Just sold my first 3 items on Amazon!

[Sanj Modha]

It's all about speed and execution. MJ calls it The Fastlane. I had no idea what I was doing and if you've ever used Seller Central - you know how crappy the interface is.

But the unstoppable mind can do anything. That and YouTube too.

The biggest tip I can give you is try not to follow the crowd i.e. if we all used Amazing.com or every other guru strategy - there's no advantage.

I have a best seller on my Shopify store. We've done over 1000+ sales so I know it's popular. Turns out the entire niche is low competition and we already have stock in our US warehouse - it's a no brainer to move to Amazon.

Don't get bogged down with too much competition, search results, getting paid reviews or private labelling. "Yoga Mats" is saturated but what about "Yoga Mats For Pregnant Women"? Dig deep and find that gold. There's lots of ways to sell.

We're not even FBA (yet) or private labelled. Once that kicks in it will get easier. I'm looking forward to cranking up the sales after the Chinese New Year too.

If you're sat on the fence - jump right in. It's never been a better time.

 

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[amp0193]

Some SOLID advice! Here's what I'm doing:

1) 2 x PPC campaigns. 1 to BROAD and 1 to EXACT keywords. CPC = $1 with $10/day budgets. It's making some sales.

I've done: Set up 1 campaign for product. 1 ad group for EXACT. 1 ad group for PHRASE. 1 ad group for BROAD. Then I tier my bids. Broad gets $0.80. Phrase gets $1.00. Exact gets $1.20.

Make sure you run a search terms report and add irrelevant negative keywords to the campaign on a weekly basis. After 6 weeks of doing this, you're good to go.

Daily budget should be $1000. $10/day won't get you anywhere.

You have two scenarios with ads:

1) Newly launched: Get a lot of sales in a short amount of time. Max ad spend. Lose some money in the short term. Profit from organic sales in the long term.

OR

2) Your ads are profitable. Max ad spend and MAKE MORE MONEY.

I spend $500-600 a day on Amazon ads. I'd spend 10x that if the search volume enabled it to get that high and the ACoS remained the same.

PRO TIP: Pay for amazon ads on an airline credit card. I'm getting 25000 miles a month from business expenses.

2) Signed up to Feedback Genius to get some reviews back. Believe it or not, I'm ranking pretty high with zero reviews. Positive reviews will increase conversions.

Good. Make sure your emails are directing them to the "leave a review" page for your ASIN, and not the "leave a feedback" page. Here's the URL You should send them to: amazon.com/gp/review/create-review/?asin=YOURASIN&channel=email-firstHelpful

Pro Tip:

Give them 3 choices:

Option A) I love this product - 5 stars ---> Links to review URL above


Option B) I was satisfied but have some suggestions on improvements ---> Links to seller feedback (then you remove negative product reviews from your feedback by opening a seller central case)


Option C) I am dissatisfied or need help ----> Links to seller feedback (then you remove negative product reviews from your feedback by opening a seller central case)

3) Improved the landing page copy by adding some newer keywords that I've found off Voucher Leap. There's some GOLD in there.

Keyword Inspector - Amazon Merchant Words and Keyword Product Research Tools has gotten me some good keywords in the past. As well as google keyword tool.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Hello,

I just ordered the book online, I am really excited to see what I can learn from it. It seems many people on this forum have had some success after getting started. I have been working full time since I was 16 years old, I am now turning 30 and am exhausted. I have a great career as a senior motion designer working on tv commercials and films but now am trying to figure out a way to change careers in order to create more time for myself and family. I typically work 9-14 hours 5 days a week, I have a friend who works about 4-5 hours a day but own a business selling metal to artists and he makes 6 figures a year. I would love to learn to sell a product online and use my skills as a motion designer to help give me an edge marketing it.
You mentioned you live in NYC, so do I. Is there any chance we could meet for coffee and chat in the future? Should I read the book first? I would be beyond appreciative to get some advice or mentorship.
What is your amazon store? Can I see a link?

I honestly missed this post so my bad. I'm certainly not ignoring you. Definitely buy the MFL and read it at least once a year. I'd also add Rework to your yearly reading list too.

