If you’re looking to create a new income stream that creates more freedom in your life and more security for your future, then learning how to sell on Amazon and building an online business may be the perfect fit for you.
And where better to start on your business building journey than the world’s leading eCommerce website, Amazon.
What a shocking amount of people still don’t know is that over half the products sold on Amazon are sold by “third-party sellers” – normal, everyday people and businesses that partner with Amazon to sell billions of dollars worth of products every year.
In fact, in 2021 third-party sellers accounted for $390bn in Amazon’s revenue – up from $300bn in 2020. That’s nearly $100bn in new sales that new sellers are coming in and taking advantage of.
In this article, we’ll break down the step-by-step process of how you can flip the script and instead of spending all your money on Amazon, carve your very own slice of this gigantic pie by learning how to sell on Amazon.
We’ll be following the chronological 8-week structure we call the Brand Builder Blueprint. It’s a process we’ve taught to over 500 students and continues to generate consistently good results within the Brand Builder University community.
Here’s an outline of the 8 stages:
- START: What You Should Know Before Selling On Amazon
- SELECT: How To Find Winning Products To Sell On Amazon
- SOURCE: How To Work With Trustworthy Manufacturers & Make Your Ideas A Reality
- SETUP: Creating The Structure For A Fast-Growing Brand
- SHIP: How To Ship Your Products The Stress-Free Way
- SHAPE: How To Create A High-Converting Amazon Listing
- SELL: How To Launch Your Product For Immediate Sales
- SCALE: Your Roadmap To A 7-Figure Amazon Business
You can download our free Amazon startup bundle which includes a step-by-step checklist we prepared for you that follows this same structure and allows you to quite literally tick each micro-step off in order to ensure never miss a beat when starting to sell on Amazon.
Note: We use the “week” terminology to help give some frame of reference for how quickly you might progress through the process, but this is very much a guide. Depending on the time you have available to you to complete the action steps you could get up and running faster, or it may take a little longer. The key is really to see these as 8 distinct stages or steps.
Alright, let’s get this show on the road.
Master eCommerce with the 99-point Brand Growth Checklist
What You Should Know Before Selling On Amazon
The first stage of selling on Amazon is laying the foundations. Just like building a skyscraper – the bigger you want to go, the deeper you first have to dig. Let’s take a look at some of the key aspects you should know before you get started.
What is Amazon FBA?
FBA stands for Fulfilled By Amazon. The FBA program was introduced as a way to ensure Amazon’s incredibly high standards of shipping times and customer service were maintained.
As an Amazon seller, you can enrol in the FBA program for free and send your stock to an Amazon warehouse (or Fulfilment Centre as they are officially called). Then, each time you make a sale Amazon will pick, pack, and ship your product to the customer without you having to lift a finger.
Each sale will incur a fulfilment fee (more on that in a minute), but due to the economies of scale often this entire fee can be less than you might pay if shipping directly to a customer following a sale on your website.
Amazon will also handle customer service for you meaning that from start to finish Amazon is handling a large share of the most time-hungry tasks. This allows you the flexibility of working from wherever you want and at times that are convenient to you. Then, when you do work – you can work on high leverage activities to grow your business fast.
How do you make money as an Amazon Seller?
There are a number of ways to make money with an Amazon seller account, and these generally fall into 4 main types of Amazon business:
- Retail Arbitrage (RA): Buying discounted products in retail outlets then selling them for more on Amazon.
- Online Arbitrage (OA): Like RA, but instead of visiting stores, buying under-priced stock online and reselling on Amazon.
- Wholesale: Buying branded goods in bulk from existing manufacturers to sell on Amazon.
- Private Label: Creating your own unique brand and product portfolio to sell on Amazon (not as complex as it may sound!)
The first 3 models can certainly help you learn the ropes, get you used to the Amazon Seller Central dashboard, and build up your confidence. But building a private label brand is by far and away the approach with the biggest potential as it tends to be more profitable, easier to scale, and creates an asset you can one day sell.
How much does it cost to sell on Amazon?
In terms of start-up costs, the key costs to consider are:
- Product Research Software: $48 with 50% off here. Essential to filter through millions of product opportunities.
- Amazon Seller Account. $39.99.
