Looking to start up Amazon FBA, any amazon experts here?

[Markcallaway]

Hi everyone, I'm considering amazon FBA. The plan is to start small and see where it goes. I'm completely new to online selling, but intrigued by the idea and I'm looking for a new challenge. I'm not interested in making millions, just want something to keep me busy, happy with £500-1000 a month even.

I'm unsure to which way I want to go, do I make my own brand or do I sell existing brands and buy them wholesale

Which website is best to compare the market and pick which products are best to sell? I've heard of Helium 10 and junglescout, which is better, is there any others to consider?

Is there anything I need to be vary of before starting?

 

[Ozzy]

pinging @AmazonGeek

 

[AmazonGeek]

Hi Mark

My advice is as follows:

• Yes you can start small and build it up. One of my best products costs about £1 per unit landed in the UK and I sell thousands of them each month with a very healthy profit margin (a twin-pack retails for £13.99 with a 55% margin).
• Don't expect to take any money out for a while though. If you pick the right product and it grows you will need to plough the money back in to buy more and more inventory. And if you want to expand to other countries using FBA you will need separate inventory for the EU, US and so on.
• If you try and sell other brands' products, there are a few pitfalls to be aware of...
  - Anyone can add an offer to a branded listing if they can get hold of that same product so you can end up battling against other sellers to win the buy box, which drives the price (and profit) down. Remember, Amazon is a catalogue system with one listing for each product and all the sellers compete on that listing to win the buy box
  - You don't have any control over the content. If the listing is bad you are unlikely to be able to update the title, bullets, description, keywords, images, A+ content, etc. So there could be a lot of potential to improve but you can't do anything about it
  - The brand holds all the cards. You could spend a load of time and money building it up and doing some PPC campaigns to drive up organic positions and then the brand says 'thanks a lot' and cuts your supply, picking up where you left off and benefiting from your efforts
• For me, 'private label' is the way to go and that boils down to a simple principle - find something that people are buying but which has problems - and then you put those problems right and create a differentiated product. A gross simplification but that is the general gist. You then get it trademarked and you are now a brand!
• I have used both Jungle Scout and Helium 10 and for me H10 is the best. It is the most accurate and has a load of extra tools on top of the product research 'Black Box'. I am certified by them, an 'Elite' member and currently helping their development team with adapting their 'Profits' tool for the EU marketplaces. I also have a discount link I can give you so you can save money with them so don't sign up without it.

Re being wary, a few tips...

• I sold an Amazon business in lockdown for good money but if I knew at the beginning what I knew at the end, I would be a lot richer. So whether it is with me or someone else, pay someone to teach you how to do it properly - the cost will be eclipsed by the benefit
• Trial and error in business is nonsense. All this rubbish about learning at the coalface can end your Amazon venture before it starts. Amazon changes every day and it is horribly complex. Make sure you know what you are doing. If you don't, then at best you will underperform; at worst, you will get suspended or shut down.
• It isn't get-rich quick. It takes time and effort at the beginning, although once set up it pretty much runs itself if you have done everything right. I have no employees, yet I sell in multiple countries and only spend a few hours a month on my business.
• The 3 most important things are product, product and product! I have coached businesses that have been doing everything wrong and still been doing ok because they had a good product. Conversely, you could absolutely smash the technicalities on Amazon and do everything right; but if you have a bad product you will fail.

Hope that helps. If you would like a free chat on Zoom, please feel free to book one in using this link...

Discovery Zoom call - Adrian Meakin

30-minute free, no-obligation Zoom call to see if I can help you with Amazon.

calendly.com

No cost or obligation

Cheers, Adrian
Amazon Geek

 

[Socio South West]

Amazon changes every day and it is horribly complex. Make sure you know what you are doing. If you don't, then at best you will underperform; at worst, you will get suspended or shut down.

In the words of The Two Ronnies ( I think it was a Piggy Malone sketch).... 'Tis big, 'tis black 'tis furry and I be afraid of it'

Me and Amazon in a nutshell...... Superb advice from @AmazonGeek

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

In the good old days, people had products they wanted sell and used Amazon as an outlet.

Nowerdays, egged on by SM posts and get rich quick schemes, it seems to be the other way around - Go to Amazon and find something to sell. Arbitrage is an option, but it can be hard work for very small returns.

