Weekly Buzz 7/3/25: Big Amazon Vine Change? | Project X Casting Call
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Amazon may have just changed the game by letting you collect Vine reviews before your product even launches. Project X is back with the $10,000 casting call. And KDP sellers finally getting in-browser sales data inside of the Chrome extension. This and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. ♪

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. This is the show that is our Helium 10 weekly buzz. We give you a rundown of all the goings on in the Amazon, TikTok shop, e-commerce world. We let you know what new features that Helium 10 has and give you a training tip of the week that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Today's host is actually going to be Shivali Patel. So, Shivali, take it away and let us know what's buzzing.

First up, this week's biggest news comes straight from Seller Central. If you haven't seen it yet in the news section, it turns out that you can now get Vine reviews before your product even launches. Sounds heavenly, right? But let's dig deeper. The post itself says you can now get authentic product reviews before launch when you enroll eligible FBA products in the Vine program after creating listings. However...

If Vine still requires your product to be FBA, which typically means it has to be live to enroll, you might be wondering how exactly does this work pre-launch? Clicking into this updated Vine seller guide, what you'll find is it says make your products available for Vine reviews before your official launch date.

And as soon as you create your FBA listing. So possibly what I'm interpreting this as is if you set a future launch date when creating your listing to preserve the honeymoon period and to make sure your product is not live until your inventory has been distributed, Vine reviewers can simultaneously receive the product before your product actually goes live. Meaning you could technically now launch with up to 30 real reviews on day one.

If that's true, that is a massive Amazon Vine update and a competitive edge that I love, especially because the honeymoon period is precious time that you really want to be taking advantage of.

Bradley's reached out to Amazon for clarification. So stay tuned next week for answers. All right, next up, some exciting Helium 10 news for our Project X fans. Years ago, hundreds of thousands of you watched Project X when it first aired. And to this day, we still have people come up to us and tell us how it changed their lives, how it got them into business. And now they live incredible lifestyles that they once used to dream of.

That is incredibly satisfying for us. It's fulfilling. Well, if you didn't know, it was a series where we showed sellers how to go from scratch to finding, listing, launching, and scaling that product on Amazon. It even gave birth to the cuff and shelf niche on the platform. Well, by popular demand, we're bringing it back.

not project X season two, but a brand new helium 10 film project. And this time we're looking for sellers of all stages, especially those who haven't started selling on Amazon yet, or even who have launched, but have yet to scale and expand to other marketplaces. So if this sounds like you,

or you are ready for the camera, you're excited to get involved and have it be visible to the public, we are casting and we want to hear from you. You could be featured on our YouTube channel, receive personal mentorship from top industry experts, plus get $10,000 in Helium 10 credits to support your journey. You can submit that audition tape at h10.me forward slash px2. Again, that's h10.me forward slash px2.

PX2. This is your chance to transform your business and inspire millions. In other news, let's talk about one of the biggest ad tech updates of the year. Amazon ads just released an enhanced AI powered video generator that was talked about in this YouTube video I saw.

It's also posted on LinkedIn. And essentially what this tool creates is professional quality product videos in minutes, not months. And it's completely free. It's a huge deal. Here's what it can do. It can use AI to turn static images into high motion product scenes. For example, think of a watch photo that suddenly shows realistic wrist movement.

animated text from reviews, and music that's synced perfectly. It also generates six different video variations at once, which you can then customize with your brand assets for agencies and brands alike. This is the kind of thing that really ends up saving you a whole lot of time and the big bucks.

So while it's helping you do all that, it's also helping you generate money, right? With relatively easy to create creative ad campaigns. It also gives you the option to pitch video first campaigns to every client. If you are an agency to launch multiple video campaigns for peak shopping moments for advertisers, and everyone can consider the competitive advantage of having Hollywood quality video production capabilities at your fingertips.

There is so much cool stuff happening here and I hope you can take advantage of it. If you want to read up more on this LinkedIn post, it's from Jeffrey Cohen, who is the Amazon ads tech evangelist. Continuing the conversation regarding Amazon, but in a different sector and as a fellow author myself,

who often publishes via Kindle direct publishing. I'm genuinely excited about the first Helium 10 new feature alert for this week's episode. And that is we just made book idea research so much simpler and competitor tracking way more efficient for our authors inside of black box on Helium 10s platform. When you choose the products tab, you are now going to have the option to go into categories and subcategories and select Kindle store. Even if,

divvy down into specific categories. So for example, hopefully you can see this right next to my head. If you're watching this on YouTube, then you can select say business and money. If that's the category that you are potentially creating a series in, or maybe I want to go down and say, Hey, I want to check out which ideas are available inside of the computers in tech category.

but still in that business niche. I can go ahead and do that. And as you can see, if you were looking at the black box products tab as a physical product seller inside of any of the other categories, then you would see different filters. Whereas if I selected Kindle books or the books category, it now is going to showcase to me the length

the publication age or how long that book has really been up. If it is part of a book series or a set alongside some other useful information like your languages, you still have access to title keywords. Maybe you know that you want to create a book on AI inside of the business category. You'd be able to go in and discover all

all of the ones that are related to that. As you can see, I've been searching for some myself that are related to nutrition. So you can go in and click search. And what you'd get back as an output is all that information you were seeing inside of the filter section. Now inside of the columns,

Right over here, if I go over to the right-hand side, you can see that I still have access to my publisher, who is publishing it, when it was published, what country the seller might be from. If we have access to that information, KDP doesn't really end up taking that information outside of Intax formatting, I believe. It's been a while since I've created my account, you guys. Nothing like that is asked when I'm actually publishing a manuscript.

