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Newbie Importing and Selling on Amazon

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

St1

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Hi Business Ben, thank you for your thread, it is inspiring to see you taking action. I am also in the process of importing produt and resell it on Amazon and Ebay. I am also from Canada. I want to know did you already from the start formed an Incorporation or a registered enterprise (sole ownership) before you begun selling product or you are planning that down the road. And do you know, as us Canadian if we have additional step to take for forming an incorporation form Canada to sell to US. Thanks in advance.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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Hi Business Ben, thank you for your thread, it is inspiring to see you taking action. I am also in the process of importing produt and resell it on Amazon and Ebay. I am also from Canada. I want to know did you already from the start formed an Incorporation or a registered enterprise (sole ownership) before you begun selling product or you are planning that down the road. And do you know, as us Canadian if we have additional step to take for forming an incorporation form Canada to sell to US. Thanks in advance.

Hi St1,

Yes I did start with a corporation. Although, I think it would have been better to register after I had gotten sales. You don't need one to start.

I also did not have to take additional steps to sell in the US. I get my currency converted from USD to CAD automatically.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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Also, here's an update about social media.

So it's been around 1 day now. I've been liking people's pictures, commenting, and following them. Some people even replied "thanks" to my comments.

Right now, I only have 3 pics, but will be posting more when I do more research on what kind of images people in my niche like. Anyway, I'm up to 50 followers, and I'm following 380. Now I'm going to unfollow those who didn't follow me.

Also wrote my profile description and am getting a nice retro logo done.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

Guest
Just hit 150 followers! This was harder than I thought, and very time consuming. I think i'll just use a tool like Instagress instead. I just signed up for the 3 day trial.

Anyway, right now i'm getting about 30-40 likes per picture, and one has 98. I also posted 2 photos of my products. First, the box it came in (14), and second, the item out of the box (24).

So there's less likes on the product side of things. However, someone did comment on one of the pictures and asked where we were based. So, people are interested in my company, and they are engaging.

Social Media is great!
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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It's been a while since I last updated. I've been pretty busy reading lots of books about branding and engaging with people on Instagram. Even with Instagress, I think it's still necessary to do some things manually. Mostly liking and following people Instagress has previously liked.

Last time I posted I had about 6 photos, now I'm up to 31. I'm getting lots of comments on my niche photos, however not a lot on my product photos. I'm currently running a one day promotion today, 2 people requested to be tagged for the promotion. Only 2. No comments on the promotion photo. Nobody bought any.

It's a bit disappointing considering how much engagement I'm getting. I'm getting about 80-100+ likes per photo, with the really nice ones getting 200+. About 10 comments per photo. My hashtag is also getting popular, I currently have 30+ photos.

So now I'm a bit confused as to what direction to go. I wonder if getting more followers will be effective. I'm considering just starting to run paid ads on amazon instead.

My product is superior to anything else on the market, I just need to figure out a way to get it in front of people.

EDIT: Only professional sellers can run ads on amazon, individual sellers can't use coupon codes either. All I did for my promotion was use the sale price feature.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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Found a forum related to my niche. I posted a reply in a thread which was talking about other types of my product, but I guess my reply was deleted as spam...

I think it's because this forum has a marketplace. You have to have 100 posts in order to make a thread though. Anyway, i'll be promoting my product on this forum.

Now I just need to get 100 posts.

EDIT: It turns out you can't post advertisements to other sites in the marketplace of this forum... Damn it.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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So I found my way around the forum problem. I decided to talk to one of the mods and he told me I can talk about my product, ask for people's opinions, but just can't directly link them to my amazon listing. Instead he said I could post my link in my signature then tell people to check out my signature if they were interested.

So far about 100 people have seen my thread where I ask questions about what they like about this type of product or don't like. One person has answered my questions and now has asked how much my product is.

This forum looks promising.

P.S. My instagram almost has 1k followers, i'll probably hit it tomorrow.
 

Mr.B

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...or has 20 year old websites that have been around forever.

@The Grind this can be a good thing, especially if they are asleep at the wheel.

@BusinessBen thanks for sharing your progress here, I'm interested to see how this works out for you. What are your profit margins on this product? Also, how did you determine if there was much of a market for it? Or are you just jumping in and seeing how it goes?
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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@The Grind this can be a good thing, especially if they are asleep at the wheel.

@BusinessBen thanks for sharing your progress here, I'm interested to see how this works out for you. What are your profit margins on this product? Also, how did you determine if there was much of a market for it? Or are you just jumping in and seeing how it goes?

Thanks for the encouragement man. My margins are good, it's 274%. The only thing is this is a more expensive item (99$) so it's not an impulse buy like cheaper items. All the similar products are in the same price range though, mine is slighly higher because it's a better item, and people are willing to pay for that.

And about the forum... I got banned... I think the guy was just being a dick, first he said I wasn't allowed to post a link to my amazon listing, then he changed it and said I wasn't even allowed to mention I had a product.

