I am certain you have heard about your everyday Joe that makes an absolute killing selling on Amazon via the FBA (Fullfilment By Amazon) model, but many people just do not know “How To Sell On Amazon” and find the whole process quite intimidating and complicated, especially with Amazon’s rules and regulations that can be quite stringent. This is why I certainly do not recommend that you embark on this journey without investing in a proper Amazon FBA course that can take you through all the necessary steps, tips and guidance on how to be super successful selling on Amazon.

In this article I will try my absolute best to provide as much guidance as I possibly can but of course unless I am going to write an actual book here it will not come close to the detail that you will find in a full-fledged top quality Amazon FBA course. Two top-notch Amazon FBA courses that comes highly recommended is “The Amazing Selling Machine” and “Six Figure Mentors”.

Although I mentioned that Amazon have quite stringent rules, once things are setup on Amazon accordingly it is actually one of the easiest and most user-friendly business models out there that pretty much runs on autopilot and no other business model will allow you to so easily and quickly expand globally and neither will you find better shipping rates, storage fees or better customer service or even next day delivery.

I wrote an article called “7 Online Business Models You Should Definitely Consider” and in this article I also cover a quick summary of the pros and the cons of the Amazon FBA model. In this article I also cover the topic: “How do I start selling on Amazon?” I highly recommend you to also read the sections of the above mentioned article which I have highlighted (linked) for you in green.

My hope is that after reading this article on “How To Sell On Amazon” that you will have a very clear picture in your mind regarding the pitfalls to look out for when it comes to selling on Amazon and that you will be well on your way in regards to what it takes to become a super successful seller on Amazon.

Why Should I Consider Selling On Amazon?

There are several reasons why I think you should consider selling on Amazon and one of the biggest reasons is the trust that is associated with the Amazon brand. Would you rather buy from a website/online store that you have never heard of, or from Amazon? Well although you may not completely rule out the competitor website, if Amazon is offering the same product/s at a competitive price then you are surely more likely to buy from Amazon due to their no questions money back guarantee, their next day delivery and their top notch customer service.

Further to this Amazon has a tremendous amount of website traffic with the option for you to pay for Amazon advertising too (in addition to Google ads, YouTube ads, Meta ads etc.) and on top of this Amazon is a top notch e-commerce platform that allows you to sell your own branded private labelled products, which entitles you to easily build a million dollar+ brand.

More advantages to consider is that you do not need your own warehouse, you do not have any employees to pay (unless your business becomes massive), Amazon is handling the shipping at the best possible shipping prices you will ever see due to their massive contract with UPS and 5 star customer service delivered by Amazon to your customers.

Amazon Automation

One of the biggest advantages I personally think to consider selling on Amazon is the automation of the Amazon FBA model. Amazon does absolutely everything for you on autopilot, all that you have to concern yourself with is to make sure that you have enough stock of your products held in Amazon’s warehouse and secondly you need to concentrate on marketing your business. That is it.

With many other e-commerce business models the lack of automation is usually where the big problem lies. Many people that want to start a part-time e-commerce business falls down at the hurdle of lack of automation, as when you are at work (your full-time job) you cannot be dealing with sending out customer orders and having to manually deal with customer orders can also be very time consuming. Yes, I am aware that automated e-commerce systems exist, but either it is not close to as effective as Amazon or it usually comes with a very steep price tag. Hint: Go and check how much it will cost you to run a fully automated e-commerce store via Shopify.

International Business Expansion With Amazon

Yet another massive advantage of Amazon is in how easy it is to expand your business internationally as Amazon has warehouses across the globe and it is not difficult for Amazon to ship your stock to any of their international warehouses. You will also be happy to know that it only costs you around £25 per month to sell on Amazon via your Amazon sellers account. Do remember that for each additional Amazon sellers account you require, you will have to pay an additional £25 per month.

So let’s say for example you wish to sell in the USA but also in Europe then you would have to create a USA Amazon sellers account and also a European Amazon sellers account. Paying £50 per month to be able to sell in the whole of the USA and the whole of Europe is certainly a bargain, won’t you say? Please note that of course the Amazon seller account price is subject to change, but at the time of writing the cost was around £25 per sellers account.

Yes, I can already hear you say but what about the fulfilment fee and storage fee that Amazon charge on top of the £25 you pay per month? Yes of course you cannot expect to have 100% free storage and 100% free fulfilment, but I can assure you that Amazon is as reasonable as it gets and all-in-all a very lucrative way of running an online business that involves the selling of physical products online.

The fulfilment fee is a flat fee per unit, based on the product type, dimension and weight and the storage fee is charged per cubic foot per month. For this reason (although not a one shoe fits all situation) you are ideally looking for high priced items that are reasonably light and does not take up a lot of space. One such example may possibly be the selling of supplements or perhaps the selling of beauty products.

Business Expansion From Online shop To Physical Store To Wholesaler

Seeing that Amazon is the biggest online retailer in the world, if you are able to become a super successful seller on Amazon you will be seen as an authority and a big brand in the eyes of the public and this in itself will open up massive opportunities for you in the marketing world. Many successful Amazon sellers has progressed to opening up physical stores and even progressed to that point where they provide their private labelled products to wholesalers.