Then you have your price point, your ASIN sales, your revenue, and you can kind of go in and divvy down. It's intuitive, focused, and helps you validate niches faster than ever before. And if you prefer doing your research directly on Amazon, then Chrome extension also just rolled out with full KDP support. So anytime you are inside of the Kindle category on Amazon's page and you've typed something in, you're going to be able to see the full KDP breakdown the same way you would with physical products. You can now see KDP sales estimates.

a BSR widget on both the search results page as well as the product details page. Meaning that's going to be this thing right here that shows you the ASIN, the subcategories, who the author is, how many sellers there are, what the length is, if it's accessible, alongside the 30-day data. Okay, this is also available on the product listing pages. So for all your insights, know that you can absolutely rely on Helium 10 regardless of if you're looking for books or if you're looking for something that's a little bit more physical.

If you want to build out a leads magnet or test out the waters to see if your physical products skills will transfer over now would be the time go test this out. All right, switching gears and platforms. The next news I have for you guys is some updates on a saga I've been reporting on for some time on the buzz, especially since this has directly impacted sellers, brands and platforms alike.

Obviously, we have been experiencing quite a few changes taking place largely due to the elimination of the de minimis rule, which used to allow sub $800 packages to skip tariffs.

And now those same Chinese imports are being taxed at 55%. According to reports from Mondays, which is this news platform alongside the Korea Post, which is this one right here, kind of faint on the writing, but both are telling sort of the same picture, which is Teemu's US user base has been cut nearly in half from 80 million to about 41.4 million in just the last couple months, while Shein's have dropped by 12%.

In response, both companies are shifting their focus to Europe. As you can see right here, reports say that Tmoo's app usage is up 76% in France, 71% in Spain and 64% in Germany year over year. As you can see, it's the same exact numbers across both sites.

The only caveat being growth in Europe could come with its own hurdles. France just passed a new anti-Sheehan law and the EU is planning a two euro fee on low value parcels. Meanwhile, Timu and Sheehan have slashed ad spend in the U.S. with Timu's dropping 87% in just three months, you guys. Long story short, the ultra fast fashion landscape is shifting fast and U.S. sellers need to pay attention.

If you can adapt, you might just be able to capitalize. Comparatively, something we haven't chatted about before, Amazon just published an article outlining what to do when West Coast ports are congested. It almost reads like a warning. With peak season approaching,

Amazon is really urging sellers to send inventory in early, prepare for those longer lead times, hold safety stock in the U.S., diversify your ports of entry, inclusive of ports such as the port of Oakland,

or Port of Seattle Tacoma. I apologize for butchering that. Even consider East Coast entry points like New Jersey or Savannah. And for time-sensitive shipments, use air freight whenever necessary. Perhaps

All things that are obvious alternatives for experienced sellers. But if you have yet to form contingency plans, something that might serve helpful to you. Frankly speaking, Amazon rarely posts things like this unless they're expecting delays at their West Coast facilities. So consider this as a heads up that it might be time to diversify or at least have a plan in place for your shipping routes. Other news from Seller Central includes FBA box dimensions just got bigger.

as of June 20th, which just passed today,

Your maximum box length for FBA orders is going to be from 25 to 36 inches. The new max dimensions are as follows. If you're looking at my screen, you have 36 inches for length, 25 inches for width, 25 inches for height and 50 pound weight limits. This means more flexibility in packaging and fewer penalties for oversized shipments. If you've already been sending in longer boxes, they'll now be accepted without defect tags or fees.

This brings me to our second new feature alert. If you are an enterprise brand or high volume seller managing hundreds or even thousands of SKUs, this one's going to make your life easier. At least that is the goal. Until now, Keyword Tracker lets you track keywords one product at a time, which was great for smaller accounts, but...

Not so great for bulk operations, right? Well, that bottleneck is now gone. Helium 10 just rolled out a new bulk upload feature. This is right over here when you click add products inside of Keyword Tracker. And here is what you can really do with this. You can now upload a CSV file with up to 2000 ASINs

per file, including keywords, parent child variation flags, and automatic cleanup for special characters. And in the case you need more than 2000, just split your catalog into multiple files. There's actually a self-serve template right here, which you can click download. Hopefully you can see it right next to my head and the system will then validate it all in real time, bad ASINs, missing keywords, exceeded limits, et cetera. It'll catch it before anything is pushed through.

