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Email: theamazingsellers@gmail.com
hi
the theamazingseller.com/buildlist link goes to a webinar invite. Is there a way to get to the actual podcast. thank you
Hey eva it takes you directly to the video workshop we did on the topic. Theres also :http://theamazingseller.com/tas-392-top-3-offers-to-build-your-email-list-and-boost-sales-for-your-products/
Straight up….Am I too late to get in on this. I feel like this Amazon selling has been going on for a long time and It may not be possible for me to succeed.
Absolutely NOT, we just launched a new brand in April and are crushing it. It’s all about the product.
Hi Scott. Great podcast and helpful to learn from, thank you. I have recently listed a new private label product and am noticing that nobody knows it’s there. No sales. I have done some Amazon PPC advertising but still no results. I’m confident in the product an the niche. I need to perform a more proactive and aggressive launch strategy, and I’m looking at services like Sixleaf (Zonblast), Market Hustl, Viral-Launch. But I cannot determine the viability of this investment. There is the marketing copy, and the testimonials, and a few mentions here and there, but I need to hear from a real person that they have used these services effectively. So as things are now in late 2017, can you honestly recommend one of these services as a way to kickstart a launch? Thank you.
Hey Chris, we don’t use ANY launch services to launch our products, we use our own email lists. If you want to see the exact process we use, check out theamazingseller.com/buildlist it’s a little bit more work up front, but the results and long term benefit are more than worth it.
I’m really having trouble with getting reviews, my products are selling well, all under 15 reviews but cant seem to get more than one every so often. How have you been able to get reviews? giveaways arent really helping for that anymore.
Hey Aron, you shouldn’t be using giveaways to get reviews, that’s a violation of Amazon’s TOS. The best way to get reivews is to use a solid follow up sequence through something like Salesbacker and to provide excellent customer service should the need arise.
Your site is awesome, Scott. It’s great that you’re trying to equip those who want to learn the ropes of selling on Amazon. Amazon has minimized the digital divide for anyone with a computer. Thanks for all your advice.
Hey Scott, one of our competitors are getting a CRAZY verified review count. Say, 300 reviews of of total sales of around 1000. So 30% of all purchasers are reviewing. Do you think these sorts of results are possible from a great sales funnel or do you think something more suspicious is going on here? Their sales funnel is nothing special (were a small company, your review means a lot etc). Very interested to know what you think of those metrics.
Hey James it’s possible but highly unlikely, I wouldn’t expect those reviews or that seller to stick around very long.
Hi Scott, Luke from New Zealand here. Ive signed up to the Private label training this week and unfortunately the link from the email for the workshop resource is giving me the following error message ‘This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.’ Is there anywhere we can download it from your website? Thanks
Hey Luke, send an email to support@theamazingseller.com and let me know what you’re looking for…we can get you pointed in the right direction!
Hi Scott!
My first shipment is going to be delivered at Amazon warehouse soon and what’s the best way to get reviews, e.g. a few reviews fairly quickly if possible to start with? Thank you.
Hey Jacquleine, you should be focused on SALES not reviews, get sales and the reviews will come. I’d suggest going through the material at theamazingseller.com/ppc and theamazingseller.com/launchlist to get up to speed on the launch process!
Hey Scott,
Like the multitudes before me, thank you! I’m an avid listener on my backswing, ready to take action / cut my teeth with the $500 challenge. Listening to TAS 291 & reading the e-book, Aliexpress is the clear route. My product research (jungles scout) has lead to a niche that has potential. I’m considering taking an existing type of product and accentuating its alternative use as it’s primary role (ie. taking small pencil sharpeners and now promoting their use to balance the legs on your dinner table)? My concern is that buyers (including myself) could easily have an “ah hah” moment and begin to buy unbranded “pencil sharpeners” and bypass my product all together. Is this a viable approach, and if so, how to future/proof? I hope I’ve made some sense. If this trial run were to take of, I’d consider private labeling. Thanks again Scott for all that you do for us. Take care.
Hey pg, a few things. First most people (99.9999%) of people will never have that aha moment, you’ve been able to do that since the beginning of time and most people opt for convenience rather than a slightly better deal.
Second when you’re buying from Aliexpress you’re TESTING the product, once you validate the product you would be placing a regular branded order.
