How to learn the things you don't know you should know

[bpere11]

Convoluted title hey? Sorry about that.

I'll cut to the punch, I have recently started an online private label business via Amazon FBA. I have done a variety of courses on UDEMY and I know the basics but I am unsure if there are any other skillsets that I should be acquiring, which I am simply unaware of.

So far these are the skills I can think of which I can leverage to increase the success of my business:
-Bookkeeping. Sure, you can outsource this but it's still important to understand the principles yourself first before you hire someone else to do it.
- Digital Marketing. I want to drive internal and external traffic to my store and eventually expand to my own Shopify store.
- Product research.
-Product sourcing.
- Copywriting.
- Web design for high converting webpages.

Right now I am pouring all the profits back into the business but when I accrue enough capital I'll also need to know where and how to invest it. Or how to find the right consultants to help me invest it wisely in high return/moderate risk opportunities.

Fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs, what other skills should I be acquiring? And where are the best places to learn about the skills listed above?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Have you made any sales?

Check out @NeoDialectic and @fastlane_dad postings, they’ve had success in this space.

 

[NeoDialectic]

Convoluted title hey? Sorry about that.

I'll cut to the punch, I have recently started an online private label business via Amazon FBA. I have done a variety of courses on UDEMY and I know the basics but I am unsure if there are any other skillsets that I should be acquiring, which I am simply unaware of.

So far these are the skills I can think of which I can leverage to increase the success of my business:
-Bookkeeping. Sure, you can outsource this but it's still important to understand the principles yourself first before you hire someone else to do it.
- Digital Marketing. I want to drive internal and external traffic to my store and eventually expand to my own Shopify store.
- Product research.
-Product sourcing.
- Copywriting.
- Web design for high converting webpages.

Right now I am pouring all the profits back into the business but when I accrue enough capital I'll also need to know where and how to invest it. Or how to find the right consultants to help me invest it wisely in high return/moderate risk opportunities.

Fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs, what other skills should I be acquiring? And where are the best places to learn about the skills listed above?

I don't know your full business plan so keep that in mind when reading my advice. It's all taken woth a side of "in general".

1. Private label can be tough. It's a great start to test a market or maybe to get your feet wet in learning some basics. But you should aim at going custom. Adds actual value to the market, better margins, and makes your offer more unique. Also depends on what kind of private label you see referring to. Private label is easy. Everyone can buy it and in 2023 people have. It can still be a smart strategic move, but usually it's best as being a part of a bigger plan.
2. Don't get bogged down in details that delay you launching. Make a decent page and go. Ask yourself "is this required to get my first sale". If not, you can put it off. Don't action fake. Your product can be out on the market advertising as your building out more pages and funnels.
3. You mentioning book keeping has me a little confused. Keep it simple. Dont spend more than you are planning on spending and focus the rest of your energy on getting sales. You can run a 7 figure amazon business doing book keeping on the back of a post it note. Don't action fake.
4. What you need to spend time on is thinking about the value you are actually offering. As a private label it will have to be either building your perceived value, marketing, or by solving a novel problem with a unique application of your private label.
5. Don't worry about adding skills. Don't action fake. Skills will come as a by product of doing something that you decided is important to do to get a sale. When you need X, you learn X.

The reason I've spent alot of time stressing action faking is I'm picking up alot of buzzwords and lingo. You've got all the right vocabulary. It gives me a sense of alot of "wantrapreneuring" going on and not alot of good old fashion "I made/found a product that I think will solve an issue , put it up and sold it". It's going off limited info though, so I can be totally off base!

Good luck!

 

[Saad Khan]

Convoluted title hey? Sorry about that.

I'll cut to the punch, I have recently started an online private label business via Amazon FBA. I have done a variety of courses on UDEMY and I know the basics but I am unsure if there are any other skillsets that I should be acquiring, which I am simply unaware of.