- Product Samples: $50-$100. Essential to ensure product quality before placing bulk order.
- Barcodes: $30. Use GS1, Amazon is beginning to enforce official barcodes and it’s not worth trying to save a few dollars buying unofficial barcodes.
- Domain Name: $20. An official domain name for your brand is a must, we recommend Go Daddy.
- Logo: Free! A brand logo to go on your packaging. Easily create this with a Canva template. Remember, the best logos are simple!
- Company Registration: $50-$100. Location dependant, but there are many services that can handle this for you very cheaply.
- Product Photos: $100-$200. Don’t skimp on this. Get some professional photos to really help your product stand out.
- Inventory: $1500-$2000. Even if you have a bigger budget, it’s usually best to start with 3-500 units of a product to learn the process.
- Shipping: $200-$300. Mode of transport and size of shipment dependent. Sea shipping usually recommended to keep costs low.
Ideal minimum startup budget: $2000-$3000.
For a comprehensive breakdown of each expense category – and how you can save costs with each if need be – check out our exhaustive guide to Amazon FBA startup costs.
Other expenses will come in time as a result of a growing business but thanks to the streamlined nature of an Amazon FBA business you can keep expenses very lean.
Whereas a traditional start-up can cost five or six figures just to get started, an eCommerce business selling on Amazon provides an incredible opportunity to launch and start making sales for a fraction of this budget.
Finally, when it comes to ongoing Amazon selling fees, you generally only pay these once you are selling products, so we’ll cover these more in the next section when we look at profitability.
How much money do Amazon sellers make?
Your earning potential on Amazon really has no limits. Unlike a traditional job that may cap your salary and offer only marginal pay increases in line with inflation, when you sell on Amazon you are building your own business and an income stream you control.
In a 2021 report, Jungle Scout found that more than half (51%) of Amazon sellers make over $5,000 per month in revenue, and 1 in 10 are making over $100,000 per month.
Assuming an average profit margin of around 30%, you can see how these numbers can quickly begin to stack up into an attractive proposition. However, focusing on the opportunity to create a short-term income by selling on Amazon is a very limited mindset, and at Brand Builder University we firmly believe the biggest opportunity is not what you can get in 3 months, but what you can build in 3 years.
The Brand Builder Blueprint: 3 years vs 3 months
Without doubt, the biggest earning potential for Amazon Sellers in the current market is the opportunity to build a brand that is an asset.
Above: A recent article by BBC News detailing 2 Amazon sellers who sold for millions.
Whereas other Amazon business models may focus on cash flow, building a private label brand allows you to generate both cash flow in the present, and a cash-out in the future.
In 2021, over $12bn of capital was raised by so-called ‘aggregators’ – firms birthed with the explicit purpose of buying up Amazon FBA businesses built by normal everyday sellers like you for 3-6x their annual profits.
In the final section of this guide, we’ll walk you through the numbers behind a million-dollar exit within 3 years. But before we run, we need to learn how to walk. Before you can make $1,000,000 you need to make $1.
And that all starts with selecting your very first product to sell on Amazon.
Note: We haven’t covered Amazon seller account creation, company setup up etc yet as we cover this in Stage 4: Setup. It’s easy to get bogged down in these details and tasks and never take action on the important first step – product research. Once your first product is being manufactured you will have plenty of time to carry out much of this needed admin.
How To Find Products To Sell On Amazon
It’s the question every new Amazon seller is asking: what product should I sell on Amazon? The reality is there are quite literally millions of potential products you could sell. But which ones should you sell? Get it wrong and it can be a frustrating experience. But get it right and it can be the most exciting of new businesses to launch.
So how do you get it right? The key is to take a data-driven approach to your product research. Pretty much every soon-to-be Amazon seller I speak to has a “great idea” of a product they’d “love” to sell. The problem is, the market doesn’t care what you love. And if you’re going to be successful in this business you must learn how to interpret data about market demand and make good product selection decisions.
The good news is there has never been a better time to sell on Amazon, and one of the key factors behind that is the amount of accurate data now available to us. Instead of launching a new business blind and throwing money at a project in sheer hope, you can learn how to interpret data and make informed decisions to vastly increase your chances of success.
