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Upcoming education for e-commerce sellers
IMA will once again be participating in the educational sessions at the ASD show in March 2019. We are excited to welcome some new speakers and new business members!
All sessions will be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on the show floor at Booth #C3124. Here are the descriptions for our upcoming sessions:
| Session Start Time | Session Title | Session Description | Speaker(s) |
| SUNDAY | |||
| 10:00 AM | Amazon 101: Getting Started on the Amazon Marketplace | Are you interested in getting started selling on Amazon? If so, this is the presentation you don’t want to miss. You’ll learn how to setup an Amazon selling account, how Amazon FBA works, how to start sourcing inventory, and all the rules and best practices that will keep you selling and lead you to success. | Tyler Nelson |
| 11:00 AM | 20 Minute Ads: Getting your Amazon Advertising into Shape | In order to be successful advertising on Amazon, you need to make sure that your account is built on a solid foundation. Data. In this session, Tyler Henderson of Seller Labs will talk you through how to audit your account, assess data, and make decisions on how to scale your Amazon advertising. Based on their team’s expertise in Amazon advertising, software, and account management, Tyler will share actionable ways that brands have seen success in scaling their advertising and how you can apply it to your business. While no two brands or accounts will have the same ASIN strategy, applying these frameworks to your businesses data will help get your advertising in shape. | Tyler Henderson |
| LUNCH BREAK | |||
| 1:00 PM | Build to Sell. Top five steps to develop and sell your online business for 6-7 figures. | CJ Rosenbaum, the founding partner of the leading firm helping with Amazon suspensions, appeals, intellectual property rights and private label brand protection will teach you to build your online brand so that you can sell it for $100,000 to $1 million. You will also learn about diversifying your products, sourcing, revenue streams, and other issues that buyers and investors look for when they buy Amazon based businesses. | CJ Rosenbaum |
| 2:00 PM | Get your business setup and running correctly while maintaining your sanity | So many of us do not realize that when we’re selling in the e-commerce space, we’re running a business. We describe ourselves like “I’m an Amazon seller.” But that’s not accurate. You should be saying: “I’m a business owner.” The moment you decide to sell a product, service, or anything else to anyone, you’re a business owner, and you must act like it. Many things in a new business are neglected early on including: a business plan, an employee handbook, business registration, management training, communication techniques, safety procedures, diversification of your product line, and insurance. A lot of people also forget they’re human beings that need rest and time away from the business. Work/life balance is a critical aspect to the business itself.In this seminar, Mike will talk about several issues including: The things you need to get your business off on the right foot, how to hire, manage, and provide a comfortable work environment for employees onsite or virtually, how to stop talking and listen to your business heartbeat, how to have a good work/life balance that promotes growth, and how to know if you are doing it right or doing it wrong. | Mike Perillo |
| 3:00 PM | How to develop a full Private Label line and why it’s better than just one product | In 2018, Amazon brought over 8 million new products to market in January alone. Those who tried to sell garlic presses or fidget spinners commonly found they were unsuccessful and were stuck with excess inventory. In order to effectively compete in this highly competitive space, sellers must pivot away from white labeling, or calling a generic product their own. They must also focus on creating a line of products…an entire brand as opposed to a single product. Think about if you need a reliable portable charger for your phone. Does the name Anker come to mind? This is what an effective brand is all about.Sellers are fighting to bring new products to market every day, what are you doing to rise above all the competition and ensue your name sticks? Ask yourself, do you want to be a product seller or a brand owner? A product seller will always be on the lookout for the next hot commodity, while a brand owner is planning to maximize customer engagement and create the next products (plural) for an existing audience.With over ten years of ecommerce retail experience, Jing Gao will share her story about how she was able to accomplish seven figures in private label sales in one year, and why she believes that having a brand image in mind from day one is crucial for anyone who wants to successfully build a private label business. | Jing Gao |
| MONDAY | |||
| 10:00 AM | Why You Are Failing At Building Your Brand on Amazon and What to Do About It | Your brand is the way your company is perceived—and perception is a powerful thing. Your product and company perception dictates consumer belief and belief drives behavior. The way customer perceives your brand can determine how he or she will engage with your brand and how you can price and profit from that perception. How can you leverage the powerful brand perception of Amazon.com to help propel you current branding? In this session, you will learn how to understand the branding process from start to finish, the proven benefits of branding, how to use branding to influence purchasing behavior, and how to leverage the reach and brand affinity of Amazon.com to rapidly establish your brand story. | John Lawson |
| 11:00 AM | 10 Lessons Learned while Building multiple 7 figure brands on Amazon | Among the lessons learned: You will come away knowing how to avoid competing on price and reviews, learn about quality fade and how to have a great quality product every time, and how to increase your profit margins and lower your Amazon fees. | Liran Hirshcorn |
