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Ask me anything about eCommerce (Ongoing)

omar

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They are usually using Amazon review groups or hiring copmanies to help them get reviews. With some of these groups you are guaranteed 1 sample to 1 review. People in these groups only get the samples if they agree to do a review, else they will get kicked out of the group and no longer get free samples. And people love free stuff so they want to stay in the group!

EDIT: I read someone else mentioned this later in the thread. Feel free to delete.

Didn't amazon make this against terms last year, for a seller to give free samples in exchange for a review?

I'm aware that people can still leave reviews by getting free samples, but I'm referring to the explicit nature of the exchange.
 
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Denim Chicken

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Do you know the answer to this? Couldn't find it on seller central forum.

If you click or view your own product listing, does it affect your conversion rate?

I started clicking and refreshing multiple times to inspect the hijacker I got and I'm wondering if it's taken in consideration my IP and where I click from (Seller Central dashboard) to count as an unique view which drives down the conversion %?
 

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Hello Biophase,

Thanks for this thread and information you have shared.

Have you had any issues with the limit on warehouse space? Apparently there is a limit for new sellers of how much you can import.

In your experience, do Chinese manufacturers do a good job packaging a product to be sent to FBA locations so that it's "ecommerce ready"?

Do you know of any common issues or things you should be aware of while using FBA?
 

biophase

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Hey biophase, thanks for all the great content you produce. Do you have any advice for those of us outside of the US? I am in Canada and would likely be ordering from China to Canada, store inventory in Canada, and ship to the US as necessary. Is there any way around the customs fees and headaches? How do the experts who list on both .ca and .com store inventory?

I would probably import part of the order to Canada and part to the USA if it was more cost effective. But I would sell in the USA first before Canada. I don't sell in Canada, but my guess would be to import to the USA and then export a small amount to Canada.
 
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biophase

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EDIT: I read someone else mentioned this later in the thread. Feel free to delete.

Didn't amazon make this against terms last year, for a seller to give free samples in exchange for a review?

I'm aware that people can still leave reviews by getting free samples, but I'm referring to the explicit nature of the exchange.

Correct, you cannot do that anymore.
 

biophase

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Do you know the answer to this? Couldn't find it on seller central forum.

If you click or view your own product listing, does it affect your conversion rate?

I started clicking and refreshing multiple times to inspect the hijacker I got and I'm wondering if it's taken in consideration my IP and where I click from (Seller Central dashboard) to count as an unique view which drives down the conversion %?

I don't know, but my guess would be that Amazon wouldn't count multiple visits from the same IP visits. I'm sure many sellers are always looking at their listings all the time
 

biophase

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Hello Biophase,

Thanks for this thread and information you have shared.

Have you had any issues with the limit on warehouse space? Apparently there is a limit for new sellers of how much you can import.

In your experience, do Chinese manufacturers do a good job packaging a product to be sent to FBA locations so that it's "ecommerce ready"?

Do you know of any common issues or things you should be aware of while using FBA?

I haven't had any warehouse space limits, but my accounts have been open for a long time. I don't know how it is with accounts.

The packaging from Chinese manufacturers is only as good as you make it. You can request exactly how you want your product packaged, from the size of each box to the number of layers and thickness of each box. It all comes at a cost, but it is up to you to specify how you want your products packaged and shipped.
 
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PayZ

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Hi sir, @biophase .
I have authentic high-end products, let's say luxury fashion. I know the wholesaler in person and it's a small company so part of the work at beginning will be "manual" like exporting orders, but I need at least automatic invoices generation, booking couriers and sort of stuff like that.. I don't need to scrape from other sites, I will add products manually.
What do you suggest as platform to use, that can include those automations (if it exists)?

Thanks in advance.
 

steelandchrome

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I'm in the exact same boat... I found a product and it's 160kg across 10 boxes and the cheapest shipping I have been quoted for door to door service is $800 through the manufacturer using their UPS account. I tried ups, FedEx, DHL, and they all show $4k and up. Shipping sucks but as long as it works with your margins looks like we just gotta eat it and move on. Mine sucks especially since my total purchase for the 300 test units are just $1248 so adds a significant amount of margin pressure but I still can make it work.

*On a side note I wasn't happy with the runaround of air vs sea shipping and what was all included and reached out to Walter Hayes and he suggested Flexport. I called them and they have a waitlist out to December before they are accepting new clients .

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

As an update to this order the 30 days to ship is up on Tuesday and the vendor has not even produced my product yet so I have cancelled the order and will be searching for a new supplier/product. Luckily I have trade assurance with Alibaba so the refund should go smoothly. I don't believe they ever had the intention to produce the product even though they are a 10yr supplier, gold rated, etc.... I had to contact them for updates and got the run around each time. Frustrating now that the holiday season is right around the corner and having to start over from scratch.... Hopefully the next one is much smoother but pricing is about 35% higher from all the quotes I'm getting now so not sure it makes sense to stay with it.....
 