In order to help our community do just that, we created something called the Product Potency Formula. It’s built from our experience of selling millions of dollars worth of product on Amazon and is the same process we’ve taught to many other 6 and 7-figure sellers. Let’s take a look.
Introducing The Product Potency Formula
In order for us to launch products that hit the green sweet spot of potency (ie. they stand out on Amazon and make sales from day one), we are looking to find products that solve problems for a specific group of people.
Let’s break down each of those 3 goals, along with the metrics that guide us towards them.
Goal 1: Identifying Products
There are two key metrics when it comes to identifying products: demand and competition.
Firstly, we want to ensure there is proven demand for any product we look to sell. Again, just because you are interested in a product, doesn’t mean there is enough demand to make it a successful business.
We’re also not looking to invent anything here. If “no one else is doing” it, there’s usually a reason why. Yes, you may have an innovative product idea that could be the next viral sensation. But you don’t want to take big risks with your first product launch. Instead, identify products with proven demand that you know will sell well, then as your revenue and experience build-up you can take on more high risk/high reward products.
The fastest and easiest way to locate products with proven demand is by using a product research tool. I recommend Helium 10, and will show you here how you can find a large list of potential opportunities in a short amount of time.
Inside Helium 10’s Black Box Tool, navigate to the Keywords tab. Rather than giving you isolated results in the products tab that could be outliers, the keywords tab will assess a range of products appearing on the results page for a particular keyword – the term used by the customer in the Amazon search bar.
Next, you want to set filters to refine the search results based on your circumstances. Here’s where our second demand filter comes into play: manageable demand.
There’s no use in trying to launch a product generating $100k/month if we have a startup budget of $3,000. You’ll get swallowed up by the demand and never be able to stay in stock.
I recommend setting the demand filter for a few thousand dollars either side of your startup capital amount. For instance, if you have $5,000 to put towards inventory, set the revenue filters to $3,000 – $7,000 per month. Given you will be sourcing for 1/4 – 1/3 of your sales price (more on that shortly), this will mean you can order approximately 3 months worth of inventory and ensure you don’t stock out before being able to reorder. It’s a good threshold for manageable demand.
The crazy reality of selling on Amazon done right is that your biggest challenge can be inventory management – staying in stock! Gone are the days of having to launch your product to crickets, then spend every waking hour trying to advertise. Get product selection right and you will have customers banging down the door to buy from you – that’s why a manageable demand level is so key.
Finally, you want to make sure there is consistent demand. Seasonal products that peak at various times of the year can be lucrative, but when starting out it’s much better to go after a product that sells consistently throughout the year.
You can easily check this by installing the Helium 10 chrome extension, running the X-Ray tool and clicking the sales graph next to a few products. Filter by all time and make sure there aren’t too many peaks and troughs in sales volume throughout the year.
You can also use the X-Ray tool while browsing Amazon in case you come across anything you think could make a good private label product.
Finally you want to filter to ensure manageable competition levels. Whilst reviews are definitely a key factor – a UK government study showed £23bn of consumer spending per year is influenced by online reviews – they are not the mountain many consider them to be.
Start by entering a max of 100 reviews into the Black Box filters and see how many results come up. You can always increase this to 200, 300 and beyond if needed. If you differentiate well (we’ll cover that next) then you can launch into competitive markets and pick up sales – but if you can find lower review levels to begin with it will certainly help with your first product.
Finally, ensure no single product or brand is dominating the market – a good even spread of revenue between products and brands on page one is perfect.
Goal 2: Identifying Problems
So you’ve found a product with good demand and manageable competition? Great, now you must make sure you can solve a clear problem with this product or you’ll just drown in a sea of copycat listings on Amazon.
Of course, your product itself should solve a specific problem, but what’s equally as important is you solve a problem within the existing listings on Amazon. In other words, you need to be able to highlight opportunities to differentiate.
Read that again.
You absolutely HAVE to be able to find opportunities to differentiate. This is one of the biggest keys we see all of our most successful sellers work hard at. Think: how will my product stand out vs the competition?
The best way to find these opportunities is to include a filter for Review Rating inside Helium 10’s Black Box. Set the max rating to 4.5 to ensure there is room for improvement in existing product listings.
