Ask me anything about eCommerce (Ongoing)

[Certg]

Would you recommend starting with retail arbitrage on Amazon to learn the ropes with a low investment?
Or should I just skip a step and go straight for private label?

If my question isn't specific enough, let me know, I'm a little new

 

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[biophase]

What's your experience with going out of stock and losing the buybox to yourself by raising prices to severely?

I'm learning my first lesson now. I'm about to run out of stock and have been inching a little by little upwards and it has had no effect on sales. I have about 1/2 day worth of inventory left and I raised prices again and it resulted in more sales immediately afterwards.

I'm thinking about raising it a full $5 which is 25% of the price but I have heard if you raise too drastically you'll lose the buybox which will basically wipe out my status I'd rather run out in that case instead of get ghosted on my own listing.

FWIW, I didn't put a suggested MSRP so they really don't know how much my product is worth aside from me and my competitors sales numbers.

I'm trying to stretch it out at least 2 more days my shipment should hit the amazon warehouse tomorrow. Maybe another 1-2 days to get sorted.

If you raise prices too quick or your price is not inline with other similar products you can lose the buy box. If you lose it, just lower it and you will get the buybox again.

 

[biophase]

Initially hesitant to write this reply, but here I go.

Three weeks ago I launched a web shop selling drones (drop shipping). So far I've had low traffic, and disappointing sales. Margins are low, and looking at the monthly expenses to run the web site, the project is operating at a loss.

I've been doing three (low budget) adword campaigns, which gives me around 50 visitors a day. However, conversion sucks.. Also, I've added 4 blog posts to boost engagement and SEO, and added a free ebook with every sale. Minor results.

Considering the 'fail fast' mantra, do you think this is the time to cut losses and move on? Could you perhaps give the site a quick glance and perhaps tell me where I'm going wrong? www.dumfoozle.com

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

First off, the website name and URL is horrible.

Second, it's a tough niche. How are your prices compared to Amazon?

Third, WTF is free 30 day shipping? How do you even expect to compete?

"Cool drone, going to get one to play with this weekend! Wait WTF, I have to wait a whole month to get it delivered? Let me check Amazon."

I would cut my losses here. You have no value proposition.

 

[biophase]

Shipping out same day is a great goal.

I use Amazon 3rd party shipping for all eBay orders, automatically fulfilled through Shipstation. Generally takes 1-2 business days to get out. I have no control over the speed, but I don't do enough volume through eBay to want to bring it in house (and maintain separate inventory).

Fast n' Free ship dates are listed on the listing with expected delivery times, and it's almost always delivered in that time window.

He's the first customer in months to complain about shipping speed. I've got 100% positive feedback. I'm not sure if most eBay customers mind.

This is why I can't use Amazon fulfillment unless I pay for 2 day. It just takes too long. Once you get into the holiday season they may take 4-5 days before they ship.

 

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[biophase]

Hey Biophase--thanks for the AMA!

Question--are you bothering with NNN agreements with your offshore manufacturers?

I don't know what NNN agreements are.

 

[biophase]

Hi
First I want to thank @biophase for his generosity in sharing his knowledge
Last month I launched my first product but I have a problem with traffic, my listing doesn't get a lot of traffic(I started Amazon Ad from the first week): 33 sessions from 07/27/2017 to 08/15/2017 with 2 sales(2$ in profit)
Now I Lower My price (at Breakeven)
Can you advise me how can I increase the number of sessions

Thank you guys

The easy way is to increase your daily ad spend and add keywords.

I would increase ads, lower price, generate a bunch of sales at a loss and ask for reviews. If you do this for a few weeks or a month, your product should eventually get ranked. If you chose a easy niche, you should be on the 1st page. If you chose a tough one, you could still be on page 16.

Once I get to page 1 or 2, I raise my price back to normal and decrease the ad spend. Your product should then be able to sell itself.

Another way, is to drive traffic to it by instagram or facebook. I like using this method because it's free if you've built your brand and page and account up to this point.

 

[biophase]

Would you recommend starting with retail arbitrage on Amazon to learn the ropes with a low investment?
Or should I just skip a step and go straight for private label?