As a side note, do remember that many successful Amazon sellers do not only rely on Amazon itself but they of course also have a very professional looking business/company website through which sales are driven directly. Amazon then pretty much becomes an additional sales platform utilised by the business in a very powerful way. Alternatively business owners may have direct links from their business website that navigates directly to Amazon where the products can be purchased.

The key message I am trying to drive home here is that your humble beginnings on Amazon can very easily turn into an international business with expansion possibilities beyond your wildest expectations, if you play your cards correctly.

The Significance Of Private Labelling

What Is Private Labelling?

Private labelling is the most lucrative way of selling products on Amazon that enables you to truly build the value of your brand. Simply put you decide on what products you would like to sell on Amazon, you go to Google and start searching for Private Label Manufacturers. Say we for example want to sell supplements on Amazon then I will do a Google search for “Supplement Private Label Manufacturers” and you will be sure to get some awesome results.

Choose your reputable private label manufacturer, buy your supplement/s of choice in bulk from a catalogue and send your designed private label that represents your brand to the private labelling manufacturer. Next step they put your private label on the supplement bottles, package it and send it to Amazon’s warehouse ready for you to sell.

Why Private Labelling?

Private labelling entitles you to build a real sustainable and scalable business that can also be delegated. You are building a brand with the potential to expand to physical stores and even progress to that point where you can potentially provide your branded private labelled products to wholesalers and in doing so start building an international presence.

Just consider for a moment that you had an e-commerce shop simply selling other people’s branded products for profit. Where is that going to lead? You will never be able to progress to opening physical stores, to sell wholesale or to have a real international presence and neither will you have a valuable brand that you can potentially sell for millions of dollars.

This is exactly why private labelling is the most lucrative business model when it comes to selling on Amazon and certainly the business model I recommend you follow, should you decide to start selling on Amazon.

Building A Customer List Via Amazon

Yet another advantage of selling on Amazon that I would like to point out is the ability for you to build your customer list via Amazon. When you log into your Amazon sellers account you will be able to see all of the details of all of your customers that made a purchase via Amazon.

As you will also have access to the telephone numbers of your customers, nothing stops you from even picking up the phone to call customers to thank them for their custom and ask them if they are happy with their purchase and if they found your customer service satisfactory. This is what I used to do in order to try get 5 star review feedback from customers, coz let us face it, what company makes the effort to pick up the phone to call their customers?

This is exactly why I did it, because I know that no one else will take the time to do so and in order to stand out from the crowd you need to do whatever it takes in the beginning and overdeliver if you have to.

Please note: Amazon do have strict policies however that needs to be adhered to when contacting customers and understandably so. The fact that you have your customer’s email address and telephone number does not mean that you can now start abusing it and continue to relentlessly target them with promotional offers.

Allow Amazon Associates To Generate Sales And Build Your Business Brand

The last but certainly not the least advantage of selling on Amazon that I would like to point out at this point in time is the ability to leverage Amazon Associates to generate sales for you and to build your business brand.

I am sure that most people are aware that you can become an affiliate for Amazon selling any products that are listed on Amazon for a commission and this is no different with your products, as it is listed and available on Amazon. Affiliates can be a very powerful weapon in your arsenal when it comes to the promotion and the building of your business empire.

What To Sell On Amazon Considerations

Now that you are aware of many of the pros of selling on Amazon, we also now need to consider the cons and the pitfalls. Previously I mentioned that due to supplements and beauty products being relatively high priced items that are quite light in general and do not take up much space, these can be the ideal products to sell with quite big profit margins.

However, this very fact has also led to beauty products and supplements being incredibly competitive and for this reason you have to have deep pockets (have a lot of money available for advertising) in order to compete when it comes to the marketing of these kind of products on Amazon. A further complication with these kind of health related products are that Amazon has very stringent rules/criteria when it comes to the selling of health related products. Amazon will for this reason require you to provide the manufacturer of the products with proof of certified product ingredients as well as verification that the manufacturer is routinely subject to e.g. an FDA inspection.

The last thing you want to get yourself involved in is possible lawsuits, so do consider whether health related products are something worth considering when choosing a niche.

Another very important consideration is whether you are going to sell evergreen products, products that are trending right now or seasonal products. Also will you be selling a need or will you be selling a want?

Evergreen VS Trends VS Seasonal

An example of selling a need are companies that are in the business of selling food, toilet paper etc. for which there will always be a demand. This is very different to a want that is being sold which is not necessarily essential like for example a company that sells jewellery. Then again although jewellery is more a want than a need it is certainly always high in demand due to people constantly getting engaged, married etc. so if you are in that kind of niche then there will certainly always be a demand for these kind of products despite it being a want, rather than an essential need. These kind of products can be classified as evergreen products as there will always be a demand for these kind of products.

