Help with attracting brand owners to new shopping app that diverts traffic to their site.

[BuyBox17]

Hello

This is my first post so be kind

We have developed a chrome extension shopping app (BuyBox 17) that helps brand owners, small businesses, retailers, etc, gain more traffic, from Amazon and eBay. It's a plug-in that pops up on the product page of Amazon and eBay and shows the customer where they can find the same product cheaper on another website.

If you search on youtube -
Buy Box 17 New Shopping App - Jessops are £226 cheaper than Amazon!
it will show you a promo video of how it works -

Being a brand owner and 3rd party seller on Amazon/eBay, I'm sure I do not have to explain in detail how much these platforms have made it nearly impossible to earn a profit or have any control over their business due to extortionate selling fees, advertising costs, and the inability to retain any customer data.

BuyBox 17 was created to help retailers with this problem and to help save customers money and find better deals. Retailers can afford to sell their products for much less on their websites and advertise deals, vouchers and sign-up offers that they would not be able to do on the other marketplaces. All the retailer information, pricing, offers and voucher codes are completely controlled by the brand owner through a backend dashboard with many easy-to-use features.

We are in the process of applying for SEIS/EIS Advance Assurance and hopefully, when successful, we will market to angel investors. We're currently working with 2 angel investors that are helping with our pitch.

I really need help connecting brand owners and retailers to this new selling platform that will help divert customers to their sites. We have ideas of how to achieve this, however, any assistance would be very much appreciated.

I look forward to any comments.

Best regards
Alex Norton

 

[DontAsk]

Anyone who needs an app to tell them other places are often cheaper than Amazon is a fool and deserves to be parted from their money by Amazon

 

[fisicx]

So I need to be using chrome and have the app installed and hope all retailers are signed up and be doing the right sort of search so you can show me a cheaper offer.

Or I can just search on Google.

 

[BuyBox17]

So I need to be using chrome and have the app installed and hope all retailers are signed up and be doing the right sort of search so you can show me a cheaper offer.

Or I can just search on Google.

I thought this forum was for help for businesses....haha. Maybe I'm in the wrong place.

The extension will be used on all browsers and a mobile version developed. The intital point of the app was to help businesses that are struggling on amazon get visibility. Continue using google...

 

[BuyBox17]

Anyone who needs an app to tell them other places are often cheaper than Amazon is a fool and deserves to be parted from their money by Amazon

Agreed....so that makes millions of people fools

 

[fisicx]

The extension will be used on all browsers and a mobile version developed. The intital point of the app was to help businesses that are struggling on amazon get visibility. Continue using google...

Maybe it’s because you said it was a chrome extension app.

Maybe also it’s because I don’t understand how the app will help me find products. Or is the app just for sellers?

Your biggest problem is going to be marketing. Unless sellers know the app exists and you are able to sell the benefits I can’t see how it will be viable. Consider that some apps spend millions on marketing and still struggle.

It’s also not clear how you plan to monetise the app.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Key questions always are

How will it monetise?
Who is the target customer?

Price comparison isn't universally popular - particularly amongst suppliers.

Have you established a ready market for this?

 

[BuyBox17]

Key questions always are

How will it monetise?
Who is the target customer?

Price comparison isn't universally popular - particularly amongst suppliers.

Have you established a ready market for this?

Thanks, Mark.

It's monetised through affialite links that are embedded into the pop-up buy box and login page. We also charge a small subscription fee for sellers to use the platform. Basically, any customer using the extension that makes a purchase, we'll receive a commission of that sale.

Customers will be brand owners/retailers/merchants already selling on amazon/ebay.
You do not need to be selling on Amazon/ebay to use the platform. For example, Argos do not sell on Amazon but they could advertise products that they're selling on Amazon that are cheaper on the Argos website.

We've spoken to many Amazon and eBay brand owners and sellers and have got very good feedback. We're in the process of onboarding them.

I wanted to know if this site has a forum where I can connect with people selling products on Amazon or ebay. Is there such an area?

Best
Alex

 

[BuyBox17]

I should call you Sherlock.

Maybe it’s because you said it was a chrome extension app.

Maybe also it’s because I don’t understand how the app will help me find products. Or is the app just for sellers?

Your biggest problem is going to be marketing. Unless sellers know the app exists and you are able to sell the benefits I can’t see how it will be viable. Consider that some apps spend millions on marketing and still struggle.

It’s also not clear how you plan to monetise the app.

 

[fisicx]

I wanted to know if this site has a forum where I can connect with people selling products on Amazon or ebay. Is there such an area?

There are a few sellers here but not many @kulture sells on Amazon, they might be able to help.

 

[Maxwell83]

Are there already browser extensions that do this? I recall seeing offerings for extensions like this, but admittedly I've never insatlled one - which brings me to my main point, being is there really a large enough market of Amazon/eBay shoppers that would use this?