If my question isn't specific enough, let me know, I'm a little new

No, you wouldn't learn much doing it this way. You are just piggybacking on other listings and competing for the buybox right? You don't learn any true Amazon skills.

Private label would be better, but you should go a step pass that and improve the product. Don't just slap a logo on it.

 

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[ZCP]

www.dumfoozle.com
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Your lead image above the fold is a nike shoulder bag.
Is this a clothing / accessory site?
Your call to action?
What do you provide that no one else does?

See if you can fix this site and drive some conversions. You will learn a lot with this as a lab. Then move onto another business idea and use what you learned.

 

[kutlarvadisi]

The easy way is to increase your daily ad spend and add keywords.

I would increase ads, lower price, generate a bunch of sales at a loss and ask for reviews. If you do this for a few weeks or a month, your product should eventually get ranked. If you chose a easy niche, you should be on the 1st page. If you chose a tough one, you could still be on page 16.

Once I get to page 1 or 2, I raise my price back to normal and decrease the ad spend. Your product should then be able to sell itself.

Another way, is to drive traffic to it by instagram or facebook. I like using this method because it's free if you've built your brand and page and account up to this point.

Thank you so much @biophase for your advice

 

[mwp]

I don't know what NNN agreements are.

NNN means non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention--basically kind of like a NDA in China. I'm a product developer and see some clients use this kind of thing to try and stop the various types of factory competition/copying that can occur...while others ignore it entirely. Sounds like you may be in the ignore group. Personally, I haven't bothered thus far with my own projects but am considering for some more complex things we have in the pipeline.

 

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[biophase]

NNN means non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention--basically kind of like a NDA in China. I'm a product developer and see some clients use this kind of thing to try and stop the various types of factory competition/copying that can occur...while others ignore it entirely. Sounds like you may be in the ignore group. Personally, I haven't bothered thus far with my own projects but am considering for some more complex things we have in the pipeline.

Are you going to enforce it if something happens?

Say a factory in China copies your stuff and starts to sell it. You send them a letter. They say F-you. Now what? Are you going to spend time and money to defend your product in the China legal system? If not, why bother?

 

[ripas]

Haven't seen this asked anywhere yet so I thought this was as good a thread as any (if not the best!).

I'm about to undertake my first import from China to Amazon FBA however given that I'm based in Australia I am considering using a third party logistics company to ensure the items are packed correctly, are of quality etc etc.

Interested to hear your thoughts on using a 3PL company vs direct China to FBA?

Cheers

 

[alan3wilson]

@biophase what do you think of shopify ? is it better than amazon?

 

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[biophase]

@biophase what do you think of shopify ? is it better than amazon?

I don't understand this question? You can't compare the two. They aren't even close to being the same thing.

 

[biophase]

Haven't seen this asked anywhere yet so I thought this was as good a thread as any (if not the best!).

I'm about to undertake my first import from China to Amazon FBA however given that I'm based in Australia I am considering using a third party logistics company to ensure the items are packed correctly, are of quality etc etc.

Interested to hear your thoughts on using a 3PL company vs direct China to FBA?

Cheers

3pl will just add cost to your cost of goods. I would probably my start with 3pl and then when I'm confident that my supplier knows what they are doing, send direct to Amazon FBA.

 

[ripas]

3pl will just add cost to your cost of goods. I would probably my start with 3pl and then when I'm confident that my supplier knows what they are doing, send direct to Amazon FBA.

Thanks
Any recommendations for a first time noob? Perhaps a small sideline business for a trustworthy Fastlaner to help those fellow forum members abroad?

Alternatively there are inspection services in China that offer advantages in terms of quality control however I'm looking for assistance at the receiving end prior to FBA

 

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[biophase]

Thanks
Any recommendations for a first time noob? Perhaps a small sideline business for a trustworthy Fastlaner to help those fellow forum members abroad?

Alternatively there are inspection services in China that offer advantages in terms of quality control however I'm looking for assistance at the receiving end prior to FBA

Sorry, I live in the USA so I've never used one. There are many inspection services in China that will inspect you stuff before you ship. Again, sorry I don't have any recommendations as I've never used one.

 

[AG356]

Hey @biophase !