Hey Scott,
Thank you so much for all the help. I was to launch my first product and I have been reading that Amazon might be shutting down new sellers for Q4 like how they did last year. Any comments and suggestions.
Hey Muhammad, amazon did NOT shut down new sellers last year and they probably won’t this year either. What they did was limit the availability of their warehouses, that does NOT stop you from selling and fulfilling yourself.
Hi Scott, where do you build your brand website on?
Do you use a Shopify Store or just a simple WordPress site hosted with Hostgator?
Hey Sam, either one works!
Hi Scott,
I recently started listening to your podcast and have already got a bunch of good information; in fact I’ve just submitted a design brief on Outlinematic thanks to information you covered in episode 410. I’ve developed a product that I plan to sell on multiple platforms (Amazon, ebay, B2C, brick and mortar retailers). I’ve done quite a bit of research and have found no real competition and the small sample of people I’ve surveyed have given me excellent feedback about the product. That being said I am new to this. Do you have any advice on the best way to quickly get up to speed on bringing a new product to market?
Many thanks — Jeff
Hey Jeff, in terms of launching the product, I would take a look at theamazingseller.com/buildlist and theamazingseller.com/ppc
Hi Scott, I don’t have a question, but just wanted to give you props. Love your podcast! You said you played guitar, I’m President and owner of a guitar pedal company, Wampler Pedals. Anyway, just a big thumbs up and thanks for all you do. 🙂
Hi Scott, thanks for all the great info on the podcast! I’m in the sourcing phase for my first product and Just received a sample that wasn’t as high of quality as I expected based on the supplier’s quote relative to the other quotes I received. My product is highly customizable and has a market for a broad range of price points. I’m hoping to be in the upper-middle range, but the sample I received would sell on the lower end. My question for you is what can I ask suppliers to figure out what quality level they will be? Should I specify the brands that I hope to compete against? Ask them what US companies they supply to? Would love to hear your advice on this!
HEy Emily, I would try and find something as close as you can to what you want and go from there. In every market there are going to be people all over the range of quailty, the trick is finding one you like!
Hi Scott,
I am a long time listener to your podcast and also an Amazon seller for about 4 years now. I am about to launch a newly developed product. Initially I want to do a proof of concept test market launch by doing a YouTube influencer campaign.
I have identified a key phrase that I want to rank well by the end of the campaign. I plan to ask the influencers to prompt their audience, who are interested to buy my product to type in the target key phrase in the Amazon search bar and look for my product that way. Obviously, since my new product will not show up in the organic search results yet, I intend to do PPC campaign that ensures that my product will show up in the sponsored ad space for that target key phrase.
Questions:
1. Will actual buyers clicking my product’s sponsored AD prompt Amazon’s algorithm to also rank me higher organically in that key phrase? This is similar to the special URL method popular years ago that has the key phrase added to the URL but this is a manual version.
2. Do you recommend a better alternative?
Thanks Scott,
Jay
Hey Jay, sales from ppc certainly correlate with a rise in organic rank on those words, so yes. It’s not similar to super urls because the traffic is 100% within amazon.
Hi Scott, how can I start selling items in a gated category amazon restricts us from selling new items?
Hey Sam, you simply have to follow their process for ungating in that category. Check out episode 212
Hi Scott! I am a big fan of your show, thanks so much for putting together such great content! I launched my biz on Amazon last year and now doing over 6 figures a year on Amazon alone (without ads). My question is, I did a lot of research on my own and optimized my listings, and my conversion is pretty high (28%+ for every SKU). I know that keyword ads are best practices, so I attempted to do PPC for a few styles and let Amazon pick the keywords so I can see what people are responding to for data, as recommended. Unfortunately after running it for 2 weeks, it got very low responses, like no clicks at all and therefore no data. It didn’t charge me of course but now I don’t know how to move forward setting up the amazon ads since I don’t know how people are finding me. Thank you so much for your knowledge and good vibes!!!
Hey Hannah you may want to raise your bids!
I would also suggest checking out theamazingseller.com/ppc
This is a good subject. PPC and INDEXING and keywords is still difficult for me.
Hello Scott! Thanks for all the information you provide. I have listened to your podcasts nonstop since I first discovered them. I noticed your product launch strategy has changed from older podcasts, has your product research (weight,margins, sellers rank and #sold per month) and product choice changed since TAS 004: HOW TO RESEARCH AND CHOOSE PRODUCTS THAT WILL SELL ON AMAZON – STEP BY STEP podcast?
