# Amazon Research with SmartScout ## Hosts - James Dihardjo Co-Founder - Scott Needham Founder ## Podcast transcript **James Dihardjo** Scott, thanks so much for making time to chat with me, man. I have no idea what time it is where you are, but I'm assuming it's very late or very different to where I am. **Scott Needham** So it's just 3:30 in the afternoon, so it's all right. We're good. **James Dihardjo** Cool. So I just wanted to kick off by getting you to introduce yourself and tell us about what you do and a bit about your background. **Scott Needham** Yeah. I got a degree in computer engineering and I thought I was going to work for high tech, big companies, you know, interviewed at Google and Facebook and all that. But my brother started selling on Amazon and I joined his business and so I've kind of become an Amazon software developer where I kind of geek out on all the technical things and that's led me to be involved actually in about six different Amazon businesses. **James Dihardjo** Wow. It's a very extensive experience in the space then. But just on that point though, I know you are wearing a SmartScout shirt there. So tell us more about that. I mean, I've had to play around with it. I think it's really cool. But give us the nitty gritty in the gist of it. **Scott Needham** Yeah. You know, some of those businesses have been exciting and some of them have been less exciting. And I mean, I'm being completely transparent, like [SmartScout](https://www.linkedin.com/company/smartscoutcom/about/) I'm the most excited for. It was an idea that came through. So, when we were doing some wholesale of just like trying to capture the entire Amazon opportunity and to find the best opportunities. So, it's turned into a market research tool that categorizes us alongside Helium 10 and Jungle Scout, but we don't have any of the same features. Right now, there’s not one thing that we do that they do because we're just taking a different approach to what ultimately is product research where we focus on market research. It’s very top down. If you want to explore and understand market share between brands and in niches where you can see what brands are dominating a niche and how. So we take that approach to research in the market and like really handy filters so like the 1.4 million brands that we're tracking in the US market alone. At the snap of a fingers, you could find any of them that fit this certain criteria. **James Dihardjo** Interesting, and are you able to tell us about what's the profile of your typical user? Are they just brands? Are they big brands, or what are they? **Scott Needham** Well, there hasn't been an aggregator out there that we haven't been able to convince to use us, so we pretty much have all of them because there's a very specific M&A use case where we're tracking sellers as well. I would say almost half of our users come from wholesale so I could speak their language really well. About half of our users are in the reselling model, whether that's arbitrage or buying from wholesalers. Then, probably about 30% of our users are private label and we're building more use cases that assist that. That's kind of like the market research component. And then about 20% are service providers, whether they're wanting to market to sellers or if they're talking to a seller to understand them. Some agencies will even do product research as well. So we kind of hit any Amazon professional. There's something in there that you might find interesting. **Scott Needham** Yeah. Fantastic. Sounds like you've just got the widest addressable market in the whole industry, man. That's great. But yeah, into my next question for you. So, it's 2022 now, what are your top predictions for this year in this space? **James Dihardjo** Well, I can already give something that I've seen just today is that the cost of getting goods from China to the US is going down dramatically. The quantity restrictions have eased up. So, I guess it's not a prediction, but like it was a big question. Just a few weeks ago, everyone was wondering what's going on and I really think that getting goods into Amazon is getting significantly less expensive compared to 2021 and a little bit easier because we're now able to utilize more capacity. So, that's like good news, and we could expect at least some counters to the inflation that that's happening. Then, if there’s like a big macro level of what's going on Amazon is that brands through brand registry, like they're getting it. They're doing more seller central themselves and investing in advertising. Just yesterday, I was at a show and I told someone that was selling on Vendor Central, get to Seller Central. Here’s why: Boom, boom, boom, boom. And I was like, let's have a call. I won’t charge you at all. Like, I just want to understand it. **James Dihardjo** Cool. Oh, that's very, I mean, it's all going in the right direction for you and I, I suppose that's a good thing. Next thing, what are your thoughts on channels outside of Amazon, Scott? Because I know a lot of people were talking about Shopify, talking about Walmart. Like what’s your thinking on that from any perspective? **Scott Needham** I'm lukewarm on Walmart. I know that like it's there, but like everyone I've talked to that's like really invested in it, they're just not the same as like Amazon Prime shoppers. Walmart shoppers probably take more time and they want like the deals. So you’re seeing less margin there and less volume. But Shopify I think is kind of like a holy grail of its own that if you succeed there, it has long-term success because lifetime value of a customer is really high if you get them converting on your own website. So I'm big on Shopify for brands and to figure that out. I honestly, I should start interviewing Shopify experts so I can really understand how to do that. Because yes, we have some successful brands on Amazon, but on my private label, Shopify is like, you know, a handful of sales a month. If we could scale that, then I think it actually increases the value of the brand. So if you're looking to diversify, Walmart’s probably easy, but Shopify’s probably the smart thing to do. **James Dihardjo** Get it, get it. Interesting. Final thoughts, Scott. Global selling on Amazon, a real value add or a distraction? What's your thinking? **Scott Needham** It just depends the phase that you're at. I've spent a lot of time looking at international and it's not easy if you're like a CEO trying to do a little bit of everything. It takes time, even if you're working with a service provider that simplifies it. You should have people that are like shipping your goods, managing the compliance. If you're not able to afford those types of things, it’s probably going to be a big headache. But that said, once your brand hits maturity, it’s a low hanging fruit. Your listings can launch in those new Amazon marketplaces, at least the new Amazon marketplaces with the review count. You can really make a splash in those spaces. **James Dihardjo** Cool. Interesting perspective. Well, look, I’ll leave it there. I’m just trying to keep it short and sharp. Thank you again for making time and I look forward to seeing you in the US and chatting more. Thanks again, Scott. **Scott Needham** Thank you, James.