Newbie Importing and Selling on Amazon

[JAJT]

Your rank isn't going to budge from a single sale (from any source) unless you are literally sitting at zero sales for a few days and your rank is like 200k. Then it might jump to 90k before plummeting back down to 200k if 1 sale is all you got.

Your category rank increases almost 1:1 with sales volume. More sales, more rank. Less sales, less rank.

Keyword ranking however is something a bit different and not a visible metric on Amazon. You need to calculate it. You can use a tool like amzshark or amazontracker to track this stuff for you (my preferred way) or you can do it yourself by typing into amazon.com your keyword, and then seeing what page your product shows up on.

So while your BSR (best selling rank) indicates all sales to your product and is indicative of any sales from any source, your keyword rank is specifically tied to sales of your product generated from that keyword. Keyword rank is the MUCH MORE USEFUL METRIC. And the reason is simple - people don't look up products based on their BSR or the "top 100" lists when shopping. They type in "water jugs" and check out what's on page 1 of the search results, or maybe page 2/3 if they are really hunting.

Seeing a product is #1 in a category should obviously tell you that they are killing it in sales, but the reason they are killing it is almost always because they are a top search result for big keywords on amazon. You can actually carve out a nice little section of any category for yourself by being smart with keywords and driving sales to your listing based on long-tail keywords. Use a tool like merchantwords.com to get an idea (it's not perfect, just an idea) of the kinds of search terms people are using to find products. You may see that "water jugs" is the huge honcho at 1 million search results a month, but "water jugs with floral patterns" still gets 50k searches a month - well shit, if your product has a floral pattern, send some sales to your listing using a "super url" (more on this in a sec) for that keyword and get to page 1 for that keyword. Might as well throw some money to PPC as well for that keyword.

To fully explain why this is so important, consider this. Let's say you have 100 people on the hook for buying your product (an email list, coupon site, whatever). You give them your plain-jane url and give them a wicked deal ($1 for the product, or whatever). You generate 100 sales, your keyword jumps to top 50 in all of the "water jugs" category. Holy shit, you're going to be rich, you're one of the top 50 sellers in all of water jugs! Except over the next few days you drop back down to 200k. WHY!??!?! Simple - nobody was finding your product organically through search. They weren't before and they weren't after. Much like holding a thermometer, seeing it rise 10 degrees and wondering why it's still cold outside. But let's say you did the SAME THING except you loaded up a super url to your product. A super url is created (in a nutshell, I won't go into everything I know about amazon urls but this is the "101" version) when you search for your product on amazon.com's main search bar, type in "water jugs", click page after page after page until you find your product (and hope it's in the top 250 products for that keyword or you won't find it), then click into your product and copy the url which will have your keywords appended into the url itself. When you give this url out amazon will think someone found your product by searching that term. If they buy, they say "hmmm... they searched for water jugs and found this guy and bought, better bump him up a bit in rank for this keyword". Do this 100 times and what have you done? You've told amazon you are THE PRODUCT people want to see when they search "water jugs". Now when people type that in, they see you on page 1, 2 or 3 and as a result are more likely to buy from you. The more people who find you, the more buy, the better your overall BSR rank is. It stays high because they keep finding/buying from you.

Repeat.

This is a huge subject but hopefully you get the idea.

 

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[Vigilante]

A comment on shipping direct to FBA.

We never do.

There are several reasons why, all with equal weight :

1. We don't want Amazon to know who our supplier are

2. We don't want our suppliers to know how much of our business is done on Amazon

3. Quality control

4. We don't send all of our inventory to Amazon

I highly suggest NEVER sending inventory directly from a factory to Amazon.

Ever.

EVER.

For what you think you are saving, any of the top 3 points above could cost you the entire Amazon business.

 

[JAJT]

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

 

[Vigilante]

I am using a fulfillment offer from another company because I mainly sell on ebay and amazon is shipping my products in amazon packages to my customers and most ebay customers in germany dont want amazon packages.
Also it would look like I am selling products from amazon I dont own and then sent it to the customer with a profit.