You probably know already the reason most people are on Amazon (and eBay to some extent) is the familiarity with the platform, dealing with a company they 'trust', service, fraud protection, refunds if things go wrong, frictionless purchase experience, fast delivery (Prime), etc etc - price isn't really a major factor for me in choosing Amazon. I actually know that the thing I'm buying for £20 is probably available for £15 elsewhere, but if its a company I haven't dealt with before I'm dubious. Plus delivery will probably cost me £5. Plus I won't get it tomorrow. Plus returns would be a pain. Plus etc etc...

I'm guessing you're aware of this but still feel there's a market out there for you? Are you looking at big ticket items only, and only with partnerships with big well known retailers? That is where I would bypass Amazon (e.g. buying a phone, or TV or camera etc) but then I would have gone straight to Google and not Amazon in the first place. I would then treat Amazon like any other retailer and go there to compare their price to what I've already found at the other reatilers which I would be comfortable ordering from.

 

[Siobhan-DFH]

I think this idea has merit. I was a retailer on Ebay a few years ago and a customer could type in the exact product, colour and size of my listing, but it would appear on page 3, and Ebay would serve up 3 pages of the wrong model, the wrong size, and the wrong colour above mine. Because of seller status.
I assume you're already hanging out in the Shopify and Woocommerce forums? Lots of sellers sell there and on Amazon. A launch on Product Hunt might be worth considering. Look for anyone who has an axe to grind against Amazon :}. There are a couple of influencers who used to make a fortune on Amazon then got kicked off. Find them and get them interested.
Good luck.

 

[Paul Carmen]

We sometimes work with clients in this area, but the devil is in the detail.

How is this different to PayPal honey, which they're heavily promoting to their existing huge audience, or to the big shopping comparison engines like Google Shopping or PriceRunner, as they have massive market share currently?

 

[JamaC]

Good idea, definitely suits the "bargain hunter" customer group.

If people knew the cheaper option they would take it, but people don't have the time or patience to to do a deep Google search. Hence why people buy from Amazon in the first place, convince.

Might need to put some time into contacting Amazon accounts who have external websites. Or hire a researcher from fiverr to do so

 

[BuyBox17]

I think this idea has merit. I was a retailer on Ebay a few years ago and a customer could type in the exact product, colour and size of my listing, but it would appear on page 3, and Ebay would serve up 3 pages of the wrong model, the wrong size, and the wrong colour above mine. Because of seller status.
I assume you're already hanging out in the Shopify and Woocommerce forums? Lots of sellers sell there and on Amazon. A launch on Product Hunt might be worth considering. Look for anyone who has an axe to grind against Amazon :}. There are a couple of influencers who used to make a fortune on Amazon then got kicked off. Find them and get them interested.
Good luck.

Hi Siobhan

Thank you for your reply. Is good to hear from someone who has experienced selling on these marketplaces and can see the benefits.

Appreciate the advice. We're currently in the process of finalising our strategy but will definitely put the word out on the forums you mention.

Do you know who these influencers are exactly as we are looking at partnering with specific influencers?

Thanks, Alex

 

[BuyBox17]

We sometimes work with clients in this area, but the devil is in the detail.

How is this different to PayPal honey, which they're heavily promoting to their existing huge audience, or to the big shopping comparison engines like Google Shopping or PriceRunner, as they have massive market share currently?

Hi Paul

Appreciate the comments.

Honey is predominately a voucher code-sharing platform and cashback scheme. They started off tracking amazon's prices to advise customers if they have the best price or to show increases or decreases in prices. They built up a global customer base of over 17 million and then sold to Paypal for about 2.5 billion dollars. They are not a price comparison extension.

You can always search google, price runner etc but that would be an external search and it will bring up incorrect products, out-of-stock products, retailers from China, India etc. So not very accurate or safe. Our extension will be mostly controlled by the brand owners or retailers and will show up on the product page, so no external searching is required and no issues with incorrect products, prices or dodgy retailers. We will have an element of price scraping to give customers a very good choice of products. We will also implement a voucher code and cashback scheme down the line.

It's also being developed to work on many different sites in the future. We're just starting out on Amazon and eBay to help assist brand owners and retailers move away from their reliance on these platforms.

Best regards
Alex

 

[BuyBox17]

Good idea, definitely suits the "bargain hunter" customer group.

If people knew the cheaper option they would take it, but people don't have the time or patience to to do a deep Google search. Hence why people buy from Amazon in the first place, convince.

Might need to put some time into contacting Amazon accounts who have external websites. Or hire a researcher from fiverr to do so

Hi JamaC

Very good points and totally agree....of course

We're setting up exactly what you mention. Time consuming task, that is why fiverr is so good to utilise.

