#136 – Helium 10’s New Mobile App Will Help You Take Your Amazon Selling on the Road

If you’re like most eCommerce sellers, you’re probably never very far from your cell phone. That’s why ever since the earliest days of Helium 10, we’ve had users excitedly asking us one simple question: “When are you going to add a Mobile App to your suite of tools?”

Today on the Serious Sellers Podcast, Helium 10’s Director of Training and Customer Success, Bradley Sutton welcomes our VP of Products, as well as the product designer responsible for our new Mobile App. John and Bonny will speak with Bradley about the many ways that this anxiously awaited tool will help sellers crush it (while on the go) on Amazon.

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In episode 136 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Bonny and John discuss:

• 01:20 – Bonny’s Origin Story
•  02:55 – An Early Knack for Design Hinted at Her Future
• 04:20 – Coding and UX Design
• 05:55 – Helium 10’s New Mobile App
• 05:50 – “What Does the Customer Really Want?”
• 08:10 – Making Sure That Our Tools are Intuitive
• 10:00 – Helium 10’s Mobile App Functions Worldwide
• 11:50 – How the Mobile App is Making Helium 10’s Project X Run More Smoothly
• 13:45 – Customers are Having a Hard Time Putting Down the Mobile App
• 15:15 – New Features Will Follow
• 18:00 – Bonny’s UX Imprint Upon Helium 10
• 18:55 – Information is Key
• 19:10 – Here’s How to Find Out More About Helium 10’s Tools

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
• Ultimate Resource Guide: Discover the best tools and services to help you dominate on Amazon.
• Helium 10: 20+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation. 
• SellerTradmarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.

Transcript

Bradley: For a couple of years now, people have been asking for Helium 10 to come out with a mobile app. Well, that is now a reality, and today, we are going to talk to the two people who helped make this happen.

Bradley: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. I have two people who aren’t necessarily sellers on here. One, you guys are familiar with John, who just joined us last week on the podcast about the Market Tracker release, and now, we have somebody you haven’t heard from, Bonny. Bonny, how’s it going?

Bonny: Going great. Thanks for having me.

Bradley: Thank you for being here. Now, I started off on the episode I did with John, I’m not sure if you heard it yet, but I was like, “John, I have never pronounced your last name, because I don’t want to mess it up.” And actually, Bonny, I have never pronounced your last name either. Can you tell me how to pronounce your last name?

Bonny: It’s “Bakshi”.

Bradley: Bakshi. All right. That’s actually easier than John’s last name I’m sorry John to pronounce. John’s got a bunch of consonants there. Now, we know kind of John’s hero origin story before he became a Marvel superhero here. But we don’t know your origin story. You’ve been with a company a few months now. Where were you born and raised, Bonny?

Bonny: I was born in India. I was born in Kolkata. Then, I moved to Bombay, and most of my formative years, I’ve been to college and schools all in Bombay. Have you been to any one of the places?

Bradley: I have not. I’ve been to over 20 countries, and I love traveling, and I’m planning an around-the-world trip this year actually, as long as everything clears up, and I was like, “I have to go to India.” Where would you suggest? Should I should go in any of those two places or are there other places?

Bonny: I haven’t been all around India, but I have seen quite a lot of cities. I have lived in Kolkata; I’ve lived in Bombay; I have lived in Chennai; and I’ve visited Delhi. My husband’s from Delhi, so yeah, quite a lot of cities. Make sure you go during the winter. Summers can be very hot.

Bradley: Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. John, have you been to India before?

John: I have not been, but definitely a place I want to go. One of my friends lives in Delhi, and he’s trying to get me to come.

Bonny: Not now.

John: Once things clear up, I will make it there.

Bradley: All right, cool. Now, growing up in India¾this is a question I always ask¾how did you envision your professional career? Even when you were like eight, 10, 12 years old, did you want to be a doctor? Did you want to be a lawyer? What did you think you were going to end up doing?

Bonny: India is a lot like the Asian culture. Your parents focus a lot on studies. They always have this: either they want their kids to become a doctor or an engineer or something in that line. But I have always had the knack for design. For my undergrad, I did business and commerce, because at that point of time, it seemed like that was the expectation and that was the right thing to do. And then, I joined advertising for Times of India, and then, in 2012, I thought that’s going to be my line, like I’m always going to be in the corporate world. I never moved to design; it was just a hobby. But then, when I moved to America in 2012, I moved here on an H-4 visa, so I could not work for a little while. That was the time I started thinking, like, “What I want to do with all this free time that I have.” And I did my master’s in digital media design, and I thought that this was the right time to pursue design and make that my career.