My fulfillment center offered me quality control. Would you still give the advise to not send directly to the fulfillment company? I see the point that they shouldnt know my supplier. Sending directly to the fulfillment center and let them do the quality control for me would make a huge gain in passivity and make my business basically location independent (which is my goal)

Thanks in advance for helpful replys.

Like Robert Kyosaki, I had a Rich Dad and a Poor Dad. Only, in my case unlike Kyosaki, I really did have a real Rich Dad (a client and mentor) and a Poor Dad.

My Rich Dad is a persian/iranian jewish multimillionaire who lives in Beverly Hills. He made his living in his family business. A lot of what I know about life and business came from the lessons I took from him that I wrote down first on a legal pad sitting in his office, and then etched the lessons in my mind so they have become reflexive.

Anyway, one of his lessons was this :

People tend to want to share too much, and expose too much. (Thick Face, Black Heart).

He had me read Thick Face, Black Heart.

He explained that his whole business existed in the separation space he could put inbetween his suppliers and his customers. The wider that wedge, the more critical he was in the equation. The smaller the gap, the more likely it was that he could be bypassed or replaced.

He wanted his company to live on the thickest part of the wedge. The maximum separation inbetween him and ANY threat to his business. Intentionally, proactively doing things that positioned him at the thickest part of the wedge.

You may consider it paranoid... until the day you wake up (like I did) and living in the shallow end of the wedge, you ultimately lose your grip and slip off all together.

So, stay at the deepest end of the wedge with regard to ALL aspects of protecting your business.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Hey guys.

I just want to say thank you to this community once again. Everybody is so humbling and responsive. I can't believe how much knowledge there is in the forum. Everything you need can be found in the forum. I'm eager to learn.

After my E-commerce business, I gained a lot of experience testing demand, competition, and validating a need. However I was unsuccessful in getting sales, so I have decided to move onto another project. My latest project will be Importing. Now it's been a bit since I started researching importing, i've been asking questions and soaking up everything I can. I feel prepared this time. I will be selling on Amazon, with FBA. My market has already been validated by products similar to mine. The differences are that I will offer a superior product in regards to quality and features of the product. My product also offers replacement parts instead of being disposable, so that will be a nice revenue stream from people who have already bought the product. I was thinking of bundling the replacement parts together, and am considering bundling the main product with some accessories.

After emailing manufacturers from China, I ordered 5 samples of one of their product models. They have two models, the one I ordered is already competing in the US and they also have another model which currently isn't being distributed. I will be competing in the US and I will also bring it into Canada. I will sell the other model when I get a bit more capital, and I get some sales. Earlier today, I just shipped 3 of my samples to Amazon in the US. I listed them under an existing listing so I could get an idea of what my competition is like. I can definitely improve the listing but I want to test volumes and speed. I will lose money as I'm not selling one, just to familiarize myself with my product and find out everything there is to know about my product. But when my 3 samples sell, I'll have a good idea of how valuable my product is, and how big it's pain point is. I have sold one in person too, to my grandmother lol, not really a real sale but my grandma loves it, she's been recommending my product and now her cousin wants one.

And that's just the first product! I have also found another product which solves a huge pain point. If this product really works it will be of huge value to people in my niche (also same niche as other product). I have not seen this product anywhere on amazon or ebay. They're are similar products to it but none of them are portable (mine is), which is a huge inconvenience, also the listing could be describing it a lot more, they are not taking advantage of the huge pain point. I ordered 15 samples, I am still waiting on their delivery as I shipped it through regular post. Once I receive them I will create a new listing and ship them out to Amazon.

In the meantime, I will be reading and browsing the forum. I appreciate any feedback. Will update you guys.

 

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[JAJT]

Any idea what are the top 5 amazon and ebay markets? I tried googling but there were various results that didnt match.

Here's a nice little infographic I found that includes their sources for these number at the bottom.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Yessss!!!

Just got my first email from amazon...First Sale!!!