If you want to sell - just sell. Don't over think it. You'll make a TON of mistakes. I certainly did but that's when you correct and change course. It's the only way I know how to do anything. I haven't cracked Amazon yet but I'm doing pretty well on Shopify/eBay so I have time to work on my sales and dig down deeper.

I can't show you my store because that will reveal my niche and it's currently untapped. I don't live in NYC - our warehouse is in NYC and my partner runs it. I live in India.

My biggest advice for you is change your attitude. Nobody's out to "get you". Most of us have had challenging lives and careers. And, this is one of the best forums you'll find out there. Trust me on that.

 

[ljean]

Hmm, the fact that my message was ignored worries me and makes me feel this whole forum is just part of the automated money maker of this book. Just saying I am concerned.

 

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[steelandchrome]

I launched with a small FBA shipment yesterday and sold 50% of what I sent in the first day. I did some retail arbitrage and figured it would be a fun test to see how it goes even if for a low profit to get some sales under my belt...

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Hmm, the fact that my message was ignored worries me and makes me feel this whole forum is just part of the automated money maker of this book. Just saying I am concerned.

automated

Yea, the 500,000 messages on this forum are from bots I created. You're talking to yourself here, and just me.

Please read this:

IMPORTANT! - Why All The Secrecy? Here's Why...

It will tell you why some folks are overly secretive with their business details.

 

[amp0193]

UPDATE - sold 10 units since this post went up but sales have dried up. Rankings have gone down from 28 to 1000 ish too. This when the real work starts.

There is a small boost in the search algo for newly launched products. Every week or two, I see some new competitor launch in my space, and they are buried and gone after a few days.

Here's what you need to do.

1) Drop your price to break even, or a little above.
2) Run Amazon PPC aggressively for the main keywords, so that you are the 1st ad everytime.
3) Assuming your page is converting, with good pictures and copy, then you will rank up.
4) When in the top spot, raise your price $1 a week, until you're at full price.


If it's really competitive, you may need to give away 40-60 units at a deep discount, spread out over 3-4 days, just to get that initial boost. You said your competition isn't huge, so you probably don't need to do this.

It helps ppc clicks/conversions to have 5-10 good reviews on your listing first. So find some friends to help out.


Bonus Points: Run AMS ads. (thread here)

 

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[amp0193]

Wow, good info man. Thats alot of money to spend on ads though lol! What did you do starting out? I definitely couldnt afford that now.

For every $500 I spend, I get $1300 in revenue back.

How could I afford to not spend that money on ads?


My ads were immediately profitable, starting out.

I was suggesting to @Sanj Modha above, that even if they weren't, I would still run ads full out to get the organic search rank, because organic sales are where the money is at.


No ads = less sales = less organic ranking = less sales = less organic ranking = inventory that doesn't get sold.

 

[Mr.M]

Yea, the 500,000 messages on this forum are from bots I created. You're talking to yourself here, and just me.

Please read this:

IMPORTANT! - Why All The Secrecy? Here's Why...

It will tell you why some folks are overly secretive with their business details.

Lol ok I got it. I just read your link, I see why my earlier post was ignored.

Long story short, Before finding this forum and this book I started 2 creative services businesses (creating tv commercials, print, web, digital design). Both flopped due to disagreements with partners. The creative services business can be lucrative however it's basically slow lane according to the book because it requires all my time. The next steps for me is to go into business solo, for now I am an independent contractor but I would like to figure out how to get in the fast lane. I apologize for my earlier rant, I am eager to get on the ball and I usually learn by seeing examples that's all. My comments probably took this thread off course, hopefully other users won't continue to drive it off it's intended purpose.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

***UPDATE 2***

So it's been almost 30 days since I started this experiment. Here is the current sales report:

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 13.03.45 — Postimage.org

Things I've learnt in the last 30 days:

1) FBA > FBM - let Amazon take care of everything. If they screw up they fix it plus customers have the extra option of Prime shipping which will boost conversions.

2) Dig deeper and find untapped gems. Don't get lazy with product research because that's like 99% of the success process. We've sold a few items but the traffic just isn't there to scale this up. It was a very low risk test since we shipped FBM from our warehouse.

3) Scale with PPC campaigns - only two factors really matter. Sales Velocity and Reviews. You don't need reviews to sell but it will improve conversions. We don't have a single review yet but with the right follow up sequence/app - that will get better for the next project.