So far these are the skills I can think of which I can leverage to increase the success of my business:
-Bookkeeping. Sure, you can outsource this but it's still important to understand the principles yourself first before you hire someone else to do it.
- Digital Marketing. I want to drive internal and external traffic to my store and eventually expand to my own Shopify store.
- Product research.
-Product sourcing.
- Copywriting.
- Web design for high converting webpages.

Right now I am pouring all the profits back into the business but when I accrue enough capital I'll also need to know where and how to invest it. Or how to find the right consultants to help me invest it wisely in high return/moderate risk opportunities.

Fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs, what other skills should I be acquiring? And where are the best places to learn about the skills listed above?

What stage are you in?

Have you made any sales?

While its paramount to make sure your problem solves a problem (prefrrably better than your competitors), you will need to make sure your market is big enough. Typically in Amazon US all the markets are big enough but I'm speaking for other markets.

There's sh*t ton of stuff you'll be learning along the way so I'd recommend focus on 3 feet ahead of your first.

Don't order 3000 units on the first go. Order 20-40 units as a test run so you can validate your predictions.

And keep your gross margins in the area of 35%. 30% would be minimum for me. Otherwise spending money on ads would not be profitable.

Seems like you've gone through all the PPC, SEO, Catalog videos on youtube. It's time you make sure that the product you offer solves the problem (better than your competitors). That's the only thing that will make sure you grow on Amazon, not just survive.

 

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[bpere11]

Have you made any sales?

Check out @NeoDialectic and @fastlane_dad postings, they’ve had success in this space.

Holy shit, hi! Thank you for everything you've done to reorient my life towards the fastlane.

Thank you for the referral, I'll check those users out.

No, I have not made any sales. I am still waiting for my first product to arrive at the warehouse.

I have modified it to solve a big pain point, the listing looks beautiful with professional photos and succinct, compelling dot points and description.

I am a tadpole of an entrepreneur right now but check back in with me in a year, I'll be making 7 figures per annum.
And I'll have your books and forum to thank for being an instrumental part of my journey!

 

[bpere11]

I don't know your full business plan so keep that in mind when reading my advice. It's all taken woth a side of "in general".

1. Private label can be tough. It's a great start to test a market or maybe to get your feet wet in learning some basics. But you should aim at going custom. Adds actual value to the market, better margins, and makes your offer more unique. Also depends on what kind of private label you see referring to. Private label is easy. Everyone can buy it and in 2023 people have. It can still be a smart strategic move, but usually it's best as being a part of a bigger plan.
2. Don't get bogged down in details that delay you launching. Make a decent page and go. Ask yourself "is this required to get my first sale". If not, you can put it off. Don't action fake. Your product can be out on the market advertising as your building out more pages and funnels.
3. You mentioning book keeping has me a little confused. Keep it simple. Dont spend more than you are planning on spending and focus the rest of your energy on getting sales. You can run a 7 figure amazon business doing book keeping on the back of a post it note. Don't action fake.
4. What you need to spend time on is thinking about the value you are actually offering. As a private label it will have to be either building your perceived value, marketing, or by solving a novel problem with a unique application of your private label.
5. Don't worry about adding skills. Don't action fake. Skills will come as a by product of doing something that you decided is important to do to get a sale. When you need X, you learn X.

The reason I've spent alot of time stressing action faking is I'm picking up alot of buzzwords and lingo. You've got all the right vocabulary. It gives me a sense of alot of "wantrapreneuring" going on and not alot of good old fashion "I made/found a product that I think will solve an issue , put it up and sold it". It's going off limited info though, so I can be totally off base!

Good luck!

Hi Neodialectic,

Thank you for taking the time to impart your wisdom.

I have customised the product to solve a significant pain point. I thought that still fell under the umbrella of private labelling but I guess I was mistaken?

My product is on a ship on its way to the Amazon warehouse. The listing is ready to go, as is the PPC campaign.. I figure now is a good time to soak up some useful knowledge instead of twiddling my thumbs while I wait for the product to go live. I understand your concern but fortunately I am not a victim of "action faking". If anything, I am prone to taking action too quickly without taking the time to learn and navigate challenges thoughtfully.