An example of seasonal products are when you target special occasions like Valentine’s day or perhaps Christmas and although there are certainly a lot of money to be made during these seasonal celebrations, it is certainly not evergreen and massive losses can be made if you end up with bought stock that did not sell during this period of time, unless you keep this stock (non-spoilable goods only) for the following year. When trying to capitalise on selling seasonal products you will therefore pretty much always have to incorporate this alongside evergreen products you are already selling.

The last category to consider is trending products that are popular right now and will be for a season, until a new competitor product comes on the market that can make the product you are currently selling a lot less trendy or even obsolete, if you are not careful. Let me give you a very practical example from my own personal experience.

Trends pitfall explained from a personal experience

Around 2013 a very good friend of mine introduced me to the Amazon FBA model and he also introduced me to “The Amazing Selling Machine Course” which is still today the most popular Amazon FBA Course out there in the marketing space and for very good reason.

So as I was absolutely devouring “The Amazing Selling Machine Course” finding it all so super interesting and exciting, I of course had conversations with this good friend of mine in which direction he is going and in which direction he thinks I should be going. He told me that the weight loss industry is a trillion dollar industry and that this is certainly the niche he is going for.

He told me what you should be doing is to watch “Dr OZ” and see what products he is recommending on television and then straight away see if I can find private labelling manufacturers to manufacture these products/supplements for me and get it out on Amazon asap and I will make an absolute killing due to the fact that The Dr Oz show has millions of viewers, so this is like having a massive free advertising campaign by a trusted doctor, the so called, Oprah Winfrey’s doctor.

Just around this time Dr Oz had a program on Garcinia Cambogia and was going on about how miraculous it is as a weight loss supplement. However some months ago he also featured Green Coffee Bean Extract and was also going on about how wonderful Green Coffee Bean Extract is as a weight loss product, but although it was perhaps not explicitly mentioned, from what I could gather Garcinia Cambogia pretty much trumps Green Coffee Bean Extract as a recommended weight loss product.

Stupid me decided that I do not want to be direct competition for my friend that introduced me to the Amazon FBA model and I decided to market Green Coffee Bean Extract instead of Garcinia Cambogia which my friend decided upon. My decision was also based on the fact that Green Coffee Bean Extract was still trending at the time according to Google Trends, but what I did not keep into consideration is that it will probably take around six months or so for your online business to really start getting traction in the eyes of Google, so you should not only keep in mind what the current trend is looking like right now, but also try to predict if this product will still be trending six months from now and beyond.

So yes, you guessed it. My friend went on to make an absolute killing, whereas I was now sitting with a much less trendy product which was not doing me any favours. Now after all that effort launching the product, all the advertising you paid for etc. and all the stock you bought and now you find yourself in a position where you have to have a shed load of money available to launch a brand new product that is actually trending right now.

So do learn from my mistakes. Do not make silly decisions based on – oh but I do not want to be direct competition for my friend and nonsense like that. Business is business and if I was thinking clearly about it, how many others were not direct competition to my friend already anyways selling the exact same type of supplements than he was.

The moral of the story is if you decide to sell trending products instead of evergreen products for example you need to do your market research very well in terms of competition and also in terms of how long you predict the product/s will continue to be popular/trending.

Passion + Trust + A Product You Personally Believe In

Another very important pitfall to avoid is: “Do not sell a product that you are not passionate about and that you personally do not believe in just because it looks like a profitable niche to invest in”.

This is exactly what happened to me. Yes the weight loss industry may be a trillion dollar industry, but let us be very honest. Has any weight loss supplements ever worked for anyone? I overheard someone once gave the perfect answer to this question. He mentioned that he tried every possible weight loss product on the market with no real noticeable results, but he mentioned that when he went to prison for some time, at the time of his release he was as thin as a rake. So the moral of the story is you simply need to watch what you eat and how much you eat. A weight loss supplement is not going to perform miracles. The change in your diet and lifestyle will.

My recommendation therefore is, if you are going to decide on a niche then make sure that you yourself personally believe in the products you are selling, ideally personally using the products you are selling. Sell something that you are proud and passionate about as without passion you are definitely not going to be able to establish a million dollar+ brand or maybe through a lot of hard work you can, but it will not be a good experience for you or your conned customer base.

How To Sell On Amazon – 5 Core Strategies

When considering how to sell on Amazon there are 5 core strategies which you always need to keep in mind, namely:

1. Sell Your Own Products
2. Differentiate Your Products
3. Focus On A Limited Number Of Products
4. Do More Than Your Competition
5. Automate As Much As Possible

I think most of the above points are self-explanatory and I already covered most of them in this article. I will however comment on what I mean by point number 2. You need to understand that the way private labelling companies are making their money is obviously by providing their products in bulk to sellers on Amazon like you and me, and yes the competition is real.

You want to therefore make sure that you differentiate your products and aim not to use the same kind of images or copy in your product description that your competitors are using. So point number 2 pretty much links up with point number 4 that you need to do more than your competition to make sure that your product listing stands out from the crowd.