Hope to hear back from you soon. Thanks.
Hey richard it has. You can find the way we’re launching products now at theamazingseller.com/buildlist.
If you run a search on this site, you can find a whole bunch of information (run a search for Greg Mercer) about how product criteria has changed) Theamazingseller.com/165 might be a good place to start.
hi, excited to find this website. We sell a food product line of 5 on amazon seller central, and 2 on vendor express. (We haven’t sold the other 5 there because their offer price is too low.) We want to do A+ pages on all of them but it doesn’t look like an option we can afford. We recently heard about “Amazon Store Pages” which seemed to be great, but now that we have it approved, it isn’t visible. It’s almost as if you have to place an ad. We can’t get a straight answer from Amazon. Know anything that might help us?
Hey CS, you don’t need to pay for A+ pages, the easy way would be to go through the brand registry process, that will give you access to the store pages and enhanced brand content (the free seller central version of A+)
Hi Scott! You’re really great, just started listening daily to you! What is the proper way to bundle an ebook with a physical product? (You have done this before, correct?) I’ve read that it’s against TOS to include a pdf ebook as an attachment to an email sent through SellerCentral. And others say it’s ok. Other options would be to put it on a CD/USB drive and include it with the product, but this would be a little more hassle for me. I don’t want to do something illegal, but want to make my bundle stand out and provide more value. What do you suggest?
Hey Nate if you’re bundling an ebook you would need to send it as an attachment in the follow up messages. Giving them a them drive might be a great way to add some value, but it is indeed mor hassle
Perfect, thank you for the answer. Can there be any hyperlinks (to a YouTube channel, or Blog site) in the eBook? Is this against the TOS?
Or just have it be information and value only with no links?
Hey Nate, you can get away with links as long as you’re not linking somewhere silly….like a landing page that says “buy from us directly to heck with amazon”
Dear Scott,
I have been promoting a product on Amazon without much success. In your opinion, how do you determine if a product has failed. And what to do with the unsold goods?
Hey Ryan, if you’ve done everything (run ppc till you’re blue in the face, launched the product correctly, etc) and you can’t get it to move, you can always lower the price and clear it out, or try and wholesale it to amazon directly.
Hi Scott,
New seller here taking your advice and just taking action! Next step for me is handling the logistics of getting my product shipped to Amazon FBA. I have a relatively light product and starting with a smaller trial order to get the hang of selling my first product. Two part question:
1) My first trial order is only 100 sets of my product. Is it worth shipping the products to myself first then the Amazon warehouse so I can quality check?
2) If I need to send one unit of my product to my hired photographer, what’s the best way to get my hands on one unit and the rest to Amazon? (Another reason I’m leaning towards shipping to myself first before the FBA warehouse)
Thanks Scott, couldn’t have gotten this far without you!
Eric
Hey Eric, I would get the process down even with just 100 units. If you’re shipping them to yourself first, they’re already in your hands. If not, send him one direct from Amazon!
Hi Scott. I’m loving the podcast & find it the most helpful of all the Amazon & e-commerce podcasts I listen to.
I have been hearing you talk a lot about cross-listing and cross-promoting your store’s products on your Amazon listings to take advantage of the session traffic you get.
All my products have a related theme that ties them all together. So I believe that I could cross-sell them.
How, exactly, do I go about doing that?
Thanks!
Hey Steve you would need to setup a promo code. Instead of having it take a percentage off the item they are purchasing, you simply select the other asin that you want to cross promote
Hey Scott!
First off, cannot thank you enough for all of your content – I’m listening constantly.
My question is surrounding putting together a product that requires pieces from multiple suppliers.
Supplier 1 – Core Product
Supplier 2 – Accessory Piece 1
Supplier 3 – Accessory Piece 2
My question is – Should I be sourcing from suppliers 2 and 3 and connecting them to supplier 1? Or ask Supplier 1 to find Accessory pieces 1 + 2 (giving them specific examples of what I want).
I know in your supplier “interview” you discuss asking a supplier if they can get XYZ for you, but I’m curious if that’s the best method for a product with separate pieces like this.
