazon, according to Izabella, is like a dinosaur, where people come to buy what they need but fail to find what they are looking for. This results in them looking for other platforms in search of satisfying their needs and wants. Additionally, Amazon has evolved since the time she started her business. Tackling the ever-evolving nature of Amazon has been one of the main challenges for many sellers. Given below are the strategies Izabella discusses to succeed on Amazon today.

Customer Avatar

The first strategy to focus on is to identify your customer avatar. In simple words, a customer avatar represents your ideal customer. Identifying your ideal customer helps you tailor your product listings, advertising campaigns, and content to resonate directly with them, leading to higher conversion rates and a better return on investment. It also allows you to understand your customer’s needs and pain points so you can offer them something of value.

Product Customization and Storytelling

Amazon is all about standing out and attracting customers; no two strategies go hand-in-hand quite like product customization and storytelling. As Izabella states in the podcast, building a brand with storytelling is essential for your Amazon business. Making a product special for a certain section of your customers and attaching a story full of emotion to that product hits the spot.

Making Use of the Technology

Amazon is more than just putting up a product for sale. In today’s environment, you have to focus on aspects that require the use of technology. Izabella gives the example of title density, which is the number of times a keyword appears in your competitor’s product title. Moreover, you must make use of the technology to calculate other key numbers, such as the demand or the number of competitors offering the exact same products, etc. Essentially, there are a lot of aspects that require a seller’s attention and are not being targeted at the moment.

Choosing High Ticket Products

How many of you have been victims of the idea of investing in cheaper products when starting off on Amazon? Cheaper products with small price ranges do not have the potential to grow. Investing your savings in such products gives you very little chance of succeeding. On the other hand, choosing high-ticket products may seem like a risk, but in the long run, you end up spending far less on them as compared to the cheaper ones.

Conduct Research to Meet the Demand

Marketing is cheaper because of the high ticket prices. All you have to do is find a product that is not difficult to manufacture. There is no need to create new modes of a high-ticket product, unlike the cheaper products that require a lot of work to make them sellable. All you have to do is find a niche or a sub-niche and research the market to identify the gaps between what the competitors are offering and what the customers are missing. Coordinate with your manufacturer to add the features in demand, and you have a product of value that people are ready to pay for.

Common Security Mistakes to Avoid on Amazon

When Amazon first started, there were a significant number of copycat sellers using the same products as other successful sellers to gain profit. To tackle that and other security issues, Amazon worked tirelessly and introduced strict guidelines and policies. In the podcast, Don Heing shares an interesting story about his friend, which we all can learn from.

After invoicing a deal with Amazon, his friend went on to cancel the deal so he could sell the same product at a better price. Amazon deemed it fraud and shut down his whole account. His money still lingers with Amazon today. Amazon’s policies are so strict that if you were to use the same WiFi as a person committing a violation, your account is also likely to get banned. Hence, you never logged onto your account on public WiFi. Pay close attention to Amazon guidelines and do it right to avoid any security concerns.

If you want to know more about Izabella, make sure to follow her on social media. You can listen to the amazing podcast here.