I have a question regarding re-launching and boosting products up the listing ladder.
I launched my first product 3 weeks back and started to give away codes to make my way to the first page. I hit the first page for my first keyword within 3 days and focused on the remaining 2 main keywords which also worked out nicely.

Today I realized that I now rank lower, finding my product on the second page on all of those main keywords. This alone wouldn't be a problem, since I could just start giving away products again until I reach the top spots again.

However the dilemma is as follows:
I made a rookie mistake when I sourced the product and neglected the seasonality of the product. I predict that the sales of the product will vanish per first of November (estimated through reverse searching the avg. salesrank of the top products in the past years over the winter months).
As of right now, I sell about 1-3 pieces a day (even doe I'm on the second page). My current inventory is 261 pieces. Until first of November, it's exactly 73 days left. With an average of 2 sales a day that would leave me with 261-146= 115 pieces over the winter with an estimated amount of 0,7 m³ of space I have to pay for (Amazon FBA).

Doing it this way, it would allow me to maximize the profits which I can use to reinvest in bigger orders with better margins. As of right now, each piece I give away for "free" costs me net about 14€. The price per product is now 30€ with a 33% profit margin.

As I am typing this, I reckon that the smartest thing I could do right now is to give away an additional 30-50 pieces, which should boost my rank and sales up. Even if the daily average sales increase by only one piece, the calculation and inventory planning should work out just in time so that the stock is nearly empty over the winter-months.

( Avg. 2 sales/day = 261-146=115 , -30 free products = 75 pcs =>+ 1 avg sale for 73 days = 2 pcs)

Seeing those numbers, I could actually place a new order for the upcoming spring right now since it takes about 80-90 days to arrive at the amazon warehouse from the moment I order. (With a stopover in my own "warehouse") This would allow me to re-stock in case people are still buying the product in the winter-months or at least prevent me from running out of stock and taking a hit from the amazon algorithm for it.

Is this the right approach to take in my current situation or did I miss something crucial?
I really appreciate the effort you put into this Q&A. Thank you once again!

 

[biophase]

Hey @biophase !

I have a question regarding re-launching and boosting products up the listing ladder.
I launched my first product 3 weeks back and started to give away codes to make my way to the first page. I hit the first page for my first keyword within 3 days and focused on the remaining 2 main keywords which also worked out nicely.

Today I realized that I now rank lower, finding my product on the second page on all of those main keywords. This alone wouldn't be a problem, since I could just start giving away products again until I reach the top spots again.

However the dilemma is as follows:
I made a rookie mistake when I sourced the product and neglected the seasonality of the product. I predict that the sales of the product will vanish per first of November (estimated through reverse searching the avg. salesrank of the top products in the past years over the winter months).
As of right now, I sell about 1-3 pieces a day (even doe I'm on the second page). My current inventory is 261 pieces. Until first of November, it's exactly 73 days left. With an average of 2 sales a day that would leave me with 261-146= 115 pieces over the winter with an estimated amount of 0,7 m³ of space I have to pay for (Amazon FBA).

Doing it this way, it would allow me to maximize the profits which I can use to reinvest in bigger orders with better margins. As of right now, each piece I give away for "free" costs me net about 14€. The price per product is now 30€ with a 33% profit margin.

As I am typing this, I reckon that the smartest thing I could do right now is to give away an additional 30-50 pieces, which should boost my rank and sales up. Even if the daily average sales increase by only one piece, the calculation and inventory planning should work out just in time so that the stock is nearly empty over the winter-months.

( Avg. 2 sales/day = 261-146=115 , -30 free products = 75 pcs =>+ 1 avg sale for 73 days = 2 pcs)

Seeing those numbers, I could actually place a new order for the upcoming spring right now since it takes about 80-90 days to arrive at the amazon warehouse from the moment I order. (With a stopover in my own "warehouse") This would allow me to re-stock in case people are still buying the product in the winter-months or at least prevent me from running out of stock and taking a hit from the amazon algorithm for it.

Is this the right approach to take in my current situation or did I miss something crucial?
I really appreciate the effort you put into this Q&A. Thank you once again!

First question, what do you mean giveaway codes? Are you still using discount coupon codes? I thought those sales didn't help you rank that much anymore. If so, how much is your discount?