This is also where the quality of the design of your logo, product label and business branding in general needs to stand out from the crowd as well as the 3D rendered images that you will utilise on Amazon.

Selling On Amazon With Seller Central

In order to sell on Amazon you need to create an account at what is called Amazon Seller Central. This is the sellers account you will use to sell any type of physical products on Amazon. In order to create an account you can simply navigate to https://sellercentral.amazon.com

Please note that the url provided above is for when you sign up to a USA Amazon sellers account. No matter what country you live in, my recommendation will be to always start selling in the USA and once super successful you can then expand to the selling of your products in Europe or any other country of your choice.

The reason why I personally believe that the USA is the best place to start is due to the USA being a massive market and is also of course a country with great wealth. The type of products you are selling can also of course be a defining factor. For example when I first started out on Amazon I was in the supplement niche and we all know that the USA is pretty much obsessed with fitness, bodybuilding etc. and therefore marketing supplements in the USA makes a whole lot of sense. Yes, we all know that there are a lot of fatties in the USA too that are much more interested in eating junk food than working out, but I am sure you get what I mean.

Matt Clark, the creator of “The Amazing Selling Machine” also makes it very clear that his students noted that their sales generated in other locations are a fraction of their sales generated in the USA.

My recommendation would be that you keep your Amazon sellers account separate from your personal Amazon account. In other words my suggestion is that you use a different email address to create your Amazon sellers account than your standard Amazon account you use to do your shopping with on Amazon. When you sign up make sure to choose “Sell Professionally” and no other.

Items Needed To Get Setup With Seller Central

1. Email Address
2. Bank Account
3. Physical Address
4. Seller Name
5. Phone Number
6. Credit Card
7. Registered Business (Optional)
8. Tax Identity Information

Steps For Those From Outside The USA

If you are from outside the USA you may have a problem with completing the “Bank Account” section as you will of course need a USA bank account. But there are of course steps you can follow to circumvent this problem.

Option A: Setup A USA Company

Option A is the absolute best option because it is the easiest way to receive money as well as the easiest way of setting up with suppliers and also in regards to legal protection. However, this is also the costliest option, but certainly worth the investment.

Option B: Check With Your Local Bank If They Can Set You Up With A USA Bank Account

Option B is actually the easiest option and it is certainly worth enquiring.

Option C: Use A Third Party Company Like Pioneer To Receive Payments

Option D: Sell On Local Country-Specific Amazon Websites

Option D is not an option that will enable you to sell in the USA, but it is of course an option to choose not to sell on the USA Amazon marketplace. However, this will not be my recommendation.

The 7 Foolproof Qualities Of A Killer Amazon Opportunity

Considering these 7 qualities will help you to identify the perfect products to sell on Amazon.

1.Bestseller Ranking Of Top-Ranked Product

Your very first indication determining the opportunity is to evaluate the bestseller ranking of that top-ranked product. If you found the product on Amazon through searching for a category or through a keyword, you should be looking at that top product and how well it is doing in its top level category. So say for example you are doing a search for protein powder, you are going to open up the top result you find for protein powder and then look at its top-ranked category ranking to see how well the product is performing.

2. Bestseller Ranking Of Similar Products

Follow the same steps as above and see how well similar products are doing in their top level categories.

3. Number Of Reviews Of A Primary Product

Reviews for well-selling products are usually naturally build over time, so the amount of reviews should give you a good indication whether the product in question is a good opportunity. Saying this, if you discover a relatively newly launched product that sells extremely well with a low number of reviews it may be a good indication of a great opportunity.

4. Number Of Reviews Of Similar Products

If the top ranked product has lots of reviews but other similar products does not have that many as yet then it may still be a very good opportunity for you to try rank in the number two or three spot that will still result in a lot of sales. However, if the next top 20 similar products all have loads of reviews then the competition may be too stiff for that particular product and you may want to look elsewhere.

5. Selling Price

The optimal selling price (sweet spot) in my opinion is between $9 – $40. Above that it may become a little bit expensive for you to buy inventory. If the selling price is below $9 then the shipping cost can really eat up all of your profit margins. This is of course once again not a one shoe fits all situation, but should be treated as a good general rule of thumb.

6. Private Label Potential

Can that product really be turned into your own product brand?

7. Profit Margin

You should aim for a 50% profit margin or more. I do not recommend you to be a low cost product on Amazon but I recommend you to be a premium priced product on Amazon.

Let me reveal to you something in this regard that you may find a bit surprising. People in general associate good quality products with premium prices and if they are looking for what they perceive to be the best quality they will be willing to pay premium prices. In some cases I guess it may depend what type of product it is we are talking about.

I know for one that if I am buying health related products like supplements for example I am definitely not going to buy the cheapest supplement on the market as psychologically I would just not believe it is in my best interest and in general it is true that you get what you pay for. Premium ingredients are expensive and for this reason it would make sense to the buyer that the top quality supplement/s should be sold at a premium price. The bottom line is that the cheapest price does not always win or perhaps I should say win a lot less than you may think/expect. Being the cheapest on Amazon therefore may actually not be in your best interest in terms of generating sales for this very reason.