However, while I wasn't banned I got to ask people a bunch of questions about my item, and I got very good responses, it really helped validate the features on my model in comparison to the competition. So I'm not worried about it, posting on that forum wouldn't have been a good way to promote my product anyway.

Now I'm probably gonna look for other forum, and will post a promotion for black friday on instagram. I'll probably try running a giveaway this time as opposed to a discount.
 

Mr.B

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Great margins!

Have you considered charging a lower amount or would that undermine the fact that you have a better product than the competition?

Bummer about the forum, but at least you were able to get some helpful responses before you got banned. A lot of forums are pretty strict about the whole selling thing, I wonder if it is worth using them to start conversations (which can then inform product development) rather than as a direct advertising thing? You might find that if you can bring value to the forum by answering questions and helping out where you can, that that they may be more open to you linking to your product down the track.

Hope the instagram promotion goes well.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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Great margins!

Have you considered charging a lower amount or would that undermine the fact that you have a better product than the competition?

Bummer about the forum, but at least you were able to get some helpful responses before you got banned. A lot of forums are pretty strict about the whole selling thing, I wonder if it is worth using them to start conversations (which can then inform product development) rather than as a direct advertising thing? You might find that if you can bring value to the forum by answering questions and helping out where you can, that that they may be more open to you linking to your product down the track.

Hope the instagram promotion goes well.

Thanks!

Yeah I think my price point is good for this item, most of the competing models range from 60-80$ so pricing it at 99$ helps to differentiate myself.

There's also another model at 300$ but it's not made of the same materials, my product is better at effectiveness, so I wouldn't want to compete with a product positioned for durability. It also has 200+ reviews so I know that 99$ isn't too expensive.

Looking back at the forum, I should have messaged some people, 3 people seemed very interested, and were asking specific questions like price points. One guy even called it "The best ----- in the world".

And I did try to bring value to the forum, I started a couple threads with general information everyone should know and got thanked by the other mod (he was nicer).

Thanks again for the encouragement!! It came at the right time, I was a bit bummed out about the forum.
 

Mr.B

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Seems like you are on to a good thing Ben.

Given the difference between the lowest and highest prices, you may find that a higher price point could work out better for you. Have you considered trying something around the $150 mark? If people are happy to pay double that for something more durable, but yours is more effective (and 'the best in the world!') then I think you'll find it would still be a good deal for many.

Regarding the forum, if I was in your shoes I'd make a new account and reach out to the nice mod. Explain that you want to be part of the community and have a lot that you can contribute and feel that the ban was unfair as you were told one thing and then penalized for it.

I'm glad my encouragement helped!
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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Started my giveaway promotion for black friday yesterday. I started it 3 days before black friday to hopefully build some hype.

To enter the contest they have to send me a picture using a hashtag for my brand, then I asked them to visit my gleam.io giveaway page.

So far I've had 20 impressions on my gleam.io page but only one entry. I also put the link for my giveaway page on my instagram profile.

I'm currently at 1275 followers with 44 posts. I get an average of 200+ likes a picture, my promotion one got about 100+.

Anyway, I'm getting lots of pictures sent in but almost no entries. I think my followers just need to interact with me more before they buy something from me.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

Guest
I also decided to start running amazon ads, right now my product is on page sixteen. The products on page one of this sub-category sell about a hundred units a day.

I'll keep a spreadsheet of my rankings and their position every time I get a new sale. I'm finally gonna get organized and document everything. I've been taking notes on the books i've been reading so this gives me a good framework to work within. I want to write a simple plan that explains the brand's purpose, mission, values, story, products, and marketing.

To emphasize on my giveaway I'm going to see if I get buy a shoutout from a popular account to promote the giveaway.
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

Guest
2 products are reserved now. Just waiting for the official email from amazon... I suspect these came from the amazon ads.

Update about instagram: I messaged a bunch of popular accounts but couldn't get a shout out, I'm going to be posting another picture for my giveaway tomorrow.
 

JAJT

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Just finished reading this thread.

Love the progress. Your excitement is palpable!

A few things I'll just "throw out there":

- Your reserved units are likely sold units that haven't shipped yet. You only get an email notification from Amazon once they ship. If you go to Amazon under "Orders" then "Manage Orders", select "Advanced Search", and then make sure you have "include pending orders" checked, hit search, and then check off "make this my default order view" on the search page. This will now let you see orders before they actually ship. This will give you real-time viewing of your sales as they happen. You can also see a very quick and dirty sales count for the day (including pending) under "reports - business reports".

- Get off other people's listings ASAP. Get on your own. Even if you have the SAME product I would simply call it your own brand and make a new listing even if the product itself has no physical brand markings on it.The only exception to this is if you are selling a branded product (like Nike Shoes) where you obviously need to put it under the existing listing.

- Similarly, stay the HELL AWAY from "comingled inventory" where they throw your products into a bin with other products of the same type and just pull one out of a bin when one sells for any of the sellers on that listing. Imagine being banned because someone bought from you, but Amazon shipped a counterfeit product that was shipped to that bin by a moron competitor. This happens. Stay away.