Thanks
Alex

 

[Siobhan-DFH]

Hi Siobhan

Thank you for your reply. Is good to hear from someone who has experienced selling on these marketplaces and can see the benefits.

Appreciate the advice. We're currently in the process of finalising our strategy but will definitely put the word out on the forums you mention.

Do you know who these influencers are exactly as we are looking at partnering with specific influencers?

Thanks, Alex

Hi Alex,
If you type 'don't sell on Amazon' into YouTube you'll see influencers with 20k-100k views per video who are warning sellers that Amazon's algorithm will work against them and, worse, Amazon will notice volume sales and buy the product from the wholesaler, undercutting the original seller and offering incentives, such as cheaper shipping or Amazon Prime.
Most of these people made money on Amazon and lost their income overnight. They should be receptive to your concept.

 

[thetiger2015]

You'd need high volume sellers who are looking to migrate traffic and sales from Amazon to their own website but also you need customers who understand the point of installing the app.

This won't work for small brands who have tight margins. They can't afford to pay you commission plus subscription costs and then give people a discount on the Amazon price, knowing you won't pull as much traffic as Amazon and don't have the trustworthiness. There would be zero margin left and they'd have to try and retain the customers you've sent them. Very hard to do!

Amazon prices can be fluid too, so how would the plug-in be able to guarantee a saving for the Amazon customer? Or does it just compare the price on other websites and show the cheapest option?

 

[DontAsk]

Amazon customers do not need a plug-in to save money. They just need to learn to use a search engine.

 

[BuyBox17]

Amazon customers do not need a plug-in to save money. They just need to learn to use a search engine.

You've already left a comment that had no context. If you have do not have anything constructive to say, I would rather you leave no further feedback.

P.S. Be helpful - Create a video tutorial teaching millions of marketplace customers how to save money.

 

[BuyBox17]

You'd need high volume sellers who are looking to migrate traffic and sales from Amazon to their own website but also you need customers who understand the point of installing the app.

This won't work for small brands who have tight margins. They can't afford to pay you commission plus subscription costs and then give people a discount on the Amazon price, knowing you won't pull as much traffic as Amazon and don't have the trustworthiness. There would be zero margin left and they'd have to try and retain the customers you've sent them. Very hard to do!

Amazon prices can be fluid too, so how would the plug-in be able to guarantee a saving for the Amazon customer? Or does it just compare the price on other websites and show the cheapest option?

Thanks for your comments. You raise good points.

I agree that if your margins are tight, it will be harder to give a worthwhile discount and attract customers. We would not be promoting this to businesses with an average selling price below £15-20. However, our current average selling price on our wall mount business is only around £25. We can still afford to sell for at least £5 less and offer a 10% discount for first orders. This will still give us more profit than if we sold on Amazon plus, maybe even most importantly, we can retain the customers data.

Most companies now have a review status or program and offer fast, next day deliveries. They have to, to compete.

The volume of sales on Amazon/eBay is a problem and a false economy. We sell thousands of items every week and need to advertise heavily because of competition. Because of this, we need to place orders with our manufacturer at sometimes short notice and regularly find ourselves out of stock or needing to fly in orders to keep our inventory stocked. This is a big problem because when you go out of stock, you lose valuable positioning and status. We do not always have the cash flow or space to place larger orders. This creates more issues with profit margins as you need to spend more money on shipping and advertising to bump up your position. We can afford to sell much fewer items on our website for the same profit. This would free up cash flow, space and the need to have to sell large volumes.

Our other business which is higher priced electronic items, we can afford to sell for around £30-50 less. This would be more attractable from the outset for potential customers/retailers.

Regarding pricing. The plug-in will only show a price if it's cheaper.

If you're the brand owner, you're the only seller allowed to sell on these marketplaces so will have complete control on pricing.

If you are selling a product that other merchants are selling and the price fluctuates, the plug-in has a feature that notifies the retailer of a price change and will turn red and flash in the back-end dashboard.

Another big issue selling on these marketplaces is the forever worry that Amazon can suspend you at any time. For something that you do not even know that you've done, or something completely out of your control and impossible to fix. They also continually try and make life very hard for you. We know this too well.

Regards
Alex

 

[fisicx]

However....

As a buyer I prefer to deal with Amazon, eBay and other marketplaces as the buying process is easy and safe. If it goes awry I know I can get swift resolution.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I wonder how much research you've done on consumer behaviour and motives?

I've done none (in this context) so can only speak about people around me.

Personally, if shopping online for something valuable or of real interest to me I'll start with a Google search and pay very little attention to price comparison

If I want quick and easy I'll log into the wife's Amazon Prime and just order


My wife uses Amazon Prime loads, because she's impatient and it's easy to return stuff - again very little interest in price comparison.

That's a very narrow range! But I suspect that wider research along those lines will help you to build interest in your product