I got the job of a lifetime at a large eCommerce company. It was exciting and I felt like an astronaut. Now, every day is a new kind of adventure as I have to figure out how we can improve. Our sales department is facing huge volume on daily basis. We don’t know what to do with this amount of work and orders.
It happened that one day my manager told me something about his team that he had never shared before. “Your team is having issues solving problems,” he said. He pointed down our stack of products and added two more items that needed improvements. We now had seven different stacks and trying to solve those problems took time. Sometimes it didn’t have any solution, and sometimes we tried other options but the process was time-consuming and we didn’t get any results. This was very frustrating for us as we wanted to try new things and make them successful.
All of sudden this idea occurred to me. What if there was someone who knows all the answers to such questions. Someone could use all existing experience and try to answer all the queries and help customers at the same time. And we would make ourselves useless. A perfect person for such a task would be an Amazon product hunter. So today let’s learn how they work.
How Do They Work?
Customer requirements are sorted by product specialist teams. These specialists analyze data from their past cases. This analysis results in a list of possible solutions. The specialist team members try to find a solution that fits all available requests. If in case it doesn’t fit everyone needs a different solution so that no common solution can’t be found. The last stage is where a customer asks for feedback on which solution solves his problem. At this point, only the best option has been selected. After a solution is selected there is another step again when the customer gets his new and improved solution. The customer gets a discount after shipping.
What does product discovery look like during the process?
The product discovery phase starts when you send your order. An email containing a link is sent to your account to request the inventory. Here your order status gets updated. In this phase, both sides (the seller who will ship the item and the buyer) have to meet via video chat. Both parties have to complete some basic form that helps them understand each other better. Once everything is settled, the customer gets a discount and is ready to pay. After receiving the discount the final part gets started. When a customer pays his bill he receives a confirmation email.
Amazon product hunters work 24/7 to find the best solution for each scenario. Their main role is to prioritize order requests over the current ones and try to optimize them with the highest chance of success. During the whole process, a lot of meetings and discussions take place between all teams. To give you a picture, they work more than 250 hours per week according to the reports done by their estimators. You have to imagine the complexity and effort needed to complete the project.
How Does It Affect Your Business Model?
This system might look complicated but it works really amazing if done right. For example, if one team finds a potential solution then it becomes easy for others to make similar decisions. As one decision can’t affect another decision-making team may not even know how to implement and what to use. Also, it reduces unnecessary overhead costs. Every single operation in the business can be optimized by using this method. Moreover, it’s simple to scale the model and increase its efficiency.
How Can It Help You?
These tools have made my life a lot better as I can get quick access to information about all the latest products and services. With their help, I can quickly assess our portfolio and try some innovative ideas on top of them. However, it has to be noted that these models are used most often for online stores and marketplaces and might not be considered useful for your eCommerce business. All products must be listed on your website and if necessary, you can add reviews, photos, and other details. Of course, you can still build your brand around the product page or create a review section. Using these methods you can attract more customers to your site, but I’m sure it won’t affect your revenue significantly since people don’t buy anything if they don’t know what to buy. Still, the impact might help you with marketing strategies.
What About Its Limitations?
One serious limitation of this approach is pricing. Because many companies want to sell more than one product per month, the price of each item should be unique as possible. Hence if the prices of particular products are the same then this tool might not be worth your time. Another thing is that product discovery is a lengthy process due to constant communication. But still, overall there are always some good reasons to adopt this system. Some examples:
You have a huge product catalog
You want to find the next big trend
You want to test new technology in a real-life environment
To reduce costs from ongoing operational support
To save a lot of time during negotiations
Some benefits you can expect with this product:
Cost reduction
Pricing flexibility
Better focus
No technical knowledge required
Scalable automation
Efficient
Time management techniques
Improvement tracking
Greater ROI
The following links will give detailed descriptions of their features:
ProductHunter:
ProductHunter is a popular product discovery platform that provides advanced machine learning technology. Most popular among small & medium-sized businesses because it includes multiple pricing tiers so it can be customized perfectly for your business model. Additionally, it integrates directly into Microsoft Dynamics GP and offers full integration with Salesforce CRM. Furthermore, it includes integrations with leading payment gateways such as Stripe and PayPal.
Click here to read a demo of why we love using ProductHunter
Rakuten:
Rakuten is a great e-commerce store software with fully integrated digital storefronts. It uses machine learning techniques to automatically discover and recommend relevant products for users based on their buying habits, browsing history, demographics, and more. Therefore, it is a highly scalable platform that enables retailers to easily manage and grow their brands with ease.
Click here to read a description of the Rakuten Digital Store Platform
Kinsta:
Kinsta allows merchants to quickly discover and manage their inventories in just a few clicks. It also incorporates various other products and services from partner vendors with powerful analytics and reporting tools.
Click here to read a demonstration of Kinsta.
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