Creating Excel Spreadsheet With Amazon Opportunities

The next step I recommend is that you use the criteria of “The 7 Foolproof Qualities Of A Killer Amazon Opportunity” to create a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to list and compare let’s say the top 15 possible Amazon opportunities. Your comparison should be in terms of price, keyword, bestseller ranking of the top product, ranking of similar products ranked second and third and then also a comparison of the amount of reviews for the top product and similar products ranked second and third. See the image (example) below. The final step is to now identify your three top Amazon opportunities before doing a search for possible suppliers.

How To Find Private Labelling Suppliers

I very briefly touched on this already but we are now going to dig a little bit deeper explaining exactly how you should be going about this process.

The Google Search Method

You can find 99% of suppliers by simply doing a Google search. There is no need to dig through (outdated) supplier directories or to attend any trade shows. You can save tons of time by simply learning a couple of Google search tricks.

Google Search Tricks For Finding Suppliers

Search For Exact Phrases

• Put quotation marks around “keywords”
• Will pull up sites with that EXACT phrase in it
• Example: A search for “blue aluminium widgets” will exclude pages that refer to blue plastic widgets.

Use The 3 Main Supplier Search Phrases

1. “product keyword” private label
2. “product keyword” supplier
3. “product keyword” wholesale

Exclude Sites That Clutter Up Results

• Use -site:website.com to exclude a site from search results
• Example Search: protein powder supplier -site:facebook.com
• If you ONLY want local suppliers include this in your Google search: -site:alibaba.com -site:aliexpress.com -site:dhgate.com

Once you identified your suppliers you can now open a new tab in your Excel spreadsheet and ad the potential supplier names and websites to your top 3 amazon products that you identified earlier. Browsing through the website and catalogue of potential suppliers you will then soon be able to make an informed decision on exactly what product to choose to sell on Amazon and what supplier to buy from.

Some of the aspects you should consider is the profit margin, the size of the opportunity and the start-up cost when considering buying in bulk. What you will find is that private label suppliers have minimum quantities of stock that they require you to purchase and even this very fact when doing a comparison may very well be a deciding factor when choosing your supplier.

Choosing A Product And Brand Name

Now that you identified the product you will be selling on Amazon and you have identified your supplier it is time to choose a brand name as well as a product name. I recommend you only start out with selling ONE product on Amazon. There are several reasons for this which includes the fact that it is going to cost you some money for the creation of the product label of the product, the creation of your logo, the creation of 3D rendered images, money for the stock you will be buying and then of course also advertising costs in order to get traction.

There may also be costs involved in setting up your own professional branded website which you will use to promote your product on Amazon. So you definitely only want to concentrate on selling and promoting one product and once you are starting to generate good sales for this particular product then you can start thinking about moving on to the next product.

Do note that it is of course not necessary to start thinking about creating your own professional branded website straight away. You can of course start promoting your listed product/s on Amazon directly, but it is just natural that a lot of customers would like to ensure that you are a legitimate brand/company so this will of course help if you have a professional looking website. It also makes a whole lot of sense to publish your website address and website email on your product labels.

Choosing A Brand Name

When choosing a brand name do not waste too much time in trying to be perfect as you will have the ability to change your brand name on Amazon any time you want. Yes of course you do not want to be wasting time and money promoting a particular brand name and then when you decide to change it start the whole process all over again, but I just want to make you aware that it is not a total train smash should you decide to change your brand name along the way. This can be easily done in Amazon later on. Things of course start getting a bit more complicated once you buy a domain name for your professional business website or start printing your product labels.

Also do remember that the brand name is a lot less significant than the actual promotion and advertising that you will be doing for your product. I am sure you have heard of some very silly sounding brand names out there which sometimes makes you sit and wonder “How did this brand manage to become so popular with such a silly name like that?” and the answer to that question is that it pretty much all comes down to marketing/advertising, the quality of the products and the quality of the customer service.

Make sure that the .com domain is available before choosing your brand name. The .com domain is an authority domain and my suggestion is that you ensure that the .com domain is available before making your final decision on your brand name. It is also important that you do an Amazon and a trademark search. You obviously need to ensure that no one else has trademarked the brand name you have identified.

Choose A Product Name

Your product name is what will be showing up on your product label and packaging. Pick something simple that will resonate with your audience. Ideally include your main keyword/s in your product name. Once again do not try to be perfect. This is also something that can be easily changed down the road.

Product Design And Packaging

Good quality product design and packaging is absolutely critical to the success of your Amazon business and is certainly not an area where you should compromise. Simply having better quality in terms of product design and packaging will ensure that customers would want to buy your products instead of that of your competition, even if you are priced a little bit higher.

It is also very much about repeat buyers and also all about perception. Once your buyer receives your product in the mail and they are pretty amazed at your product design and packaging, they may perceive it as a high quality product and they would easily buy from you again. A good example I can think of when it comes to repeat buyers is for a product like e.g. supplements.

