Is Amazon FBA dead in 2022 for starting a business?

[Ywan]

@ZCP

A week has passed and I'm getting back to you with a little update.

Let's take a look at what I have done so far:
I still had an old account on Amazon, which I reactivated, so to speak. (Not really because it was still active, but I needed to update a few things). So that's taken care of.

Regarding point 2: Over the last few years, I've made a lot of notes on various strategies on Amazon, whenever I came across them, all of which worked (at least once upon a time). I looked through those notes again and one thing was immediately clear: there are a lot of possible ways to succeed.
Do all of these strategies still work today (for example, one strategy was written down more than seven years ago and I myself found it about three years ago) and will I succeed with them too? I won't know until I test it. And that's what I intend to do.
What's also clear is that I don't have to commit to a single strategy because everything is on Amazon anyway. So I can test specific aspects of the different strategies at the same time without much effort.

Regarding point 3: I haven't done any product research yet. So you could say that I failed on this point. But I will start doing it this week - as soon as I have defined the next necessary steps I need to take to test the strategies that currently appeal to me the most.
In any case, what I have become aware of in the last few days is the fact that I need to take care of my time management and the way I manage priorities. I need to get in the habit of doing the most important things first every day. Often I plan to do important things in the evening, for example - but then something comes up, or I don't have enough time or I'm just too tired to tackle these things... It is just too unreliable the way it is at the moment and I need to find a more systematic approach.
So finding a good system here will be an important next step to move forward - besides testing different strategies on Amazon.

That's all for now.

 

[SideHustleVet]

I started an FBA business 10 or so years ago when it was relatively easy to just go on to Alibaba and white label a "silicone spatula" type product.

These days I think you have to make a modification/improvement to any product to increase your chances of building a sustainable business. Or you have an oversized, "expensive" product ($50+) which removes most of the competition who bought an Amazon course that still pushes the same products they did 10 years ago when the landscape was very different.

I no longer sell on Amazon as I'm focused on other things, but I am considering it again, however not FBA but wholesaling.

For me, there are a number of reasons for wholesaling over FBA, not least of which you don't have to source your own products and deal with manufacturers, and with good research, you can find products on Amazon that are already selling well.

The biggest challenge with wholesaling is getting the supplier to sell to you as they are wary of selling on Amazon as they fear sellers will damage their brand, which they do as it's not hard to find poor listings.

 

[Two Dog]

Regarding point 2: Over the last few years, I've made a lot of notes on various strategies on Amazon, whenever I came across them, all of which worked (at least once upon a time). I looked through those notes again and one thing was immediately clear: there are a lot of possible ways to succeed.
Do all of these strategies still work today (for example, one strategy was written down more than seven years ago and I myself found it about three years ago) and will I succeed with them too? I won't know until I test it. And that's what I intend to do.

I've been wondering myself whether it's viable to launch on Amazon FBA circa 2022. Even hearing from the one person who launched two new products last year was worth learning. 1 out of 2 products selling well sounds like a great success to me especially since it's likely that some variation on the "failed" product would improve sales.

I'm assuming there isn't anything proprietary involved considering you're not actually running an FBA business. The products don't matter, just curious to learn any other strategy(s) than "perform market research and open a store" which is the only one I know. I can't think of any other approach, so it's interesting to learn there might actually be a number of ways to approach it.

Could you post a short summary of your notes/strategies?

 

[Two Dog]

So now it's a matter of accepting the unpleasant things and enjoying the journey - something I haven't done so far. I've only ever had the destination in mind, which meant I never really got started. After all, the destination was so far away, it seemed impossible to reach.

It took a *long* time for me to realize I'd often avoid doing things that would make my businesses more successful. Especially my current one that I'm not particularly fond of anymore. It's surprisingly common with founders who have achieved some degree of success (earning money, profitable, doesn't require P/T supplemental income) and just kind of carry on without making meaningful improvements.

Call it fear of success, self sabotage, lack of motivation, laziness, whatever, but it's a serious roadblock to TMF .

 

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[Ywan]

I've been wondering myself whether it's viable to launch on Amazon FBA circa 2022. Even hearing from the one person who launched two new products last year was worth learning. 1 out of 2 products selling well sounds like a great success to me especially since it's likely that some variation on the "failed" product would improve sales.

I'm assuming there isn't anything proprietary involved considering you're not actually running an FBA business. The products don't matter, just curious to learn any other strategy(s) than "perform market research and open a store" which is the only one I know. I can't think of any other approach, so it's interesting to learn there might actually be a number of ways to approach it.

Could you post a short summary of your notes/strategies?

Unfortunately, my notes are not in English and there are dozens of pages - so translating would be a lot of work.

