How to conquer Amazon and is the site worth attention in the reality of 2021? What is the ROI and how much can you really earn? And, of course, how do you start, continue and earn your first cash on the marketplace? There are a lot of questions, and all of those were answered by Jan Fernando at the Nutra Days conference.
Earning on Amazon: principles of work, costs, and potential of the platform
So it's worth starting with the fact that Amazon is all about e-commerce. The idea of making money here is that the webmaster buys brands' goods at a discount and then resells them at a higher price. It is as affiliate marketing, only in the case of the latter, you do not need to buy the goods: the affiliate itself calls the client and delivers the goods to the post office. But webmasters working with Amazon have the freedom to choose whether to ship items themselves or to automate these processes.
Here's a typical example of profiting from Amazon.
You probably have a protective glass or case on your phone. These products were once made by a company. But over the years, these cases were taken off the market, because new, popular phone models have appeared, and now the company is making cases for them. And the company gives a batch of old unsold cases in bulk or at large discounts. The webmaster buys these items at a discounted price, and then puts them on Amazon and sells them at a higher price. Profit!
As for the profitability of such a model, you should certainly not expect a high ROI of 30-60%. But you can steadily get 10-25% of your investments, and it is not as difficult as it looks at first.
But there are cases where the product was worth $40, and it began to sell at $10. It means that the ROI will be 400%, right?
Unfortunately, no. In addition to the price difference, you have to consider Amazon's commission. Let's look at what that is next.
Amazon Commission - what is it and what to choose
People who have dealt with reseller sites before will tell you that Amazon has a huge commission. And yes, sometimes that is true, but in exchange for the webmaster's commission, Amazon takes care of all the storage and delivery issues, plus it gives you access to its multi-million audience.
But if you don't want to pay commission, you don't have to. Then you will have to manually send parcels and store the goods somewhere at home or in a rented warehouse. Let's see how this works:
Amazon FBA is a collaboration model in which the seller pays a commission to Amazon. In this case, goods are stored in Amazon warehouses and delivered to customers through fulfillment centers. The webmaster only buys the goods and keeps track of the sales.
Amazon FBM is a collaborative model in which the seller stores, delivers the goods and handles all related processes himself. In this case, Amazon serves only as a platform for the creation of the store and the placement of goods in it.
In the second case, the return on investment will grow by 10-12%, but you will also have to work harder and keep an eye on the shipping schedule. If the goods are not sent on time, the seller's rating goes down and so does the user's trust. And in the first case, you can work from anywhere in the world, mind your own business, and Amazon will practically do everything for you.
What products sell well on Amazon
We've got the basic part sorted out - congratulations, you can sign up for Amazon and get started. But what's next? How do you choose a product, where do you find it, and where do you buy it at a crazy discount? We'll tell you now:
The following sites can help you find products:
brickseek.com
bestbuy.com
liquidation.com
And many other resources - whatever you can find. But you can start with these ones.
Each of these sites has special promotions, like Offer of the Day. Add it to your bookmarks!
To calculate income from each unit sold, use SellesCentral.amazon.com - this is a calculator that helps you add up costs, prices and quickly see if you can make a profit working with your chosen offer (if you have trouble using the calculator, watch the report recording).
For searching and selecting products you can also use the plugin Helium 10 - a browser extension that shows how many sellers on Amazon are already selling your chosen item, how the price of the product changes over time, and a lot of other useful information.
This is all you need for product search. As in affiliate marketing, take into account the seasonality of the offer, its relevance, popularity, and be sure to calculate the profit in the calculator - and by FBA, and by FBM.
It's better not to sell used goods on Amazon - it's more of an Ebay story. It should be noted that it is extremely difficult to break into the "best products" sections, in both Nutra and e-Commerce verticals . Jan Fernando prefers targeting women and looks for in-demand items on Pinterest.
Tips and tricks from Jan Fernando
Let's move on to the tips and tricks. First, the speaker doesn't do all the manual work of searching for items. For this, Jan has an assistant: she selects discounted items, puts them into a google table, then Jan reviews the items, says "take it" or "no, don't," and then the assistant pays for the purchases. A very simple way to simplify the work with the help of human resources. At the start it is better to try everything yourself, to understand the subject, to grasp which goods are in demand. As volumes grow, it is advisable to hire an assistant to take on routine tasks.
After purchase, the items are shipped to Amazon and are waiting for their customers. We can save a decent amount of money when we ship our purchases, too. How it works: shipping a box weighing up to 22 pounds will cost somewhere between $15-20, but shipping several boxes of small size will cost 10-15 bucks more. Therefore, arrange in advance to have your goods packed for a week, and then shipped at once - this way you can save a decent amount of money.
And a little more about warehouses. When you send an item to Amazon, they assign it a place in the warehouse and you, as a seller, pay 25 cents a month for it.That doesn't seem like a lot, but if you have 100 positions, that's a lot of money. So before you buy something, it's worth thinking about how you’re going to sell the product: will you be selling seasonal products, something that's selling at a big discount right now, or preparing items for next season.
Q&A at the Nutra.Days affiliate conference
How relevant is Amazon in 2021? Is it worth entering now?
Definitely worth it. Every day 3000 webmasters sign up for Amazon, only 2% of them (60 people) stay for more than 3 months.
Are there tools for additional monetization of customers?
No, users don't share data with the seller. Amazon has no post-monetization, but it is possible to collect emails before a purchase in order to do a mailing later using this base.
Do you use any tweaks on Amazon? Fake reviews, artificial rating boosts?
No, I don't use anything like that. But yes, positive reviews are helpful and such software exists. Whether or not to use this software is up to you. Amazon is very strict with penalties for cheating.
Are there alternative platforms similar to Amazon?
I test items on Amazon, and scale sales on other platforms such as eBay and other local sources.
What plug-ins and programs do you use besides Helium 10?
I use BuyBotPro.
How much do you need to enter Amazon FBA?
Trick question: you can start with $1000, but the problem is that Amazon's payouts are not that frequent. So it's better to have a bigger budget so you can keep trading.
What affects the position of a product in a search?
Absolutely everything: description, keywords, images, user reactions and reviews. But you have to understand that I prefer to work with WOW-products that are already selling well on Amazon.
Where do you put all the unsold junk?
If the costs are too high, I ask Amazon to destroy the goods and fix the loss. Sometimes I take the goods back and sell them on eBay to at least make a profit or break even.
We wish you a high conversion rate on Amazon! Questions in the comments are welcome.
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