Winning Product Marketing Strategies for Amazon, HSN, TikTok, and Shopify

Eric James Eden: 0:58

Welcome to today's episode. We are joined today by Craig Rappahana. He is a product marketing guru who has worked with the Home Shopping Network and Shark Tank, as well as many other entrepreneurs to do product marketing greatness. Welcome to the show, Craig.

Craig Rapihana: 1:19

Hey, eric, thanks for having me, I'm excited.

Eric James Eden: 1:22

Appreciate you spending some time with us today. Let's go ahead and jump right in. Tell us a little bit about your background and product marketing and creating products to be sold.

Craig Rapihana: 1:35

That's a flow and I'll keep it pretty short, but basically I did. My apprenticeship came out of New Zealand, where I'm from, as a filter camera maker. But when I got to the States and I realized after building my blue color installation company I was working with a lot of rich people right in the Hunts and Valen, Colorado, and I'm like it's got to be a bit away. I didn't want to end up as a 56-year-old back knees and pain, so I got to get into this product digital world right and I like their vending products, and so that took me to HSN. I became a TV host there. I have all the home improvement products on the weekends at night, so it worked perfectly. I did the hours that no one wanted to do. I quickly looked around and realized there's a lot of people making money in this category, but they were all selling the same sort of things. And that's where I met Danganjian at HSN. I was working with Karen Kieran Harrodson on some of his products and I quickly thought to myself $60,000 for a marketing degree or $60,000 into my own product, and I didn't have to ban within my mind to go to marketing a business degree. So I'm like, ok, I'm going to take that? I'm going to spend $400. I jumped on a plane, went in China, started going through all the shows, started on all different products, and eventually I ended up in Chicago and I noticed some kids were floating on life jackets and smell of pee and apparently that's how you float in the water, right? So I created Lays Bones, full-bone Doodles that you see out in the big bath, in the yard, the West Marines, all those sort of places. And that was my first look. Whew, I got $30,000 on the hook. I've been awarded something out. Retail didn't want to talk to me. I didn't really know about Amazon at the time that I was up on there, and so that's when I created this. This is where the marketing came in, which I'm still a big fan of. I went to both shows and the trade shows. I took the trailer. So I took the trailer for the free 500 unit I was selling out in two days this is really good and I did it for three to four weekends at a row and we generated something like $18,000. Then I went to Bed, bath and Neon. That was the first one because I had a connection there and they said we love it. Here are my sales. Boom. I was in Bed Bath and Neon Jump on the plane, went to West Marine. Hey, I've been selling this on the weekend. Very similar to what Mark Cuban would say. Right, he would say are you out on a weekend doing it? So that was my marketing. Until this is working, I'm getting cash. I'm now able to reinvent this. And then I had the money to sleep online because I wasn't familiar with marketing online. So that's how I built it up. And then I thought to myself maybe I'm a milli-maneu-milli, maybe I should try this again. So I did it with the flip-flop and did the same thing for the same process, like the barbecue shows. Ace high-wares shows Got into retail, there on the television and basically event when everyone started realizing I wasn't just an HSN host. I actually had some form of product and development behind me. And then that's where it took off. I sold out of the company it's an acquisition and then everyone came to me and said I want you to build me on Amazon. I want you to build me on Shopify stores. I want, like, how do we get our product out there? And so that made me where I'm at now, where I was built out over 400 Amazon businesses. I've sourced in hundreds and hundreds of containers. Yeah, so I've clicked on those nuggets along the way.

Eric James Eden: 5:07

So that's a great story. It's interesting the guerrilla tactics you took to get it going of finding a place where your target buyers were for the raft it was the boat shows as an example and going there and hustling to prove that, hey, this is something this group wants, and then building off of that success to get major distributions. That's pretty impressive. So the second piece of it seems like the ability to create a great product and then the ability to get into the hands of the right types of buyers, whether that's people in the boating community or for the grill people who love grilling like me. So I'm curious you mentioned China earlier. Did you create a lot of these 400 products that you've come up with, where a lot of them created or manufactured in China and then brought to the US?