But I can tell you some basic strategies underlying the different models. In the end, it just depends on the implementation and there are different implementation options for each strategy, so you can think about it yourself and then test it.
-Sell products from existing brands that are not yet on Amazon but where there is demand.
-Review mining -> what can be improved in products?
-Improve a product that sells regularly but is not a best seller and sell it at the same price or cheaper than everyone else - then repeat this process a hundred times.
-Try to collect data on Amazon (there are different ways to do that) and then use it to find niche products that no one is selling but there is a need for.

 

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[Ywan]

Thank you.

My three big outcomes for this week:
1. I have to review the strategy that I am most drawn to at the moment, because there are a couple of things that I will try in a different way. So I am going to make a step by step plan in order to don't lose the big picture.
2. After doing that, I will start with product research on Amazon.
3. I have to work on my mindset. This is not going to benefit my progress directly, but I already see doubts creeping up again and I have to keep them in check in order to move on. Otherwise there will be a point, where I change ideas and start from scratch - which already happened more times than I like to admit.

What I will do differently: I have to focus more on the business side of things and set them as the priority. Only after finishing, what I wanted to do for the day in terms of business, I will do something else.
This will be a challenge, because the last couple of years I always did the easy things first. They were easy to do and this gave me a quick feeling of accomplishment.
Easy in this context does not mean not important or a wast of time - but often times I just didn't have enough time or, which was more often the case, energy left at the end of the day, to then do the hard things. So by reversing that, it should work out a lot better, because after all, I can do the easy things in the evening, even when I am tired.
I also will try out a system in order to keep track of my priorities and my daily goals. I already had a system once, that worked kind of, so to speak - I will make some adjustments to this system and then check how things work out.

Now let's see how it goes.

@ZCP

Another week over.
This week I basically did everything I set out to do.

I worked through the strategy again and made adjustments for myself. I've also noticed things that just won't work in my specific situation and thought about a solution for this problem (which was pretty obvious).
I've been thinking about posting the strategy on the forum to get feedback, because doubts have come up again. However, I see no reason why this strategy should not work, so I will just trust my judgment, deliberately not post the strategy and test it.

I've also already started researching. It's not fun, but it feels good to see something moving forward.

The mindset thing is a work in progress. Again, I had the situation where I thought it wasn't going to work. At this point I used to stop a lot of times and change the idea. But there's no such thing as the one perfect business, so there's no point in looking for it. I just have to test my ideas now instead of basing my actions on unfounded notions. Still, I have to be mindful and careful not to go off track again.

I have to say that I really like this model with the three goals per week. In the past, I always had three goals per day, but then I didn't get along with the planning. Either I was done after 30 minutes or I couldn't get everything done. In both cases, it never really felt good. With three goals per week, however, you have more leeway and you can act more flexibly. That's great and I like it.
I've also been trying out a new productivity system that I like quite a bit. I'm going to keep using that. I just need a little bit more weekly or monthly planning. I'm still looking for something I like here.
Lastly, I've been prioritizing business things more and it's been working pretty well. I didn't manage to always do it first thing in the morning, but I did it - and that counts for a lot right now.

 

[Redwork]

@Ywan love it! Amazing update!

Now, what will you accomplish in the next week to start / get going your Amazon FBA business.
I see a lot of talk / discussion / about to get started above. Is there something actionable THIS WEEK that has a tangible OUTCOME to getting the Amazon FBA business producing revenue THIS WEEK?????

Focus on the outcome.
Get it done.
You got this!

So supportive!

 

[Ywan]

@Ywan love it! Amazing update!

Now, what will you accomplish in the next week to start / get going your Amazon FBA business.
I see a lot of talk / discussion / about to get started above. Is there something actionable THIS WEEK that has a tangible OUTCOME to getting the Amazon FBA business producing revenue THIS WEEK?????

Focus on the outcome.
Get it done.
You got this!

Thank you for the support and words of encouragement. I really appreciate it.

If I want to produce revenue with FBA this week, I can start offering products from existing brands on Amazon and sell them. So I'm going to do that. It's not really sustainable in the long term, but I was planning to do that anyway to some extent to get a feel for FBA and collect data.

 

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[Taktik]

By the way selling on a Shopify store is a completely different set of skills than selling on Amazon.

This is interesting.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit please? What skills do you need if you have a Shopify store and what skills do you need for Amazon?
Thanks.

 

[Ywan]

@Ywan love it! Amazing update!

Now, what will you accomplish in the next week to start / get going your Amazon FBA business.
I see a lot of talk / discussion / about to get started above. Is there something actionable THIS WEEK that has a tangible OUTCOME to getting the Amazon FBA business producing revenue THIS WEEK?????

Focus on the outcome.
Get it done.
You got this!

Time for an update.

Concerning the goal of trying to focus on an outcome that will produce revenue within a week for my amazon FBA business I failed.

I did not manage to get to that point. I have hit a mental barrier, so to speak, that comes up whenever things get serious. So I basically wasted a lot of time with things, that did not really get me any further along the way - action faking, as MJ calls it.

