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Ask me anything about eCommerce (Ongoing)

amp0193

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Do you mean own the top 5 spots with the same product using 5 variations?

Yes and No. The variations are a color variation. But, the different color changes the product enough to where it can standalone as it's own product. However, they'd also work grouped together on the same page.
 
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LightHouse

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Interesting...

My budget allows for me to order around 300 of said units in my initial order. In your experience, would you stick with 1 variation until it ranked?

I am currently thinking one of the options:

100 Units of variation 1, 2 and 3 on same listing. This was the original plan until learning about BSR on variations.
200 Units of Variation 1, 50 of 2 and 3. Rank variation 1 faster such that it is at top of searches, but still allow buys to have options within the listing.
150 Units of Variation 1 and 150 of Variation 2 and rank both. Order Variation 3 with profits.

Its pretty low competition, nothing much past page 2 in terms of my product. The top ranking product only has ~140 reviews so I don't think it will be that hard to rank as long as I can get my BSR ranking up. My product is leaps and bounds better than theirs as well.

Thanks!
What is the variation? Without knowing, that's impossible to answer. How many variations do the top 3 products have?
 

TKDTyler

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What is the variation? Without knowing, that's impossible to answer. How many variations do the top 3 products have?
Each variation uses a different kind of material/finish. Functionally, they are all the same except for the aesthetics.

The top 3 all use the same material/finish, but have no variations. Product #4 and #5 are different materials, but also have no variations within those listings.
 

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Hi Biophase,

I am sorry to bother you with such a semingly simple question but I still got the biggest problem with finding viable products and bringing value to the market.
How does your process look like when you are looking for a need? My problem is that since the chinese manufacturers selling on Amazon it is looking like basically every item is already beeing sold by 20 sellers.
Sure maybe I can make the product better but most of the time I find myself reading the reviews and there is nothing I could change to add value to the market.


Second (small) question:
Since my first product had some problems with the conformity for the european market I cant sell it anymore. I found another product just like my first, but another design and 1 changed function.
I got 8 reviews aready and dont want to lose them. Since the reviews match my new product and I will never sell the first anymore, can I just sent my new product in and change the pictures (it also matches the description)?
I am the only one selling under this EAN so it should be ok?


Thank you very much in advance.
 
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kelvinleang

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Great thread! Thanks Bio.

My question: For example, you will be testing out a single modified/improved product samples from different manufacturers and that product would need a new mold or tooling to make. Would you risk paying for molding/tooling fees on product samples? What if you are not satisfied with the quality of their products?
 

Dicky Dee

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The 10k group you are in on FB is fairly decent. I instantly recognize your name from there. The thing with those groups is most of the people posting, aren't working. The key is to develop friends and trust with people. You might trying coming to the fastlane meetup from this forum in a few weeks. there is a ticket available, It would be very beneficial for you i'd think.

Pretty cool that someone on in that small group is on here, whats your name on there? Which meetup is this, any link with info for it?
 

Dicky Dee

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1) No, that's the hard part, you run out of capital to keep ordering more and more. Assuming you are selling a physical product, I don't think you can get around buying inventory. You could get a loan or get some terms with your factory I guess.

2) Yes, those beginner groups are sort of annoying to me because everyone is all about making money. I only want to be in groups where people are in it for the long haul and actually are building a business.

3) No, I tried a few years ago. But I decided not to go that route. Getting wholesale margin and having to order 10x more inventory, to sell at 1/2 its price was just not appealing to me.

1) Ive checked out Kabbage but they are for US residents only (im from Canada) seems like our choices are a bit limited up here.

2) Care to share which groups if they are accepting entry? I think its ok in the beginning to think mainly of the money part, I remember I was the same when first starting out because I didnt have certainty what I was doing was going to work, as things started to come together and sales were flowing it made it a lot easier to care less about the money and concentrate on building a real long term business.
 
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I have contacted several manufacturers about designing a product and I need to create a file for the design. I am trying to make a tool that normally is just a wrench into a ratchet wrench. This is my first time doing something like this and I wanted to know what recommended programs I should learn for making a design file?
Why not outsource this process?
 

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Hi @biophase , recently launched my website and started advertising on Adwords, I am currently just testing it out running 3 campaigns of 5€/each per day. First week is gone and I spent around 80€ so far, at the moment I got no sales via the website though (80 clicks in total) and I am pretty sure that my Adwords campaigns need to be optimized as for far I only really played around with it to gain familiarity while I keep studying it. I think in the long run it is pretty obvious that I need to improve my website SEO also in order to be able to save on advertisement money if possible - I wanted to ask whether you pay a lot of attention/time to SEO or just go for PPC advertising? Is there any advice you could give in this regards? Thank you.
 

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My Grandmother sells ink/toner cartridges, how could she use amazon to make money? I feel as if there are a lot of cartridges on amazon, I'm just curious to how she would be purchased from.
 