Craig Rapihana: 6:10

Yeah, a lot of them. There was about 70 of them that we went to tooling with and created them, and that was mainly for other customers. And people would reach out and say, hey, I want to go and get a call like I want to develop it. So we would create that and but then we're. A lot of things fell short, was that? Not? Everyone wanted to go to both shows home shows, garden shows. They just think, oh, I want to get a product and I just want to throw it on Amazon. But if I was to go back a couple of sticks and say what made this really neat, this global style marketing tool that was there, I put my partner at the time as he used to stay on the till. You run the cash all the way up front and pull, and I had every person who was intoxicated, just shot bang, who was cheap, who wanted. You saw a deal and they'll say, oh, I can't have this and I can't have this. And oh, I love this, I want 501 six. I had every objective coming into that to it. Right, like, why, why wouldn't you buy the part? Oh, I don't like that color. Taught me a whole bunch of things like how much weight does it hold? I took that knowledge, put it into a spreadsheet and then that was my benefits that I launched on Amazon. When I went in there say, hey, the whole 350 pounds, hey, let's shake my best so it fits inside your vote covers and stuff. We've designed it, we've got all the shipping costs to shorten it down and all those conversations that I had from the front end. We're able to go into my features and benefits. And that's when the salesman drew the roof because I was answering all those questions that the typical boat show or that big person would want to buy. But where? Where it really got really cool was that a lot of people brewing. They knew I was on HSN because we featured in a lot of Amper shows. Right, oh, you're the HSN guy. And then I'm it by is there. And I was like, hey, this is really good, I've got a retail store. You should come and see me. So that was the really cool thing about it. On getting that free information that when someone's online, you do marketing and they don't check out or they don't go in, they don't really know the real reason behind it, and so you're always trying to optimize your store and optimize the message and do I have enough pain points in there as well? And then I would call up every single person that checked, checked out but didn't buy. And once, hey, this is crazy, you know the company. Hey, I'm doing this random. Call you check down there. Anything I didn't write, is there anything I did wrong? Hey, what makes not buy the product? And to be like, oh, I could remember my PayPal or I was trying to do while I was driving. And so those are all the key things that I was able to identify, which has helped me now when I spend less time at boat shows and trade shows. But if I was to design more products again, I would go straight to the home shows and boasters, because that's where you're a consumer, that's where you're gonna get a lot of negativity, a lot of positive coming in from back to test the product, to test the market. And that's the problem with some of the clients that will come to me is they hey, I want you to develop this and create this product and we want to build this. They just want to go straight to Amalong. And why go straight online and dodle that out? But these say much. Many people will lead this job and give up the weekends. They'll give up $30,000 a set of product and the and the garage in the closet.

Eric James Eden: 9:42

But it won't go and make that easy money on the weekend yeah, so that's a great insight that getting out and talking to customers was a key to the gorilla tactic, because getting that feedback, understanding what works, what doesn't work for the customer, that's something the digital channels like just promoting something via Amazon or online advertising or email marketing, you don't really get that customer feedback loop that informs your messaging but also how you enhance or distribute the product right yeah, but it brought across the second product, so I was getting a lot of people that were saying, oh, I can't have with loads and I'm like it's gone on here there's like I'm kind of good Christ, what is?

Craig Rapihana: 10:33

I'm like hey, tell me something, why can't you put this? I gave a stufe of free, would you pay it? And I'm like no, we can't, because our HOA associations and our condos and our places in Canberra, miami, won't allow us to have wraps. I'm like so the next boat show. I created a two by four noodles, we noodle, and that became the number one selling product and it overtook the lazy buns and bedbugs with you on the West Marine and we were selling thousand on it each day. On it completely. Because I said, hey, two by four, no, you can float and hold up to 200 pounds, fly bit and pounds, and it's HOA approved. I wouldn't have so I wouldn't have known that if I wasn't, and that grass were sort of oh sure, being there in person led to that great insight of yeah those regulations you wouldn't have otherwise have found out about that. Yeah, really interesting to the abandoned cats in person. What?

Eric James Eden: 11:39

So how many of these rafts and noodles did you end up selling? It was huge, right yeah?

Craig Rapihana: 11:43

we saw thousands and thousands. They got to the point where my manufacturer who at that time I switched from China to the US Actually one of the biggest float manufacturers in the US and provide the like jacket stuff they can see at Disney they basically came in and said you're pretty much 85% of that I'll let, and you and pick playing dominated and crushed us. We want to buy you out.

Eric James Eden: 12:09

So they bought me out. That's amazing.

