Interview with Daniel Fernandez from AMZClever

Are you keen to scale your brand on Amazon but are not sure where to get started? Then Daniel and his team could be the answer to having a presence and scaling on this huge marketplace.

Hey Daniel,

We were introduced by our mutual friend John Cavendish when looking for an agency to set up and manage my Amazon store.

I was a complete newbie when it came to being an Amazon merchant and so we partnered to see what we could achieve on this platform.

I am keen to understand your journey and the challenges of getting started on Amazon and how you help.

So, Daniel, let’s jump straight into this with my first question.

It would be great to get a little background information from where you were born to where you live today. What’s your backstory?

I’m originally from Lima, Peru, my mom is from the US while my dad is from Peru, I'll come back to this part of the story later. There I started working in sales when I was 15 years old, I did door-to-door sales selling supplements, I had opposition from my family about this, however, it was one of the most important chapters of my life, I learned many lessons about persistence, good attitude, good customer service, winning the inner battle, self-motivation, confidence, etc. I don’t know how else I would have learned so much.

A few years later I decided to move to the US looking for new opportunities, I had become American thanks to my mom, so decided to take advantage of that and landed in Minnesota with about $400 dollars in cash and a lot of ambition, it was almost winter so spent 50% of my cash on a winter jacket, that’s how my time in the US began.

Started working in sales once again, this time for Apple ended up moving and working in silicon valley where I started flirting with the idea of eCommerce and selling on amazon from a podcast episode that a friend shared with me. There was the point where I decided to leave my job and start selling on Amazon.

So there I was living in one of the most expensive cities at the time, without a job… I ended up getting in debt, however that didn’t stop me from trying to grow a business.

I launched a product on amazon, this was back in 2015 where amazon was a wild wild west.

The product did well but I realized that without my job I was not going to be able to make a living in a long time so that’s where I decided to pivot and become a service provider, that’s where AMZ Clever was born.

I had joined a business mastermind, it cost me $25k to join which I put all on credit cards, it was a tough time with lots of pressure but I knew this was all good debt, investing in myself.

From that mastermind, I found my first clients which showed me early signs that this might actually work. Decided to move to the east coast to save up on expenses, yes I moved back to my mom’s, which was probably one of the most painful moments for my ego, I was broke, in debt, back to living with my mom… however I was willing to work day in, day out, and had invested so much on myself that eventually, it would pay off.

This is what happened, started finding some more clients, and that’s when a friend that had moved to China recently convinced me to go check it out, I thought that growing a client base there might be a good idea.

This was around late 2017 and it was really out of my comfort zone, however, I pushed forward. I ended up finding more clients, these were primarily western entrepreneurs that were either stationed or traveling to China for sourcing at the time.

Lived in China for 3 years, AMZ Clever continues to grow, I was invited to speak at numerous events in the eCommerce space several times in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Amsterdam, etc.

Then the pandemic began, I moved to Bali where I lived for almost 2 years, I worked so hard during that time which allowed me to scale the agency to where it is today with several team members in America, Europe, Asia, and clients all around the world.

During that time I also got married in Bali and decided to move back to the states with my wife, where I’m currently based on the East Coast.

On our first call, I knew straight away that you lived and breathed marketing. What got you into Amazon in particular?

The idea of FBA really made sense to me.

I had sold some products on eBay before and scaling was more difficult because of having to fulfill orders manually. Amazon FBA allowed brands to focus on marketing, and let Amazon handle logistics, maybe today we see that as a given but back then that was groundbreaking, and still is!

There are many factors but what are the biggest challenges getting with traction on Amazon as a merchant?

I would say to really know what you’re doing. If you don’t then it is too easy to keep giving money to amazon or running in circles without building a business.

One needs to have a product that is not just another me-too product, for many that is already quite difficult, and the truth is that that’s just the first step, it doesn’t have to be perfect from the get-go, a lot of optimization will happen along the way, it is important to know what data to pay attention to on Amazon and then keep reiterating.

Then it is important to understand how Amazon works, many that are used to the FB ads model, are probably expecting a shorter marketing cycle where one can see ROI quick, however when it comes to amazon it is all about ranking, but then ranking is about product-market fit and marketing budget, then each of these can be broken into more sections.