 

[ddall]

So my question is, if it is very easy to set up an Amazon account, set up FBA, and you say above "Chinese suppliers are learning that Amazon is a marketplace where they can sell at retail", I am wondering how much longer the business model of importing existing products from China and selling them on our own, (weather through Amazon, Ebay, or own website), will continue to be viable? Wondering what the experienced folks here see for the future?

This is already happening. One of my suppliers is already doing just that, with two full time staff dedicated to this pursuit exclusively. That being said, they are failing. Why? Because it is highly competitive already with other sellers striving to be heard in the noise. It takes insight and experience in terms of how to market, rank for keywords, do PPC effectively, brand and customize effectively, and so on. It IS getting harder to be heard and it is requiring more and more bank roll (for product giveaways, custom toolings, professional design etc) to reach the top, and generally things seem to be consolidating somewhat in the major categories.

The days of finding a silicone spatula (as the common example goes) and simply slapping a sticker on it, getting a few friends and family to review, doing some Amazon ppc and up you go are pretty much behind us. You have to INNOVATE, have a solid stand-out brand with a MESSAGE and emotional connection, you have to REALLY differentiate, not superficially so with a new color or size but by custom tooling, custom packaging, and custom images. You need to go DEEP not wide (to start) and have something that stands out in the market. When your product gets searched you need Google results to reveal a webpage with actual unique content, a story about your brand. You need YouTube video reviews to pop up, YouTube HowTo's, Instagram pages and giveaways. You need bloggers and influencers talking about your product etc.

I.E You need to market effectively, you need to learn and implement strategies, you need to provide unique value to the market place, and quite honestly you will likely need more money than you did if entering this model a few years ago.

 

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[JAJT]

Just remembered this, check it out: http://moz.com/blog/amazon-seo-organic-search-ranking-factors

 

[Walter Hay]

So my question is, if it is very easy to set up an Amazon account, set up FBA, and you say above "Chinese suppliers are learning that Amazon is a marketplace where they can sell at retail", I am wondering how much longer the business model of importing existing products from China and selling them on our own, (weather through Amazon, Ebay, or own website), will continue to be viable? Wondering what the experienced folks here see for the future?

As @ddall has pointed out, this process is already happening. BUT IT IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENON. I saw this happening as far back as 25 years ago at least, (as [URL='https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/vigilante.8202/']@Vigilante pointed out, I have been in this business since before the advent of the internet) when Taiwanese companies began setting up their own branches in the US, UK, and even Australia.[/URL]
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/ddall.20197/
Don't think it is only Chinese companies involved. Sadly it is common business practice for businesses to grant sole agencies/distributorships in order to allow some sucker to test the market for them, and then when they see that the demand is worthwhile, they revoke the agreement and set up their own operation.

The points made by both @ddall and @Vigilante are valid. Businesses survive if the operators are astute enough to change with the changes and outperform the intruders with superior marketing. My importing business encountered competition from Chinese manufacturers setting up in the four countries where I was selling B2B through my franchise network. They were selling at prices higher than the ex-factory prices I paid in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc., but those prices were less than half what I and my franchisees were charging. Impossible to beat? NO.

My franchise network not only survived, but it thrived. Profits did not fall, in fact they rose. Profit margins never fell below cost X 250%, and my franchisees loved me, although they were initially worried when they saw these changes taking place.

The market is there for the taking. To hell with the competition. Just do your job better than they can.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Whats your process for finding a niche or a product to sell?

I have been researching everyday for a while and everything I've looking at is either too saturated or has 20 year old websites that have been around forever.

My process is I research different hobbies and look at amazon categories and just browse products.

I found my products on alibaba. I started searching using some general keywords that apply to many items. So for example I would search "red" then look at every related item.

Also what do you mean by too saturated? The product I'm currently competing with has like 10 competing products. But i'm bringing something new to the market. If you can bring value into your market, the item doesn't matter. Find something that can be improved.

So I would look on amazon, find a best selling product. Then look on alibaba and see if you can find an item with better features or something you can improve.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Just sent 3k to China.