 

[AmazonGeek]

Nowerdays, egged on by SM posts and get rich quick schemes, it seems to be the other way around - Go to Amazon and find something to sell. Arbitrage is an option, but it can be hard work for very small returns.

Yes, arbitrage is hard work although I know some that do well out of it. The main problem is you don't have control of the listings.

Amazon is definitely not a get-rich quick scheme. It takes hard work and time but the beauty about Amazon is the data. If you want to sell something on Amazon it is a HUGE advantage to start with a blank piece of paper and find things that people want but aren't happy with - an unsatisfied market. You then create an improved, differentiated product, brand it and take market share.

Yes, you can sell on Amazon with an existing product (and a lot of my clients do that) but just because your product sells well off Amazon, it doesn't mean you will do the same on Amazon. In many cases others have beaten you to it and it would cost too much to catch up. Having that blank slate is extremely liberating and opens up lots of doors.

 

[AmazonGeek]

In the good old days, people had products they wanted sell and used Amazon as an outlet.

Nowerdays, egged on by SM posts and get rich quick schemes, it seems to be the other way around - Go to Amazon and find something to sell. Arbitrage is an option, but it can be hard work for very small returns.

Amazon is definitely not a get-rich quick scheme but one of the best things about Amazon is the data you can get hold of.

Plenty of my clients come to me with existing products and yes, of course you can sell them on Amazon but you are limited by both the product and the market. If you don't happen to have the best product and/or other companies have got there before you and carved a niche, then you can struggle, especially in the more saturated markets.

The data allows you to find products that are selling well even though people aren't that impressed with them, or the listings or poorly put together, or both. If you can then put those faults right and make a better listing then you can take market share.

The two biggest mistakes people make are 1) trying to sell poor products or 2) trying to take market share with a me-too product. But there are thousands of products out there that can be improved/differentiated and branded.

You don't need one huge seller by the way - a small number of relatively modest ones will do a lot of damage. Remember the 6/20/20/20 rule...

6 products (and they can be variations of the same product)
20 sales per listing per day
£20 retail price
20% profit

If you can build up to this you have a business generating about £175k of profit a year that can be exited for around £500k.

 

[Dannydee]

Amazon is definitely not a get-rich quick scheme but one of the best things about Amazon is the data you can get hold of.

Plenty of my clients come to me with existing products and yes, of course you can sell them on Amazon but you are limited by both the product and the market. If you don't happen to have the best product and/or other companies have got there before you and carved a niche, then you can struggle, especially in the more saturated markets.

The data allows you to find products that are selling well even though people aren't that impressed with them, or the listings or poorly put together, or both. If you can then put those faults right and make a better listing then you can take market share.

The two biggest mistakes people make are 1) trying to sell poor products or 2) trying to take market share with a me-too product. But there are thousands of products out there that can be improved/differentiated and branded.

You don't need one huge seller by the way - a small number of relatively modest ones will do a lot of damage. Remember the 6/20/20/20 rule...

6 products (and they can be variations of the same product)
20 sales per listing per day
£20 retail price
20% profit

If you can build up to this you have a business generating about £175k of profit a year that can be exited for around £500k.

Hi @AmazonGeek

I really appreciate your insightful responses. Having dabbled in online business previously (not Amazon) I always felt kind of frightened off by it.

For instance, the idea of starting off listing a product or products with zero reviews vs. similar products that have hundreds and even thousands of reviews just feels overwhelmingly daunting. Why would anyone choose you over the guy who has 1000+ mostly positive reviews?

Is it really possible to jump in on the Amazon game now, even with practically every conceivable product you can think of already selling well on there?

 

[AmazonGeek]

Hi @AmazonGeek

I really appreciate your insightful responses. Having dabbled in online business previously (not Amazon) I always felt kind of frightened off by it.

For instance, the idea of starting off listing a product or products with zero reviews vs. similar products that have hundreds and even thousands of reviews just feels overwhelmingly daunting. Why would anyone choose you over the guy who has 1000+ mostly positive reviews?

Is it really possible to jump in on the Amazon game now, even with practically every conceivable product you can think of already selling well on there?

That is the mistake most make - just jumping on the coat tails of a product that is selling well and trying to do the same. And you are right - why would someone buy a new product with no reviews when there are products already out there that have lots of them?