Elijah

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Is there a "there are too many competitors" for you? I mean even if you could be cheaper, have a superior advertising strategy and website but your potential competitors are just so long in this market and people rely on them. Isn't this always the case? If so, is there any kind of limit for you to enter a market in regards to competitors?
Thanks!
 
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Elijah

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Is there a "there are too many competitors" for you? I mean even if you could be cheaper, have a superior advertising strategy and website but your potential competitors are just so long in this market and people rely on them. Isn't this always the case? If so, is there any kind of limit for you to enter a market in regards to competitors?
Thanks!

Oh and my second question would be: is there a minimum size of a niche?
 

Walter Hay

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As an update to this order the 30 days to ship is up on Tuesday and the vendor has not even produced my product yet so I have cancelled the order and will be searching for a new supplier/product. Luckily I have trade assurance with Alibaba so the refund should go smoothly. I don't believe they ever had the intention to produce the product even though they are a 10yr supplier, gold rated, etc.... I had to contact them for updates and got the run around each time. Frustrating now that the holiday season is right around the corner and having to start over from scratch.... Hopefully the next one is much smoother but pricing is about 35% higher from all the quotes I'm getting now so not sure it makes sense to stay with it.....
I would be interested to learn how you get on with your refund. There are so many loopholes in the very extensive rules applying to the Trade Assurance scheme that a lot of suppliers manage to avoid refunds.

Your 10yr gold rated supplier could be brand new to Alibaba! Sounds strange I know, but Alibaba, like most B2B sites, has an attrition rate of around 25%. per year. Failed businesses often sell their listing; Name, Gold Supplier badge, yrs on Alibaba etc., and buyers don't know that the 10 year supplier they are dealing with is really a newcomer. Your best protection against that risk is to filter for Assessed Suppliers and read the full report.

Your freight cost problem might be due to big dimensions rather than weight. I suggest you ask a few freight forwarders near you to quote on various options from Air Courier, through air cargo consolidators (insist on the price including all costs to your door), to sea freight. Also to your door).

Walter
 

steelandchrome

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I would be interested to learn how you get on with your refund. There are so many loopholes in the very extensive rules applying to the Trade Assurance scheme that a lot of suppliers manage to avoid refunds.

Your 10yr gold rated supplier could be brand new to Alibaba! Sounds strange I know, but Alibaba, like most B2B sites, has an attrition rate of around 25%. per year. Failed businesses often sell their listing; Name, Gold Supplier badge, yrs on Alibaba etc., and buyers don't know that the 10 year supplier they are dealing with is really a newcomer. Your best protection against that risk is to filter for Assessed Suppliers and read the full report.

Your freight cost problem might be due to big dimensions rather than weight. I suggest you ask a few freight forwarders near you to quote on various options from Air Courier, through air cargo consolidators (insist on the price including all costs to your door), to sea freight. Also to your door).

Walter
I just got word back from Alibaba and they sided with me and will be issuing a refund within 4-7 days. Once I get that refund hopefully I can have a new product sourced by then and can start over.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
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MitchM

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I have spent the past month and a half working on a product that I believe is above all others on the market. Right now I am at the stage where I have multiple manufacturers importing samples.

What I am wondering is: will the tactic of launching and selling my product at cost alert my competitors and cause them to drive their prices down? I don't want to create a price war - I am only interested in doing this to get ranked. After that, I actually want to sell for more than my competitors. Thoughts?
 

ripas

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I have spent the past month and a half working on a product that I believe is above all others on the market. Right now I am at the stage where I have multiple manufacturers importing samples.

What I am wondering is: will the tactic of launching and selling my product at cost alert my competitors and cause them to drive their prices down? I don't want to create a price war - I am only interested in doing this to get ranked. After that, I actually want to sell for more than my competitors. Thoughts?
If your product is truly above all others on the market then you will generate sales. Just make sure you capture why its better in your advert.
 

MitchM

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If your product is truly above all others on the market then you will generate sales. Just make sure you capture why its better in your advert.

Yeah, I'm just wondering if people will be willing to buy the product at a higher price in the beginning without all of the reviews etc. that establish credibility.
 
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Elijah

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So I have a product I want to sell on amazon and there are some competitors who sell different types of this product already. On alibaba I can exactly see which seller buys which item, they do not change it at all. So I want to make some improvements and put my personal label on it but I want to buy from a supplier who already sells to my potential competitors. Isn't it risky to ask him if he can make those improvements? He could just decline and tell my competitors what I want? There are probably some other suppliers but the quality of their product is probably not so good which means that I have to change even more parts of the product (which makes it more expensive I guess). What should I do?

Second question: I heard that you should not put your label on the product by your supplier because he could just start competing with you when he takes a look at how much sales you make (at amazon for instance). Is this true?
 

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How do you keep track of the daily sales data of each product on Amazon. For instance, if we want to see the daily units sold for product A in the month of August, what kind of software do you use or any other method you use to get those reports?
 

biophase

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I have spent the past month and a half working on a product that I believe is above all others on the market. Right now I am at the stage where I have multiple manufacturers importing samples.

