Selling on Amazon

Moms are also selling on Amazon. Do you want to know how?

Selling on Amazon is one of the most profitable businesses you can build. It is also one of the most flexible. You can work from anywhere in the World. You do not need a physical store, a warehouse, or employees. Most sellers need only a few hours a day to run their businesses. That means you have a lot of time to do whatever you want in your free time.

Why is this possible?

Because there are multiple activities that Amazon makes for you. Such as:

• storing your products at their warehouses
• collecting payments from customers
• handling customer fulfillment
• taking care of returns
• managing basic customer service
• sending you payments every two weeks
• helping you market your products through advertising, retargeting, and SEO.

Choosing Your First Product to Sell

At the beginning of your Amazon journey is this the part that will probably take you the most time.

I am going to show you how to select a profitable and in-demand product. Such that has low enough competition so you can easily compete. And at the same time, enough sales volume, so you can make a significant profit.

There are plenty of categories from which you can choose. Like health products, home, and kitchen products, fitness products, camping, pet, or automotive products, or any other type of product people use all the time.

There are also categories that are better to avoid like: software, mobile apps, jewelry, clothing, and products that are really big, expensive, or even really cheap.

Some of the categories require approval. Check out the list of these categories and requirements here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html? nodeId=14113001

What are the most important five criteria to pick a great product to sell on Amazon?

1. Best Sellers Rank (The lower the BSR number, the higher the demand. Look for the product between 400 and 6,000 in the top category.)
2. Price (Look at products between $17 and $70)
3. Number of reviews (avoid the products with more than 1,000 reviews)
4. The weight of a product (Heavier products will cost more to ship. You should keep to products that weigh five pounds or less.)
5. Brand a product as your own.

Besides that, you have to research your product in different criteria; I believe you have to be passionate about the product you are going to sell. Do not sell a product that you would never buy and you have a negative attitude towards it.

Finding a Supplier

Finding a good supplier for your chosen product is not difficult. A great platform to find a supplier is, Alibaba (www.alibaba.com). Alibaba is generally a safe place to do business. Suppliers on Alibaba speak good English. Your correspondence will be through Alibaba messenger, e-mail and Skype.

Now let’s go to the page.

In the search box, you type the product you have selected. At filter results, you check under the Supplier types: Trade Assurance and Gold Plus Supplier. You do this to narrow down the list of choices and limit the results to the best supplier available.

Now you can take a look at the list and start looking for products that match the one that you are looking for. You can see if the supplier’s terms, such as price and MOQ (minimum order quantity) suits you. You also have to focus on the fact of how long has the supplier been around.

To learn more about the exact price and MOQ’s, you have to pick a few potential suppliers and reach out to them to get more details. Such as the pricing at different MOQ’s, how long it will take to make and manufacture your product. Do they offer samples?

Letter Example

Dear [Contact Name and Manufacturer] My name is [your full name], and I am the owner of [company name]. My company retails on Amazon, and we are always looking for quality products to add to our line up. I am interested in this product [insert product name here and link as well]. Could you please provide me with the following additional information? Are you able to provide custom packaging? Do you offer samples and how much does it cost the shipping to [your location]? How long to receive two samples? Can we pay using Paypal? Is it possible to change the color? Can we brand with our logo? How long for manufacturing once we place the order? What is the standard production time for each order? What is the price per unit (including packaging) at the following MOQs: 100 to 500 pcs: 501 to 1000 pcs: 1001 to 5000 pcs: 5001 and higher pcs: I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Name, Title Company

When you get some favorable replies, ask for the samples. Usually, the suppliers do not charge them; you pay only the shipping.

Now is time to try the samples. Use them and make sure they work correctly. Is the quality as you desire?

As soon as you are happy with the product, it is time to place an order.

How to create a Seller Account?

Most of you will start on Amazon USA, so you go to https://www.sellercentral.amazon.com

You click on Selling on Amazon; then you go on  Start selling.

It depends where you live and where you want to sell. If you live in the UK, you go to https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk.

Sellers in Germany: https://sellercentral.amazon.de

Sellers in Italy: https://sellercentral.amazon.it

Sellers in Japan: https://services.amazon.co.jp

There are two types of seller account:

• The Professional Seller Account
• The Individual Seller Account

The Professional account has a cost of $39.99 per month on Amazon.com.

The Individual account is free. When you start selling your cost for each sale is $1. With this account, you can not run advertising on Amazon.

Using all your real information is essential. It is far better to choose a generic name for your seller account (if you are going to sale in different categories, you avoid problems by using the name which applies only to one particular). You can also choose a companies name.

Take the time to complete all the required fields as accurately as possible. You can go back later and edit most things.

Please note that only one seller account per household is allowed. Amazon is very strict about this rule.

Product Listing

You have to log into the Seller Central Account.

Select Add Products.

Scroll a little bit down and select Create a new product listing.

In the search box type the name of the product you want to list and select the matching category or subcategory that fits best.

