AI Won't Save a Bad Business

Chris: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is a bearded. Chris McCabe coming to you from Massachusetts and I've got Bradley Sutton out in California. I think you're in California.

Bradley: Yes. A possibly bearded but hasn't, haven't shaved in three days bradley.

Chris: Right, you're working on it. Bradley of Helium 10 fame.

You've been at Helium how long now?

Bradley: This is, this year is gonna be eight, I believe.

Chris: You're coming up Coming up on a decade. We already passed our decade anniversary, so

Bradley: Helium ten's anniversary. .10 year is, 10 years is this, and obviously it has even more. I mean, 10 years of any company is significant.

But when you're 10 is in the name, then

Chris: Yes.

Bradley: Yeah, s So this year is uh, helium ten's 10th anniversary.

Chris: Oh, interesting. So I started just before Helium 10, it sounds like. Interesting.

Bradley: Yep, yep.

Chris: I did not know that. Well, welcome back to the Seller Performance Solutions podcast. I wanted to have you back on for a few different reasons, but why don't we start with what we were [00:01:00] kicking around before we hit record about.

all the commentary, all the posts, all the excitement over Rufus and AI and product search. And I guess some of the contrarian posts are like, product search is dead, product search isn't dead. Product search has changed forever. There's always more nuance than anything else to these things.

So. Why don't you, I mean, I think everyone's pretty up on this whole debate or conversation. Why don't you maybe summarize briefly what you've seen and what you think is going down the wrong path , and what you think are the fundamentals that people need to keep in mind when they set these things up?

Bradley: Yeah. I'm very passionate about this subject because I think a lot of sellers are being steered the wrong way. And I base that off of like, when I have private conversations with sellers or when I'm on like live broadcast or speaking at a place. And I open things up to questions.

People seem to be worried. They're like, oh my goodness, Rufus and [00:02:00] all this AI search and cosmo, and buzzwords like that are changing everything. But the contrary point to that is that no, people are still searching on Amazon the same way.

Me, where I fit is kind of in the middle where I think that with Rufuss and other things, of course, you need to keep it in mind. My point is that Amazon is about doing all the things that move the needle 1% here, 1% there. Just because something is used, 1%, 2%, 3%, doesn't mean that you don't do it.

Keyword research on Amazon. One keyword is not gonna bring you a million dollars of sales. It might bring you a sale here or there, but you expand that out and it all adds up. Hey, making sure you get a few more reviews here or there. That not a game changer for your business.

Moves the needle in 1% if you have more reviews, but you gotta do it. And so that's the main difference I have with some of the narratives that's going out there is. I do think, and I have optimized my listings for Rufus, because anytime something new comes up on Amazon, even if it only moves a [00:03:00] needle 1%, you gotta do it.

But people are doing this narrative where it's like, people don't search on keywords anymore. It's all Rufus. This is all you gotta worry about. And what's happening is it's making people distracted from what still works. Like I did a study. For like keyword searches, using not Helium 10 data.

I'm using data direct from Amazon, search query performance.

And you could see from when Rufuss started in July of 2024. You look back before 2024, you look after Rufus has been around for a year.

Chris: Yeah.

Bradley: If let's say a million people were searching with keywords for a product in 2023, 2024, before Rufus was around in for your niche, if you accumulate all the ways people found your product.

Guess what guys, today it's still a million, it like has not changed. Up or down, two or 3% the kind of things you have seen the data is showing that Rufus is changing, is buyer behavior once they actually land on the page. Because at that point, if you land on a product page, Amazon is almost forcing [00:04:00] Rufus down your throat, it even pops up without even you asking for it. But yes, the data does show that people are using things like the price history check, which is a very great feature of Rufus and asking to summarize the reviews and stuff. And then you can look at the search crew performance data and see, oh, wow, conversion rate went way down.

Doesn't mean conversion rate went down, that there's less sales. It just means that once you start interacting with Rufus, the way the data worked before. Search crew performance stopped counting that as like a sale and stuff like that. Funnel stopped. And so you could literally see a big dip in conversion right when Rufus came on.