Craig Rapihana: 12:11

Yeah. So I'm like, okay, no worries, again you have they and they increased the five-year normal compete. I said, hey, you can buy me out and I'll come back and rework it. I'll rework for you. But now they just wanted to take over. They had 40 employees and it was just me and a couple of money on my buddy with my partner. And then I had a VA and that was that three of us Lying, a multi-million dollar coffee, made older star that they wouldn't stand about, which was let's just buy and was great. Our intention was a sell them out engine was like we had something going and it was working. And I wasn't shy to ask the questions they sent in your office. They stayed in the mall and they Generic stuff. That's great.

Eric James Eden: 12:54

So let me ask you what did you learn working with the folks who are trying to launch products on Shark Tank, on the home shopping network? I'm sure a lot of people come to you and ask you for advice when they're thinking about doing it. What did you learn from that experience that you would broadly share with people who are thinking about any kinds of products along the lines of home goods?

Craig Rapihana: 13:20

yeah. So the first thing I always relate to is they always say on the shark tank, I think button text would be connected be, hey, one of your numbers. A lot of people don't know the numbers and I looked at all, looked at from the napkin side of it, to the Strategy of my okay, I can take it from an idea to a napkin to selling it from millions of dollars. Where is that person? Where is that person I can help. That's why I created a mock analysis so I am able to go as a hey, I'm gonna create a mock analysis for you and it's a page excel document died called war the information. And I know who your computer is, I know what your crisis, I know what your prices, I know what you manufacturing is. We look at your seat, me, as a cost acquisition for that source, great across the floor, and then I can say okay, if you want to play in this game, you want to take one for center of the mic, five percent of the Michael T percent of the market. Calculating goes you need it coming and be ready to spend 38,000 dollars or 42,000 over $21,000, right, that's the biggest mistake. You want has a great idea. They go by a hundred items on Ali Baba or wherever they want to do it from Ali express. They bring it in and they realize, oh, I'm not making any money because I got a pay-peat and see I bought the park for $12. I'm selling it to 24 but, minus my peace, I don't even have enough money to replenish why I just sold Right and that's the biggest thing, no one knows what it's Really gonna do. What product is this work? I always say why can show you how much money you gonna make? 75% of small businesses wouldn't fail because 75% of them wouldn't start.

Eric James Eden: 15:09

No people. So people need to understand the unit economics and how does scale?

Craig Rapihana: 15:13

no phones. Yeah, they need to understand. This is how much you need to sell on Amazon. This is how much you yourself online. And if you want to go into retail, you don't just need to be 5%. My, they do a little bit more. And here is all the stuff. And those are all the thousand whistons that I've been snatched in the face with, had to go around, had to work out, and I still told with all my vibes right now and saw that, hey, we saw 15%. What discounts are coming in, some very up to date with that, but getting everyone to a level plant, and so they understand that, hey, your, this is how much it is to play the game. The second one would be Understanding that opening. If you sell three units or five units or T you, that's a day for 30 days. It takes you 90 days to order your product. You get shipped in and bought in by the time it clears customs, it comes through. That saves 60 to 90 days. You need her is 900 and stop versus 300, because you'll be selling 10 a day, whatever. After, very quickly, you'll be sitting there twirling your thumbs I've done no product. I've done no product. I'm not making any money. You start going down the rank and you know inventory management, right, yeah, and understanding that, and a lot of them don't understand it on that point. So it's like one of the tricks that I do is I say, okay, we want to buy a thousand units, we're going to bring in, let's say, 250 units, will bring in 250 units. We think that it'll sell out in two months, but after the next, after six weeks or 30 days, I'll say to the factory hey, can you send me in 250 or the other 500? So then allows you to gauge what's happening versus it trying to be stuck in your garage, unless you got a pretty big warehouse on the farm or launch or something, or avoid cost of it being an Amazon, those fees, and then even into a 3PL company. But it depends on the budget. They've got a little bit of budget, they got a little bit of money to play, they understand the numbers. And yeah, hey, let's bring in a thousand units. That's the enigrasis, you know.

Eric James Eden: 17:26

Yeah, that makes sense. I think that understanding the unit economics plus how to manage the inventory is two really critical things when you think about the overall Investment. That makes sense. Let me ask you I still think it's probably critical today to talk to the customers and get feedback, like you shared in your story. But I'm curious what you think about how the digital channels are so dominant today. You mentioned Amazon. I can't help but think is Tiktok shop the new home shopping network, because they're pushing that really hard and it's a lot of products from China. Like, how are you thinking about the new digital distribution that's become so dominant in recent years in this area?