Conclusion - learnt a hell of a lot from my first experience on Amazon. Almost $700 isn't too shabby considering there is a learning curve inside Seller Central. It's not impossible either. Our next item will go straight to FBA and that's an order for 1000 units. I'm super excited.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Both flopped due to disagreements with partners.

Oh man, would love to hear the details. Partner troubles always interest me because I hear more horror stories than successes.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[The-J]

The F&S model is getting abused. At least on Shopify/FB. If you still want to run it - my advice is go down the ClickFunnel route and offer plenty of upsells to increase your AOV. It's what Ryan Deiss et al do.

You're right, but I wanna expand a little and let people know that this shit ain't easy.

I help clients run these offers. Let me give you an example of what's required to really make it work.

First, your F+S offer must be valuable. I had a client want to offer a $2 product for free + $3.95 S&H. I set up the page and he was surprised that it didn't convert. Lost client, and a valuable lesson for me: don't run offers that aren't actually valuable. You'll just run traffic and be like 'oh this page doesn't convert'. Wrong: your offer just sucks and nobody wants it.

Most people think that anything can be given away for F+S. Not true: gotta give real value!

First and a half, your F+S offer must be valuable... to your audience. Giving people a $5 knife is only going to be valuable to people who really want that knife in the first place.

Second, you need to know what your cost per customer acquisition is. You might be running a PR campaign with a CPA of $0, an Instagram campaign with a CPA of $2, or a Facebook campaign with a CPA of $8. (Example numbers) Doesn't matter what it is, you just need to know it. This is pretty general to any business, but absolutely paramount to making a F+S offer work.

Third, your upsells need to make sense to the people who are claiming your F+S offer. This takes time and insight, and often where most of these marketers fail. Just offering shit in the same niche isn't going to make it work! You gotta solve problems in a logical order. Otherwise, your CR% on your upsells will be damn near 0.

It's easy to give shit away for free. It's harder to get free takers to pay for something they weren't even thinking about buying in the first place.

The people who make this work best are the people with the deepest pockets. Sad but true. The cheapest traffic sources have scale issues, and the most scalable traffic sources are often the most expensive. Ryan Deiss spends like millions a month. Most wannabe Internet marketers have like $200 in their pocket and think that it'll be enough money to get all of the insight and stuff to make it work on Facebook newsfeed or Google Adwords.

Sure it's possible to make it work on low budgets (especially if you have a loyal audience already that you don't need to pay to market to). But F+S offers usually just generate a bunch of bunk leads anyway that will never actually pay retail for anything. Because of this, you really gotta make sure you've got the valuable offers and the hungry audience to make the numbers work.

Don't market the 'easy way', thinking that 'oh it's a technique that makes Ryan Deiss millions! I'll do it too!' Me-too marketers waste money and lose confidence. Value comes first.

 

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[The-J]

Total Newb question here. What is F+S?

Free + shipping, typically just means you offer something for free and ask them to pay shipping, meaning they gotta input their credit card + pay you money. It's a psychological hook to make them more likely to buy more, and it allows you to have their credit card on file for the session so they can instantly purchase items in that session without them whipping out their card again.

 

[amp0193]

1-Ok got it. So these give aways are allowed just not asking for review for giveaway is what's not allowed. Then you're following up the giveaway with feedback emails asking to honestly leave a review if they liked the product or not. Pretty much the gist of it correct?

That's correct.

- been using the usual social media marketing channels I imagine? Facebook ads, instagram etc? Do you usually build up a social media account before launching a product?

I don't do any social media. I don't use it in my personal life, and it gives me anxiety when I try to use it for business, as it doesn't come naturally for me. Paying someone to do it for me, has been on my list of things to get around to. Social Media launches would be wonderful to do, if you could manage to do it effectively.

3- Do you use other channels of communicating with audiences, reddit, specialized forums, etc?

No, and I think it's because I am not my ideal customer. I don't communicate at their level, or congregate where they do, and I don't desire to. I'm actually looking to sell this business and get into something else. This disconnect between me and my customers is one of the big reasons for doing so.

Other people have used forums/audiences/influencers/websites with much success. And I plan to learn this, and max it out for my next business.

 

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[KrisB]

Make sure your emails are directing them to the "leave a review" page for your ASIN, and not the "leave a feedback" page.