And so you could see that that's the way that people are looking at. And again, that's a great way, that's how I optimize for Rufus. I'm looking on my listing page at what questions are being asked and what are the answers. I'm like, oh shoot, if I don't like this answer, that means I better change my listing. Et cetera, but oh my God, it's like sellers out there because of this information, they think that, oh, I don't need keywords anymore, or everybody is using [00:05:00] Rufus. I'll ask them like, do you live in America? Do you have an Amazon account? Tell me what's the last thing that you bought where you started and ended your search from Rufus?

And they're like nothing. I'm like, well, but somehow everybody else is using this but you.

Chris: Yeah. It's, no one's saying, don't use Rufus. No one's saying ignore Rufus.

Bradley: Exactly.

Chris: So it is people are trying to do one extreme to the other.

Without understanding the buyer behavior doesn't change overnight.

For most buyers now saying, well, for a chunk of buyers, which is a significant percentage. It will change substantially soon. Yeah. I think most people agree with that.

Bradley: Yeah.

Chris: But the idea that product search of yesteryear of your has vanished, I don't know if people are just being hyperbolic and they're trying to get eyeballs with dramatic statements, and that's why they're saying that, but product search and buyer behavior, it does not change overnight like that, I am tempted to believe, you can check me on this if you [00:06:00] think I'm right. I'm tempted to believe that in this space, whenever people think there's a tool or a strategy or any master hack trick that comes up that will save them time, maybe save them money. They want to believe that it can be used in a multitude of ways to save them time and save them money.

With AI in general, people are trying to shortcut appeals. People are trying to act like I can ChatGPT my appeals, and then you get all the posts on LinkedIn about everyone getting rejected all the time.

Bradley: Yeah.

Chris: It's like, well, maybe there's a connection between using all the unfiltered, barely tinkered with ChatGPT slash ai written content and all the rejections.

So I think it's similar. It's analogous in some ways.

Bradley: I agree with that. Yesterday somebody was talking about getting off of a suspension on TikTok shop.

Chris: Yep.

Bradley: And they use ChatGPT I'm like, there, there's not even enough information that's publicly available that would make me think that chat GPT has any and let alone who knows how [00:07:00] much bad information is out there. I'm like, you should not be using AI to like try and get your TikTok account suspended. But going back to the other things, like with Rufus is also like what people forget is the whole reason AI exist. AI is designed to make things that you normally would do easier or automated or or stuff that you just would, you would never have the time to do, to make it work, you know, like, hey, I wanted to find all the Japanese baseball players. You know, something I do is, is I do Japanese baseball cards too. I wanted to find all the Japanese baseball players that are in the, 2025 baseball card sets in the US because, I buy and sell it.

I could do that right now, but it would take me maybe two hours to do because I would've to go find all the checklists and then see, all right, who's Japanese? Look one by one, AI could do that in two minutes. Now, what I was trying to do has not changed. The output is gonna be the same, but it's something that is making it so it's a [00:08:00] no brainer to use.

And, and like Tesla autopilot. Oh my God. I don't know what I would do without it. It doesn't change the way a car is driven, it doesn't make it fly or make it go on the water. It does stuff that the human normally would do, but in a more efficient way. Like when I'm backing up or parking, it has a 360 degree view throughout the whole time I'm parking.

But as a human, if I was just parking myself, I can only see this way, but I'm still looking 360 degrees around, but it's not simultaneous, so it, it's a no-brainer to use the Tesla autopilot. Taking that to Rufus, it's in any AI for that matter, for shopping, is, it's like, Hey, Rufus can do stuff that you, you know, can't do.

Like I could read all the reviews on a page and then summarize it, but it just makes more sense to use Rufus. So even in the discovery phase, it's still doing what is the goal of somebody shopping, which is I'm looking for a product that best fits my need and I [00:09:00] wanna buy it now. Now I could do that without ai, but I'll use AI if it makes that process easier.

But if you understand that, that's the goal of it. It's not trying to recreate something, it's just trying to, you know, then you, you'll probably, it's efficiency that your listing is probably gonna be the same. because if you were just a seller who's just stuffing keywords that you find in helium tenants your listing, that's never been the right way to do things,

Chris: right.

Bradley: You should be optimizing your listing to how people think and what's the use case is. It's not just about keywords, so if you say, oh, I optimized my listing for Rufus and I had a big increase in sales, guess what? It wasn't because you optimized for a Rufus, it's because you were an idiot seller before who was just throwing keywords or something in your listing like, like it's always been the case.

