Lean Media

29/01/2025

Anime/Manga is part of the youth subculture in the west, but in Japan they take things to another level. This neighborhood in Osaka’s Namba district has hundreds of shops selling animation supplies, games, posters, cosplay accessories, trading cards and even DVDs (remember those?). I took these pictures on a Thursday afternoon but at night there are thousands of mostly young fans thronging the streets.

16/01/2025

⭐️ The best one star review on Amazon ever? "I don’t read romance, but there was nothing else to read at the cabin. Besides, Hollywood made a movie based on the book, so it must be good, right?

Wrong."

I checked the Amazon listing to see if I was alone in my skepticism, and stumbled upon one of the best Amazon customer reviews ever written.

02/11/2023

When I give talks about Amazon to publishers and sellers, one of my Ten Commandments of Amazon is “thou shalt not trust Amazon seller tech.” The slide I show features a picture of an old-fashioned wooden roller coaster, the shaky kind that you swear you’ll never ride again because the thing feels like it’s about to fall apart.

When I give talks about Amazon to publishers and sellers, one of my Ten Commandments of Amazon is "thou shalt not trust Amazon seller tech." The slide I show features a picture of an old-fashioned wooden roller coaster, the shaky kind that you swear you'll never ride again because the thing feels li...

15/04/2023

The power of diagramming, sketching, and wireframing. Simple visualization of products and concepts … in this case Amazon Premium A+ content.

02/02/2023

The OpenAI Seinfeld is very strange, yet funny: weird dialogue, laugh tracks at the wrong moment, wooden delivery by synthetic voices, clumsy animation … yet if this is what someone can build out of the current generation of tools, imagine what we’ll see in 3 or 5 or 10 years.

The OpenAI Seinfeld is very strange, yet funny: weird dialogue, laugh tracks at the wrong moment, wooden delivery, clumsy animation ...

25/07/2022

I thought over-the-top "keyword stuffing" for book titles on Amazon (an SEO technique) was mainly the domain of self-published authors trying to rank higher in organic search, like the second example in the image below. "Psychological thriller" appears in the title, subtitle, series name and even the publisher's name!

But check out the first example. That's a HarperCollins Publishers imprint, no less.

30/06/2022

Methinks Amazon might try to fill the void with heavier discounts/availability on its own brands, if 1p and 3p brands are indeed pulling back. FWIW we set up similar Prime discounts to last year, but on a smaller range of products.

Here's what Modern Retail is reporting today:

"From a sample of 60 brands polled, 22% said they will be discounting less compared to last year, according to a June study by Bobsled Marketing published last week. These brands include ones for groceries, cosmetics, clothing, electronics, and baby products."

https://www.modernretail.co/platforms/amazon-briefing-some-third-party-sellers-are-rethinking-their-prime-day-discounting-strategy/

Given the current economic climate and limited inventory, some brands may not offer as deep of discounts for Prime Day as they normally have.

24/06/2022

Tip for Klaviyo users: Repurpose newsletter content!

Turn weekly newsletters into blog posts on Shopify. Tips, company updates, fun stuff, whatever.

Share on social, re-use in newsletter, optimize for SEO.

16/06/2022

This is new for sellers in the Amazon Brand registry, which unlocks sponsored display ads on Amazon Advertising. It could be helpful for situations like Amazon listings advertised on sketchy websites, or websites that have high clicks but low conversions.

Making the deny list is hard, though. How would you know about sketchy websites unless someone told you?

07/06/2022

Anyone else seeing Facebook ad ID numbers changing from 16 digit numbers to a very long hash starting with "pfbid"? Looks like it began in early May for us.

24/05/2022

Run a media business? Buckle up, because we're in for a rough ride.

13/05/2022

Not all barcodes are created equal! Assigning UPC codes in GS1 data hub for Amazon FBA or retail.