Advice please: First foray into FBA | Doggo miracle cure

[Lee James]

Morning/afternoon/evening

I hope you're all really well!

I'm helping my wife set up a company in a space that's very dear to both of us where we can add a huge amount of value.

She is a dog trainer by trade, and after our dog Tuki had a serious injury that cost us £££ and lots of unhelpful and frustrating time at the vets (after 6 months we gave up with them as nothing was working). Tuki couldn't leave the house for these 6 months and as an 18 month old puppy with insane energy, as you can probably image, this was megalolz for us and the dog!!

We've been super frustrated with the vets a few times now so we decided to see if we could find another route, so we've both spent considerable time looking into alternative natural remedies...

Fast forward only a couple of weeks and wifey hit the nail on the head...

Long story short, our pooch was fixed within 2 days with a completely natural remedy. It was honestly unbelievable!! We have now tried this remedy on other dog owners we've bumped into on walks with 100% hit rate. It fixes joint problems and lameness, and as an added bonus (after plentiful researching) it prevents arthritis and rheumatic aches and pains alongside some other really beneficial things, like being a natural insect repellant and antidote for venoms.

We've found a supplier and want to begin with an FBA set up with the idea of getting it out to as many dog owners as possible as we know from feedback how many dog owners absolutely need this product.

I've run marketing companies for over 15 years now so feel confident about building a brand that speaks to our audience and executing on the idea, but having not ever run this kind of business before it would be great to get a little advice to potentially save us any unnecessary hitches when setting up and beginning the journey.

I've seen a couple of super interesting and helpful threads on here regarding FBA and I'm just putting it out there to see if anyone with good experience would be happy to jump on a call for me to ask a few questions. As always, I'm more than happy to reciprocate for your time in any way I can

Thanks!

Lee

 

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[JAJT]

It fixes joint problems and lameness, [...] prevents arthritis and rheumatic aches and pains [...] natural insect repellant and antidote for venoms.

This screams "snake oil" and "too good to be true" (not saying it doesn't work - just that this is what my brain screams when reading you talk about it).

I don't normally suggest being shy with your benefits when selling a product but if you want to develop a serious and respected brand, I'd make sure "plentiful researching" means scientific studies and safety research and ensuring the product is actually very safe for animals. Nothing will ruin you faster than causing health problems you didn't know about. You might want to also just stick with the strongest benefits you know for sure work that all relate to each other (IE: joint problems, aches, and pains).

Even if it DOES work for those other things, I still wouldn't advertise them all as one product. I'd have a joint/pain, an insect repellent product, and an anti-venom product. Even if the only difference is the label.

Anyway, in terms of actual FBA advice - we have a ton of threads on that subject here, give it a search. In general it's as easy as setting up a listing and sending product into FBA fulfillment centers. Although like everything, every little aspect has best practices and nitty gritty details to fine-tune and optimize. You very specifically want to nail the FBA requirements (packaging properly, labeling to their standards, ensuring it can pass the FBA drop-test, using a double seal if necessary, etc) - luckily amazon themselves tells you what's required for this stuff if you find their requirements page. Almost everything else like product page, advertising, getting an enhanced listing, keywords, descriptions, photos, etc can all be optimized and fixed and adjusted as you go.

 

[Lee James]

This screams "snake oil" and "too good to be true" (not saying it doesn't work - just that this is what my brain screams when reading you talk about it).

I don't normally suggest being shy with your benefits when selling a product but if you want to develop a serious and respected brand, I'd make sure "plentiful researching" means scientific studies and safety research and ensuring the product is actually very safe for animals. Nothing will ruin you faster than causing health problems you didn't know about. You might want to also just stick with the strongest benefits you know for sure work that all relate to each other (IE: joint problems, aches, and pains).

Even if it DOES work for those other things, I still wouldn't advertise them all as one product. I'd have a joint/pain, an insect repellent product, and an anti-venom product. Even if the only difference is the label.

Anyway, in terms of actual FBA advice - we have a ton of threads on that subject here, give it a search. In general it's as easy as setting up a listing and sending product into FBA fulfillment centers. Although like everything, every little aspect has best practices and nitty gritty details to fine-tune and optimize. You very specifically want to nail the FBA requirements (packaging properly, labeling to their standards, ensuring it can pass the FBA drop-test, using a double seal if necessary, etc) - luckily amazon themselves tells you what's required for this stuff if you find their requirements page. Almost everything else like product page, advertising, getting an enhanced listing, keywords, descriptions, photos, etc can all be optimized and fixed and adjusted as you go.