How Do I Find Good Quality Designers?

There are three things that a designer will have to create for you. You will need a logo which includes your brand name, you will need a product label and you will also need 3D rendered images to upload to Amazon.

The information that needs to go on the product label should be provided to you by your supplier as they will have all the information in regards to the ingredients, if we are for example dealing with supplements. This information needs to be provided to the designer that will be designing your product label and you will of course also have to send the designer your logo, which includes your brand name.

It may be worth asking your supplier if they provide an in-house design service. If they do, then you may not even have to go through the trouble in finding a designer online. It may be a good idea however to ask for some examples of their previous work to ensure that the design service they offer testifies of great quality. If not, you may have to go through the trouble after all to find a good quality designer online.

This is of course not an extensive list but you can try to visit the following sites in search of good quality designers:

1. https://eles.com
2. https://upwork.com
3. https://fiverr.com
4. https://freelancer.com
5. https://99designs.com

Of all of those listed above I would say that https://99designs.com is probably the best one to choose. The reason for that is that your job offer goes out to 99 designers and I believe you can also choose the skill level of the designers but of course at an extra cost. You will receive 99 designs and you are then able to choose the best design from those 99 designs received. This ensures that you are most certainly going to end up with an awesome design, but 99 designs is likely to be a bit more pricey than the other options for this very reason.

Your First Product Inventory Order

I personally think the easiest way of going about this in the very beginning is to simply phone your supplier and build that relationship over the phone and enquire about placing your first inventory order and what the easiest way would be to pay for your inventory. If you are planning to start selling in the USA, as I recommended, and you live abroad I highly recommend you buy Skype credit as this will entitle you to make international phone calls super cheap.

For your first product inventory I recommend that you buy the minimum amount that your supplier will allow you to buy in order to minimise financial risk, especially if your inventory has an expiry date. If things start going very well in the future, then I will of course recommend you buy as much inventory wholesale as you can afford, as we all know the more you buy the cheaper the price becomes and the greater your profit margins. However, be careful not to try run before you learned to crawl. We all been there 🙂

In your conversation with your supplier ask them what their turnaround time is so that you know exactly how long in advance you should be buying stock to replenish your inventory to make sure you do not run out of stock to sell. Just in case you have not realised this as yet, of course if you are going to sell in the USA you are going to find yourself a manufacturer in the USA that can then ship your private labelled products directly to Amazon’s warehouse.

Amazon FBA – Automated Fulfilment System

Under the section “Why should I consider selling on Amazon?” I have briefly touched on the automation of Amazon already, but we will now dive a little bit deeper.

First I want to make it clear that you do not have to make use of Amazon FBA (fulfilment by Amazon) if you do not want to. You can sell on Amazon and still make use of your own fulfilment (delivery system). However the benefits of making use of Amazon FBA is absolutely massive.

You can literally see the difference when you are using your own fulfilment vs making use of Amazon FBA. As soon as you switch on FBA your products will just about instantly move up in ranking. The other huge benefit of Amazon FBA is of course automation. Amazon will take care of absolutely everything for you from delivery of your products to customer support. This frees up plenty of time so you can simply concentrate on the marketing of your business as well as zero logistical issues to worry about.

FBA Shipment Preparation

There are three things that you will have to do in preparation. First of all you will have to have a basic listing of your product setup on Amazon before you are able to generate the two packing slips (in PDF format) that is required by your supplier in order to ship your stock to Amazon. So the first thing you need to do is to setup a basic product listing on Amazon and the second thing you need to do is to generate the two packing slips.

The third thing you will have to do is to purchase a QR code (barcode) as the QR code also needs to be filled out when setting up your product on Amazon.

Setting up a basic product in Amazon is pretty self-explanatory and you only have to complete the vital information like Product Name, Manufacturer, UPC or EAN number, Condition, Your Price, Quantity and that is literally it for now. This will then entitle you to be able to generate the required packaging slips that your supplier will need to ship your stock to Amazon. In case you do not know what the UPS or EAN number refers to, that is simply the number of the barcode we spoke about in the previous paragraph.

Amazon Sales Copy + SEO

While you are waiting for your inventory to arrive at Amazon’s warehouse you now have time to optimise your Product Title, Product Description and to perfect your sales copy after you have done your relevant keyword research.

The Amazing Selling Machine Course goes into great detail in explaining the whole process of SEO optimisation, but it is not something that we will be exploring in this article as SEO optimisation in itself is a massive topic.

Images That Converts Shoppers To Buyers

You probably heard the expression before that says: “A picture speaks a thousand words”. Well this is certainly true when it comes to Amazon too. Your product images are critical to your success on Amazon.