| LUNCH BREAK | |||
| 1:00 PM | Using Profit First To Make Your Ecommerce Business Permanently Profitable | One of the biggest struggles for ecommerce sellers is managing their inventory and debt. As a result, at the end of the day, there is no profit left over. Profit First is a cash flow methodology introduced by Mike Michalowicz in 2014. It turns the traditional business formula on its end by stating Sales – Profits = Expenses. Ecommerce Sellers using the Profit First strategy manage their inventory cash flow and operating cash flow independently to maintain laser focus on the different drivers for each of these critical business expenses. The strategy requires you to innovate and to operate your business efficiently with the funds available after you take your profit. Operating your business using Profit First will ensure that your business will be permanently profitable. Cyndi will reveal the strategies she perfected in her new book, Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers. | Cyndi Thomason |
| 2:00 PM | Maximizing Profits With Better Logisitics: Warehousing Best Practices & High Volume Freight Secrets | Thinking about your first warehouse location, expanding to a larger space, or just unsure of how to properly set it all up? Are you curious about the things you should look for in your lease? Eddie Levine will tell you everything you need to know finding, expanding, or setting up your location. There is so much more to consider when you are expanding besides the overall square footage. In addition, Eddie will also discuss ways to significantly reduce your freight expenses and increase your profitability for the products you buy every day. Learn how to effectively work with freight brokers, consolidate shipments, and leverage new, cutting edge transportation options for your business. Even the most seasoned logistics manager will takeaway something valuable from this session. All experience levels encouraged to attend. Don’t miss it! | Eddie Levine |
| 3:00 PM | How to Optimize, Promote and Better Monetize Your eBay Listings | Every seller should be selling on multiple platforms, because you know the adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. After Amazon, the next basket your eggs should be in is eBay, the original online marketplace. With 168 million active buyers around the globe, if you aren’t using eBay, you are leaving money on the table. But eBay is a way different beast than Amazon is, so you will have to change your mindset when creating eBay listings. You can’t just throw up a listing and hope for the best. You will need to know the tips and tricks that successful sellers use to convert their listings into sales. Jason will be going over best listing practices, promoted listings, how to come up better in search than your competition, and 3rd party programs you can use to help with your eBay listings and sales. | Jason T. Smith |
| TUESDAY | |||
| 10:00 AM | Discoverability: Organic and Paid Keys to Success with Amazon Advertising | In this workshop, you will learn the key principles for steadily boosting the discoverability of your brand and products on Amazon. Learn the critical importance of optimizing your product listings for conversions and leveraging that data to increase your organic sales using highly targeted advertising. You will learn about crucial performance metrics (beyond ACoS) and reliable advertising strategies that can steadily accelerate your Amazon flywheel, allowing for long-term growth and sustainable success on the platform. | Jared Bucci & Charles Jackson |
| 11:00 AM | E-Commerce: How Retailers Choose the Right Platforms | Brian Beck | |
| LUNCH BREAK | |||
| 1:00 PM | Ask The Ecommerce Experts Panel | Whats better than learning from the experts? How about learning from four of them! With 45+ years of combined experience, these ecommerce sellers & industry experts are here to share their knowledge of online selling with you. These ecommerce experts are here to take your questions and talk about their experiences of selling online. They each have a unique perspective and different experiences this is a great opportunity to learn from those that have sold on various venues such as eBay, Amazon, ecommerce web sites….just to name a few. Bring your questions and your notebooks this panel is a great one for anyone that needs a helping hand with ecommerce selling | Eddie Levine, Jing Gao, Mike Perillo, Liran Hirschkorn |
| 2:00 PM | Listing Optimization That Increases Conversions | Listing Optimization is a process overlooked by many sellers in their bid to grow sales and build their businesses. Too often they focus on quantity over quality and leave money on the table. By investing time into your Amazon listings, you can build a business that returns that energy ten-fold. Unfortunately, time is often the one thing that we cannot seem to find enough of. In this discussion Barbara will go over the characteristics of a great listing, including the six main images you should have and the importance of quality titling and copy. She will then break it down into a series of continuous improvement steps designed to get your listings selling faster and sooner, so you can best utilize your time on focus your energy for the best results. The goal of this process is to get your listings selling faster, minimize advertising and storage costs and ultimately allow you to maximize your time and effort for the greatest return. | Barbara Boschen |
| 3:00 PM | How to Boost your Amazon PPC Performance by Understanding Your Metrics | Learn how to boost your Amazon PPC performance by using your Amazon Business, Advertising, and Search Term Reports. Learn how to identify the best products that could benefit the most from PPC, how to use software tools to identify the best keywords for your products, how to optimize your PPC campaigns by understanding metrics like USP, CTR, ACoS, CVR, and more. | Youn Jung Chung |