There is this idea out there that making money on Amazon is easy, it actually isn’t but that’s what a lot of courses and gurus say, I would say it is very competitive, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can get burned or waste a lot of time

What is one tip you could give new amazon merchants to help scale their account? Just the tip… to quote Archer 😉

I’ll share a few:

• Don’t grow amazon products, but rather grow a brand, something people can identify with, you don’t want them to go back to amazon thinking “I’m going to go buy another spatula from amazon” but rather “I’m going to buy another [your brand name here] product from amazon”
• Get your trademark through the Amazon IP accelerator, it will unlock amazon brand benefits much quicker
• Treat it as a business and be willing to invest 5-figures (high or low depends on the niche) before you see success

Is being a merchant on Amazon for every e-commerce owner?

Yes for every eCommerce owner building a brand, chances are your niche exists on amazon, as since you’re building a brand you won’t struggle with the lack of identity in the market that other sellers’ products have.

Did I forget that having a clear USP for your products and brand helps?

One of the biggest controversies recently has been with faked reviews. What’s your take on this?

Amazon is catching up, do not go for fake reviews, you will not outsmart amazon, they have sophisticated ways to detect the most minuscule behavioral pattern of reviews coming in, and they will shut you down.

There are kosher ways to get reviews quickly that work, and we implement them for our clients.

I think in general the market is becoming fairer when it comes to reviews, this benefits all brands that are in it for the long run. When I was in China I met service providers selling fake reviews, it is like a profession there, however even they admitted to me that it was getting harder and harder

From our experience it’s very much a case of pay to play on Amazon, is it possible to scale without paying?

No, and it has never been like that.

There are some stories of people that ‘got lucky’ at the beginning but a lot of them omit that investing in products and marketing has always been the case.

There are no shortcuts, long term thinking will trump those that look for a quick buck.

In 2015 when I started there were already notions of the market is saturated, the same happened in 2016, 2017, and 2018… you get my point.

Like one of my mentors, Dan Kennedy said;

the one who is willing to spend more to acquire a customer will win”.

The tactics change but not the fundamentals: you need traffic and conversion. Both cost money.

How have you seen Amazon’s merchant platform change over the recent years?

It has gotten a lot better!

More tools to do marketing, more sophisticated reporting.

I would say for someone starting out now may be more overwhelming than before, there’s more to learn, however, that’s all for good.

To give you an example, the types of targeting we can do now within Amazon PPC advertising are tremendous!

We dreamed of this level of sophistication 3-4 years ago, it would have saved us a lot of money on testing that now we can do much more easily.

Now you can also run real A/B tests on Amazon for your listing, that was also a dream just 2 years ago

The Amazon FBA marketplace is thriving at the moment, with sellers listing their businesses for 50x multiples, what’s fueling this?

We can do a whole interview about this question. (Yes, let's do it!)

The people out there realized that there’s a lot of money in the world looking for investments. Interest rates from banks and other financial vehicles are not paying anything and this money is hungry to be put somewhere where it can generate returns.

Growing a brand on amazon sometimes can be hindered by a lack of capital to buy even more inventory. This means a brand can be profitable but it could be much more profitable if it could place larger PO’s to bring costs down as well as launch more products.

This is why I think for some amazon businesses out there more money is the answer. This is what’s driving this whole aggregator wave.

Companies like Empire Flippers are facilitating many exits and some of these aggregators are raising money from investors to get bigger and bigger.

The question is if they are actually able to continue growing these brands at scale. Also without the passion from the entrepreneur, it is possible that some of these brands stop innovating.

I'll add to what I mentioned earlier, more money is the answer as long as the brand keeps evolving and taking better care of their customers going forward

You started your agency AMZ Clever in 2016, can you give us an overview of what services you offer?

I started in 2016.

What we offer is as follows:

• Full account management on Amazon (full launch if you’re a new brand), that is we take care of 100% of everything regarding Amazon
• PPC management on Amazon (full launch if you’re a new brand)
• For selected clients, we are also doing the above for walmart.com which is up and coming