Super helpful, thanks brother!

Totally get your point re Snake Oil - although I'm just telling the story on here, not pitching, so would mos def not use that language when marketing the product.

And 100% with you on the scientific studies, duly noted! Not something we have overlooked and have the whole team working on it and researching.

Also totally agree with the different products point

This is all very helpful, thanks for taking the time - anything you need from me in return mate?

 

[FluidWater]

Morning/afternoon/evening

I hope you're all really well!

I'm helping my wife set up a company in a space that's very dear to both of us where we can add a huge amount of value.

She is a dog trainer by trade, and after our dog Tuki had a serious injury that cost us £££ and lots of unhelpful and frustrating time at the vets (after 6 months we gave up with them as nothing was working). Tuki couldn't leave the house for these 6 months and as an 18 month old puppy with insane energy, as you can probably image, this was megalolz for us and the dog!!

We've been super frustrated with the vets a few times now so we decided to see if we could find another route, so we've both spent considerable time looking into alternative natural remedies...

Fast forward only a couple of weeks and wifey hit the nail on the head...

Long story short, our pooch was fixed within 2 days with a completely natural remedy. It was honestly unbelievable!! We have now tried this remedy on other dog owners we've bumped into on walks with 100% hit rate. It fixes joint problems and lameness, and as an added bonus (after plentiful researching) it prevents arthritis and rheumatic aches and pains alongside some other really beneficial things, like being a natural insect repellant and antidote for venoms.

We've found a supplier and want to begin with an FBA set up with the idea of getting it out to as many dog owners as possible as we know from feedback how many dog owners absolutely need this product.

I've run marketing companies for over 15 years now so feel confident about building a brand that speaks to our audience and executing on the idea, but having not ever run this kind of business before it would be great to get a little advice to potentially save us any unnecessary hitches when setting up and beginning the journey.

I've seen a couple of super interesting and helpful threads on here regarding FBA and I'm just putting it out there to see if anyone with good experience would be happy to jump on a call for me to ask a few questions. As always, I'm more than happy to reciprocate for your time in any way I can

Thanks!

Lee

Sounds like a great niche!

I'm curious why you are starting with FBA?

Have you thought of getting a simple shopify store up to validate the idea? Then scaling from there?

Good luck!

 

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[fastlane_dad]

Morning/afternoon/evening

I hope you're all really well!

I'm helping my wife set up a company in a space that's very dear to both of us where we can add a huge amount of value.

She is a dog trainer by trade, and after our dog Tuki had a serious injury that cost us £££ and lots of unhelpful and frustrating time at the vets (after 6 months we gave up with them as nothing was working). Tuki couldn't leave the house for these 6 months and as an 18 month old puppy with insane energy, as you can probably image, this was megalolz for us and the dog!!

We've been super frustrated with the vets a few times now so we decided to see if we could find another route, so we've both spent considerable time looking into alternative natural remedies...

Fast forward only a couple of weeks and wifey hit the nail on the head...

Long story short, our pooch was fixed within 2 days with a completely natural remedy. It was honestly unbelievable!! We have now tried this remedy on other dog owners we've bumped into on walks with 100% hit rate. It fixes joint problems and lameness, and as an added bonus (after plentiful researching) it prevents arthritis and rheumatic aches and pains alongside some other really beneficial things, like being a natural insect repellant and antidote for venoms.

We've found a supplier and want to begin with an FBA set up with the idea of getting it out to as many dog owners as possible as we know from feedback how many dog owners absolutely need this product.

I've run marketing companies for over 15 years now so feel confident about building a brand that speaks to our audience and executing on the idea, but having not ever run this kind of business before it would be great to get a little advice to potentially save us any unnecessary hitches when setting up and beginning the journey.

I've seen a couple of super interesting and helpful threads on here regarding FBA and I'm just putting it out there to see if anyone with good experience would be happy to jump on a call for me to ask a few questions. As always, I'm more than happy to reciprocate for your time in any way I can

Thanks!

Lee

Make sure to not delay opening / setting up your Amazon account, going through Brand Registry to allow for the listing of your 'new' product AND actually creating the listing on Amazon before ordering tons of product from suppliers (as not every product is approved).