Why Your Amazon Product Images Are Important

• Draws Attention To Your Amazon Product
• Makes People Want To Click On Your Product
• Makes People Want To Buy Your Product (Conversion Rate)
• Reduces Risk
• Makes Product Real (Reduces Drawback Of Online Retail)

Amazon Product Image Specs

• Images Available = 9
• Main Image: Pure White Background (Amazon Requirement)
• At Least 1000px On The Longest Side To Be Zoomable (Boosts Sales)
• File Type: .jpg (preferred) , .png, .gif

Product Image Tips

• Include Big Images (At Least A 1000 x 1000 Pixels)
• Product Should Fill Majority Of White Space (Stands Out More)
• Use Maximum Number Of Images (9) To Show Different Aspects Of Your Product
• Crisp, Clear And Highest Quality Possible (photo or digital)

Especially when you are selling products like supplements it is very important that there is an image of the product label so the customer can see exactly what ingredients it contains.

How Significant Are Amazon Reviews?

Amazon reviews are always a hurdle in the way of those that are just starting out selling on Amazon as without any reviews you are very unlikely to generate any sales and without any sales you are not going to get reviews and even if you do get some sales then we all know the percentage of people that choose to leave a review is certainly not that significant. Ask yourself the question. How many times have you bought from Amazon and how many times have you actually left a review after buying a product from Amazon? Exactly my point.

So how do you overcome this issue? Let me first start by telling you what not to do. Under no circumstances ever should you attempt to buy fake reviews. Amazon is way to clever for that and this will lead to the termination of your Amazon account.

Just to give you a little bit of history. Back in the day people solicited Amazon reviews in two ways. The first option would be to give your products away for free to family and friends, allow them to try the product for free and then ask them to leave a review on Amazon. When they did, it would show up as an unverified review, as verified reviews are classed as the type of Amazon reviews submitted only after the purchase of a product took place.

Due to this reason another strategy was born where sellers became clever and created 99% discount coupons for their Amazon product and then send that discount coupon to.a family member or friend and then get their friends and family to buy the products at virtually no cost at all, so when they leave a review it shows up as a verified purchase review.

The big issue here is that amazon reviews plays a very important role in the ranking of your product on Amazon, especially verified purchase reviews and for this reason a lot of people started to artificially manipulate their rankings through the solicitation of fake reviews. Basically the more people you could incentivise or the more people you knew the more reviews you could solicit and the higher your product would rank on Amazon.

This created a big problem for Amazon and also for Amazon customers as it became very difficult to distinguish between genuine reviews and fake reviews which really started to mess with the credibility of products sold on Amazon.

Amazon was not going to have that and for this reason decided that they will no longer allow products to be given away for free to family and friends in return for reviews. This is now against their policy. They now only allow the solicitation of reviews to take place in a controlled way through what is called the Amazon Vine program.

In summary, reviews on Amazon is still a very important rank factor and exactly the reason why it is important to check how competitive your competition is in terms of the amount of reviews they have before you decide on a product to sell. The best way it seems to get started with reviews on Amazon now is through the Amazon Vine program.

Summary

In this article I believe I have now covered all the essentials in regards to how to sell on Amazon and the pitfalls to be aware of when selling on Amazon. Please note that this article just scratched the surface. I mentioned to you in the beginning of this article in order to cover everything in detail I will certainly have to write a book and even then it will probably not be as comprehensive as a full-fledged Amazon FBA course with the likes of “The Amazing Selling Machine” or “Six Figure Mentors”.

There are so much more to say and teach in terms of building a business empire on Amazon and the strategies involved in doing so for example the utilisation of press releases, the utilisation of Amazon ads, the creation of your own affiliate program, the mastering of other sources of traffic e.g. YouTube and the list goes on and on.

I will now conclude by very briefly explaining to you the main differences between my two top recommendations when it comes to choosing an Amazon FBA course that will teach you everything in great detail you need to know to build a super successful Amazon business.

The Amazing Selling Machine VS Six Figure Mentors

The Amazing Selling Machine

I first got introduced to The Amazing Selling Machine created by Matt Clark in 2013 (it has of course been updated since) and I can truly say that this has been one of the most comprehensive online training courses (in video format) that I have ever had the privilege to study. What was apparent to me from the very word go is that there is absolutely zero fluff in this training course.

The Amazing Selling Machine has been the most popular Amazon FBA Course from the very beginning and even today after all these years it is still the most popular Amazon course on the market and for very good reason. The reason is that this very training has produced hundreds of millionaires and those that became super rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Just to give you an idea, Matt Clark was able to build 3 multi-million dollar companies in his 20’s and in this interview he reveals big lessons and big mistakes he made along the way. If you are interested in this interview you can watch it here: Inspired Insider Interview: Matt Clark

In addition to the Amazon FBA course they also have a massive community where invaluable information and testimonials are shared. In this community you are able to ask any questions you like in regards to conducting business on Amazon.

The Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) Mentorship Program

On top of the ASM training course you are also offered access to ASM private mentorship. The mentors consist of highly successful Amazon sellers that guides you through building your store, answer all the questions you may have and provides you with advice on products, suppliers, marketing and store optimisation. The average ASM mentor achieved nearly $2 million in Amazon sales, so you know the information you receive are up to date information that has been battle tested.

