1 An Unrelated Beginning

It's truly fortunate that the role I stumbled upon as an escape from my long period of unemployment turned out to be such a good fit, something I still enjoy doing to this day.
While finding employment has never been easy, the job market was fierce in 2018 when I landed my first job as a new graduate. It was a time of repeated thoughts like, "Does this company even exist?" and "How could I get rejected even from that company?" I applied for an Amazon UK On-site Manager position at a company whose name I hadn't even known until then. As a language and literature major who didn't perfectly fit anywhere but wasn't completely irrelevant, I first accessed the "Amazon" platform while preparing for the interview and discovered that such a role existed.

I was hired as an Amazon UK manager at a mobile accessories company, despite having been the type to squeeze every last bit of use out of the free phone case and charger that came with my phone purchase, and having never been anywhere near the UK. In fact, I wondered if these details even mattered since I wouldn’t be an offline sales representative.

I filled that lack of relevance with persistence. Even if I didn't know everything about the UK, I needed to be thoroughly familiar with the brand's target audience: males aged 20-40. I researched the top 100 interest groups followed by each age bracket (20-25, 26-30, etc.) across various social media channels. I also distributed purchase pattern surveys in communities they frequently used beyond social media and collected responses from about 200 British people. This allowed me to understand where they buy electronic devices, which brands they prefer, what hobbies they have, and what types of content they enjoy.

This data helped with various marketing activities but was especially valuable when creating product detail pages. Unlike competitors' products that only emphasized compatibility with mobile devices, I highlighted compatibility with devices like Nintendo and Oculus¹⁾ based on our target customers' robust interest in VR technology. As a result, our sales surged through related keywords whenever Nintendo and Oculus released new products.

Learning about 20-to-40-year-old British men who love electronics—people I thought I'd never encounter—and precisely hitting their needs was incredibly fun.

1) An American company that developed and manufactured VR equipment.

2 Even My Unnecessarily Strong Competitive Spirit Had Its Uses

It's embarrassing to reveal this, but my excessively strong competitive spirit is one of my flaws. As I've gotten older, I've learned to compromise, knowing I can't win at everything, but in the past, I couldn't hide my inner frustration when losing at board games with friends and would keep playing until I won. I have a talent for immediately creating an awkward atmosphere when I lose in even the most trivial competitive situations, so I tend to avoid competition altogether. However, this trait seems to have worked positively in this role.

If a competing brand ranked higher than my product in search results, I would analyze and re-analyze how they reached the top of the search results page by visiting their social communities. I would join their private social communities targeted at brand followers if necessary.

Looking back now, I think I was driven more by the indignation of "You can't be ahead of me!" rather than trying to understand why competing products were selling better. I learned that there are reasons why certain products sell well, and now I've developed the composure to try to follow those reasons.

3 My Destroyer and My Savior

I'm unsure if this is the proper expression, but "Amazon" is precisely that for me. It's a platform where you can't survive by doing things half-heartedly, which makes it challenging, but seeing all my efforts directly reflected in sales makes it impossible to break away from this platform. That's why nothing is more thrilling than refreshing sales figures minute by minute during upward trends, but conversely, nothing is more painful during downward trends.

Now I have a broader perspective and don't get overly emotional about short-term sales, but when I first started this job, my mood would skyrocket or plummet based on daily sales figures. On days when sales were declining, I would rack my brain trying to figure out what was wrong. Looking back now, I realize there are various reasons for poor sales, and there are limits to what on-site work alone can do to boost low sales. Nevertheless, I tried countless approaches and accumulated my know-how thanks to my naive rookie mindset that my efforts could change everything.

4 My First Encounter with Amazon

The day our product finally started selling on Amazon UK, I had participated in everything from development to marketing planning. I vividly remember staring at my laptop at home, repeatedly refreshing until the first number "1" appeared in the previously empty dashboard—that first sale at last. I look at the screenshot I saved to eternally preserve that moment whenever I'm going through difficult times.

Perhaps because excitement is strongest during first experiences, I no longer feel the same intense excitement and joy I did then, no matter what outstanding achievements I accomplish now. Yet I still find this job enjoyable because countless “firsts” spark excitement—the first time trying a strategy, entering a new category, or achieving a specific ranking.

When I first encountered Amazon in 2018, I had more energy than I do now, and having gone through thick and thin on this platform, my emotional fluctuations about it have also dulled. However, the space left by those vanished emotional swings has been filled with time-earned composure, allowing me to view this platform with a more comfortable mindset and broader perspective.

I don't know how long I'll be able to do this job. Nevertheless, looking back at my days as a new employee after so long, I conclude this column with the courage to say, "You were this passionate!" about my initial dedication, and "You can still be this passionate!" about my future.

P.S. Writing a column filled only with my own story is quite embarrassing. Next time, I'll return with a column packed exclusively with Amazon-related information!