Once your upload is complete, you'll get task status and timestamps to success, partial or failed outcomes. You'll get a downloadable error report stored for 30 days and instant line level feedback so you can fix any issues and re-upload quickly. The entire workflow is now visible, you guys, starting from template download to upload success and all actions are logged so our team can track adoption and improve over time.

If you've been holding off on migrating keyword tracking over to Helium 10, this is a good reason to go in and do just that. Juggling over to TikTok news, how many of you knew that TikTok shop just opened for business in Japan, marking its 17th global market launch? We've talked about this before in previous Buzz segments, and now it is official. TikTok shop has launched in Japan. This marks the app's

17th e-commerce market while Japan joins countries like the U.S., U.K., Vietnam, and Malaysia. TikTok users can now purchase products directly from live streams, videos, influencer storefronts, all the things we know and love in the U.S. with TikTok. And brands like Unilever, Nissan Foods, and Kenebo Kate are already preparing to go live on the platform. With over 33 million users,

monthly TikTok users, according to the Japanese external trade organization. I think this is really taking a step in the right direction for diversifying TikTok's global footprint, especially with the app's future really hanging in the balance right now in the US. The move appears to be part of TikTok's broader strategy to really diversify what they're doing, especially after President Donald Trump demanded that the platform be sold to American investors, which leads me to the next news piece. President Trump just told a

Fox News, he has a group of very wealthy buyers in line to buy the TikTok US operations. He didn't name a buyer, but hinted that we'll find out closer to two weeks of time. It says, I'll tell you in about two weeks. Final approval still depends on Beijing. This is the third time enforcement of the TikTok ban has been delayed. And the new deadline is September 17th with end of October being the latest that they'll supposedly have a decision.

As you can hear from my supposedly and my voice, I'm not really convinced, but time will tell, right? So let's just kind of keep on keeping on. Either way, the app is clearly looking to fortify its e-composition. Japan's certainly a smart bet with 33 million monthly users.

It's one of the app's largest user bases and one of the few major markets where Chinese platforms like Timu and Shein and Alibaba's Tao are just beginning to gain traction. Which is all so I can tell you to go take advantage of the platform while you can and wherever you can.

If the TikTok shop stories I hear are anything to go by, you might be missing the next gold rush. That said, if you were selling or planning to sell on TikTok shop, make sure to check out Helium 10's TikTok profitability calculator integration tools and our new TikTok shop training course.

inside a freedom ticket. I really think you guys should leverage the skills that you already have, especially if you already have the product. You know how to do the product research. You know how to create the listing. You know how to run ads. Why not expand out and not put all your eggs in one basket? We also just released...

a blog post and serious sellers podcast episode on how Helium 10 tools can be used to streamline TikTok shop selling inclusive of all those things I just mentioned. And if that's not enough incentive as if to sweeten the deal, then join our TikTok Facebook group where you can post for the first time this week and be entered to win $99 off of Helium 10. We are picking one lucky seller on Friday, so don't miss out.

Right. Well, folks, that is it. That concludes our news pieces for this week. Now it's time for the training tip of the week. If you want to know how much revenue a product is generating before you actually chase it down, then let me pass it over to Bradley so you can know exactly how to discover keyword sales estimates and then use them to make smarter decisions. Take it away, Bradley. Strategy that is unique to Helium 10 is we show keyword sales estimates before

Before all you had with Helium 10 and other tools still only have that is search volume. Like what are the actual searches? How many searches are there per month? Now, why do we want search volume? Why do we care? Well, we assume that the higher the search volume, the higher the sales are, which for the most part is actually true. But at the end of the day, wouldn't you rather know, hey, what is the estimated number of sales that this generates? Because it's not always...

equivalent to higher and lower search volume. Let me show you exactly how I mean. So here's one of the search results for the coffin shelf keyword, right? And you could see that, you know, a lot of times, yes, keyword sales is very similar to the trajectory of search volume. Here, we've got a keyword with 170,000 search volume, 1,350 sales. Here's one that's a little bit less, 136,000

Search volume, 1,200 sales. All right. But then what happens sometimes? Look at this. Here are two keywords with near identical search volume. Floating shelves bathroom has 15,900 searches. Gothic decor has 15,900 searches. So maybe you're looking at these two keywords. Hey, which is the more important keyword? Which keyword should I put in my title? Which one should I focus on in PPC? They both have the same search volume. Look at the estimated sales.

Floating Shelves Bathroom has 233 estimated sales in the last week, but Gothic Decor only has 95.

So even though these two keywords have the same search volume, which keyword is more valuable? Obviously floating shelves bathroom. And it kind of makes sense because floating shelves bathroom is very specific, right? Like somebody who types in that probably has something very specific in mind. Somebody who's typing in Gothic decor, a lot of those people aren't even going to buy something because maybe they're just like kind of like browsing, right? And so you can clearly see that with the data that Helium 10 is showing you, hey, the more valuable keyword is floating shelves bathroom. I

because it generates more than two times the number of sales, even though the two keywords have the same search volume. What tool is the only tool that gives you sales instead of just search volume? It's Helium 10. Thank you, Bradley. That is it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this week's Weekly Buzz. We'll see you next week to talk about what's buzzing.