I did manage to contact four suppliers/producers none the less of which three have already answered me with a positive reply - I am allowed to sell their products on Amazon. (I will continue doing research to find more products.) The next step is to check the prices I can get and see, if I can make a profit with these products on Amazon. If there is any profit to be made, that exceeds one or two bucks, I will place an order.

This is not going to make me rich or anything, but I will break down my mental barriers brick by brick because I am just doing it. So then, when I finally find a product with a lot of potential, I have hopefully already done these things so many times, that I don't have any problems executing.

As I said somewhere, it's all about testing. Let's see, how things turn out. Maybe I'll fail again. That's just more data to adjust my approach and another step on the way to success.

 

[ZCP]

@Ywan so WHEN will WHAT be done?

I see a lot of excuses. How bad do you really want this? Maybe it isn't for you?

If you really want this ...... Post daily. What WILL you do WHEN.
If not for you .... move on and take the stress machine off.

Make a decision. Call the ball. Be real.

 

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[Greg Black]

This is interesting.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit please? What skills do you need if you have a Shopify store and what skills do you need for Amazon?
Thanks.

On Amazon, you have a ready pool of buyers, looking to spend money. Your job is to put great well positioned and targeted products in their way.

On Shopify, you are doing so much more, you have to drive traffic, convert that traffic, build a brand, manage fulfilment, do you own customer service, manage returns, the list goes on. Plus people have never heard of your company or brand, so there are trust issues. Your conversion on Shopify will likely be 1-1.5% on Amazon it should be 10 times that, 10-15%.

Conversion and trust is not an issue on Amazon as they have the Amazon protection, often they are prime members and they know payments are secure, they know when the product will turn up and it will turn up fast, plus if there is an issue they can easily return it and get a refund.

 

[Rinzler]

I somewhat apologize for bringing this thread from the dead, but OP have you considered or looked into Retail Arbitrage using FBA at all? Much simpler than trying to scout for products off Chinese sites and as long as you're using the proper software / tools to conduct research, you can get up and running with a relatively smaller investment than going private label or focusing on one product.

The goal is to cast a wide net of "winning products" and see what does well and what doesn't. At first you will be "gated" (blocked) from selling in certain categories or selling certain brands, but I've seen several people scale their FBA business in the course of 3-6 months and unlock said categories or brands once they have a record of sales. This is what ultimately separates your store from the thousands of other people starting from the ground up who probably quit well before their first major ungate.

I'm assuming you've moved on to the next shiny object but after reading this thread I felt compelled to share since this is something I've been studying for a few months while I get my initial investment together.

As others have mentioned, it's a business. Retail / Online Arbitrage using FBA will have to be treated as such in order for worthwhile results to come in. But there's plenty of free information out there on where to begin and if you're 100% dialed in and ready to make a move I can point you in the direction of the group I've been learning from.

For what it's worth, you're going to find a lot of fluffy BS on YouTube and Twitter about RA or OA but again, if you're at all interested or haven't thought of this particular model for FBA, please consider looking into it before giving up entirely.

Sincerely,

Perpetual Shiny Object Chaser for the last 6 years!

 

[nicstechcorner]

I somewhat apologize for bringing this thread from the dead, but OP have you considered or looked into Retail Arbitrage using FBA at all? Much simpler than trying to scout for products off Chinese sites and as long as you're using the proper software / tools to conduct research, you can get up and running with a relatively smaller investment than going private label or focusing on one product.

The goal is to cast a wide net of "winning products" and see what does well and what doesn't. At first you will be "gated" (blocked) from selling in certain categories or selling certain brands, but I've seen several people scale their FBA business in the course of 3-6 months and unlock said categories or brands once they have a record of sales. This is what ultimately separates your store from the thousands of other people starting from the ground up who probably quit well before their first major ungate.

I'm assuming you've moved on to the next shiny object but after reading this thread I felt compelled to share since this is something I've been studying for a few months while I get my initial investment together.

As others have mentioned, it's a business. Retail / Online Arbitrage using FBA will have to be treated as such in order for worthwhile results to come in. But there's plenty of free information out there on where to begin and if you're 100% dialed in and ready to make a move I can point you in the direction of the group I've been learning from.

For what it's worth, you're going to find a lot of fluffy BS on YouTube and Twitter about RA or OA but again, if you're at all interested or haven't thought of this particular model for FBA, please consider looking into it before giving up entirely.

Sincerely,

Perpetual Shiny Object Chaser for the last 6 years!

Yes i have found this path & just started on it in the last month… I am doing more Online Arbitrage, but when at store I look as well… definitely money to be made out there, just have to put in the time & work to learn… I sent my first FBA shipment in, honestly I don’t think I will make much, will be happy to get most of my initial investment back.. but I wanted to see the whole process through… I sent in June 14 & it looks like it will take until July 12, for things to get to & receiving & processing items… again I did a small shipment but wanted to get going.. just START that is the biggest thing… no right or wrong, just learn from whatever you do. GOD Luck to you ALL!

 

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