While Amazon is a giant, it also takes a HUGE chunk away from profits.

Do you recommend any other channels ( Etsy, etc ) besides your own store?

 

Do you feel that niche marketplaces, and amazon are in their own separate category?

What I mean by that is people will go to etsy for the experience of finding a niche craft that has been handmade, and people will go to amazon for general shopping to find something particular they may be able to get for cheaper or something a little more specialized.

I feel like there are still some gaps. If I was opening up an ecommerce store that sold different types of water bottles I could see how it would be better to go the amazon route, but if I was starting a marketplace for 3d printed nik naks or handmade food items they wouldnt do too well on amazon due to the specialty of the item. I wouldn't go on to amazon to look for 3d printed nik naks.

Would you say that these marketplaces hold up where some ecommerce stores may not?

 

Let's assume Amazon and FBA is our sales channel.

Do you prefer to use PPC advertising, or do you prefer organic growth when starting a new store, or adding SKUs to an existing store?

If you use PPC ads, are you using Amazon's? Google AdWords? Both, or something else entirely?

 

I thought the general consensus seo was pointless now, and paid advertising was the go to route

 

Will watch thread as i dont have any wonders here

thank you bio for another AMA to inform everyone else of things they don't know of yet

 

Thanks Bio. My question is more of a general nature. Do you feel the whole import, brand and use amazon FBA is nearing saturation? Obviously there will always be brand churn but it just seems that every man and his dog these days is scrolling Alibaba and doing this...to varying degrees of success. Has / will / can Amazon FBA hit the shoeshine boy moment?

Was it an opportunity for first movers or do you think opportunity is still wide open?

 

Thanks for creating a new thread with updated information, Kenric! Rep+

When the company gives out samples, are they targeting key players like top bloggers and video reviewers, or are they giving product away to anyone interested? I've noticed that it takes a little incentive to get people to review a product. I'm guilty of it too, so how did they get so many people to respond?

 

Hey Bio,

Loved your previous thread, read it near two years ago, and have since been in the import game, growing rapidly.

In on page one of future legendary/gold thread

I'll ask some questions:
1) Are you using TaxJar or anything to collect tax on amazon sales?
2) How do you do organize your book keeping? Software to suggest, have hired help or your own spread sheets?
3) At your stage do you have any employees for customer service, other tasks? Where did you hire them? Do you prefer local or overseas.
4) Amazon to Shopify. This is something I am starting to turn my attention towards. With Shopify or your own ecom portal, the benefits are obvious: take customers off the AMZ channel, can use upsells/downsells (basically all sorts of promotional techniques), abandoned cart, retarget, build customer lists, more images (no rules), integrate with social media etc, but of course do not have the organic amazon searches, trust factor, prime, yada yada. Do you focus on an ecomm store? If so, do you use FBA or a fulfilment house that can ship world wide? For my business, world wide shipping is an appealing interest, especially with marketing via Instagram and YouTube. I realize FBA Europe is not integrated as well. Thoughts on all of this?

5) What software do you use?

I use Azon Seller Tools, Manage By Stats, Search Ranker, Camel Camel Camel, merchant words (not really any more).

I listened to a podcast the other day about an Amazon seller who has made (and this is really interesting) vertical integration (sort of) with the supply chain. That is, he is listed as a trading company on Alibaba, selling his product to other western buyers but sourcing from his another factory in China. He has a Chinese employee who helps source the products from the other factories, combines orders and makes and takes healthy profits off the top. What is his advantage? He knows exactly what Amazon and other western buyers want, and has tailored the Alibaba listing to cater EXACTLY to this need. Amazon listings used to (and still do) suck and under market/sell the product. He took this concept up to Alibaba. Food for thought.

 

Cool thread man

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but as a sidenote to what has been working with Amazon - there is a big shift in what is going on right now in light of Amazon's recent update to their TOS (was updated last weekend I believe). Whereas they previously allowed the practice of discounting / giving away products in exchange for reviews - as long as the buyers put a disclaimer in the review - they are now taking a different stance and tightening up their rules to where this hardly (if at all) will affect your rank anymore.

 

Very happy you decided to make a new AMA thread!

Without disclosing any products or niches, can you elaborate on this statement and how it relates to importing, if at all?

It would be refreshing to hear a new process that is proven successful.

 

Yes sir....



(this is just part of it, but they also talk about manipulating rankings by doing this and it's no surprise they're going this direction with so many people taking advantage, like biophase said)

 

I was pretty disappointed when I saw this in the new Amazon TOS. I was planning on and getting excited for trying out a blast service to see what it could do for my rankings.. I have a buddy who used one a few months ago and is now #1 in his category (not a sexy product at all - but there ARE plenty of competitors that he blew out of the water). I'd still love to try a blast but I think I'll wait and see how the dust settles and what the real consequences for using such services are.

 

Bio, is the process still as follows? :

Spend hours researching on Alibaba for that special product you think will have good margins.

Go back and forth with the china man.

Order samples.

Test samples, put them on amazon. See if if you can sell them.

If you can sell them, order more.

Is that the gist of it?

 

Yes, but if you have a new product, it will affect your conversion rate, which will affect your rank

EDIT: I should clarify. I don't mean the promotions themselves will affect the conversion rate, but the social proof that they will provide a new product (if the reviews are positive) will provide a boost in conversion rate, thus increasing your ranking.

Personally, I have no need to boost my rankings at the moment and have no desire to "game" the system. I am, however, doing a promotion for reviews to gain customer perspective and to provide social proof for my product (if the reviews are good; if not, I improve my product).

 

Try it, and please let us know.

Any sort of product or service that manipulates rankings (Google, Amazon, etc.) will all go away, or at the very least, be in a constant state of change. They don't want to be results to be gamed. This is why its important to have good PRODUCT and not build a business based on manipulating rankings of any kind. Those sort of businesses don't last.

It will be interesting to see how services like Zonblast (and others) pivot, change their methods, or simply go away.

 

Zonblast was exactly the service I was going to try. I absolutely agree that having a good product is key but I figured I may as well hit the ground running and have a nice ranking and social proof boost from the get go.

You do bring up a great point that I (possibly naively) hadn't thought about though.. While I see nothing wrong with ranking up a good product to get noticed quicker - I'm sure that there have been a RIDICULOUS amount of cheap garbage products that have been boosted and after the influx of organic sales and inevitable bad reviews, the seller has already moved on to another product.