Attendees: Gilbert Barrongo, Mark Hope, Karly Oykhman (partial)
Client: [1]
Recording: Fathom
Review of recovering Amazon campaign performance and a significant overhaul of the inventory management process. The session was prompted by a 1.5-month sales slump (Nov 25–Jan 18) caused by stockouts. The team aligned on a 60-day inventory buffer target, monthly standing orders for top sellers, and a plan to clear AWD inventory by March.
| Decision | Detail |
|---|---|
| 60-day inventory buffer | Raise the reorder trigger from 30 days to 60 days for all SKUs to absorb supply chain variability |
| Monthly standing orders for top sellers | Ship 1,000 units each of Yellow Popcorn, White Popcorn, and Yellow Cornmeal, plus 500 units of Black Beans (5 lb) every month until further notice |
| AWD clearance by March | Transfer all AWD units to FBA; target zero AWD inventory by March to eliminate expiration risk |
| Increase Old World bids | Old World campaign ROAS is 4.89 — incrementally raise bids to capture more impressions |
| Blue Haven Kidney Beans order increase | Raise next shipment from 134 to 200 units; sold 67 last month with zero ad spend |
| Coupons for slow-moving stock | 20–25% coupons on aged inventory (6+ months → 20%; 12+ months → 25%) |
| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| "Organic Popcorn Kernels" | #1 sponsored top-of-search (Yellow); #1 sponsored video; #8 organic (Yellow), #10 organic (White) |
| "Dry Organic Black Beans" | #1 sponsored brands video; #2 sponsored top-of-search; #3 organic |
Notable: Black beans rank #2–3 despite being priced at ~$6/lb vs. the nearest competitor (Mayorga) at ~$3.40/lb. Strong brand value signal.
Sales dropped sharply on November 25 and did not recover until January 18 — a ~7-week slump driven entirely by stockouts. Contributing factors included Amazon's own fulfillment delays and a reorder trigger that was too low (30 days).
"The biggest calamity we've had in the last two years is that inventory… from November 30th until January 15th, that's a month and a half, we got our [sales] kicked, and it was all because of inventory." — Mark Hope
Supply chain variability is significant: freight pickup delays, carrier consolidation holds, Amazon receiving backlogs, and weather events can each add 1–2 weeks. Running tight on inventory is asymmetrically risky — overstocking by a month costs little; stocking out costs weeks of sales velocity and organic ranking.
| SKU | Monthly Quantity |
|---|---|
| Yellow Popcorn | 1,000 units |
| White Popcorn | 1,000 units |
| Yellow Cornmeal | 1,000 units |
| Black Beans (5 lb) | 500 units |
These should ship on a fixed monthly schedule (e.g., the 15th of each month) without waiting for a reorder trigger.
Gilbert is building a repeatable ChatGPT-assisted procedure for ad copy creation:
- Identify dynamic keyword insertion opportunities
- Define persona and psychological benefits
- Pin primary keywords to headlines
- Document the full procedure in ClickUp so it can be applied across all client accounts
Mark has implemented a workflow where AI accesses the website via API in a dev environment to make fixes directly — rather than generating instructions for a human to execute. Changes are validated in dev before being pushed to production. Faster, cheaper, and more scalable than the previous ClickUp task → contractor workflow.