The answer is - you find products that people are buying despite the reviews not being great. You find out why, put the faults right and now you have a differentiated product that you know people want. When potential customers land on the results page, they see the existing products with poor reviews and then they see yours. Your listing shows you have put those problems right and presented it in the right way (amazing images, video, infographics, branding, etc). You register with the brand registry giving access to Vine, and you get those first 30 Vine reviews. Ideally, you launch a product that has variations; then run Vine on all of them individually, finally combining them into a parent-child relationship, all the time 'teaching the algorithm' that your product is relevant for the search terms you are targeting.

Simple? No. But then again, what business is? Doable? Absolutely. There are literally millions of products for sale on Amazon and many of them are far from perfect. It is a matter of finding the opportunities and then knowing what to do.

 

[Dannydee]

That is the mistake most make - just jumping on the coat tails of a product that is selling well and trying to do the same. And you are right - why would someone buy a new product with no reviews when there are products already out there that have lots of them?

The answer is - you find products that people are buying despite the reviews not being great. You find out why, put the faults right and now you have a differentiated product that you know people want. When potential customers land on the results page, they see the existing products with poor reviews and then they see yours. Your listing shows you have put those problems right and presented it in the right way (amazing images, video, infographics, branding, etc). You register with the brand registry giving access to Vine, and you get those first 30 Vine reviews. Ideally, you launch a product that has variations; then run Vine on all of them individually, finally combining them into a parent-child relationship, all the time 'teaching the algorithm' that your product is relevant for the search terms you are targeting.

Simple? No. But then again, what business is? Doable? Absolutely. There are literally millions of products for sale on Amazon and many of them are far from perfect. It is a matter of finding the opportunities and then knowing what to do.

Wow, that makes a lot of sense and seems like a really good strategy. Thank you for the insightful and helpful response!

 

[AmazonGeek]

Wow, that makes a lot of sense and seems like a really good strategy. Thank you for the insightful and helpful response!

You are very welcome. If you want a zoom call drop me a line and we can have a chat.

 

[GriffithAccts]

Hi everyone, I'm considering amazon FBA. The plan is to start small and see where it goes. I'm completely new to online selling, but intrigued by the idea and I'm looking for a new challenge. I'm not interested in making millions, just want something to keep me busy, happy with £500-1000 a month even.

I'm unsure to which way I want to go, do I make my own brand or do I sell existing brands and buy them wholesale

Which website is best to compare the market and pick which products are best to sell? I've heard of Helium 10 and junglescout, which is better, is there any others to consider?

Is there anything I need to be vary of before starting?

Happy to give some free advice and guidance to begin with. I used to also work for eBay. Whilst not Amazon, I understand the ecommerce areas and gaining traction.

 

[AmazonGeek]

I wish Amazon was as easy as eBay. Those were the days! I sold on eBay for 15 years. In fact I set my old business up (The Ink Squid) thanks to advice received in this forum back when it was called The Wholesale Forums (one of the reasons I try and give support back now). However, eBay is nothing like Amazon - in practically every way. Even the people that work for Amazon don't understand it lol (as anyone who has dealt with Seller Support knows only too well!)

 

[apricot]

Hi everyone, I'm considering amazon FBA. The plan is to start small and see where it goes. I'm completely new to online selling, but intrigued by the idea and I'm looking for a new challenge. I'm not interested in making millions, just want something to keep me busy, happy with £500-1000 a month even.

I'm unsure to which way I want to go, do I make my own brand or do I sell existing brands and buy them wholesale

Which website is best to compare the market and pick which products are best to sell? I've heard of Helium 10 and junglescout, which is better, is there any others to consider?

Is there anything I need to be vary of before starting?

If you want success not just on Amazon but across e-commerce, focus on coming up with your own product idea and brand. Use tools like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout to see if similar products already exist in the market and, if so, how competitive the space is. However, I don’t recommend relying on these sites to decide what to sell. Remember, many manufacturers, especially in China, monitor these platforms and may quickly replicate successful ideas, making it hard for you to compete.

Start by developing a unique idea, then find a reliable production source. Once your product is ready, I don’t suggest sending it to FBA immediately. Begin by selling it yourself; after reaching around 10 sales a month for one SKU, consider moving to FBA. Keep in mind, FBA doesn’t guarantee sales!