- For product photos, if your photos are only "good enough", hire a professional. I recommend www.productphoto.com - I've used them in the past and they do great work. Although with a higher ticket item you may want to find someone local so it's easier to get the product back after photography. Remember - people don't buy things online. They buy photos of things online. Make the photos pop!

- This is stupid:

My family was complaining about the description being long last time. Now my description is 5000 characters compared to the 8000 amazon allows.

Some people buy after 1 bullet point. Other's will only buy after reading 10 articles, 40 reviews, magnified every image you have and checked it out on Youtube. USE EVERY CHARACTER AMAZON GIVES YOU. Make your copy 8000 characters long. Put your best, most potent stuff at the beginning to convert the 1-bullet buyers and keep the whole thing flowing and reading nicely to convert the information addicts. Every word you use is a salesperson trying to help you! Max it out! Max out the bullets, max out the photos, max out the description, max out the title.

- Amazon killed a lot of HTML recently but they do still allow paragraph breaks <P>, line breaks <BR> and Bold <B>. Use this HTML in your listing to make your listing not look like a brick of text if you aren't already doing so. Put a call to action at the end ("add to cart now!", "Limited supply, hurry!" "Sale ends soon!", whatever you prefer...)

Cheers
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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@JAJT Thanks for all the advice!!

My reserved units were sales and I got the email a couple days later.

I also have my own listing.

I'll look into getting some better photos, mine aren't bad, but you can still see shadows against the backround.

My only problem seems to be trying to promote my product. Instagram hasn't really been effective for my product (I think because of the high price). The two sales came from amazon ads. Now i'm going to look into sending a blogger one of my units to review.

Thanks again for taking the time to read my thread JAJT! You just gave me another boost of motivation!
 
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Ramble On

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Just caught up with your thread also. Definitely look at getting a blogger review done. We approached a number of bloggers in our niche and had them do a review. It immediately got us a lot more exposure and discussion about our products. We also posted the reviews on our website for validation for customers considering buying our products.

One thing to note. I am not sure of the cost of your product but we donated the product for the review. Then the bloggers did a give-away. Our products are relatively inexpensive though.

Keep up the good work!
 
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Deleted2BB3x9

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@Ramble On
Thank you for your telling me about your experiences with bloggers. I'll have to order some more samples to send but I'll definitely give it to them for free.

I'm gonna look into getting a website done soon too.

Also, speaking about donating, I was thinking of donating 10% of my profits to a non-profit organization in the same niche as me. I think donating would help my brand show what it stands for and that it is authentic.
 

MoneyDoc

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@Ramble On
Thank you for your telling me about your experiences with bloggers. I'll have to order some more samples to send but I'll definitely give it to them for free.

I'm gonna look into getting a website done soon too.

Also, speaking about donating, I was thinking of donating 10% of my profits to a non-profit organization in the same niche as me. I think donating would help my brand show what it stands for and that it is authentic.
Just stating my opinion...

I don't think you should donate your profits this early on to a non-profit... A start-up needs as much capital as it possibly can to grow quickly. Reinvest your profits into branding, ads, packaging, etc... Donating to charity and all that stuff can come after, way after.
 
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Ramble On

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@Ramble On
Thank you for your telling me about your experiences with bloggers. I'll have to order some more samples to send but I'll definitely give it to them for free.

I'm gonna look into getting a website done soon too.

Also, speaking about donating, I was thinking of donating 10% of my profits to a non-profit organization in the same niche as me. I think donating would help my brand show what it stands for and that it is authentic.
Funny you mention this. We were just talking about this a couple of days ago. We were considering it because one of our competitors has started donating to a non-profit. We decided not to start donating yet for the same reasons that @MoneyDoc mentions. Even though we are having some success we still felt it better to wait and continue to put the money back into growing our business further.
 

JAJT

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While donating can be a great thing to do, I question it as a marketing/business practice. I've never once purchased a product based on the charities it supported. I'm sure some people do but I think generally speaking you should donate because you WANT to, not because you think it will increase sales. Do you think 10% more people will buy from you because you give away 10%? I personally don't think so.

Mind you, I think it can work in certain "passionate" niches like pets where pet owners are very, very diligent about supporting the animal cause, or products that support rehabilitation where a portion of the sales goes to support people in the same position as the people purchasing the product, etc...
 

Vigilante

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We donate because we want to.

However, the exception to that is licensing in affiliation with a charity. If I could put the Ronald McDonald logo on a sippy cup, that might be worth a license deal with proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald house. In that case (and other examples like it) you would probably sell more McDonald sippy cups than generic ones.
 
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Ramble On

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We weren't looking at it strictly from a business standpoint. One of our product lines is for children with special needs. Something that is close to home for us. We have organizations involved in this area that constantly approach us for donations. We just want to be able to give back at some point and at the same time it can't hurt with the reputation of our company.
 

Krzysztof

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I second @JAJT on making your copy 8000 characters long. As David Ogilvy said (quote from Drew Eric Whitman's "Cashvertising"):
Short copy doesn't sell. In split run tests, long copy invariably outsells short copy.
 

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