That's a sweet little nugget, thanks!

 

[Sanj Modha]

That's brilliant, well done. Are you doing the free product offer with paid shipping thing?

I'm not sure if Amazon allows that to be honest. And why do you need to give products away on Amazon? People are happy to pay.

BTW - this is not FBA or private labelling. All shipped from our facility in NYC so it's low risk and higher profit. The next batch will go from FBA since there are many perks like Prime shipping.

 

[Sanj Modha]

There is a small boost in the search algo for newly launched products. Every week or two, I see some new competitor launch in my space, and they are buried and gone after a few days.

Here's what you need to do.

1) Drop your price to break even, or a little above.
2) Run Amazon PPC aggressively for the main keywords, so that you are the 1st ad everytime.
3) Assuming your page is converting, with good pictures and copy, then you will rank up.
4) When in the top spot, raise your price $1 a week, until you're at full price.


If it's really competitive, you may need to give away 40-60 units at a deep discount, spread out over 3-4 days, just to get that initial boost. You said your competition isn't huge, so you probably don't need to do this.

It helps ppc clicks/conversions to have 5-10 good reviews on your listing first. So find some friends to help out.


Bonus Points: Run AMS ads. (thread here)

Some SOLID advice! Here's what I'm doing:

1) 2 x PPC campaigns. 1 to BROAD and 1 to EXACT keywords. CPC = $1 with $10/day budgets. It's making some sales.
2) Signed up to Feedback Genius to get some reviews back. Believe it or not, I'm ranking pretty high with zero reviews. Positive reviews will increase conversions.
3) Improved the landing page copy by adding some newer keywords that I've found off Voucher Leap. There's some GOLD in there.

Will keep you posted. Remember folks - this is a non PL, non FBA listing with no reviews. Start selling first then make changes to improve conversions and revenue.

 

[Sanj Modha]

I've done: Set up 1 campaign for product. 1 ad group for EXACT. 1 ad group for PHRASE. 1 ad group for BROAD. Then I tier my bids. Broad gets $0.80. Phrase gets $1.00. Exact gets $1.20.

Make sure you run a search terms report and add irrelevant negative keywords to the campaign on a weekly basis. After 6 weeks of doing this, you're good to go.

Daily budget should be $1000. $10/day won't get you anywhere.

You have two scenarios with ads:

1) Newly launched: Get a lot of sales in a short amount of time. Max ad spend. Lose some money in the short term. Profit from organic sales in the long term.

OR

2) Your ads are profitable. Max ad spend and MAKE MORE MONEY.

I spend $500-600 a day on Amazon ads. I'd spend 10x that if the search volume enabled it to get that high and the ACoS remained the same.

PRO TIP: Pay for amazon ads on an airline credit card. I'm getting 25000 miles a month from business expenses.






Good. Make sure your emails are directing them to the "leave a review" page for your ASIN, and not the "leave a feedback" page. Here's the URL You should send them to: amazon.com/gp/review/create-review/?asin=YOURASIN&channel=email-firstHelpful

Pro Tip:

Give them 3 choices:

Option A) I love this product. 5 STARS ---> Links to review URL above


Option B) I was satisfied but have some suggestions on improvements ---> Links to seller feedback (then you remove negative product reviews from your feedback by opening a seller central case)


Option C) I am dissatisfied or need help ----> Links to seller feedback (then you remove negative product reviews from your feedback by opening a seller central case)




Keyword Inspector - Amazon Merchant Words and Keyword Product Research Tools has gotten me some good keywords in the past. As well as google keyword tool.

MOTHER OF GOD - this is beautiful! I'm swiping and adding to my Evernote library. Wow, just wow.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

***UPDATE***

We listed this product on Jan 27th. I don't think the sales are bad at all in about 2 weeks. We should hit our $1000/month goal in the next two weeks at this rate. Here's a current snapshot:

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

Remember, I have NEVER used Amazon Marketplace before. I applied some common sense and watched some YT videos. There's zero reviews, no PLA and this is FBM not FBA. I'm actually quite stunned by the results.

 

[Chazmania]

All shipped from our facility in NYC so it's low risk and higher profit.