To get ideas on how you could differentiate, load up the review insights tool from within the Helium 10 chrome extension on any given product page and analyze the negative reviews.
Identifying opportunities to differentiate is what will help with our next criteria: profitability.
You’ll want to aim for a target selling price of around $20-$60. This keeps the price point in that impulse purchase range which will help keep your sales volume up, but also won’t break the bank when sourcing.
To make things easy when starting out, look at the product price in 1/3s.
1/3 should be allocated to each landed costs, Amazon selling fees and take-home profit.
For example, if you are selling a product for $30, brand owners should be aiming to spend no more than $10 on landed costs (inventory, shipping, and import taxes), $10 on Amazon fees, leaving $10 in gross profit – before other business expenses like insurance, software and so on.
This should give you the margins to have a take-home profit in the region of 20%.
To calculate the potential Amazon fees incurred for each product you’re researching, fire up the trusty Helium 10 chrome extension once again and use the Profitability Calculator. You should drill down on these numbers in more detail before committing finance to a bulk order of a product, but this is a good way to get a quick idea of whether a product is viable.
Bonus metric: ROI. Or Return On Investment. Aim for 100% as an absolute minimum. This means for every $1 you’re investing into a product, you’ll get $1 profit back. It means you can order twice the amount of inventory in your 2nd order as your first. The higher the ROI of a product, the faster you can scale your business.
Goal 3: Identifying People
Solving problems with products is a good business, but when you clearly understand the customer you’re serving and can follow that up with more similar products that solve more of their problems? Now that’s a great business because it has scalability.
If every time you launch a new product you’re targeting a different type of customer your launches will be far less efficient than they could be, and you won’t be building a brand asset to its true potential.
Instead, identify the customer persona that would buy this potential product and ask yourself what other products they may naturally look to buy next and ensure there are further possibilities to expand your brand.
For example; you’re looking to launch a new yoga mat. Make sure there are viable follow on products (yoga block, gym bag, other yoga accessories) that give you the opportunity to build a targeted list of customers that you can continue launching products to.
Finally, ensure possibility. By this we mean to make sure the product you’re looking to sell is not protected by:
- Trademarks. A trademark is a symbol, word, or group of words that a company has legally protected. You can’t use someone else’s trademark to sell your product. Check the USPTO site for US trademarks, and the IPO for UK trademarks.
- Patents. A patent is a protection given to a particular design of a product, and you can check for existing patents by googling “patent” + “product idea”, or searching the Google Patents database.
- Other restrictions. There may be category-specific restrictions you need to research too, for instance, if you are looking to sell children’s products in the US you would need to produce a Children’s Product Certificate.
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers, so be sure to seek legal counsel for any specific questions or concerns you may have.
Remember, if this all sounds like a lot to check through – it’s all covered with step-by-step checklists inside your free Amazon Startup Bundle.
So… you’ve got some product ideas? Now it’s time to turn them into reality.
How To Find Trustworthy Private Label Manufacturers
If you’re looking to sell anything that goes on your body or in your mouth (pets included!) then the best place to start is Google. Simply search “product idea” + “private label” and you will see a range of local manufacturing options you can begin to reach out to.
For everything else, I recommend Alibaba.
Alibaba is one of the most trusted companies in the world and trades on the New York Stock Exchange. When you understand how to use Alibaba in the right way it opens the door to a vast amount of the best manufacturers in the world and provides you with much-needed reassurance for your first order.
Finding Suppliers On Alibaba
To filter for the best quality suppliers on Alibaba.com, enter your product name then select the drop-down next to the search bar and choose suppliers instead of products – this will eliminate any double up listings from the same suppliers. Finally tick both the Verified Supplier and Trade Assurance boxes.
Verified Suppliers have had the information they present on their Alibaba listing verified so you can be sure of working conditions and size of operation.
Trade Assurance is a security feature of Alibaba that protects your order. If you set your order up via Alibaba and pay through Trade Assurance, should there be any issues with your order once you receive your products you will be able to open up a claim and seek a refund.
Contact Alibaba Suppliers For A Quote
Look through your list of filtered suppliers and pick 5-10 to contact (the more, the better). If you have hundreds of options, you can filter further by some of the testing certifications they have, or length of time in business. A minimum of 3 years in business is always a good sign.