As per MJ's advice, I'll be sure to check out your account and see what more I can learn from your insights!

 

[bpere11]

What stage are you in?

Have you made any sales?

While its paramount to make sure your problem solves a problem (prefrrably better than your competitors), you will need to make sure your market is big enough. Typically in Amazon US all the markets are big enough but I'm speaking for other markets.

There's sh*t ton of stuff you'll be learning along the way so I'd recommend focus on 3 feet ahead of your first.

Don't order 3000 units on the first go. Order 20-40 units as a test run so you can validate your predictions.

And keep your gross margins in the area of 35%. 30% would be minimum for me. Otherwise spending money on ads would not be profitable.

Seems like you've gone through all the PPC, SEO, Catalog videos on youtube. It's time you make sure that the product you offer solves the problem (better than your competitors). That's the only thing that will make sure you grow on Amazon, not just survive.

Only 20-40!? I doubt you could find a good supplier who would agree to such a low MOQ. Also, to give the product your best shot, you'll need to spend money on photography, graphic design, PPC campaigns, trademark and you need to sell more than 40 units to properly test a product's viability.

You need to dive in head first to see if a product is successful, not just dip your toe in. You can't be afraid to invest capital.

I might be speaking from a place of privilege as I understand it's easier to earn $2,000-$3,000 of savings in the U.K (where I'm based) than it is in other countries. If it fails, I've only wasted a couple months of savings. Whereas those from poorer countries would have to work a lot longer to save up that amount of money.

 

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[Saad Khan]

Only 20-40!? I doubt you could find a good supplier who would agree to such a low MOQ. Also, to give the product your best shot, you'll need to spend money on photography, graphic design, PPC campaigns, trademark and you need to sell more than 40 units to properly test a product's viability.

You need to dive in head first to see if a product is successful, not just dip your toe in. You can't be afraid to invest capital.

I might be speaking from a place of privilege as I understand it's easier to earn $2,000-$3,000 of savings in the U.K (where I'm based) than it is in other countries. If it fails, I've only wasted a couple months of savings. Whereas those from poorer countries would have to work a lot longer to save up that amount of money.

Not to offend you, but you sounded like a wantrepreneur in the first post. That's why I focused on fundamentals.

I work with Amazon sellers manage their PPC and I assumed that you're one of the 10,000 guys lining up with their life savings on FBA so I didn't want to speak jargon and focused on the most important point majority of the sellers miss. A good product.

But since that is no longer the case, I hope I can offer some insights into PPC.

First and foremost, you need to make sure that the Amazon's algorithm picks the right pointers when your product is live.

You need to make sure that your listing gets indexed for relevant keywords. You'll have to make sure you are advertising on relevant keywords only and get clicks on those keywords (in the first week only, then you can start adding targets with broader intent) so the algo associates your listing with the set of keywords that are relevant to that specific subcategory you're selling in. This will help you tremendously lower ACOS for your auto campaigns in the long run.

And here's the listing optimization tip that'll increase your conversions most. Follow the mantra of "Show, don't just tell." You have the bullet points to tell. Try to make every image of your listing as visual as possible. Hire a good designer and photogapher. It'll pay dividends.

Important thing about PPC. Don't think about the PPC sales with the intent of generating profit. Think of them as sales velocity accelerators. Sales velocity is paramount for ranking organically on Amazon. So consider yourself lucky if you're doing breakeven on PPC sales.

I documented a product launch of a friend of mine here in the forum.

His first month ACOS was 70%. His 1st day ACOS was 100%. Expect these numbers if you're selling a low ticket product in a niche where there are tons of variations of that kind of product available in the market.

This is a typical timeline for PPC follow after the product is live

First 30-45 days (Honeymoon period)

1st week (Get clicks on highly relevant keywords to establish relevancy. Don't care about ACOS in the first 2 months. Focus on getting organic orders and improving on TACOS (this is the most important metric, more than ACOS, always keep an eye on this when making decisions.