Nice job on getting it going. I'm sure you're aware of this but I'll say anyway:

Watch your seller metrics very carefully when merchant fulfilling, if your numbers get out of line Amazon can/will drop you like a hot potato. That's one other benefit of selling FBA - many of the things that customers can complain about (package arrived late, damaged items during shipment, customer questions, emails etc....) become Amazon's responsibility, not yours.

 

[Sanj Modha]

UPDATE - sold 10 units since this post went up but sales have dried up. Rankings have gone down from 28 to 1000 ish too. This when the real work starts.

 

[Sanj Modha]

Just interested...

It's just that Shopify is really big right now and that's what a lot of people are doing. They advertise on Facebook a product, mention that it's free but got to pay for shipping. I think that's the hook. Of course once a person clicks to go to the shop to claim the item, of course they're going to roam about in the online store to have a look at other products too and maybe buy other stuff.

The F&S model is getting abused. At least on Shopify/FB. If you still want to run it - my advice is go down the ClickFunnel route and offer plenty of upsells to increase your AOV. It's what Ryan Deiss et al do.

 

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[Mr.M]

I honestly missed this post so my bad. I'm certainly not ignoring you. Definitely buy the MFL and read it at least once a year. I'd also add Rework to your yearly reading list too.

If you want to sell - just sell. Don't over think it. You'll make a TON of mistakes. I certainly did but that's when you correct and change course. It's the only way I know how to do anything. I haven't cracked Amazon yet but I'm doing pretty well on Shopify/eBay so I have time to work on my sales and dig down deeper.

I can't show you my store because that will reveal my niche and it's currently untapped. I don't live in NYC - our warehouse is in NYC and my partner runs it. I live in India.

My biggest advice for you is change your attitude. Nobody's out to "get you". Most of us have had challenging lives and careers. And, this is one of the best forums you'll find out there. Trust me on that.

Thanks for the advice Sanj, sorry I lost my cool.

 

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[amp0193]

Quick Q - where do I select the different keyword types? I've only seen Broad and what I thought was Exact but I'm beginning to think it's a Phrase match now.

Thanks.

 

[amp0193]

Nice! You have your number calculated to a t I see.

It changes every day based on ad costs. It just hovers around $1300. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And it's better for some campaigns than others. Some campaigns are way better. Some are a little worse.

Guys, with all the recent changes in Amazon reviews rules and such. What new methods have you been using for product launches that doesnt involve free giveaways for reviews?

If needed, I'll do a 40-60 unit giveaway, with no expectation for a review. What matters most is the boost you get from the sales. Reviews I just let take care of themselves with a good follow up sequence now.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

Is the mention of Ryan Deiss a praise or a critique on his techniques? Thanks for your help!

It's definitely praise. Deiss is the best at 'tripwires', upsells and increasing the AOV. The Digital Marketer blog is one I follow religiously.

 

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[Sanj Modha]

It changes every day based on ad costs. It just hovers around $1300. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. And it's better for some campaigns than others. Some campaigns are way better. Some are a little worse.



If needed, I'll do a 40-60 unit giveaway, with no expectation for a review. What matters most is the boost you get from the sales. Reviews I just let take care of themselves with a good follow up sequence now.

What app do you use for the follow up sequence? I'm using Feedback Genius but I've recently found out that it doesn't integrate with FBM which is a bummer. Thanks.

 

[amp0193]

What app do you use for the follow up sequence? I'm using Feedback Genius but I've recently found out that it doesn't integrate with FBM which is a bummer. Thanks.

Feedbackz.com. It's the app of forum member @James A . Good product at a good price. No complaints.


You said you were going to use FBA anyways though, right?


Unless your product is way oversized, or way heavy, FBA is the way to go. You'll get way more sales than you will by FBM. People love prime.

If you stick it out with FBM, look into "merchant-fulfilled Prime". It's a new program, but I think it's invite only for now.

 

[James Fake]

Feedbackz.com. It's the app of forum member @James A . Good product at a good price. No complaints.

Thank you soooo much for the shoutout!

@Sanj Modha - So sorry for replying and seeing/joining this thread late. I hope all is going well since your last update. I'll be following. =) Once you get something up and running solidly, yell at me about Feedbackz, I'll have something special for you as a FL'aner.

 

[NickC]

Good job. I'm currently working on launching a product as well