Why
I Decided to Sell on Amazon and Took a Break on EF
First of
all, I’d like to say that creating and launching an Amazon business was my
idea, not my husband’s. He agreed after seeing the results of two of his co-workers.
Honey, if you’re reading this, you know it was me. Ok bye.
Of course,
everybody wants to make more money, and some are willing to take calculated
risks to succeed and see that reflected in their bank accounts. Plus, being in
the process of purchasing our first home, we knew we could use the money to pay
off our home faster.
I also had
a lot going on in my life, so I felt that I had to distance myself from EF for
a while but now I am back and I’ve got stronger content in the making. Brace
yourself!
Okay, back
to Amazon. I like expensive things and living debt-free, so selling on Amazon
was (is) perfect for me to make money on the side, plus it works on my
schedule. Hey, Gucci bags are not cheap! And I want to own every single one of
them.
Disclaimers
on Selling on Amazon Before you Continue Reading Rest of the Article
Selling on
Amazon isn’t free! Just having a
professional seller’s account is about $40 per month. Of course, since Amazon
thinks about everything, they do have an option where you can sign up to sell
as an individual for free. But you
are limited when it comes to the number of items you can sell per month, and if
you are serious about this business model, you need to be more serious when it
comes to your sales expectations.
Amazon’s
fees are scary and extremely difficult to understand! This is why
having the right product and prices are crucial to a successful Amazon
business. Having the wrong product will cost you a lot of money.
(just
having your products stored in an Amazon warehouse has a price)
Again… fees! I have been selling on Amazon for
a short while, and I still don’t understand how they calculate their prices.
But even the most advanced sellers find it complicated, yet they earn a lot of
money. Isn’t that all we care about?
Do you
think selling on Amazon will be right for you? I tested it for over a month,
AND it paid off. Keep reading!
I
Didn’t Even Know Where or How to Begin
There are
so many courses out there about selling on Amazon that I got confused and felt
flustered because I didn’t know which one to take. I’ll be more specific; I
didn’t know which course deserved my time
and money as investments. Luckily, two
of my husband’s co-workers are current Amazon sellers, and they told us exactly
which courses to take:
The Amazon Boot Camp by The Selling Family. This is the
first course I, and it is fantastic! If you want to start on Amazon by selling
other people’s products (AKA well-known brands), I highly recommend you take
this course. Its primary focus is Retail Arbitrage which is buying a lot of
random products from stores at a discounted price and selling them for a higher
price on Amazon for profit.
Retail
Arbitrage is an easy Amazon business model because you don’t have to worry
about marketing or advertising since the brands you are listing the products
under are already highly searched for. Your profits are almost guaranteed! But
the catch is that you must do your research and find discounted products in
stores. Luckily, The Amazon Boot Camp
facilitates that by teaching you their best tips.
They also
have a lesson on products that you need to get to ship your products to Amazon
so that they can take care of everything for you.
I didn’t
choose this business model because I knew that I could make more money selling
my own products, but sometimes I consider it.
Amazing Selling Machine. This course is beyond amazing! Hands down! If you choose to sell your own products, this course will hold your hand every step of the way. This course helped me find my profitable products to brand and market. It taught me how to create Facebook Ads and Amazon Ads that actually convert! It taught me how to take my business to the next level by getting sales even if I don’t promote anything! And most importantly, it taught me how to list my products in a manner that generates organic sales. Of course, it taught me more, but I cannot narrate the entire course in this post.
This course is for Amazon sellers that choose to sell their own products instead of doing Retail Arbitrage, which results in higher profits and more control over your business. Like I mentioned before, I chose this business model. However, you can feel free to do both if you’d like!
My
products are fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), which means that I ship my packaged
products directly to them, and they take care of shipping, customer service,
returns, and all of the headaches.
LLC
& Other Legal Stuff
I got an
LLC (Limited Liability Company) for my business to separate it from me. This
means that if any legal concerns arise, I will be fine on a personal level and
only my business will suffer.
There are
a lot of benefits for doing this which you can read here.
But I love the tax benefits I have!
Since I
want to keep selling, I am considering trademarking my company’s name and logo
to protect my brand, which also gives my business validation.
How
I Found the Perfect Products to Sell
I know
what you’re thinking, “I have nothing to sell!” Well, wrong…
Thanks to
the courses I mentioned above, I was able to use tools and resources that
helped me do market research on Amazon, which is precisely what you need to do
to find your profitable product.
I used the
plugin Jungle Scout Pro and adjusted
the filters according to the categories I was searching in based on search
volume, daily sales, and competition scores. Then, after finding the best
products, I did more digging outside of Amazon to find a similar product to put
my brand on.
I found my
products on Alibaba. Although they are based in China, I discovered that
shipping time is very fast, especially when you work with the sellers when it
comes to your shipping options with them. Also, there are a lot of sellers selling the same products in bulk, so finding the
cheapest and the best one is just one click away.
Another
software that helped me with my business is Helium 10. Because of Helium, I was able to list my products in a
way that allowed me to get organic sales (without having to promote my
products) because there are a vast variety of tools within Helium 10 that
enable you to do more product research and find the best keywords.
The FBA Calculator Plugin is also crucial. When you go to a
product page on Amazon, it tells you how much Amazon takes as fees for those products, so you will always know if your product
idea will be profitable before you order anything. Just don’t forget to put how
much you are buying the products from!
How
I Priced the Products While taking into Consideration Amazon’s Fees
Pricing
your products is perhaps the most challenging task. Here’s my theory:
If you
want to be fair in your pricing, Amazon will take most of your profits.
If you
want to make a lot per item, you
won’t make a lot of sales since there are other sellers with competitive
prices.
So how do
you stay ahead of your competition, make a lot of money and be fair with your pricing?
The answer
is so simple it might anger you: using the software and plugins above.
You will
see how expensive your competition’s products are, then decide if you want to
sell a bit higher or lower. It is smart to have a fixed ideal profit margin in
your head, but I believe that all dollars add up, so even if you are only
making $5 profit per item after all of the fees, and you sell about 20 per day,
that’s $100 that you didn’t have before.