Now you can create your listing. You have to fill in all the red boxes in the tab Vital Info.

• On the top, you can see four tabs. If the tab has a red triangle with an exclamation point inside, it means you have to fill in the data.
• You fill in the price.
• Seller SKU is Amazon’s.
• Condition – you have to select New.
• A critical point is the Fulfillment Channel. You want to make sure you select “I want Amazon to ship and provide customer service for my items if they sell.”
• Now on the tab, Vital Info appears the red triangle. You have to add a Product ID. You copy your UPC and select UPC.

Now hit the Save and Finish.

If you want to be seen, you have to optimize your listing.

Images

You can start optimizing your listing by adding images. You can add nine images. Pictures are the most crucial part of your product listing.

The main image should be only the product you sell without any pops. It should have a pure white background. The image should be at least 1,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels. This makes it zoomable.

You can use benefit images, lifestyle images, feature images.

The part with the text of the listing is next step you have to consider. You have to think about the keywords you shall use (you have to do research in-depth). You can look at other similar products what keywords they are using. But DO NOT copy their titles or their bullet points.

Title

Besides the images, the title is the essential part of the listing. Your title helps to convert the visitor into a buyer, and it helps your listing to show up in the Amazon search results.

Depending on what category you are in, you can use between 50 to 200 characters. You can find the exact number under the style guide for your category.

Try not to duplicate any words. Use your main keyword, your brand, the main benefit, and the main feature.

Listing Bullet Points

Bullet points are below the title on the page.

You have more space here. You can use anything from 50 to 500 characters per bullet point. There are five bullet points to fill.

You add in your bullet points more essential keywords, more product benefits, features (features tell, benefits sell) and overcome any potential customer objections.

Put the most important bullet points on the top. The last one it should overcome the objections. For example: “LIFETIME GUARANTEE – Our [Name of your product] Come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can buy our product with confidence. If you are not satisfied with the product because it does not meet your current standards, you can send it back to replace it or refund.”

Description

The description is a less critical part of your listing. However, it gives you a chance to explain why your potential customer should buy yours, instead of a competitor’s product.

In the description, you should include everything that is not already covered in the title and the bullet points. You can talk here about your product or even a story about your brand. It is all up to you.

It is great to add a call to action at the end.

Kickstarting your sales (How to launch a product for immediate sales?)

Setting Up the Amazon Sponsored Ads

In your Seller Central Account, you go to Advertising and choose Campaign Manager, then you click on Create campaign and select Sponsored Products and hit Continue.

Give a campaign a name and select a start date, you can leave the end date as it is (No end date), because you can come back and stop or pause your campaign whenever you want. Recommended daily budget is $30 because it will keep this advertising campaign running almost all day long.

By Automatic targeting, Amazon helps you with keywords the best chances of making a sale, and they will optimize the campaign all the time by adding new keywords for you.

Next step is to name the Ad group name (favorable) and select the product you want to advertise.

Amazon gives you a default bid, but you can change it if you want or leave it as it is.

We can skip the Negative keywords. Now we have to click on the Launch campaign, and we are done.

Creating a Digital Coupon

This time you select in the Advertising menu, Coupons. Click on create a new coupon.

Amazon guides you step by step. At first, you select the product (add coupon), Continue to the next level. Choose the discount you want to give and pick the limit redemption to one per customer.

Select a budget and Continue to the next step.

Here you complete the Coupon title, leave checked all customers and select the start and the end date.

Continue to the next step and review there is everything as you want and now is time to click the Submit button. In six hours your coupon will be ready to use.

Social Media

When you are sure the coupon is live, send an e-mail with the direct link to it.

Your excellent tool for letting people know about the discount is Facebook. You can make a post and also create an offer.

I recommend you to boost the post. To optimize the ad, you narrow down the audience by selecting a gender, age, locations, and detailed targeting (example: garden).

Click on Narrow Audience and type in Amazon.com because you want to narrow down people who like shopping on Amazon. If your audience size is well defined, that means that it is in the green field. It is time to save the selected criteria.

Now we have to set the budget and tell Facebook how long we want to run our ad. And finally, we click on the Boost button and the advertisement will go live in approximately one hour.

Another way to tell your costumes you have a discount is to search for FB pages where you can post your ad (for example there are many pages for Amazon discounts).

Some relevant facts you have to consider

• Be careful your product has all necessary documents (as certificates).

Research what certificates your product need. Does your manufacturer provide it or you have to arrange it yourself?

• You have to arrange UPCs.
• When your order is produced, get an inspection to make sure, everything is as it should be.
• When your shipment is ready, you have to equip the boxes with the FNSKU labels.

Resources

Here are some sources where I was getting knowledge and also some tools you can use to help running your Amazon business: 

Kevin David – Ninja FBA Course

Theo McArthur – How to start an Amazon FBA store on a tight budget

JungleScout – Fetcher, Jump Send, Jungle Market

Manuel Becvar – Import dojo

Amazing