After the relevancy phase, you need to collect data

Launch these campaigns (per SKU)

Product targeting (Offensive + Defensive (on your own listing)
Exact match and Phrase match (Phrase match bids should be a bit lower than exact)
Broad match (make sure to add + sign behind every word in a keyword that you're targeting in broad match because broad match now targets synonyms)
Auto campaigns (one auto is enough for each product)
This is only in SP ad type. We aren't even talking about SB and SD yet. You won't need Amazon DSP for now.

Get ready to eat, drink and shit PPC. You might not have to do that considering people love your product.

Also compare your conversion rate with your category's conversion rate after a month. Will give you an idea whether you need to work on the product or work on ads.

I hope I didn't confuse you lol

Since I'm nearing bedtime and don't want to write a long para on my phone, I'll leave you with some helpful resources. Since you're a fast moving guy I'd strongly suggest you go to magschool.com, whip out your card and buy their courses (I've myself invested into them). Those courses have the *skills* you're looking for. They are $10 for each module so should be a no brainer.

You're right about the MOQ thing. I'm the PPC guy so supply chain is not my strongest point. But you can order 20-40 units to test the market. But you would be ordering a generic version of the product without branding. Try diving headfirst into the supplements niche without testing the average CPCs, and you'll file for bankruptcy in 2 months. I don't know the type of product you're selling so just sharing precautions.

Actually now that I think of it, Amazon should charge entrepreneurs for listing products on Amazon. Amazon is a good tool to validate the need and most importantly, you get to know the average CPC of your niche which makes your launch strategy 10 times more effective.

 

[fastlane_dad]

Convoluted title hey? Sorry about that.

I'll cut to the punch, I have recently started an online private label business via Amazon FBA. I have done a variety of courses on UDEMY and I know the basics but I am unsure if there are any other skillsets that I should be acquiring, which I am simply unaware of.

So far these are the skills I can think of which I can leverage to increase the success of my business:
-Bookkeeping. Sure, you can outsource this but it's still important to understand the principles yourself first before you hire someone else to do it.
- Digital Marketing. I want to drive internal and external traffic to my store and eventually expand to my own Shopify store.
- Product research.
-Product sourcing.
- Copywriting.
- Web design for high converting webpages.

Right now I am pouring all the profits back into the business but when I accrue enough capital I'll also need to know where and how to invest it. Or how to find the right consultants to help me invest it wisely in high return/moderate risk opportunities.

Fellow e-commerce entrepreneurs, what other skills should I be acquiring? And where are the best places to learn about the skills listed above?

The skill you will have to pick up very soon on is GRIT and PERSISTENCE.

Honestly the only two words needed to survive the long term entrepreneurship game.

Have you tested your product with any market at all? I'm not sure how much you have invested in your business - but be careful in giving it your 'all' sometimes before knowing that a single person will buy what you have.

Most likely the product(s) that will be a success for you are not that you are imagining in your mind. @NeoDialectic and I are learning that punch in the gut every single time. Our 'genius' ideas are never the ones that stuck, converted well enough or made it out of the play pen.

You must learn to iterate quick, add products and best of all in 2023 also figure out streams of marketing/advertising OFF amazon (as ads are only getting more expensive there) to really start building a productocracy.

If your product truly does solve a novel need or want - you must also constantly be thinking of how to put that product into your customers hands as well. Who is the target demographic - how can you better serve/reach them.

None of this is to say that it's an easy path, or one that will land you a successful, growing business right out of the gate.

Iteration, trial and error, not getting TOO HUNG up on any one idea or product is the key.

Have you also thought about how you are going to expand this line? Is there room to grow? Can you upsell/cross sell 1-5-10 different products to your customer base?

You also have several contradictory thoughts in your posts ...

'Right now I am pouring all the profits back into the business' AND 'No, I have not made any sales. I am still waiting for my first product to arrive at the warehouse.'

Which one is it? Where are these profits coming from?

Just some food for thought here! As as others have mentioned - the skill you need to learn most is the one that will help you take the next step forward.

Good Luck and feel free to always reach out with other questions!!