The Amazing Selling Machine Private Community

This may be worth the price of the course alone as 99% of the obstacles you may face when building your Amazon store has already been solved/answered by someone else. This private community is one of the best in the industry. The ASM course creators calls this community “the ultimate collection of brainpower” in terms of Amazon FBA, and they are probably not that far off.

The greatest thing about the community is the inspiration and motivation you draw from the success others are experiencing on Amazon. If they can achieve it, then so can you.

ASM Conclusion

I will conclude by saying that the course really goes far beyond Amazon as it also teaches you how to build your brand outside of Amazon. The Amazing Selling Machine gets a 5 star plus in my opinion and I will highly recommend this course to family and friends all day long.

Please also note that The Amazing Selling Machine comes with a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee.

ASM On A Budget

There is the saying that you get what you pay for and for that reason it comes as no surprise that a top-notch quality Amazon FBA course like The Amazing Selling Machine sells for the price of $4997, but this is when private mentorship and the private community is included. It may sound like a big investment to some, but if you consider that this course has produced hundreds of millionaires, and that can include you, then $4997 is an absolute steal.

But what if you simply do not have the money and cannot even afford it on a payment plan? Well before I answer that question let me just mention to you that The Amazing Selling Machine sometimes do crazy deals. Right now for example on the 9th of June 2022 (the time of writing this article) they are doing a 40% discount on that price but not only that, they give you in addition $2000 for the purpose of buying inventory and for doing advertising. This is an absolutely insane deal. I almost can’t see what they get out of it by offering this offer. Do note though that these offers are usually very time sensitive and of short duration. For example this offer running right now is a 48 hour flash sale only.

But what if there is no flash sale available and I simply do not have the money? Well you will be delighted to know that The Amazing Selling Machine also offers a “light” version called ASM Foundations. With this product, you get the same video training in ASM without access to the Mentors and Private community, with a massive difference in price. ASM Foundations only cost $2497 and believe it or not but currently it is available for a mere $997 which is a reduction in price of 60%.

ASM Full Premium Course Can Be Accessed Here: Premium ASM Course

ASM Foundations Course Can Be Accessed Here: ASM Foundations

Six Figure Mentors

Six Figure Mentors is very interesting indeed as they do not only specialise in Amazon FBA as is the case with the Amazing Selling Machine. Once you sign up to Six Figure Mentors they actually call you, listen very carefully to your needs/requirements and then determine the best business model for you based on the conversation. Some of these business models include affiliate marketing, e-commerce, the selling of services, product creation, Amazon FBA etc.

So let us say you told them that you are interested in the Amazon FBA business model then the mentor will call you on a regular basis, give you objectives to achieve before the next phone call and they pretty much guarantee your success if you follow the steps that they have set out for you. The awesome thing about Six Figure Mentors is that they have their own development teams and distribution channels which they also give you access to.

So what I am saying is that you do not really have to go and look for any products/manufacturers, as whatever it is you want to sell, Six Figure Mentors will most likely be able to sort you out. Even if you have a unique product in mind that is not yet developed, then there is a chance that Six Figure Mentors can get their development team to create that product for you.

Please note that Six Figure Mentors has a 30 day money back guarantee but only on their ‘SFM All-In’ and ‘Mentors Grow’ memberships, but on their DEA products you only have a 3 day refund window.

Conclusion:

So I know the question that will arise is whether The Amazing Selling Machine or Six Figure Mentors is my top Amazon FBA recommended course. The Amazing Selling Machine is definitely my top recommended Amazon FBA course, but saying that, if you are going to consider bringing your own unique developed product to market to sell on Amazon then I will strongly consider Six Figure Mentors. The reason for this is that Six Figure Mentors has their own development team and they can possibly create any product for you that is not yet developed, within bounds.

The advantage of such would be that the Amazon marketplace can be quite competitive, so if you can develop a unique product that no one else sells then you will of course have no real competition. Identifying a need that is not met as yet through existing products and developing a product that is unique will probably not be easy, but it certainly can be done and has been done before and in a scenario like this, Six Figure Mentors may indeed be your best bet.

Do note that Six Figure Mentors have upsells for bespoke requirements like this (development of unique products) and depending on the upgrade/options you choose, it can be quite pricey.

I hope that you have found this article super helpful and inspiring. Hopefully this article was an eye opener to you in regards to the massive opportunity that you have to build your own brand and business empire on Amazon with the potential to easily expand internationally and to build your own million dollar+ brand. Should you have any questions, please feel free to leave your questions in the comments section below.

Income Disclaimer: Please note that there are of course no guarantees that you will be able to replicate the results as set out in this article and the article links provided. Although some income generating systems may lead to quicker results than others, no success was ever created without hard work and dedication. Saying that, it is of course true that some earn shed loads of money online and if others can do it of course you can too.

Affiliate Disclaimer: As an affiliate, commission on sales may be generated, however it will be at no extra cost to the buyer whatsoever. Additional bonuses may or may not be on offer to the buyer when doing so and in some cases the price paid through affiliate links may be lower than the price advertised by the vendor, due to exclusive special prices offered to affiliates by the vendor.