This is my first wholesale order, I ordered 100.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I'm getting my focus back on direct sales. I think i tried to ramp up too soon, I should be reinvesting my profits in inventory right now, not testing new things that don't end up getting me direct returns...

Agreed.

Not sure if I want to drop email and blogging yet, since blogging has really helped with my website's bounce rate and pages/session but hasn't really helped with getting leads. So I think I might not be at the stage where I need to start collecting leads yet.

I'd still consider developing your email list from visitors to your website. Even though you only have one product you could offer a free 'R&D membership'. "We're currently researching new products and need your help!". This could be presented that they'll have the ability to suggest new products, test out potential products, get behind the scenes access to development, pre-release discounts, etc. They would in essence be part of your research and development team and as an added bonus a warmed up, eager to buy launch list for every new product you release.

 

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[Hassen]

This is already happening. One of my suppliers is already doing just that, with two full time staff dedicated to this pursuit exclusively. That being said, they are failing. Why? Because it is highly competitive already with other sellers striving to be heard in the noise. It takes insight and experience in terms of how to market, rank for keywords, do PPC effectively, brand and customize effectively, and so on. It IS getting harder to be heard and it is requiring more and more bank roll (for product giveaways, custom toolings, professional design etc) to reach the top, and generally things seem to be consolidating somewhat in the major categories.

The days of finding a silicone spatula (as the common example goes) and simply slapping a sticker on it, getting a few friends and family to review, doing some Amazon ppc and up you go are pretty much behind us. You have to INNOVATE, have a solid stand-out brand with a MESSAGE and emotional connection, you have to REALLY differentiate, not superficially so with a new color or size but by custom tooling, custom packaging, and custom images. You need to go DEEP not wide (to start) and have something that stands out in the market. When your product gets searched you need Google results to reveal a webpage with actual unique content, a story about your brand. You need YouTube video reviews to pop up, YouTube HowTo's, Instagram pages and giveaways. You need bloggers and influencers talking about your product etc.

I.E You need to market effectively, you need to learn and implement strategies, you need to provide unique value to the market place, and quite honestly you will likely need more money than you did if entering this model a few years ago.

I'm an individual Chinese FBA seller & I'd say not just the manufacturers/suppliers, but most of the Chinese middlemen fail at selling retail on Amazon, simply because the only strategy they use is low price & they can't seem to overcome the elementary but also fundamental obstacle of the language barrier.

I'm also on forums of Chinese export industry employees/entrepreneurs & most of them aren't that interested in selling retail, because export is seen as an industry that you're able to close large wholesale deals by your sales skills & take a good portion of the contract with little to no starting capital, acting as middleman between foreign buyers & Chinese manufacturers. Investing in inventory themselves is not very attractive to skilled people in this industry, unless they are well established already & can afford to practically dump money & products onto Amazon, since again the only strategy they use is low price & wholesale volume.

Even with me, who's selling retail & just starting out, I get told "good job, once you get better at this you can find foreign wholesale customers & become a wholesale broker", which admittedly irritates me to no end. In a word, even as Chinese sellers are discovering the option to sell retail on Amazon, it's still not perceived as good opportunity & the same kind of option has been in existence through eBay for a long while.

Truly successful Chinese sellers on Amazon, be it those who source & then sell or those who directly work for/represent the manufacturers, are extremely rare. Most of the Chinese sellers can't even figure out how to get inventory into FBA warehouses & prefer overseas fulfillment centers run by Chinese owners with customs clearance services. Couple that with the low price strategy, their listings don't look much more attractive on Amazon than the traditional Chinese seller listings written in broken English, with random choice of variation, shipped from HK & take a month to arrive.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Walter Hay]

My new idea fell through

Improving my branding

So I believe I have a better brand than my competitor but he has more capital and OEM branding on his product.

My way around this will be to buy branded stickers and will use them to cover up my manufacturer's brand since I can't afford OEM.