Bradley: What was your first entry into switching from what you were doing to more of the design phase?

Bonny: It was very interesting. Once I started doing my master’s, I was in two minds. I started with coding, and then, slowly, I took a course in human-computer interaction, and that’s when I realized that I really, really love the user experience, user UI/UX aspect of everything. And then, there was no looking back.

Bradley: Cool. Cool. Now, we have you both here on this episode, because you were the instrumental figures, both of you, John and Bonny, here on developing and launching our new mobile app now. Let’s go back to John a little bit. This is something that we had already in the pipeline that we were ready planning before you joined the company, but you work for Apple before, I’m sure you had some kind of insights and ideas on what users like when they talk about the mobile experience. What were some of your priorities when you were first given by Bojan this project of helping bring this to fruition¾the whole Mobile App project?

John: Yeah, I mean I think we had a lot of different priorities, and obviously, we’re still thinking of how we can continue to improve the app, and we hope to bring a bunch of new things to it as well. But I think the first and foremost thing we wanted to do was just allow people to access their business anywhere, and so, we wanted to give them Alerts and Profits, which are kind of the great ways to check, “How’s my business doing? Do I need to be alerted to anything important?” And how do we make that as fast as possible to be viewed? Those are our kind of overarching goals. And I think, we did a good first step towards that.

Bradley: Cool. Now, Bonny, on the flip side, obviously, like you said, you’re more the UX/UI. What were some of your priorities as far as the look and the feel? What was the process to get to where it is now?

Bonny: I came down from Boston to Irvine for a week to brainstorm, like, what type of features or tools the application will have. We started the process, and we started brainstorming different ideas. At that point of time, we did not know what tools the application will have, and we started to think what the customer would want to access on-the-go. Basically, we came down to the conclusion that financials, accounts, and listing notifications were the most important things, but we did come up with a lot more features that will be revealed in the near future. We picked out the most important aspects of profits, and we started putting it in, and we started developing the structure. That is how we came up, and then eventually, John joined our team, and then, there was no looking back.

Bradley: Nice. All right, now, John, a question for you. Obviously, I’m sure you guys studied how sellers use the Seller Central mobile app that they use, and of course, by definition, there’s going to be a lot of things that it might be similar, like, it’s showing you the number of sales, but in your opinion, what are some of the features that make the Helium 10 Mobile App a little bit more insightful? I don’t know if that’s the word I’m looking for, but a little bit more insightful than just somebody using the Seller Central mobile app. What can you do in our app that you couldn’t do in Seller Central?

John: I think it’s really about giving people some of their Profits information in a little bit more intuitive way. And I also think Alerts is a huge part of our app which keeps you constantly informed, but going to Profits, it’s that familiar sort of a summary information that you see in our Profits tool: being able to drill down into specific periods, be able to look at specific products, have favorites, and see all your orders. I think just having that information in a familiar, yet intuitive way, is really why people would want to be looking at ours versus Seller Central.

Bradley: Yeah. One thing I liked that I’m pretty sure the Seller Central didn’t have is that scrubbing ability. Can you talk a little bit about that?

John: Yeah. That a super useful feature we thought: giving people not only the summary information on your units sold, your sales for the last couple of months, this month, last month. But being able to drill down into specific metrics for individual days and then also month-over-month comparisons, getting that all in a few simple charts becomes a really powerful tool. Really, what you need to do is when you see either on your main summary page on the Profits tab or even if you’re on a specific product, when you’re looking at these line charts, you can pull down on the lines and then start¾we call it¾scrubbing left and right, and you’ll see that that information start appearing for you. It can give you those comparisons and those daily metrics.

Bradley: Awesome. Awesome. Now, Bonny, is this only able to work right now for Amazon USA, or if they have their Amazon account connected to other marketplaces, they can use it for those marketplaces as well?

Bonny: Yes, absolutely. They can use it for whatever marketplaces that they’re connected to.

Bradley: Excellent. Excellent. Now, what would you suggest as far as how people log in to it? Is there what’s this magic link? When I first started testing this, I was like, “What is this magic link do? Can you explain the magic link as opposed to how might be the easiest way to log in, whether you’re on Android or on iOS?

Bonny: With the magic link, you do not have to type your password to log in. You just click on the magic link, you get an email, you click on the link on the email, and you directly log in. That’s the easiest possible way to log in.