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask - tons of FBA talent around these boards.

Where will your primary market exist? Do you plan to sell this beyond the borders of your country? Something to think about and figure out the setup of as well.

Good Luck!!

 

[Lee James]

Sounds like a great niche!

I'm curious why you are starting with FBA?

Have you thought of getting a simple shopify store up to validate the idea? Then scaling from there?

Good luck!

Thanks brother

I hope you're really well!

TBH we're currently open to suggestion, but figured FBA would be the best option sheerly due to the size of the platform and credibility when people hit Amazon.

Do you have experience with comparison between Amazon and Shopify?

For control we would also sell through our own site but figured Amazon made sense as a way to get validation.

To add, our plan is to give out 500-1,000 free samples via dog friendly Meta groups, local pet shops, and local dog trainers/walkers etc too.

Cheers!

 

[Lee James]

Make sure to not delay opening / setting up your Amazon account, going through Brand Registry to allow for the listing of your 'new' product AND actually creating the listing on Amazon before ordering tons of product from suppliers (as not every product is approved).

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask - tons of FBA talent around these boards.

Where will your primary market exist? Do you plan to sell this beyond the borders of your country? Something to think about and figure out the setup of as well.

Good Luck!!

Thanks so much for the response mate, super appreciate it and double helpful.

I hope you're having an awesome day so far

Really good point re going through Brand Registry.

Primary market exists:

- Current mailing list (my wife's dog training business) c2k eyeballs
- FB dog groups we are a part of (we get great engagement rate or our posts) c25k eyeballs

Once we get proof of concept we would look to roll out on the usual channels for digital marketing.

And yes, we would be looking to build in the UK first and then roll out to other relevant countries - would this be better to set up all on day 1?

Thanks so much!! Shout if there's anything I can do for you

 

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[Saad Khan]

Amazon made sense as a way to get validation.

Send 50 units to FBA, run PPC, see the response = Validation

I think FBA is a solid channel for market validation. You should go omnichannel @Lee James

 

[Lee James]

C

Send 50 units to FBA, run PPC, see the response = Validation

I think FBA is a solid channel for market validation. You should go omnichannel @Lee James

Cheers Saad! Appreciate the feedback.

We figured best to test and then sell to our network first so we can get feedback and make iterations/optimisations before hitting Amazon as minimum unit order is 1k boxes (60k products) so we will most likely get 1 box as a test to give out for those purposes.

Omnichannel ftw

 

[fridge]

Like Saad said, and you're already doing start small. Ideally with just one product at a time.

I got myself way over my head with FBA trying two items in high quantities instead of just 1 item with a small test batch and the fees + PPC costs (even at a 6x roas) destroyed any chance of being profitable.

Either way you'll learn a lot! Looking forward to hearing your progress.

 

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[Lee James]

Like Saad said, and you're already doing start small. Ideally with just one product at a time.

I got myself way over my head with FBA trying two items in high quantities instead of just 1 item with a small test batch and the fees + PPC costs (even at a 6x roas) destroyed any chance of being profitable.

Either way you'll learn a lot! Looking forward to hearing your progress.

Thanks brother, and sorry to hear you had a bit of a mare with yours - but mare's are always the best learning eh

Yup, we are going to roll out 1 product, and not hit the 2nd until we're making solid consistant sales with the first, then will repeat with products 3, 4, 5....

May I ask what niche you were in?

 

[inputchip]

If you really want people to take this seriously you need scientific studies to back up your claims as well as massive social proof. I would even look at launching this on Kickstarter. Is there significant search volume for your keyword?

 

[Lee James]

If you really want people to take this seriously you need scientific studies to back up your claims as well as massive social proof. I would even look at launching this on Kickstarter. Is there significant search volume for your keyword?

Absolutely agree, and thanks so much for the message.

We're going through that process now and deciding whether this product would be best as our first one, or as the 3rd or 4th after we've started to establish the brand and have loyal customers. As it will take us longer to get the scientific studies completed i.e. less runway so may work best to push a couple of relevant products before this one.

Keyword volume is a brilliant call, we usually bat ideas this way. There's a decent search volume for relative keywords with an impressive increase year on year over the last 3 years.

Hope all is really well with you

 

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