I've also only been using my manufacturer's packaging up until now, and so have never had my own packaging.

I bought a gig on fiverr a couple days ago and am getting a designer to create my new packaging.

Those were my two biggest roadblocks with this item and we're solved pretty simply.
I'll also be shipping my next order to my house as @Vigilante suggested.

This will allow me to remove any of my manufacturer's markings, and then rebox the product in my new packaging and rebrand it by applying my sticker.

I appreciate any feedback!

Hi Ben,

If you want your label to look classy without a huge cost, consider printing red, black, or dark green on gold foil labels. Alternatively gold foil print on those colors, but in that case the background should just be a gloss color, not colored foil.

Preferably only use a single color (Gold). Most graphic designers go crazy with colors, but for class you cannot beat gold on black, or on a deep red or green.

If I sound dogmatic, it is because in my former importing business I sold vast numbers of products produced in those color schemes. When potential customers saw the samples they saw quality and they bought.

One of the products I sold in a test direct mailing campaign in France was in effect a miniature label in red and gold. The customer was delighted, telling me that it had boosted his sales, but I can't remember the %.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Set up a popup on my website.

I also just rebranded and moved to a new domain.

Still no sales on the website, but i'm pretty much sold out on amazon. I only have 3 units left in stock.

It all happened so quickly. Yesterday turned out to be a huge day, I got 8 sales, and got 5 today.

I think the reason why is since I rewrote my copy and added more pictures.

Turned off amazon ads for now. This will give me a chance to see how many sales i get naturally.

I'll be ordering another 100 units. I'll be able to cut down on my expenses this time around and sell them faster too.

Took me around 5 weeks to sell 80 units for the first time, since I gave away 20.

My goal is to sell the next 100 under a month.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Update:

I did some research on my 'new idea' and it turns out there are no patents on this kind of product.
There are patents on similar products but nothing like this variation.

Looked it up on alibaba, and there isn't even any manufacturers for this type of product.
Granted, there's manufacturers for all the components, but no one has ever put them together.

So I went ahead and ordered some components off amazon.

Cost me just under 100$ but now I have all the parts to build a working prototype.
It uses some electronic components and a battery so that's also good since it offers some barriers to entry.

My plan to bring this product to the market is by using kickstarter.

Kickstarter will allow me to validate the idea, generate a lot of awareness for the company/product, generate sales in advance, and allow me to test my marketing/messaging/branding skills.

If I can pull off a successful kickstarter campaign, then that will really prove to me that I have what it takes.
Basically, if the campaign is successful, it will reinforce everything I've been learning so far and let me know if i'm going in the right direction.

To fund the kickstarter, i'll be relying on my instagram and facebook profiles, since I've already built up quite a big following and they're very responsive.

I also plan on contacting influencers in my market, such as influencers on social media, bloggers, and publications.

So, I'm still doing research and piecing everything together, but I've got a good vision on how, and where, this could end up.

As for my imported product, i'm going to try to milk it as much as I can.

I was first to the market with this product so I've got the advantage there, but in comparison with my competitor, he has more capital to invest in inventory, he already has another product in this niche, he's going to have branding on this product, and he plans to undercut my price.

So, I'll just have to see what happens in a month while I'm waiting for my manufacturer to finish production.

If my competitor hasn't entered the market by the time my new order is ready, then I'll probably still be able to hold my position in the market and be able to keep importing this product.

While i'm waiting for the production to finish, I'm doing tons of research and just absorbing any info I can find on prototyping, manufacturing, kickstarter, branding, social media, influencer marketing etc.

I'm also looking into other products to import, but ideally would like to start manufacturing as i'll have full control.

 

[Walter Hay]

A comment on shipping direct to FBA.

We never do.

There are several reasons why, all with equal weight :

1. We don't want Amazon to know who our supplier are

2. We don't want our suppliers to know how much of our business is done on Amazon

3. Quality control

4. We don't send all of our inventory to Amazon

I highly suggest NEVER sending inventory directly from a factory to Amazon.

Ever.

