https:\/\/www.uspto.gov\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAlright, so moving on. Now, if you don\u2019t get anything else out of this video, make sure you\u2019re paying attention to this tip and that\u2019s profit margin. I can\u2019t count how many times I\u2019ve spoken to new sellers that were in such a hurry to just find something to sell on Amazon that they didn\u2019t bother to make absolutely sure that the product they\u2019re selling actually makes them money. Remember, the whole point of starting your Amazon journey or any business is to make money [shark tank]. So, simply moving product that\u2019s making zero profit is huge waste of your time. You need to 100% know your numbers. You need to know exactly what your costs and expenses are and make sure the product you\u2019re selling has enough value that you can charge a high enough price to turn a respectable profit margin. Numbers like the manufacturing costs, shipping, duty, storage fees, packaging, labeling, advertising, Amazon FBA fees, and the estimated projected sales volume just to name a few. Now, if you don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about or what these numbers are before you go ahead and invest into a product, then you\u2019re just gambling your money away. So how can you make sure you\u2019re selling a product that has a high profit margin? Well, you need to differentiate and have a competitive advantage. You can\u2019t just sell the exact same thing as everyone else. I\u2019ll go over this in more detail in the next part of this video. But beyond that, in the current economy, I suggest selling high ticket products, especially products that are giftable and evergreen. Evergreen means it\u2019s not a seasonal product or a fad. High ticket means, more expensive high end products. Products that typically cost $50 and higher. High ticket products inherently have higher profit margins and less competition due to the barrier to entry. Now, to help you with knowing the numbers, there are tools that you can use such as the Amazon FBA calculator and product research tools like Jungle Scout or Helium10. If you want to learn more about this, I have videos that go into detail on this and I\u2019ll leave links in the video description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, so I already touched on this next tip earlier and that\u2019s differentiation. With how competitive ecommerce is nowadays and how easy it is for buyers to shop and compare products right at their fingertips, it\u2019s massively important that whatever you sell has some sort of competitive advantage. Gone are the days where you can simply sell the same widget as someone else and capture a piece of the pie. Buyers nowadays are looking to get the best value for their money so what that means for you is you need to offer a product that has better value than your competitors, and there are two ways you can do that. You can either offer a similar product at a lower price or you can offer a better product at a higher price. Which one would you choose? That\u2019s actually a trick question. Never sell a product where you\u2019re competing based solely on the price. If you have no other competitive advantage other than price, then all of your direct competitors will just end up in a price war, lowering their prices and driving the price lower and lower until no one ends up making any money. Don\u2019t be lazy and fall into this trap. Always sell a product that has tangible value, that way you can charge more and increase your profit margin. Sell premium products of high quality. Fix a problem or add a feature, or my favorite way to differentiate, bundle the product with a bonus item. So, how can you find problems or features tha tyou can fix or bonus items that you can bundle? Great question! The best way is to just jump into the reviews of similar products and read what the buyers are saying. Look at the 3 or 4 star reviews and see if there are problems or suggestions there that you can act on to improve the product. You can also take a look at the frequently bought together section on the product listing for bundling ideas. Again, I have a video that goes into detail on how to differentiate and bundle and I\u2019ll leave a link to it in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, now speaking of traps, the next tip is avoiding bad product research data. Now, what do I mean by bad data? Well, when you\u2019re doing product research, you\u2019re looking for products that meet specific criteria such as high demand, low competition, minimum sales price, sufficient sales revenue, and a few other metrics. Now, the biggest trap I see so many beginners make is being lazy by just looking at the summary at the top of their product research tool like you can see here. If you didn\u2019t know, these numbers up here are averages and can be very misleading. Basically, if you don\u2019t know how averages are calculated, here\u2019s a quick math lesson. Averages are calculated by adding up all the values that you have and then dividing the sum by the total number of values you added together. So for example, if we\u2019re looking at the monthly sales figure, if there are 10 listings, then to get the average, you\u2019d add up the monthly sales of all 10 listings and then divide by 10. And here\u2019s where the average can be very misleading. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re aiming for a monthly sales figure of 500 sales per month. Well, if you\u2019re looking at the top 10 listings, and each of the 10 listings is selling 500 units per month, then 500 x 10 = 5000. There are 10 listings, so you divide 5000 by 10 and you get an average of 500 units per month. Simple enough right? However, let\u2019s say out of the top 10 listings, one listing sells 4100 units per month and the rest only sell 100. Well, 100 x 9 is 900. Add that to 4100 and you get 5000. Divide 5000 by 10 and you also get an average of 500 units sold per month. Can you see the problem here? Only one listing is getting all the sales. All the other sellers by comparison are getting no sales which is a huge red flag. You want to see that the sales are pretty evenly distributed amongst all the sellers so that you can have some confidence that you\u2019ll be able to get a small piece of the pie as well. And this holds true when analyzing the other metrics, too. Never base any of your decisions on the summary here, always analyze the actual data. If you\u2019re wondering what tool this is that I\u2019m using here, this is Helium10, a powerful product research tool that you can actually try for yourself for free. I also have a coupon for my followers that will save you a ton of money that you can use. So, if you\u2019re confused or you want to learn more about this, you can find the coupon and a link to a detailed product research video in the video description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, a pro-tip on avoiding bad data is identifying new listings and disregarding them from your analysis for sales and revenue. Why? Well, you need to remember that when a new product launches, the seller is typically selling the product at a lower price and aggressively bidding on PPC as well as other advertising and marketing strategies in order to boost their sales velocity. Therefore, those sales metrics are not organic and are most likely unprofitable, so the monthly sales and revenue figures you\u2019re seeing are not realistic and in many cases give you the false impression that the niche has high demand and great sales. You need to be extremely careful and only consider listings that are at least 4-5 months old where their sales are most likely organic sales and represent