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Hi @biophase ,

I am ordering a new product that I need in 10 different variation. For each variation I need a unique barcode assigned. I already have purchased the barcode, however my supplier said that if they need to print 10 different barcode on the product I would need to pay 10 different printing charges and therefore it is not advisable (each printing is 70$). I was thinking to just get the product manufactured and leave empty space for the barcode so that I can just stick it myself once i receive the products. Do you see any problem with that? have you done it before or are all your product containing barcodes printed by the manufactorer?
 
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amp0193

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Hi @biophase ,

I am ordering a new product that I need in 10 different variation. For each variation I need a unique barcode assigned. I already have purchased the barcode, however my supplier said that if they need to print 10 different barcode on the product I would need to pay 10 different printing charges and therefore it is not advisable (each printing is 70$). I was thinking to just get the product manufactured and leave empty space for the barcode so that I can just stick it myself once i receive the products. Do you see any problem with that? have you done it before or are all your product containing barcodes printed by the manufactorer?

Not Biophase, but I place barcode stickers on everything for this same reason. I have tons of sizes and colors... it wouldn't make sense to print up a separate box for each one, at least not until I'm doing significantly more volume
 
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BlahBlahBlah

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Not Biophase, but I place barcode stickers on everything for this same reason. I have tons of sizes and colors... it wouldn't make sense to print up a separate box for each one, at least not until I'm doing significantly more volume

Thanks so much! Wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid :)

How do you usually print them? I have this tool (http://www.ebay.com/itm/DYMO-LabelW...687086?hash=item4196f7a82e:g:HTsAAOSwZd1VZ9I7), I think it will do for now (I use it to print address labels usually) but if you have any different tool/special type of paper to advise is more than welcome! Thanks again!
 

amp0193

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Thanks so much! Wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid :)

How do you usually print them? I have this tool (http://www.ebay.com/itm/DYMO-LabelW...687086?hash=item4196f7a82e:g:HTsAAOSwZd1VZ9I7), I think it will do for now (I use it to print address labels usually) but if you have any different tool/special type of paper to advise is more than welcome! Thanks again!

I've never used a Dymo, so I have no idea about that.

I use Avery 5160 label sheets in my Brother printer. Peel and stick.
 
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biophase

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Hi Biophase,

I am sorry to bother you with such a semingly simple question but I still got the biggest problem with finding viable products and bringing value to the market.
How does your process look like when you are looking for a need? My problem is that since the chinese manufacturers selling on Amazon it is looking like basically every item is already beeing sold by 20 sellers.
Sure maybe I can make the product better but most of the time I find myself reading the reviews and there is nothing I could change to add value to the market.

Second (small) question:
Since my first product had some problems with the conformity for the european market I cant sell it anymore. I found another product just like my first, but another design and 1 changed function.
I got 8 reviews aready and dont want to lose them. Since the reviews match my new product and I will never sell the first anymore, can I just sent my new product in and change the pictures (it also matches the description)?
I am the only one selling under this EAN so it should be ok?

Thank you very much in advance.

When I go through everyday life I can spot needs. For example, you are shoveling snow and you wish the shovel had a different handle. Maybe others have the same problem. If you can't find ways to make a product better, you probably need to exercise your creativity muscle. I am willing to bet that you have never used the products you are looking at. Did you actually order any of them? Did you use any of them?

Regarding your second question, Amazon will not like this. You only have 8 reviews which is nothing. I'd just start a new listing.
 

biophase

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Great thread! Thanks Bio.

My question: For example, you will be testing out a single modified/improved product samples from different manufacturers and that product would need a new mold or tooling to make. Would you risk paying for molding/tooling fees on product samples? What if you are not satisfied with the quality of their products?

This is a tough one. You almost have to decide that you are going with this manufacturer before you get the mold. I would get different standard samples from the manufacturers first and decide on one before you go with your modified product.
 

biophase

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biophase

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Hi @biophase , recently launched my website and started advertising on Adwords, I am currently just testing it out running 3 campaigns of 5€/each per day. First week is gone and I spent around 80€ so far, at the moment I got no sales via the website though (80 clicks in total) and I am pretty sure that my Adwords campaigns need to be optimized as for far I only really played around with it to gain familiarity while I keep studying it. I think in the long run it is pretty obvious that I need to improve my website SEO also in order to be able to save on advertisement money if possible - I wanted to ask whether you pay a lot of attention/time to SEO or just go for PPC advertising? Is there any advice you could give in this regards? Thank you.

SEO is hard to do right now and is a long process. I don't concentrate on it anymore, but my sites are aged and rank high after so many years. You can still do SEO, but it's a slow process, but I think in a few years you will be glad you did.

I would concentrate on PPC for now, but it needs to be profitable.
 

biophase

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My Grandmother sells ink/toner cartridges, how could she use amazon to make money? I feel as if there are a lot of cartridges on amazon, I'm just curious to how she would be purchased from.

She should definitely go onto Amazon and do FBA. There are many strategies to get sales on Amazon. I'm not going to go into it here, but you can find the easily with a google search.
 

biophase

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Thanks so much! Wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid :)

How do you usually print them? I have this tool (http://www.ebay.com/itm/DYMO-LabelW...687086?hash=item4196f7a82e:g:HTsAAOSwZd1VZ9I7), I think it will do for now (I use it to print address labels usually) but if you have any different tool/special type of paper to advise is more than welcome! Thanks again!