John: And it’s super helpful, Bradley. I think we talked about it too. If you have a bunch of different accounts, and you’re selling a bunch of different things, and sometimes people forget their passwords or don’t know what’s associated with what. Just having the email makes it so much more simple, because, like Bonny said, you just type in your email, your email app will alert you to, “Hey, you’ve got a magic link,” and then, you tap and you’re in. It makes it super simple, especially for people who have multiple accounts.

Bradley: Absolutely. Yes. That’s great. I think it’s important, because sometimes, I personally on the iOS use the face ID just because I’m lazy. I don’t like typing things, but it’s very convenient. I’ll be lying in bed, and I just have the phone in front of my face, and I can just log right in there. But it still has a security where you don’t have to worry about somebody else hopping into your account even if you lose your phone or something. Now, just really briefly, I want to talk just to the people out there about how I’ve been using it. I’ve been using it mainly on the Project X account, and what was happening before is I would just go¾I actually don’t like this Seller Central mobile app. I never had it downloaded before until I started trying to test the differences here. But I would always just have to go either to my Helium 10 account or to my Seller Central account to kind of just see what my sales were for the day. But I just love how, for Project X, at least, I’m looking like six, seven, eight times a day, and it takes me just seconds to do it. Right? I can look at what my sales are increasing, what my sales are decreasing, when I’m getting new reviews, or when something has changed on my listing. It is so convenient. I can’t even describe how much time it has saved me from having to either sign into Seller Central. I’m on the road a lot too driving. I’m not saying people go look at your mobile phone when you’re driving, but obviously, when you’re driving, you can’t break out your laptop and go into Seller Central. Even if you’re in the car, even if you’re the passenger, you can’t do these kinds of things to see what your sales are. But now on the palm of your hand, you’re able to check instantly these things. And we even have some things that, I believe, I’m not even sure the desktop version has. For Profits, you can’t see your most recent orders, like the actual order numbers and what it was. Right, John?

John: No, you can’t. That was an exciting thing. We wanted to show people was just seeing what’s coming in, what people are buying, and it’s kind of a rewarding thing to see as all your orders start coming in you get those coming in right on your Profits app on your phone. Definitely exciting. And I think, again, towards having all this stuff on your phone, we’re seeing a lot of good, interaction with it so far, and we’re seeing people use the app many more times a day than they might on just having the web app. And so, I think it just keeps people much more informed, and we’re seeing a lot of great feedback and people saying like, “Hey, I’m checking this 10 times a day just so I can stay informed on my sales and see how they increase over the day, and alerts are coming in. It’s really exciting.”

Bradley: Cool. Bonny, in our internal communication, did you see that link to the Facebook post I put where so many people are putting screenshots of their sales from the Mobile App. Did you see that or not yet?

Bonny: Not yet.

Bradley: All right. Well, anyways, let me just tell you what it is. There’s actually a post out there in Facebook where, now, everybody is putting their screenshots of their sales. People that have always done that with the seller central app, but now, they’re doing it with the Helium 10 Mobile App. As somebody who designed it and somebody who’s kind of responsible for this, does that give you like a special feeling, like, when you see stuff like that?

Bonny: Absolutely. This whole thing gives me a special feeling, because this was one of my first projects, and to see it come alive, it does, and people appreciate it. I mean, of course, you must have seen the reviews that we have gotten on the App store; everything is very overwhelming, and it’s a very good feeling.

Bradley: Love it, love it. Now, if you can’t talk about it, feel free not to, but is there anything that you can talk about that is on tap for future iterations of the mobile app?

Bonny: We came up with a lot of features. I just want to tell our users to stay tuned as a lot more interesting features are coming in the near months.

Bradley: Excellent. Excellent. Now, John, what’s the best way that people can give their feedback? Obviously, we want them to please leave reviews in the mobile app store that they’re using just like Bonny said. But if they actually have suggestions for what they would like to see in the app, should they just contact our customer service team like they do with other tools or is there anything special that they need to do?

John: Yeah, I think they can do it in many different ways. And we have an amazing community on Facebook, as you mentioned, and people are posting screenshots, but they’re also giving feedback, and we do read those; you’re very active. I’m constantly looking at what people are talking about. That’s a great way to discuss, “Hey, I’m excited about what’s in there currently, but maybe I’d like this a new edition.” We pay attention to those, but they can also contact support@helium10.com. And then, yes, as you use the app, we love to see reviews, and hopefully, you’re finding lots of benefits. We appreciate any review that you give.

