Newbie Importing and Selling on Amazon

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Update:

• 18 years old now. Been working on my business for a year and a half.

• Got an email from Fox News inquiring about my Instagram account. But i couldn't do anything since it was for U.S. citizens only.

• Applied for a 5000$ grant.

• Ordered 7 samples of a new product to test the market.

Looking forward to seeing results!

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Update: My 3 samples are reserved.

I'm currently researching everything on branding that I can find. First, I'm going to find a good brand name, as I don't want to use my corporation name. Second, I will register for accounts on social media, and read about branding.
Third, hopefully talk to my manufacturer about branding, color changes.

 

[brandonrush]

@BusinessBen Keep it up, man! This is fun to read. What do you mean when you say "items reserved"? I'm unfamiliar with this term on Amazon.

 

[armitage79]

Great job. It feels nice to make a sale! I also started on Amazon. I have to say the competition is getting fierce. Definitely do FBA ASAP. I am importing to USA and my freight forwarder is handling the FBA labeling and shipping. I don't want my supplier doing the labeling since they might get smart and go direct themselves. At the same time I am building a brand and also an Amazon webstore. Look into that, you should be able to drive ads and social media traffic there.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

So now I'm going to be posting on social media. I got a bit overwhelmed on which one to start with but finally chose instagram.

The reason is because it seems like one of the best platform for brands and it's the most responsive. It's also great for starting out and creating brand awareness.

I think my first post will be the box that my sample came in. I'll also try to take some 'behind the scenes' shots and pictures related to my niche.

Also just finished Jab, Jab Jab, Right Hook and now will be reading Instagram Power.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Quick update:

First post on social media is done, it was just a photo of something people in my niche would enjoy.

Product photos are done, I took 3, each one showcasing the different items that came in the box. I also plan to take some action shots but the 3 photos on a white back round is fine for now.

I also bought some UPCs.

Now I just need to fill out the listing on Amazon then I can ship it out.

Edit: Just found out UPS doesn't offer discount rates to amazon for international. So it doesn't apply for Canada.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

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.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

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.

 

[Vigilante]

@JAJT thought you would be interested in this thread

 

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[Ramble On]

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.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

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.

Turns out the limit for characters is 4500.

I don't know why I said 8000 before. When I was writing the advertisement I just wrote it out on word and aimed for under 8000 characters, I wrote it like a classic sales page.

Then it turned out I was only allowed 4500 (2000 for the description and 500 for each bullet point, with 5 bullet points.) So I had to restart and edit my copy to a shorter form.

I found that to make the listing look nice, you have to write your advertisement in amazon's native format. Write in amazon's style, don't write an advertisement on word then try to squeeze it into amazon's format.

Now I have a nice listing with a 2000 character description, using <p> and <b> tags. The bullets points probably aren't 500 characters each but I find it better to only have one or two sentences as it makes them look a lot cleaner and official looking.

Also keep in mind, amazon's items often has a much bigger description, more bullet points and pictures in the description.

Non-amazon items have limited descriptions.

 

[Vigilante]

Yeah, that's a very unapologetic unfair advantage Amazon has over their third party sellers. It is what it is :/

Also keep in mind when writing copy that special characters (the < and > characters) count as 4 characters each. Found that out the hard way when I was trying to do a lot of special formatting and used up almost half my limit on tags...

It is my understanding that even basic HTML code gets flagged by Amazon now. It doesn't affect existing listings, but does trigger when you try and edit an existing listing.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

In other news! I wrote a press release.

I just realized the importance of writing for blogs and publications. It's essentially free marketing.

My press release describes a new product with revolutionary new features.

I also have another idea for a story, it would describe how a 16 year old (me) just launched a new company.

I'm thinking about publishing both of them. The first one would be kind of a test.

Now I just need to find which blogs I want to publish in. I think I should only send the story to one blog/blogger and seek to establish a long term relationship.

 

[SeanyHang]

I recommend www.productphoto.com - I've used them in the past and they do great work.

I've never heard of these guys - their work looks phenomenal! Great resource!

 

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[brandonrush]

How many units have you sold so far in 2014?

Your progress if fun to watch. I also started recently and have sold a little over 80 units since December 10th. I'm waiting on a larger order from my vendor now to really start the push.

I just started an INSIDERS only Amazon Private Label skype group if you'd like to join. Message me on skype at user id: BrandonRushi and I'll add you.

 

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[Deon]

Amazon received 2 of my packages yesterday. They were fully received and everything went smoothly. Now I have 40 items ready to sell.

I plan on redoing another instagram promotion to get some initial traction, but this time instead of a discount I'll be selling 25 of my items for 1$ in exchange for an amazon review. Similar to how @AllenCrawley did his instagram promotion.

I posted a picture about an hour ago asking people if they wanted to be tagged when the promotion is live and more than 25 people have already commented saying they wanted to be tagged and that they would definitely leave a review. It's looking good so far!

I decided not to promote on email since people would probably already be open to paying the full price so i'm just going to continue educating them with my blog and newsletter for now and focus on growing my list before doing any more promotions. Depending on how many reviews i get from instagram I should get boosted to the first page on amazon. I'm guessing first page since I was on page 5 only after selling 6 in a month and a half.

Wish me luck!

Good luck!

