Ecoright’s experience with Superfuel AI assistant

06 September 2024
Ben Mathew

Meet Rahul Upadhyay, Head of Marketplaces for Ecoright, a sustainable bags brand started in 2017 due to the growing demand for sustainable products. Starting with Amazon and later selling on its own D2C website, Ecoright’s USP is fun and quirky trends that appeal mainly to Gen Z and Millennial women.

Ecoright has sold over 5 million bags so far, and each bag saves 300 plastic bags. In 2023, they received B Corp certification, given to companies that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance and accountability.

We spoke to Rahul about both his good and bad experience of using Superfuel, an AI sales analyst that identifies the precise root cause for Amazon sales fluctuation by analyzing traffic, conversion, competition actions and listings.

What are your goals as an Amazon business leader in the company?

Rahul: The main goal is to meet sales targets. We have 200 SKUs, and our goal is to maintain these products' quality and sales performance through constant analysis.

Managing performance marketing efficiently is also crucial, especially since we are a bootstrapped startup.

We also aim to generate new channels and diversify categories. We are exploring opportunities on Amazon, like venturing into accessories or sustainable jewelry.

What is the main challenge for you when it comes to analyzing Amazon sales?

Rahul: When you start on a marketplace, visibility is key—you want to be at the top of search results because nobody goes to the 3rd or 4th page. The challenge is generating organic sales and maintaining optimized levels of visibility.

We operate in various categories, and consumer behavior and traffic trends vary depending on the category. When you have a diversified portfolio, analyzing each category's performance becomes challenging. Often, the necessary data isn't available, and we have to make assumptions about consumer needs and timing.

When did you first realize the impact of Superfuel?

Rahul: We operate across many categories but often lack the data to pinpoint where sales drops are occurring. Our only leverage is performance marketing. It’s difficult to analyze whether a campaign or SKU is the reason for a drop since most data is available only at weekly or monthly levels.

What we need is granular data analysis. For example, if a category sees a 10% drop, we want to know which specific SKU is responsible (e.g., if an SKU dropped by 20%). This granular data is missing from the backend, so creating reports on Amazon requires a lot of time. When analyzing campaign-level data, Amazon provides search term reports, but you must apply filters, pivot tables, and look into specific ASINs.

With Superfuel, we can easily see which ASIN or campaign isn’t performing well, which saves us a lot of time. One recent feature alerted us to a competitor running ads on our listings. We created a protection campaign based on this, and small features like this can really help prevent loss of sales.

Also, when you manage so many categories, you tend to see stagnation after 1-2 years. Earlier, we had to manually check keywords and competition to continue to maintain our market share, but now Superfuel helps us save time and focus on the right ASINs.

How has Superfuel changed the way you approach Amazon analysis?

Rahul: Superfuel provides a summary allowing us to glance through what is and isn’t working. It helps guide our team. For example, from October to December, we expect more traffic, and if there’s a dip in our bestseller or prime products by more than 10-15%, we know something needs to be done. Week-on-week drops can signal that we need to improve content or performance marketing and plan well in advance.

Superfuel also helps us compare paid CVR and organic CVR. This helps us understand why a particular ASIN or category might be dropping. Earlier, we only looked at these metrics monthly.

Which Superfuel feature helps you the most?

Rahul: The data related to traffic is crucial. We have data on sessions for our bestsellers, and if sessions drop from 60k to 25k, we get alerts that help us understand why—whether it’s a category or product issue. Superfuel helps us identify which ASIN has dropped and what its share was in total sales. Based on this, we can re-evaluate performance marketing spend for that ASIN.

What impact has Superfuel had on you at Ecoright?

September is usually our lowest month, so it’s the right time to analyze our performance. It's hard to measure the exact business impact of Superfuel just yet, but it’s saving us a lot of time. In a startup, everyone wears many hats, so the time saved can be allocated to more critical tasks.

What is missing or needs improvement in Superfuel?

We would like a timeline comparison feature. Since we operate in a seasonal market, this is very important to us. Recommendations would also be helpful, particularly if we’re going in the wrong direction. For example, at a granular level, we might decide to run a Sponsored Product (SP) campaign to boost sales, but if there’s no organic traffic or intent, SP isn’t the best solution. Remarketing might work better.

Why should other Amazon managers or business leaders consider Superfuel?

As a manager, data is the most important thing because all decisions are based on it. There's always a shortage of data, and the more you have, the better decisions you can make. You can’t track every minute detail as a manager, but if a dashboard can give you insights in less than five minutes, you should use it to ensure no point or metric is missed.