The alternative is getting each piece from the suppliers separately and then assembling them myself at home prior to shipping to FBA, but that’s obviously not a very scalable solution. It may almost be easiest during the testing phase, but then if the product blows up I’ll be back at square one trying to figure these questions out.
On this same product – I’m assuming there’s nothing I can really do to prevent Supplier 1 from starting to make their own combinations of this product (using the same accessories) assuming the idea takes off?
Thanks for everything you do man!
-Dino from Boston
Hey Dino, either way works. I would start by asking the supplier if they can get what you need, if not work on getting it to them from third party suppliers.
Great question, I had the same exact question. Thanks for the response, Scott!
Hi Scott,
I have a questions concerning finding suppliers with Alibaba. I have purchase your book and taken the free online course, I sent out my initial supplier contact letters and have begun to receive replies. So far most don’t want to use escrow payments and if they accept paypal for bulk orders they want me to absorb the 4% fee. One of them is looking for a wire transfer and I’m not comfortable with that. Most have not given me a price per unit for their products including shipping in this first round of responses – is this normal? One of the suppliers is trying to sway me toward sea shipping but I’m trying to avoid that because of the customs issues.
Any assistance you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Eb, the most important thing is to be consistent, not every supplier is the one you’re going to work with. Pick one you feel comfortable with and one who shows some flexabiliyt!
Thank you Scott
Hi Scott
I’m confused on creating a brand name. If I pick a name for my business to label whatever I decide to sell, do I have to go through a process of making sure that name is ok to use for my business / label? Do I have to register this name also? How do I go about these steps or am I over complicating this?
Thank you very much
Hey Mike, there’s not much to it outside of choosing the name. If you’re worried, you can always run a trademark search to be sure it’s not in use, an attorney would be more than happy to help you with that.
Hi Scott,
Do you currently offer live in person workshops? If not I would like to discuss this with you further.
Hey Frank, we do have live workshops from time to time. Feel free to head over to theamazingseller.com/live to sign up for details about the next when.
I’m just getting starting and I’m selling things I own just to get a hang of it. My Q is about the fees. I was under the impression that Amazon took about 12% for FBA but I’m not seeing that after adding items to my inventory. For ex., I just listed a book for $13.37 and the FBA fees were $8.98 of that. Am I missing something here?
Hey Nicole, amazon fees vary based on the product, category, dimensions and several other factors, $8 is crazy high and something tells me not correct for that purchase. If you’re looking at the “fee estimate” inside of amazon keep in mind that’s based of the list price of the item, but the actual fee you’ll be charged is based off the selling price.
Hi Scott, I am finally about to manufacture my first private label product and I have a question about modification of my listing in the future. I want my product to be of the best quality but unfortunately I can’t afford to buy the best material for my product right now. I am thinking that I would first order a little worse material for my product (still good quality though) and once I sell out the first order I would order the better material for the second shipment. As far as I know, it should not be a problem to modify my listing and just change a few words in it, but what concerns me is that since I want to do the the proper product launch which you talked about in the first episodes of your show, I am afraid that some of my first reviews could include comments about the material and it could be confusing for the customers in the future once I change the material. Could you please give me your thoughts on that? Hope it’s not a silly question. Love your show, keep doing great job! Greetings from the Czech Republic.
Hey Martin You can always launch a new and improved version of the product once you start selling. You can launch it as a variation (and simply comment on the old reviews to let them know that it has changed material.
Hey Scott, I really love your what you are doing for all of us..the podcasts and the videos you post on the youtube channel all of this had been an excellent resource for me and for many others so far. I learned a lot from you and I am glad to tell you that I finished negotiating with my supplier and by the next month, if everything goes as planned; the inventory is expected to be shipped directly to the Amazon Distribution Centers…So thanks a lot for being an excellent teacher! and I hope you wish me luck in launching my first Amazon FBA Listing 🙂 …I also have a question about Amazon TOS and Policy regarding Product Reviews ..We all know that Incentivised reviews are no longer accepted..but what I really want to know if there is some way for example to ask someone on youtube to make an honest review of my product on their channel and to post the link to my amazon listing on the description of the review video..Is this considered compliant with or against Amazon TOS?? thanks a lot for your help…I wish you all the best!
You can’t give product in exchange for a review, honest or not (within the Amazon system). You can give products to influencers for them to use and talk about, you just can’t require them to review the product on amazon in exchange.