Second, are you getting reviews from those sales?

Third, instead of giving away, why don't you just lower the price from $30 down to $10 or $15 until you sell 50 pieces?

Fourth, are you sure that you won't get any sales in the winter? Even summer products are bought as Xmas presents.

 

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[alan3wilson]

@biophase how easy is to sell products with shopify in europe ? and what about italian market (I know there is few competition there and some people are making good money there)..

For europe should I get an european supplier ? or a USA one is good as well?

 

[AG356]

First question, what do you mean giveaway codes? Are you still using discount coupon codes? I thought those sales didn't help you rank that much anymore. If so, how much is your discount?

Second, are you getting reviews from those sales?

Third, instead of giving away, why don't you just lower the price from $30 down to $10 or $15 until you sell 50 pieces?

Fourth, are you sure that you won't get any sales in the winter? Even summer products are bought as Xmas presents.

Yes I do. I know there are a lot of sellers using the "PayPal"-method but that's not my cup of tea risking a complete shutdown of my account. I think what actually matters most when giving those away, is how the people purchase your product. For me, I ask them to search for a specific term and send the product photo with it which they should click on. In this way they can't search specific for my brand but have to search for the keyword I gave them. This boosts the CR and CPR pretty strongly which I believe is the reason I ranked that fast. Discount is -80% off of 24,99€, leaving 4,99€ for them.

Not from all of them, but so far about 75% of those who received a coupon code wrote one.

I placed myself as a premium brand which I can back up with my product quality. I even increased the price from 25 to 30€ and the sales went up an avg. 1-2 sales in the past few days, which is really interesting to see since I tried lowering it to 20 and the sales even decreased.
But this sounds like a really good approach to boost the sales up short term. Do you reckon to lower the price and wait to hit page 1 again or should I first try to reach it through a small giveaway before I lower the price?

I researched the other products and their BSR and only one out of about 15 "active" competitors had about 1-2 sales a day. The others would slip way back down to place >10.000 which aren't any sales at all. But I understand what you want to say, it's surely better to have at least a few cartoons of products sitting there before taking the listing completely out of the algorithm by running out of stock.

 

[biophase]

@biophase how easy is to sell products with shopify in europe ? and what about italian market (I know there is few competition there and some people are making good money there)..

For europe should I get an european supplier ? or a USA one is good as well?

I have no idea. Your generals are just too general and I don't specifically target Europe.

 

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[biophase]

Yes I do. I know there are a lot of sellers using the "PayPal"-method but that's not my cup of tea risking a complete shutdown of my account. I think what actually matters most when giving those away, is how the people purchase your product. For me, I ask them to search for a specific term and send the product photo with it which they should click on. In this way they can't search specific for my brand but have to search for the keyword I gave them. This boosts the CR and CPR pretty strongly which I believe is the reason I ranked that fast. Discount is -80% off of 24,99€, leaving 4,99€ for them.

Not from all of them, but so far about 75% of those who received a coupon code wrote one.

I placed myself as a premium brand which I can back up with my product quality. I even increased the price from 25 to 30€ and the sales went up an avg. 1-2 sales in the past few days, which is really interesting to see since I tried lowering it to 20 and the sales even decreased.
But this sounds like a really good approach to boost the sales up short term. Do you reckon to lower the price and wait to hit page 1 again or should I first try to reach it through a small giveaway before I lower the price?

I researched the other products and their BSR and only one out of about 15 "active" competitors had about 1-2 sales a day. The others would slip way back down to place >10.000 which aren't any sales at all. But I understand what you want to say, it's surely better to have at least a few cartoons of products sitting there before taking the listing completely out of the algorithm by running out of stock.

Do their reviews stick? Are the reviews counted as verified? I thought that when you gave a heavy discount, those reviews did not count as verified purchase anymore. Furthermore, I thought that the weight of the sales for ranking depends on the total volume in dollars of your sales. I think that is why you still drop so fast in ranking when your sales stop. Notice I say, "I thought" because I have read that the discount coupon + review is no longer effective. But we don't really know how less effective it is. It obviously works to a point still.

Wouldn't you lose less if you just lowered price until it hit page 1 vs a giveaway?