Bradley: Awesome. Awesome. Now, quick question for you, Bonny. Is this at all within the world of possibility that we can somehow integrate some kind of game into the Helium 10 app, like, I’ve always said, “What about if it was popping helium balloons or something Angry Birds kind of thing.” Do you think Bojan will allow us to put any kind of time into a game inside of our app?

John: Bradley has been pushing hard.

Bradley: Who’s been pushing hard? Just me? I’ve been pushing hard, but that’s why I’m trying to get one of you guys onboard here for team “let’s have a game inside the app,” but what do you think, Bonny? Is it possible?

John: Yeah, Bonny did say that we have a lot of exciting things to come, and that big reveal is that Helium 10 is going to become a game tool.

Bradley: Hey, April Fools’ has already passed; you can’t get people’s hopes up. All right. Well, I’m just putting it out there, and if anybody’s listening and they think that’s a good idea, let us know. Or if they think it’s a terrible idea, let us know too. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Bonny: Bradley, this is not only going to be informative, but we are definitely going to try to make it exciting, fun, addictive¾everything that you can think of. I would tell people to keep coming back, keep looking out for new things, keep looking out for new versions. There is going to be a lot of fun things and exciting things and new features coming up.

Bradley: Love it, love it. Now, actually, speaking of new features and exciting things, like, as people have may or may not have noticed over the last few months , we’re seeing different things about how the look and the feel of even the Helium 10 website. You’re pretty much behind all of these changes we’ve been seeing such as the navigation bar on the left hand side, things like that. That has your touch on it. Right, Bonny?

John: Yeah, absolutely.

Bradley: Cool. Cool. I’m sure we have some good things to look forward to there. I’m just looking at the Helium 10 website now, and it’s like, “Man, you know what? I kind of take it for granted then, but now, but this is so much better than it used to be.” Our old dashboard, you’ve really done some really cool things. We have that to look forward to as well. John, any last words of wisdom for our users if they’re not yet using the Mobile App on getting them inspired to hop on with us?

John: I would just reinforce what we’ve seen users already really benefit from, and the Mobile App does keep you constantly informed, and if you’re not yet connected to Profits or using the Mobile App, I would highly encourage all our users to start doing that, and it just makes you a more informed business owner. I think it really helps people¾like we talked about¾rise to the top. I think this is just one of those tools that really helps to do that.

Bradley: What’s the webpage where people can get more information on all the Mobile App can do. Somewhere where people can navigate to?

John: Well, they can go to helium10.com/tools/mobile-app/. (https://www.helium10.com/tools/mobile-app/). You can also find it on our top bar, just Tools and you’ll see Mobile App there, but it’ll give you a good overview of the app, and you can go right to downloading on iOS and Android. It’ll link you right to the app stores.

Bradley: Okay, cool. And then, Platinum, Diamond, and Elite members, obviously, all can download the Mobile App, but actually can free Helium 10 members download it as well?

John: Yeah, definitely free users can use this. You can connect your MWS token on your profile, on the web app, and then you can get your data starting to sync to the Mobile App, and they can actually see all this information. We have a restriction on the web app for users, but they can be using the Mobile App, kind of unlimited use. Another benefit of this Mobile App is to get this information even if you’re a free user.

Bradley: Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t even realize that. All right, well, John and Bonny, thank you so much for joining us and letting us know about the Mobile App and, of course, all the hard work that you guys put in to make this a reality. I mean, I’ve been with the company almost two years, and probably, since day one, we’ve been having a requests for a mobile app. It’s really cool to be able to see it actually happening, and we’re definitely looking forward to all the updates and features that you guys will be adding to it. And then, once some of these big ones actually do happen, we’ll invite you back to explain it all to us.

John: Sounds good. More podcasts to look forward to.

Bradley: Bonny, I’ll be hitting you up for some travel advice on when I plan my India trip.

Bonny: Absolutely. I hope it’s next year.

Bradley: Yes. Probably going to be next year. I’m not too sure about traveling this year, but we’ll figure that out. Same for Boston. I’m not much of a Boston person, but next time we go to Boston, you’ll have to show me to your favorite restaurant over there.

Bonny: Absolutely.

Bradley: All right. See you guys later. Quick note guys. Don’t forget that regardless where you are listening to this podcast, whether it’s on your iPhone, or on Stitcher, on Spotify, that you hit the subscribe button so you can be notified every time we drop a new episode.