Hi Scott, loving the podcasts, live videos and Facebook group, great work by you guys and much appreciated.
My question is regarding your Amazon Selling Blueprint book. As it was published in 2015, is it still relevant to today’s market? It’s only a couple of quid so money isn’t the issue, I just don’t want to digest and start implementing practices that may be outdated in today’s terms. Are you planning on doing a revision update any time soon?
Hey Adi, it’s been updated several times with changes since then and there should be a newer version coming soon that you’ll get free if you already have it.
Scott, I have a question regarding brand registry. I have had my seller central account for 6 years now and I have been selling various products. I am currently partnering up with someone that has their own brand and they sell locally. They do not want the hassle of listing and dealing with Amazon, so I am doing that for them.
Can I register someone else’s brand. They have the trademark’s and all that good stuff in their name. How would it work if I registered their brand under my seller central account?
Thanks and keep up the podcasting… Makes my day job go sooo much faster!!
Hey Trevor you can register for brand registry that way, shouldn’t be a problem.
Hi Scott! I am from germany enjoy listening to your podcasts. I recently listened to your 400th episode and you mentioned that a friend of yours started to do consultancy for established manufacturers in order to boost their e-commerce on amazon. I am actually interested in that business model and was wondering if you know any resources or even podcasts that I could read or listen to.
Hey Christian if you go back to episode 23 that might be a good place to start!
Who do you recommend for a first time llc ocean shipment?
Hey Noway, I generally suggest people use airshipping to start.
Hi Scott, I stumbled upon your book on Amazon while researching “How to Bran a Physical Product.” I was able to listen to one podcast and read up on a little information about selling on Amazon. Although I have been selling on Amazon for years but mostly things around the house. So glad I found you and the information that you have provided is excellent. However, just wanted you to know that this is the best “stumble” I have ever stumbled upon. I look forward to making real money now. You are much appreciated.
Hi Scott,
I’ve heard conflicting thoughts on building a brand vs not. Some experts recommend finding a product that will fall in line with a brand so you can build that brand, grow a customer list, and eventually a bigger business venture. Others have said that brand means nothing and that success relies on finding the perfect product, regardless of what it is.
I’m torn between these two sides because I have a YouTube channel with nearly 80k subscribers, but the only products I would truly want to market to them are in a very competitive niche (baby/mom).
If you have some time, I’d really appreciate any thoughts you might have on my situation. Should I go all in with a product and niche that I truly would love to market to my subscribers and others, or does the chance of entering a highly competitive niche outweigh my following?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I really look forward to hearing from you!
The answer is “it depends” both methods work, you just need to find what works best for YOU. If you can find a product in your niche, that’s AWESOME and you’ll have a great list of people to launch it to. If you can’t or want to get your feet wet somewhere else first, that’s totally ok too!
Thank you so much!
Hi Scott
I have one product with 12 variations, all of which have one major relevant keyword. How should I set up my sponsored products campaign efficiently so that I am not competing against myself for those keywords and keep costs down
Hey Kamlesh, you won’t be competing against yourself, that’s not how that works. Take a look at theamazingseller.com/ppc
Hi Scott, I’m about to launch my first product on Amazon. It will be in 3 different color variations. I will deliver the packaging carton box design to my manufacturer in China. How can I make sure that they will put the right color to the right box with the right FNSKU printed on it? Do you have any advice on that other than just trust the manufacturer? Thanks, btw, great job, I love your podcasts. All the best, Lucas
Hey Lucas, each color should have its own FNSKU, I would have it inspected or at least spot check a few of them after the manufacturer is done to make sure they are correct.
Hey Scott! I’m brand new to selling on Amazon, I’m searching for my first product right now. I’ve examined dozens of products already and can’t seem to find a single one that fits the criteria suggested (BSR < 500 in parent category, less than a hundred reviews on best seller, AND current sellers selling more than 5-10 units per day). Am I missing something? Do I just need to keep searching? Do you ever expand your criteria? Since I'm new I'm not expecting to make a huge profit right off the bat.
Hey Raya, I’d suggest listening to some newer episodes, you’re not going to be looking for products with less than 500 BSR and 100 or less reviews generally. I suggest giving a listen to theamazingseller.com/161