What I am wondering is: will the tactic of launching and selling my product at cost alert my competitors and cause them to drive their prices down? I don't want to create a price war - I am only interested in doing this to get ranked. After that, I actually want to sell for more than my competitors. Thoughts?

I'm sure some competitors will lower their price.
 

biophase

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Hi @biophase

Generally speaking, would you say that Amazon US is a good representation of the Amazon UK market? i.e. if it's selling on the US market it will sell in UK

Thanks in advance

I think the US market is way bigger than the UK market, so sales will be alot less over there in general. I don't know if they like the same stuff in the UK as the US.
 

biophase

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How do you keep track of the daily sales data of each product on Amazon. For instance, if we want to see the daily units sold for product A in the month of August, what kind of software do you use or any other method you use to get those reports?

You can see that in your sellercentral backend. You can just do a report and set the date.
 
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biophase

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So I have a product I want to sell on amazon and there are some competitors who sell different types of this product already. On alibaba I can exactly see which seller buys which item, they do not change it at all. So I want to make some improvements and put my personal label on it but I want to buy from a supplier who already sells to my potential competitors. Isn't it risky to ask him if he can make those improvements? He could just decline and tell my competitors what I want? There are probably some other suppliers but the quality of their product is probably not so good which means that I have to change even more parts of the product (which makes it more expensive I guess). What should I do?

Second question: I heard that you should not put your label on the product by your supplier because he could just start competing with you when he takes a look at how much sales you make (at amazon for instance). Is this true?

These are all fear questions. Just go do it and if something happens then adjust. Let me ask you. Let's pretend that these scenarios will 100% happen to you. What are you going to do differently?
 

biophase

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Thank you for your response. What's your opinion on promoting with coupons?

I don't like doing that. Although I do have coupon codes floating out there. Generally, I don't find many people using them when we put them on flyers.

But the wheelio app on my site seems to convert very well. Many people use the codes generated by that app.
 
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JAJT

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But the wheelio app on my site seems to convert very well. Many people use the codes generated by that app.

I'm totally adding that to my site when we go live there. What a cool, fun little app.
 

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This is the process that many people follow. But I don't follow this process at all because you are not adding any value. As an example, say that you found that kitchen knife sets sell for $50 on amazon and that you can get them for $15 in China. You look on amazon and there are 15 people selling these kitchen knives at $50. You find the supplier making their kitchen knives and you put a red handle with your logo on them and sell them for $50 on Amazon. So what did you really do? Nothing. You created another kitchen knife set on Amazon that looks like 15 other ones except with a different color handle.

What I would do is see what I can change about the kitchen knife set. Here are things that you can do to improve the kitchen knife set:
1) Use a better quality blade
2) Use a better quality handle
3) Improve the knife block
4) Use a different combination of knives
5) Add more knives
6) Add a butcher block cutting board
7) Add a money back guarantee
8) Change the blade shapes

Imagine if you did 2-5 of these things. How do you think your listing will stack up compared to the original 15 listings? What if your cost ballooned to $25 and you still listed your knife set at $50. Do you think that you would sell more units? Do you think that you need to giveaway sets for free reviews? No, in this case, people will find your knife set and buy it because it is better when compared to the other sets out there.
This is the process that many people follow. But I don't follow this process at all because you are not adding any value. As an example, say that you found that kitchen knife sets sell for $50 on amazon and that you can get them for $15 in China. You look on amazon and there are 15 people selling these kitchen knives at $50. You find the supplier making their kitchen knives and you put a red handle with your logo on them and sell them for $50 on Amazon. So what did you really do? Nothing. You created another kitchen knife set on Amazon that looks like 15 other ones except with a different color handle.

What I would do is see what I can change about the kitchen knife set. Here are things that you can do to improve the kitchen knife set:
1) Use a better quality blade
2) Use a better quality handle
3) Improve the knife block
4) Use a different combination of knives
5) Add more knives
6) Add a butcher block cutting board
7) Add a money back guarantee
8) Change the blade shapes

Imagine if you did 2-5 of these things. How do you think your listing will stack up compared to the original 15 listings? What if your cost ballooned to $25 and you still listed your knife set at $50. Do you think that you would sell more units? Do you think that you need to giveaway sets for free reviews? No, in this case, people will find your knife set and buy it because it is better when compared to the other sets out there.

Bang!Cast Gold!!Thanks Bio!!!
 

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If you are giving away 5 products, just ask your friends. You only really need a service when you want to do 25+.

The big worry here is not if it will work, it is if you will get penalized in the future. Let's say you launch today and you get 100 free reviews, you shoot to #1 and everything is fine. You build a nice business this way. Then in 2017 Amazon decides to penalize people who did this. All your listings go from #1 to [HASHTAG]#800[/HASHTAG] in a day. All the income that you were used to is now gone. Your listings are now tainted. So you need to start a new listing, but now you are starting from scratch at 2 years behind your competitors.

This is basically what Google did with its Panda updates.



Thanks for this goody!
I really agree to this way of working and building your own pure business. The way is so hard and difficult to road, and you will have to work hard on it, but the results'll be surely better in the long time than the simple and comfortable path.
 
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