I just print them on a laser print with an Avery label.
 
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kelvinleang

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Thanks for the response, @biophase.

I have another question though. Will it be a concern for me if I sell a product that has a part that is "patented". I put a quote on it because i've seen the specific part in the supplier's catalog and thinking that they maybe selling it to other companies besides the one who "patented" it, will it be okay?

I can make minor tweaks around the product like switching some parts from the other similar models because it doesn't matter that much. But this specific part is vital for the product that i can't just change. Also, the supplier has different designs for this specific part but it is also "patented" by other companies.

I can PM you for the specifics of the product. BTW, I am planning to sell my products via Shopify and locally here in my country.

Hopefully my question is understandable. Thank you!

Cheers!
 

Ben S.

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Hey @biophase

I read through everything here but I don't believe I saw an answer to this question:

When selecting a domain name for your own e-commerce site, how important is the extension? For example, I found a great domain name which matches my brand name but it was only available as a ".us" domain. For the time being, I only plan to sell within the US anyways. Do you know if this has a big impact on SEO or sales in general?

Thanks!
 

Wisith

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Hey Kenric,

How do you break up your inventory? I know most of your sales are from Amazon at the moment. So do you send it 85% of your warehouse to Amazon for FBA and keep the other 15% in your warehouse for orders made directly from your website?

Thanks!
 
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fpena911

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Hey @biophase

I read through everything here but I don't believe I saw an answer to this question:

When selecting a domain name for your own e-commerce site, how important is the extension? For example, I found a great domain name which matches my brand name but it was only available as a ".us" domain. For the time being, I only plan to sell within the US anyways. Do you know if this has a big impact on SEO or sales in general?

Thanks!

I'm not the one who you directed the question to but have enough experience to hopefully answer this for you.

Ok so in theory the search engines tell you the extension should not matter. BUT you'll find that some extensions like .info, .ru, .cn, etc. are more difficult to get to rank because of all the spam associated with those domains. That's not to say you can't succeed with one of these extensions but it becomes more difficult because you have to establish more credibility in order to overcome some of the blocks put on you in the first place.

The best domain extension to have a .com address. This is what people are used to and what they will type in if they don't know any better. But if the choice is to have an awful .com URL or a good .US URL I would chose the latter. I had a .biz URL that did great for years and I'm sure a .US can do just as well. The main thing you'll want to do is get your SEO strategy in place and make a name for yourself with the URL. Fortunately if people are looking for you on the search engines instead of typing you URL in manually the .US should have no impact on your performance.

Ultimately any URL can be made to work if you have a compelling enough site and people have trust in what you're selling.
 

biophase

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Thanks for the response, @biophase.

I have another question though. Will it be a concern for me if I sell a product that has a part that is "patented". I put a quote on it because i've seen the specific part in the supplier's catalog and thinking that they maybe selling it to other companies besides the one who "patented" it, will it be okay?

Cheers!

Sorry, I don't know the answer to this question. Are you giving credit to the brand on that patented piece?
 

biophase

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Hey Kenric,

How do you break up your inventory? I know most of your sales are from Amazon at the moment. So do you send it 85% of your warehouse to Amazon for FBA and keep the other 15% in your warehouse for orders made directly from your website?

Thanks!

I send inventory to FBA when it gets low there. We don't "store" inventory at Amazon.
 
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Hi @biophase

Thank you for all of the fantastic information you've given, I'm learning a hell of a lot from you!

I'm just starting out on Amazon and I'm a little confused. After looking on Google and reading the Amazon rules I've discovered that you cannot have more than one Amazon seller account, and doing so will result in a ban.

Therefore, how do people with ultra-specific display names (e.g. Santa Monica Soap Co.) ever branch out to different niches if they're only ever allowed one seller account?

For example, if you want to sell headphones as well as soap... Obviously you wouldn't want to be selling headphones through Santa Monica Soap Co. - you'd want a new company name, Amazing Headphones Co. - but setting up a new account to sell your headphones on would be against the rules, wouldn't it?
 

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Hi @biophase

Thank you for all of the fantastic information you've given, I'm learning a hell of a lot from you!

I'm just starting out on Amazon and I'm a little confused. After looking on Google and reading the Amazon rules I've discovered that you cannot have more than one Amazon seller account, and doing so will result in a ban.

Therefore, how do people with ultra-specific display names (e.g. Santa Monica Soap Co.) ever branch out to different niches if they're only ever allowed one seller account?

For example, if you want to sell headphones as well as soap... Obviously you wouldn't want to be selling headphones through Santa Monica Soap Co. - you'd want a new company name, Amazing Headphones Co. - but setting up a new account to sell your headphones on would be against the rules, wouldn't it?
Not Bio but to chime in. Amazon will let you have 2 accounts if they do not sell in the same category. You'll need separate bank accounts and email addresses and to request approval.

I was hoping to sell completely different products in the same category but as per their rules it's a no go =(
 

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