EVER.

For what you think you are saving, any of the top 3 points above could cost you the entire Amazon business.

@Vigilante I am very pleased to see someone with your high standing advise along these lines.

I see a potential disaster looming for Amazon marketers because Chinese suppliers are learning that Amazon is a marketplace where they can sell at retail. They will gleefully ditch all their nuisance buyers in the US and other places where Amazon operate.

I totally endorse your views on this very important subject.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Just wanted to update you guys.

It turns out, my manufacturer decided to go into an exclusive agreement with my competitor...

So I don't have a product anymore.

However, I still have my brand.

And because of this, I emailed another manufacturer and am now getting my own custom product designed.
This time, my product will have my brand logo on it. And I will have custom packaging.

I really want to make this product valuable! I want my customers to have a good experience when they open their package.

I did not feel this way with my first product, i felt cheap since i could not remove my manufacturer's brand name.

More to come soon!

 

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[JAJT]

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...

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Update:

• Business failed
• Learned a lot
• Invested in the wrong product
• Getting a job now
• Still have a lot of other ideas

This isn't the end

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Looks like my press release is getting around. I checked my website this morning and I saw I had referrals coming from a new source. It turns out that another PR6 blog reposted my article.

I also got another sale from amazon ppc. So I'm getting a few sales here and there but I want to start getting consistent sales daily. And after watching the video Brandon suggested I realized why my launch on instagram didn't work. My next strategy is to order another 100 of my product. And give away 50 on instagram to boost my ranking on amazon.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Just finished designing my landing page.
Seriously took me like 4 hours to integrate it with shopify.

My plan is to start running facebook ads to drive traffic to my landing page. I also need to start blogging more.

Once people are in my email funnel i'll be sending them relevant content and educating them about the benefits of my products, then send them a coupon to hopefully seal the deal. Nothing too complicated planned yet.

Also, I just switched over to aweber but had some problems importing my list since I had to send a confirmation email and nobody opted in. So i'm back at zero. I'm kinda glad this happened though since now I can make sure everyone receives the right emails on my autoresponder.

Summary of what's happened so far:
-Sold my 6 samples
-Gave away 20 products as promotion on instagram
-Got 8 reviews on amazon (so far) from that promotion, with more on the way.
-Sold another 10 products in the span of a week after the promotion
-Have approximately 600 fans on facebook and 5500 on instagram
-Currently targeting long tail keywords on amazon and adwords
-Got quickbooks

All in all, things are finally starting to shape up.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Finally time for an update

So it's April 30th. Tomorrow is May 1st. It's pretty disappointing I've gotten delayed this far. I didn't sell anything for the entire month of April and my last sale was on March 11th. I received my 2nd order on April 15th. Still haven't shipped it out, but I have labeled them and applied my stickers. Literally took me 8 hours. I also submitted my instruction manual to staples for printing, it will be ready tomorrow. That means tomorrow is the day I ship my products out.

Now I've realized the reason for being delayed is all on me and that I need to reorganize my priorities. Like I could have written that instruction manual sooner, but I chose to procrastinate and ended up writing it at 3am last night. And because of this, it appears my competitor is pulling up ahead of me. He has 30 reviews on his listing while I still have 20. However, it looks like he will also be running out of stock. He is currently at 27 units.

This will be my chance to regain my position and stay ahead. I plan on updating my social media followers and my email list as soon as I'm back in stock. This should give me some momentum, i might also run a discount/giveaway but i'm not sure yet. What I am sure about though is instagram, I will be buying ads from influencers shortly after getting my inventory checked in. I've made a list of about 10 of the top accounts in my niche that offer ads. I will continue building this list in the meantime.

I plan to start focusing on influencer marketing. Instagram ads fall under influencer marketing. Blogger reviews/youtube reviews also fall under influencer marketing. For this reason, I will likely be keeping 10 of the 110 products for use as samples to send to bloggers/youtubers. I'll also be starting another list about the top reviewers in my niche and will seek to build a relationship with them.