Just ordered 8 samples from China myself and looking forward to test them out (7 of them) on Amazon. Exciting stuff

 

[Cembo]

Good Luck Ben! I just ordered some samples, too! I am really excited

 

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[MoneyDoc]

Up to 7 orders right now and 3 reviews.

Now my rank on amazon jumped to #15 on page 1 of my subcategory!

Excited as F*ck!

Good job Ben.

I was following your journey from your previous venture, the fridges. You failed, but you didn't quit. And now look at you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JAJT]

So are you suggesting to first use the superurl for your subcategory, then once it is ranked high enough use the superurl for a bigger category?

Only if you can't find yourself in "all"

If I were just to use amazon ppc and adwords, would that count towards my keyword rankings?

Any sales resulting from the keyword you are targeting counts, so yes. You could theoretically target just 1 keyword on amazon ppc and use your entire daily budget on it - hopefully it converts and you'll get a bunch of sales to boost rank this way.

Also I'm on page one of my subcategory, no keywords. Do you know how many people buy from just browsing categories?

Do you buy by browsing just subcategories? I don't. I might use them as a filter but very, very rarely do I dive down more than 1 level. 2 if it's an oddball item.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

My hesitation if I were you (company A) is there is absolutely nothing that keeps company B from simply taking the item to cost or below and choking you out and/or copying your marketing strategy identically, and maybe with better results if they have been around longer.

My competitor already has a hold in the market (inventory:999+) but was selling a different item. Now I've stepped in and threatened him so he plans to undercut my prices... However, I've got the head start on amazon but I feel his brand is better than mine... Could he step in and take my position away or am i already too far ahead?

I've also planned a new strategy if amazon doesn't work out.

I will not be competing in a price war against an identical item.

Right now, i'm using my manufacturer's brand on the item, so I don't have much control. I'm covering it up with my brand but the item itself is generic.

However, my aunt and uncle have their own tag/sticker/engraving business, so if i ask them, they could probably remove my manufacturer's marking and add my own.

This would allow me to start going into retail and diverting from amazon. I'd like to sell more of this product online before offering wholesaling though, so depending on what happens with amazon I might start selling on ebay instead. Competitor isn't on ebay but it looks like somebody is feeding off him and selling his item.

Ideally, I wouldn't want to divert from amazon but i'm just thinking of some worse case scenarios.

I've also got my website which i am trying to make work, however i haven't gotten a sale through it yet (not driving traffic to website, maybe i should). It will be 10 weeks before i see any results from my autoresponder... I might just shorten this.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Excellent work so far, really making good progress.

Your making a landing page instead of a store with shopify or big commerce, because you only have 1 product so far, is that right?

It's actually just a full out store. I haven't gotten any sales through it though. I'll be adding more SKUs soon enough though so I won't be changing it.

The main reason I have my website is to establish trust with people. Since, when somebody finds out about a new brand, the first thing they usually do is google it.

 

[Paul David]

Ben, can you have the manufacturer send the order straight to the Amazon FBA?

I can answer that. You certainly can. If you want to ship by sea direct to Amazon you are best using their recommended Freight forwarder which is Shapiro. Although you can shop around.

 

[SirTristram]

Nice Ben ,looking good.
I recently wrote the script and text for a Kickstarter project so if you'd like a second hand just let me know.

 

[Vigilante]

The main reason I have my website is to establish trust with people. Since, when somebody finds out about a new brand, the first thing they usually do is google it.

Exactly.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Quick Update:

I ordered the 110 units last night.

The clothing manufacturer did not respond though.

I'm also writing a new instruction manual for my product, since I was getting complaints about it being hard to read.

My new packaging is designed too. Currently looking up how I would print it on a box...

And now I'm designing the sticker. Doesn't take much but I just need to take some measurements to make sure it's the right size.

Once the design for the sticker is finished, I can email it over to my aunt and she can start printing them. (she owns a dye sublimation printer)

 

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[Walter Hay]

P.S. My competitor has 23 reviews now.... I have 20.

Probably going to run a discount for some more reviews when i'm back in stock.

However this is a bit frightening since he has more reviews now and a cheaper price.

Although, I found a way to differentiate myself from this competitor in the future.

This product were both importing has 2 replaceable parts. He is selling them separately.

I asked my manufacturer if I could order some but they didn't have any in stock.

But for the next order, I'm probably going to order these parts and bundle them in my listing.

This will allow me to stay at my current price point, while giving my customers a better deal.

It seems that you are progressing well. Don't forget you can use a label on a box, it does not have to be directly printed.

As for the sticker, I don't know where it is to be deployed, but although it may be tempting to use your aunt's sublimation printer, just be sure that quality is not compromised. Dye sublimation looks good on some substrates, but is not suitable for all types of background material.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

@Walter Hay

Thank you for the suggesting the use of a label on the box. I will probably end up going this route as opposed to directly printing on the boxes.

As for the sticker, I liked your color scheme, however foil wouldn't be viable as the sticker is covering up an etching.

I will instead go with a hard plastic sticker.

Similar to this:

Thanks again for the help Walter! Your book was also extremely helpful during my progress. I would recommend anyone who hasn't read it yet to do so.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

@BusinessBen how about an update?

 

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[MoneyDoc]

Glad to see you back on your feet Ben!

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Just downloaded facebook all in one marketing for dummies and twitter marketing for dummies. Probably gonna buy Instagram Power too, it seems to be a popular recommendation around here.