Inside your free Amazon Startup Bundle you can access a complete supplier script that will help you get the very best quotes and form a solid working relationship for many years to come.
Once you have received quotes from a range of suppliers it’s time to narrow things down. Choose the best 2 or 3 based on quality of communication and pricing, then ask for them to send you a sample.
Assessing Sample Quality
Testing a sample of your potential product is an essential part of the process. We’re not in the business of peddling cheap rubbish for a quick buck. We want to build a brand on the back of high-quality products we’re proud of. Just because you’re only paying $2 or $3 per unit doesn’t mean you should settle for poor quality.
Test the sample thoroughly and when you’re happy to move forward, inform your new supplier that you’d like a contract to be drawn up so you can place a 30% deposit via Trade Assurance.
The contract should include the price you’ve agreed to, the payment terms, and the exact specifications of the product they are manufacturing for you – including any customizations.
The balance of 70% should only be paid once you have carried out a third-party inspection to ensure the quality of the goods.
Manufacturing of your product will generally take anywhere from 2-6 weeks, and shipping a further 2-4 weeks. This gives you time to take care of some admin and also to prepare your Amazon product detail page ready for your product launch.
How To Create The Foundations of A Fast-Growing Brand
Now your first product has been chosen and manufacturing is underway, it’s the perfect time to get through some of the less glamorous but much-needed aspects of setting up your own Amazon business. You can absolutely carry some of these tasks out before finding a product – but I always advise diving into some product research first.
Selling on Amazon is not some super-easy get-rich-quick opportunity. It has the potential to provide you with a healthy income that isn’t tied to the number of hours you work… but it takes hard work and dedication to get it launched.
Carrying out product research before you dive into the ‘Setup’ stage ensures you don’t waste money on administrative costs if you decide the business model isn’t for you. It also helps to have an idea of the niche you’re entering when setting up the brand aspects that we’ll cover shortly.
Firstly though, let’s talk business setup.
Setting Up Your Legal Entity
For most people, a formal company structure will be the most beneficial long term. Many of our members have used an LLC structure in the US, or a Limited Company in the UK. These are cheap and easy to set up either directly or via a company formations service. Generally speaking, you should look to set up your legal entity in the country you reside. You can sell in any of the Amazon marketplaces regardless of where your business is based.
However this is certainly not legal advice and you should definitely consider your own circumstances and seek to clarify any aspects you’re unsure of with relevant advisors.
Setting Up Your Brand
Next up – the exciting stuff! Firstly you’ll need to choose a unique brand name. This isn’t always as easy as it may seem given the maturity of the internet and the growth of eCommerce. It’s important to try and keep your brand name short as Amazon may insist it appears in your product listing title.
So you may need to get a little creative – for example, looking beyond the common English language… “Nike” wasn’t a word commonly used prior to the sneaker brand going global. It was a name taken from a Greek goddess. Other options include adjusted spellings (Kool-Aid) or “random” words combined (Fortnum & Mason).
Ensure your brand name is unique with a trademark check at USPTO, and ticks all other boxes in our checklist, then submit a trademark application. You’ll need a registered trademark to be fully protected and have access to all Amazon Brand Registry features.
Once your brand name is confirmed you should also consider setting up your brand’s website address (domain name) and social media handles. You may or may not want to include posting to social media and having a brand website in your pre-launch strategy, but getting these registered right away is a good idea.
Setting Up Your Amazon Seller Account
To list products on Amazon you will need to create an Amazon Seller Central Account. When doing so, you should set it up in the details of the legal entity you will be running the business through (sole trader or company).
You choose between an individual seller account or a professional seller account. The terminology here is a little confusing. Individuals can choose either account, and companies can choose either account. The main point of difference is pricing. The individual account will charge a small per-unit fee on each transaction but not incur a monthly subscription. However, the features are somewhat limited.
A professional selling plan incurs a monthly subscription ($39.99 in the US) but removes the per-unit fee. A professional seller plan is highly advised once you launch your first product, but you can start with an individual Amazon account then upgrade when your stock arrives.