what the true sales figures are for that niche. And a huge red flag is if you discover that there are a lot or the majority of the listings in a niche are new. This is a sign that the niche is saturated and that you should avoid it. Again, you can find a link to a product research video that goes into detail on all of this in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, and the final tip I have for you to selling your first product on Amazon and that\u2019s protecting yourself. In business, no one is looking out for your best interest so it\u2019s up to you to always cover your own back. And the best way you can protect yourself is with knowledge. Just by being here and watching this video shows me that you\u2019re proactive about learning about potential issues so that you can avoid them. And while you\u2019re here, it would mean the world to me if you smashed the like button for the YouTube algorithm! And while I take a moment for you to do that, let\u2019s continue. The real problem with learning is that you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know. There\u2019s a popular saying, \u201cYou can learn from your own mistakes, but smart people learn from other people’s mistakes.\u201d So, how can you learn from other people’s mistakes or experiences? Jump onto online communities like Facebook groups or Reddit forums and read. See what questions and problems other people are having and what the solutions are. Find a mentor that you resonate with and join their community or take their course. They\u2019ve already been through it all and you can avoid making a ton of easily avoidable mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second way to protect yourself is by protecting your money and there are several easy ways you can do that. First, although it\u2019s not required to have a registered business to sell on Amazon, by setting up a business entity, it limits your liability in the case that your business goes under or if you happen to get sued. You don\u2019t want to be personally liable or have your personal assets at risk like losing your house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Always have detailed contracts in place that describe in detail the responsibilities of all of the parties involved so that there is no ambiguity about who needs to do what and by when. And when it comes down to paying for products or services, always pay using a method that offers you protection such as using Alibaba\u2019s Trade Assurance, or using a credit card or Paypal. Never pay by bank wire transfer unless you\u2019ve already established a long term working relationship with the other party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And always manage your risk. If you\u2019re spending several thousand dollars to have a product manufactured, it would be wise to spend a couple hundred dollars to have a product inspection done to make sure you\u2019re getting what you paid for. This isn\u2019t the time to try to save a few bucks. What if there was some miscommunication and the product color is off or if there is a misspelling on the packaging or worse? You want identify these problems right away and have your supplier handle this immediately before the product leaves their warehouse. Never try to do the inspection yourself. By the time the product gets to you, it will be virtually impossible for your supplier to take responsibility for anything you find wrong. And shipping the product back to your supplier overseas will end up being prohibitively expensive. The same holds true for shipping insurance. Products get damaged or lost all the time. Airplanes crash and ships sink. And you\u2019d be surprised, insurance is extremely affordable. Typically, insurance to cover several thousand dollars worth of product costs less than $100. Remember, there are times to save money and there are other times when you should wisely spend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, as a bonus for sticking around all the way to the end of the video, I have a bonus tip for all of you and its something that most people don\u2019t know about and that\u2019s how you can save money with your Amazon business. Now, as with most of us, we\u2019re dealing with suppliers from overseas such as from China. Well, if you\u2019re having to convert your local currency into a foreign one or vice versa in order to pay or receive payments, you can be inadvertently losing a ton of money just on the conversion and exchange fees. So, instead of just going with your bank, credit card or other service like Paypal, Wise offers extremely competitive exchange rates and the lowest fees. You can also keep money in different currencies in your Wise account to avoid having to do any conversions altogether. This can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars in savings. I\u2019ll leave a link to a video that shows you exactly how you can save a ton of money this way down in the video description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wise Homepage: https:\/\/wi.se\/crescentkao<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nYou can also save a ton of money by combining your shipment of samples when your vetting suppliers. Instead of having each separate supplier send you a sample product, which can cost you around $75-100 each, have them all send the sample to a freight forwarder that has a local office in the country where all the suppliers are, like in China, and have the FF consolidate all of the samples into one package and ship all the samples together into a single shipment. This little tip alone will save you a ton of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And finally, this last tip is how I save a ton of money and take free trips around the world every year and that\u2019s paying for all of my business expenses using a rewards credit card. This is the easiest way you can get a discount or rewards on the purchases you\u2019re already going to make for your business. Typical rewards range from 1-5% off your purchases to points you can redeem for travel like hotel and airline tickets. Use the credit card for your business expenses. Link it to your Paypal account and use it to pay your supplier and for other services. And one of the best ways for Amazon is to pay for your PPC expenses with a rewards credit card rather than have Amazon deduct it from your revenue. You can change this in your settings in Seller Central by going to Settings > Charge Methods for Advertising > Change Payment Method > And select Credit or Debit Card. I\u2019ll leave links in the video description below to a couple of the best credits cards that I use and recommend that have the best rewards and sign up bonuses like the American Express Gold card and Chase Saphire Preferred. Both of which have a sign up bonus right now of 60,000 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/go.crescentkao.com\/amexgold\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\nhttps:\/\/go.crescentkao.com\/chase\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Alright, so if you want to get in touch with me, you can find all of my contact details in the video description below. I\u2019d love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment or question in the comment section below, I answer every single one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as always, if you found value in this video, consider subscribing. And do me a favor smash that like button for the youtube algorithm it really does help me out and I\u2019d appreciate it, and ring the bell so you never miss a future video! Alright, thanks for watching!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watch the Video<\/h2>\n\n\n\n