Craig Rapihana: 18:17

Yeah, I would be looking at a Tiktok shop for sure, because you'll be putting the video in the shop now and there are a little bit of a lady in on what you can get away with, because I see imp on there, I see CVV on there, see a few other things on there that are selling that typically you can't put into the networks or anything like that. It hasn't matured enough for us to go in and hack it and see if actually it's doing it, because one of the biggest things is there's a lot of people out here that say they're making a million dollars, but they don't. They're not. So you don't want to fall into that track. I always say try it, play with a little bit, and this is where the procurement management comes into it, right? So you say, ok, I can't get away from a thousand units, I will bring in a thousand units. I'm looking to sell 250 on Amazon. I'm going to take, I'm going to take a little bit of that tested on. Tiktok sells and ranks up hey, that's really great. And if it's like, well, I really need to push product, let me go to a weekend show or show and flip these and sell these. So you'd have to have your mindset on where they all are from the digital side of it. I always say that we can get fully optimized, so we know that you're going to your top competitor. Let's see, your top competitor is a certain brand that's matched to yours. I wouldn't copy, but you would mimic the way the checkout locks, the floated locks, put all your magic buttons in there and they see how that flows. Because if you can get fully optimized, it really comes down to customer coming into the website, coming into the landing page with it. It's online. Are they going to the checkout? Are they learning more? Are they buying now? And if they get to the checkout page, why aren't they buying? They didn't see the coupon or the discount that your aunt gave them, or they had an issue with checking out. There's something, most of all the shipping. There's something going on. You've already got three things to problem solve versus you've got to run off to my website and play, except the any of that. But I'm actually creating a supplement brain right now and I'm going to be trying it on TikTok as well. But it's not going to be my great and butter, but Amazon. I'll head to the little. I'll try it on TikTok. If that works, then it's great and I can take those numbers and go to HSN. You can see, hey guys, hey, we want to put this up on here. We've done 10,000 units in the last six months. Let's give it a go. They might run a purchase order for 3,000 to 5,000 a year away.

Eric James Eden: 20:49

So I like the idea of using TikTok and testing my question around Amazon is there's so much volume there on Amazon broadly speaking? Is it a silver bullet, Is it a cash cow? Is selling stuff on Amazon or is it harder than that?

Craig Rapihana: 21:05

So this is my nugget. I'm going to share my nugget. This is what I do. You have to be on Amazon, right? Whether you like it or not. Right, because someone's going to look on the far and they're going to go let me see, from Amazon. Right, you've got to be on Amazon. Now you have a product that's very similar to someone else. So, let's say, you're selling a knock off of a croff or something like that, like croff shoe. Okay, yeah, you got to go side by side. You've got to come with bigger, more value. Like okay, this product comes in a zip lock bag and it has a cloth and like multiple things on it, because China won't put four things together in a kit. I'll only sell one because of the carapace rule. So to beat China, you take one of their products, your product in combination with something you hasn't done as a combo or a bundle. Here at my team I've seen all my stuff to the track on online and then there's a little pop up that says ways, hey, maybe you haven't shot with us before. We invite you to flex here by directly from us on Amazon. So now we're going straight to Amazon and then Amazon the billion year out, not paying the beaten city outside traffic and 30 to 40% is more chicken out goes to 70% because you're seeing them to Amazon. So now you're using Amazon as your down sell. Hey, you don't know why. Here Norris, chuck the lesson on Amazon. You already got their details. They shop on Amazon and inside the box saying, hey, you love it, you can check us out, you can scan the code or whatever these little terms and conditions. They get to play with that and that's how you capture that. And you have to be on Amazon, otherwise someone's just going to go, look on Amazon typing a keyword and buy someone else at least leave it after them wanting a bit of price or shipping, and then from your data you see a whole bunch of people leaving from your website, going to Amazon. Then you change your shipping and your price will change your offer. Keep them something more. Hey, you get your second pair of whatever or in your second product and a 70% discount upsells, as I think everyone on the show would realize. That's brilliant, that's brilliant, it's a little twist right, it's small little twists. It's like how you set it up and it's worked great. We had a whole bunch of people buy flip books on Amazon and we had a whole bunch of people that came in and I would give them the recipe book and all the stuff and say, hey, you can shop with us on Amazon. However, you are just nuts. And then they go back and put it from us anyway, you want all its values.

Eric James Eden: 23:54

Indeed. All right, craig. Thanks so much for sharing these stories with us today and this great advice around product marketing. This has been really great. I encourage everyone listening, share these stories, share this episode with your friends so they can benefit from it.