Setting Up Finance & Legal
We don’t want to get too deep in the weeds here, but now would also be a good time to set up a dedicated bank account for your new business and create a spreadsheet to track your initial expenses. Once you start generating revenue you can employ the services of an accountant, but for now, simply tracking expenses is fine.
You should also consider getting quotes for product liability insurance as Amazon will require this once you hit a low threshold of sales (and it will help you sleep better at night!)
How To Ship Your Products The Stress-Free Way
Once your goods have finished being manufactured, you’ve had carried out a third-party inspection, and are happy with the final product… it’s time to get this precious cargo shipped safely to its target destination. By now you would have agreed on Incoterms with your supplier. Incoterms are standardized transport terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce.
For most sellers, you will either have an EXW (Ex-Works) or FOB (Free On Board) price. FOB will almost always work out cheaper for you, even though the initial unit cost will be slightly higher. Some sellers will pay a DDP (Delivered Duties Paid) price to their supplier, but this does come with some risks.
Depending on the terms you’ve agreed to, you will need a freight forwarder to handle the shipping process for you. By using the services of a trusted freight forwarder you can lean on their expertise in bringing your goods overseas without a hitch. In order to get a quote for air and sea shipping you will need to provide a freight forwarder with the following information:
- Port of departure (FOB) / Suppliers Address (EXW)
- Type of goods
- Total volume of goods
- Total weight of goods
- Destination address
You may be able to ship directly from your supplier to an Amazon FBA warehouse, but that will depend on the quantity of units ordered, plus your storage limits and account health. You may need stock sent to a 3PL – a 3rd Party Logistics company – that will store your goods and drip feed them into Amazon.
You can check your limits inside Amazon Seller Central, then create a shipping plan from there and have your goods on the way to Amazon ready to start selling!
How To Create A High-Converting Amazon Listing
Once your Amazon inventory is on the way to its destination it’s the perfect time to shape your product detail page.
The importance of a good Amazon product listing can’t be understated. It’s the only place on Amazon shoppers can add your product to cart and checkout so it’s essential your product pages are set up to both appear in search results, then convert browsers into buyers once they land on your page.
This is a vast topic that could fill a library of books, but in this section, I’ll try to briefly cover the most important aspects so you’ve got the structure for a high converting product listing nailed.
There are three key metrics you need to optimize your product detail page: impressions, clicks, and conversions. Let’s take a look at each of them in turn.
Impressions: Getting Your Product Listing Seen
As you probably know by now, Amazon is a search-oriented platform. Shoppers rarely browse by category, and instead, head straight for the search bar with specific search terms. That makes gaining “impressions” (having your own products appear in search results) of utmost importance. Here’s a heatmap of Amazon search results that show where the majority of clicks go, and proves this point.
There are many factors involved in deciding which products appear where in search results, but the first key is ensuring as many relevant keywords appear in your product listing.
To find the very best keywords to use in your product detail page simply search the main keyword for your product on Amazon, then load up the X-Ray tool in the Helium 10 chrome extension and select the 10 highest selling and most relevant products. Click the ‘Run keyword search’ and this will open up the Cerebro tool – otherwise known as a Reverse ASIN Lookup.
Sort by search volume, and set the ‘ranking competitors’ max field to 8 or 9 and voila – you have a list of the highest traffic, most relevant keywords for your product. Put as many of these into your title, description, and bullet points as possible (without it sounding ‘spammy’) to give your product detail page the best chance of gaining lots of impressions in search results.
Clicks: Attracting Buyers To Your Product Listing
Once you’ve appeared in search results, the next battle to win is the win for the click. Here’s where you need to think smart and stand out. Ensure your title has the most relevant keywords towards the front (Anything after 80 characters may get cut off on mobile), your pricing is attractive and you’re utilising any promotional features like coupons.
Without a doubt though, one of the biggest factors impacting your Click Through Rate is your main image. Work hard to ensure it stands out against your competition by using contrasting colors to other sellers and including aspects like packaging and bundled items.
Don’t forget though – you’ll need your main image to comply with Amazon’s guidelines: an image consisting of only your product on a white background. Pro tip: check the search results for your product when deciding on colors of packaging – you can include this in your image as it is part of your product.