Oh, you read reviews? How do people use this product? Talk about it. You should never just keyword stuff. And so, yeah. And so that's why, you know, that, that, that stuff, as you can see, gets me fired up. But keep it in mind guys. Rufus is important. Any new way that you can understand your customer better or optimize the [00:10:00] experience, you have to do it.

Rufus is included in it. But don't think that this is like the new way that anybody's gonna find your product. 'cause it's not.

Chris: No, It's for good reason. You're fired up because aI mistakes are becoming crippling. For some brands that are make or break, not every brand is coasting to year over year sales that double.

These mistakes matter. So for your world, you're seeing Rufus mistakes that are costing people money because sales are being missed, mistakes aren't being corrected, or they shouldn't have made those mistakes in the first place. In our world, we're seeing listings stay down for three weeks instead of one, because people are overreliant on AI.

I mean, AI is leaps and bounds ahead of where it would've been a couple years ago.

Bradley: Oh yeah.

Chris: And I'm sure it's going wonderful places, but the assumption that we're already there is the real problem. That, like you said, if you weren't doing these, if you didn't have the fundamentals in place before, if you were just keyword stuffing [00:11:00] before you were complaining that you weren't making sales and wondering why, and now you can't really afford to make those kind of rookie mistakes anymore because you won't survive.

What are some of the other things you see people doing that they can't really afford to make that many mistakes at all anymore. You kind of have to have good decision making, good strategy, smooth operations, because fees are going up for FBA storage, um, ad costs are going up, whatever, paying influencers, marketing costs, everything's going up.

Tariffs are hurting people, so there's no margin for error.

Bradley: I think the biggest lever is the ads that you mentioned. Yeah. Some of the other stuff you mentioned are affecting sellers, but you don't have control over it. Like I can't control what the tariff is . Like maybe I can react to it and raise prices or something.

I can't control the prices of shipping, which fluctuate all the time, I can maybe plan my inventory better, but the one of the biggest [00:12:00] costs of selling, but thankfully it's also something you have maybe arguably the most control over is advertising. I just took over this account where there was a couple who were managing it, but it was mainly, one of the spouses, but then that spouse is not in the picture right now.

And so the other one came to me like I wasn't doing anything on advertising. I haven't done anything for two months. I don't know what's going on. And I looked at the account. I just imported into Helium 10 ads and I'm like, let me just look at some of the metrics here. I'm like, oh my god.

You've got keywords here that you've gotten 350 clicks for and no sales. And since nobody was looking at it, Amazon will take another 350 clicks, I'm sure, and take your dollar a click and that's just one keyword they had. I think their ACOS went up to like 60% or something, but if you are not like actively monitoring your advertising on Amazon. I say this on Amazon, TikTok is like a different ball game. It's a lot easier than than Amazon where it is just automated, but if you're not monitoring it and doing stuff like negative matching keywords and stopping the bleed on keywords that [00:13:00] are just not profitable.

That's where your expenses can get out of control. And so that's the number one thing I think that people need to really get a grip on. And I don't mean, oh, go out and use Helium 10 automation, I actually don't none of the accounts. I run tens of thousand of dollars in advertising,

Chris: right?

Bradley: Zero do I use automation on it. I use like Helium 10 ads for rules and stuff like that. But I don't mean go out and just turn some automation on. I don't mean, oh, you better hire a $3,000 a month agency or something to control it. If you need to do that because you have no time, great.

But just you, yourself, as a seller or a brand, take control of your advertising. Look at it in Seller Central. Look at it in Helium 10, wherever you're doing it. Take action because that's like, you know, Amazon's, we don't have control over so many things. That's the thing you have control over. You better do it or else the things are gonna get crazy real fast.

Chris: Well, but it's still an arms race. You still have to keep up. That's why I just see much less margin for error.

Bradley: Absolutely.

Chris: And that's why I see kind of a painful year ahead for some brands. I [00:14:00] mean, some will do better than they did last year and some will do worse, but a lot of people on the bubble.

Bradley: Yeah.

Chris: And a lot of people who have to make reasonable decisions in key areas where they might have just kind of borrowed what their buddy was doing or copied and pasted somebody else's idea. There has to be a strategy there, and I'm hoping that the strategy isn't just AI all the time.