And now that my product has my brand name on it, I can start taking more pictures. The sticker really makes my brand name shine, and it looks way better than my competitor.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Quick update...

Half of my inventory checked-in last night

Got a sale today

 

[Vigilante]

So my question is, if it is very easy to set up an Amazon account, set up FBA, and you say above "Chinese suppliers are learning that Amazon is a marketplace where they can sell at retail", I am wondering how much longer the business model of importing existing products from China and selling them on our own, (weather through Amazon, Ebay, or own website), will continue to be viable? Wondering what the experienced folks here see for the future?

I found an article about my great grandfather. Apparently in the 1960's, he was an importer of physical goods that he would then sell to local merchants.

@Walter Hay built (and sold) an importing company before the dawn of the internet, yet his business expertise still applies.

The medium might change, and the methods might change, but with the evolution comes a certain degree of Darwinism.

Rather than focusing on the perception of the demise of one particular method, learn to focus on what value you can carve out in the food chain.

Maybe you can sit on top of the next wave as the markets change, the medium changes, and the methods change.

How will customers order? How will companies deliver? What will end users buy? How will manufacturers communicate?

The world is certainly getting smaller, but vast fortunes are still out there for those that focus on how to get on top of the wave instead of those that worried they are going to get drown by it.

5 years ago it would have been impossible to predict where we are today, so anyone that tells you they can predict where we will be five years from now is full of shit. The best you can do is be in the game so that you are in position to create and ride opportunities as the methods, the medium, and the markets expose opportunities.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

So now my copy is done, I'm still editing it though, it's currently above 8000 characters so I need to refine it. I'm also going to start taking my product photos. I just finished making my photo set-up. All I did was take an old poster I had and taped it to my bedroom door. I also attached a lamp I had to the side of my desk.

Right now my only dilemma is that to get branding on my product I will have to order 1000 units. I was thinking of only ordering 100 to start. I'll use 'company policy' as an excuse, like I read in Kak's ecommerce thread. I also plan to get some color changes, and will bundle my products to differentiate myself.

EDIT: I might have to hold taking my photos now, as I want to make sure nobody can copy my listing. I ordered a generic brand for my samples, and listed them on an already existing listing for this generic brand. But now I've improved the listing and want to make sure this competitor cannot sell on my listing.

P.S. 2 of my products are reserved now.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Received my samples from my original manufacturer yesterday. I also just finished writing my product description, this time it's smaller, it's about a page and a half typed out on word.

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

Now I have to take product photos, then I can list the product on amazon.

I'm also going to look into shipping to amazon using UPS. I read in Vigilante's thread amazon offers discounted inbound shipping with UPS.

Not sure how much demand i'll get by just listing it, as this time it is a completely new listing. I'll probably try to get some traction going on social media, or maybe ask around and see if I can get friends and family to order one, to gain some quick rankings.

 

[MoneyDoc]

@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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[cautiouscapy]

I second @JAJT on making your copy 8000 characters long

I third @JAJT.

What I've been noticing in how few Amazon sellers put much copy on their listings at all.
There often isn't even a complete description.

A longer description suggests that the seller is an expert on the product (as you surely are), not just an opportunist who sees similar products being sold and decides to buy a few items in.

Answer people's questions in your copy, give them all the information they might want to know. You can revise the copy later if there are FAQ you hadn't thought of.
Read your competitor's product reviews and see what questions you might answer in your copy - if reviews mention a slightly unsatisfactory feature x, how is your product's feature x better?

I have a long-tail keyword product on Amazon with one competitor. My competitor has a 2 word title and a cr*ppy 150 x 150px image of the product in its package and no other information at all.

My listing has a title with synonyms and a description of what the product is for, my image shows the product being used and is zoomable. My description is a few bullets long and lists the exact material, how it's finished, where it's made, that it's made for me in a particular European country by experts...I had to email my competitor just to find out what size and finish their item was.
I'm not sure either of us shift many units via Amazon but I know which listing looks like the seller knows something about the product.