Finally, reviews will play a big role in your click-through rate. Of course, you won’t have any reviews before you make any sales, but if you’ve followed the process of product selection and differentiated well it shouldn’t stop you from making sales early on. Over time you can use the request a review button inside seller central to start picking up reviews and improving your click-through rate further.
Conversions: Turning Browsers Into Buyers
Finally, once a shopper lands on your product listing you want to convert them into a customer. MarketPlace Pulse quote the average conversion rate across Amazon as a very healthy 12.5%. When launching, aiming for 10% is a good starting point – meaning for every 10 visits to your product listing, you’re getting one sale.
The key factors that will help improve your conversion rate are images, copy, and enhanced brand content.
Firstly, have some engaging images created that clearly show the key features of your product, and what benefit that is to the customer – or what problem it is solving. Use real images of real people using your product wherever possible.
Next, include persuasive language in your bullet points and description. Don’t just write for a search engine, write to communicate with your target customer and explain succinctly how your product solves their problem.
Finally, tell your brand story and expand on the benefits of your product inside the A+ Content area. You will need Brand Registry to use this feature.
By now your product listing should be ready, your products arriving and it’s time to launch your very own brand!
How To Launch Your Product On Amazon For Immediate Sales
By following the guidance of step 6, you’re honestly already way ahead of most sellers. A high-quality listing will help you rank for important keywords, but a good product launch (and ongoing marketing) will help you supercharge the process and quickly turn this from a side-hustle into a substantial business.
The key to a successful product launch on Amazon is sales velocity, and particularly within the first 2-4 weeks of your listing being live. The more sales you can make, the more Amazon’s algorithm will reward you with keyword ranking. But how do you make sales without that initial visibility?
Introducing: Amazon PPC.
Launching Amazon Products With PPC
PPC means pay-per-click. A form of advertising on Amazon whereby you provide Amazon with the parameters of when to show your product listing, and they begin to promote it. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad meaning this can be a very efficient method of selling products. The beauty of launching with Amazon’s advertising solutions is you can appear on page one and sell products from day one.
The easiest way to get started is by navigating to the Advertising section of Seller Central then Campaign Manager. Create an automatic campaign and choose your budget and bid level. To begin with, you can simply accept Amazon’s suggestions and get underway.
In time you’ll want to optimize these campaigns, launch manual targeting campaigns, and explore advanced selling tools like sponsored brands and running ads to your Amazon store.
As you grow, you can also explore Amazon PPC software tools that will help save time and increase revenue.
In truth, there are a vast amount of further marketing tactics you can learn to grow your sales on Amazon which is why we’d highly recommend committing yourself to continual development in your eCommerce skillsets.
The final step in our epic journey is upon us… it’s time to scale this Amazon business up!
Your Roadmap To A 7-Figure Amazon Business
You may be at the very beginning of your journey learning how to sell on Amazon, so we won’t break down an exhaustive route to scaling your business just yet. But it is helpful to understand what the next year or two may look like, and how you can make decisions today that will build towards your very own 7-figure brand.
The Maths Behind a 7-Figure Brand
Let’s say you want to sell your brand one day for $1,000,000. The money itself is going to be nice, sure – but that kind of payday invested well can ensure you never have to spend another minute of your life doing something because you simply need the money. That’s real freedom.
Given investors are generally willing to pay anywhere from 3-6x of a brand’s annual profit, let’s use 5x for our calculations (after all, you’ve followed the BBU process and built a great brand!). That means you need a brand generating $200,000 in profit. Working on 20% net margins, that’s an annual revenue right back at our $1m mark. That may sound like a lot, but let’s break that down.
$1m per year is just over $80,000 per month – a figure that is very achievable within 3 years. In fact “all” you need to do is launch 4 products selling at $30 each to 25 units sold per day each and you’ll be generating $90,000 per month. It won’t happen overnight and you’ll certainly need to put in some hard work up front, but hopefully this breakdown shows you just how achievable it can be to build a life-changing business on Amazon when you take consistent steps in the right direction..
So… What Next?
It’s time to take action and become an Amazon Seller! Here are your next steps:
- Download your free Amazon Seller Startup Bundle and follow the checklist step by step
- Sign up for Helium 10 with a big discount
- Commit to further learning about being a successful Amazon seller
Any questions? Get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
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