 

[AG356]

Do their reviews stick? Are the reviews counted as verified? I thought that when you gave a heavy discount, those reviews did not count as verified purchase anymore. Furthermore, I thought that the weight of the sales for ranking depends on the total volume in dollars of your sales. I think that is why you still drop so fast in ranking when your sales stop. Notice I say, "I thought" because I have read that the discount coupon + review is no longer effective. But we don't really know how less effective it is. It obviously works to a point still.

Wouldn't you lose less if you just lowered price until it hit page 1 vs a giveaway?

They do not count as verified, you are right. However they are not getting deleted either. I even sent out about 15 products manually without them making an "official" purchase on amazon and even those reviews are still there.

I am not quite sure about that. I sell in a set of 3 pcs, most of the other competitors do as well. But there's still one or two products located on page one, which sell 1-2 products a day with a price of 5-7€ which don't even come close to the volume in dollars the first few products make and not even near mine, even doe we sell the same amount.

I've written a scientific paper about the SEO of Amazon and it currently seems that the "performance factors" (CR & CTR) are being heavily weighted in when calculating the placing of a product. This is most likely the reason why I've reached the first page faster than others because by asking them to search for a specific keyword and purchasing it, even with an coupon code the CR was insanely high for a period of time.

Yes. It would be way cheaper doing it this way and I will change it starting from tomorrow. I am thrilled to see what this will do to the sales and to be honest I am quite scared as well. My product has a couple of features which I specifically ask to improve since I've read that it was a pain point it in the reviews of existing products. My customers as of right now are surely people who experienced those and now look for a better premium product to fill their needs. I reckon that this is the reason why my sales went up when I increased(!) the price from 24,99€ to 29,99€.

I am really exited to see what a price decrease to 10-15€ will do. It will surely cost me a chunk of money and won't gather any reviews, but maybe it's exactly what's needed right now to place myself in the front and increase the sales.
Would you also lower the "starting" price so it doesn't show (-75%) or just let it be how it is so the people know that it's a killer deal?

 

[laurenaria10]

Thank you so much I will try Google Shopping and see what the result

yes sure...and it will be honer whenever you need any sort of help regarding google shopping setup..furthermore i found a very active facebook group with name of "ecommerce hacks tips & tricks" they guys are helpful and currently i setup my shopify eCommerce store with help of these guys.

 

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[ripas]

Sorry, I live in the USA so I've never used one. There are many inspection services in China that will inspect you stuff before you ship. Again, sorry I don't have any recommendations as I've never used one.

Thankyou @biophase

Would you mind if I sent you a small query via private message?

 

[NickC]

@biophase
Regarding your thread "Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way"

You talk about two different ways obviously. So are you recommending when doing product research look for products with extremely low competition and value add? In the easy way you say you added value but still wasn't enough?

I'm doing product research and am curious whats most important, should i focus on low competition products and value add or high comp? Thanks again.

 

[Denim Chicken]

@biophase
Regarding your thread "Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way"

You talk about two different ways obviously. So are you recommending when doing product research look for products with extremely low competition and value add? In the easy way you say you added value but still wasn't enough?

I'm doing product research and am curious whats most important, should i focus on low competition products and value add or high comp? Thanks again.

High competition means there's more money to be made. There's also hijackers, review group users, and people with deeper pockets that can afford to take losses for a long period of time and buy MOQs that you might not be able to afford, eventually beating you on margins.
If you can and want to compete, then there's no reason not to go high competition.

The whole point of easy vs hard is that you want to bake into the product some value and differentiation and do the front loaded work early on, rather than import the same thing everyone else is doing and then trying to outmarket, outrank, and outbuy with a shit product.

 

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[NickC]

High competition means there's more money to be made. There's also hijackers, review group users, and people with deeper pockets that can afford to take losses for a long period of time and buy MOQs that you might not be able to afford, eventually beating you on margins.
If you can and want to compete, then there's no reason not to go high competition.

The whole point of easy vs hard is that you want to bake into the product some value and differentiation and do the front loaded work early on, rather than import the same thing everyone else is doing and then trying to outmarket, outrank, and outbuy with a shit product.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[inputchip]

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?