Which is what I've started calling it.

Bradley: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: And not just in what we do, but just in what I see sellers doing in general, the AI all the time concept. Like, oh, I asked somebody a question and they shove it through ChatGPT, to just, just to email me back an answer. It's like, well, this is your business.

You know the answer to this question. You don't need to just hand off everything.

Bradley: I use ChatGPT now, like in the last two months, more than the last two years together. But it's stuff within reason, I'm looking for a new TV [00:15:00] show thing. I'm looking to, let me just narrate my teams, my department here at Helium 10.

Our, um, what's it called? Uh, like department mandate or something like that. There's a fancier word for it, but I just like started speaking and then I'm like, Hey, put this into a what is the normal template for

Chris: Yeah.

Bradley: For department mandates that, that's not even the right word. I don't even, I don't even remember what the word is, but, you know, stuff like that.

Like, like quarterly review or something.

Something like that. But then, you know, stuff like, hey, you know, do something that is the life, make this decision. That's the lifeblood of my Amazon business. I'm not, I'm not trusting that to that's the part.

Chris: That scares me.

Bradley: Yeah.

Chris: That's what scares me and I know it's scaring you because you see people focused all on Rufus and none on the fundamentals and none on going with what got them there. Like they think whatever got them there is irrelevant and now it's all Rufus at this point.

Bradley: Yep.

Chris: Maybe we can kind of wrap this up with just a quick conversation about what you're doing with the seller sessions and interviewing brands.

Oh yeah. And you're obviously handpicking brands who have [00:16:00] succeeded because they're not. Doing these knee jerk things.

Bradley: Yeah.

Chris: Their fundamentals are sound. So what's the short, brief version

Bradley: So yeah, something new I'm doing is like these two a month case studies, they end up being podcasts and I still do the regular podcast, but they're a little bit different.

Where we might fly somebody out to California in our studio or I'll fly, like I flew to somebody's house in the UK to, to record one of these next week, I'm recording the founder of neuro Gum. But we're looking for brands that have had success with Helium 10 and have had success online.

Doesn't have to be just Amazon. It could be. Shopify, TikTok shop, whatever, TikTok and who are willing, , this is the caveat, who are willing to like, talk about their brand. You know, like the owner of NeuroGum he's famous now because of Shark Tank and everything else.

Yeah. And he always talks about his brand, but as we know, 90% of Amazon sellers, they won't even tell you what they sell unless you're on NDA. And they definitely don't want to go on a podcast and say what they sell or anything. They always just try and stay vague for whatever reason. But hey, go ahead and have your own privacy. But for the 10% of people who are like, you know what, yeah, I wanna help people. I wanna inspire people. I wanna bring exposure for my brand. I mean, shoot, who doesn't want [00:17:00] exposure for their brand? Reach out to me and say, you'd like to be interviewed and maybe I'll fly to you or maybe we'll fly you out.

Or if I'm traveling to certain events, like, who knows, maybe I'll be at one of your events, Chris and somebody there, is willing to record their life story and their brand story. I'd love to record you and, and hopefully inspire other people out there.

Chris: For sure. Yep. You were at our event last year, so it's happened before.

It'll happen again.

Bradley: There needs to be a merry-go-round at every future event of yours because, you know, that was the, that kind of topped it.

Yeah, that was the best, the merry round. I, here I'll record the podcast as we go on the merry-go-round, how about that then now that's a unique concept for it there.

Chris: All I have to do is get you outside New York City. Upstate New York on the merry-go-round.

Bradley: Let's do it.

Chris: Does it have to be the same merry-go-round? Can it be as different?

Bradley: No, I'm an equal opportunity in merry-go-round, you know? Nice. I like them all.

Chris: Nice. All right, so we'll include info on that in the show notes, and anyone who's got questions that wants to talk to you about their Rufus [00:18:00] strategy or anything else, best place to reach you is.

Bradley: My Instagram Serious Sellers podcast is, uh, no Spaces Is is my Instagram, and that's usually the best way to reach out to me, see what's going on in my world.

Chris: Awesome. Well, I hope to see you again soon on one of our coasts. Thanks again for joining me. Thanks everyone for listening in with me and Bradley Sutton of Helium 10.

We will catch you next time.