What\u2019s up guys, my name is Crescent. If you\u2019re starting your Amazon journey and want follow the right strategy to building a successful Amazon business, you\u2019ve come to the right place. I\u2019m going to show you the exact step by step process of how you can start selling on Amazon that I personally use as well as hundreds of my students, from how to setup your Amazon seller account, finding the right products to sell, where to source them from, the best way to differentiate your product so that you have a competitive advantage, how to ship them to Amazon, to launching your very first product. The entire process in itself isn\u2019t hard at all, in fact pretty much anyone can sell on Amazon, however in order to be successful and have the least amount of hurdles, there\u2019s specific steps and strategies that you need to follow so that you can avoid some of the big mistakes and pitfalls beginners often make that can often be detrimental to your success. Remember, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know and that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to cover in this video. So, sit down, relax, grab something to drink\u2026 as this is going to be the most complete and comprehensive step by step guide to walk you through selling on Amazon from beginning to end. And don\u2019t feel overwhelmed if you get lost or if things are going a bit too fast, bookmark this video so you can review it anytime and to make things even easier, I\u2019ve included chapter markers and timestamps in the video description so at any time, you can jump to a specific chapter that you\u2019d like to review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alright, so the first thing to do to start your Amazon journey is smash the like button for the Youtube algorithm! Ok, so that might not directly help you with your journey but it does help out this channel tremendously by letting the youtube algorithm know that you enjoy this type of content and to show it to more people just like you and I would really appreciate, so thank you. Now with that said, let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, there\u2019s several different ways you can sell on Amazon such as wholesale, arbitrage and private label. I personally do private label and in my opinion private label gives you the most control over the product and maximize profitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what is Amazon FBA and private labeling? Well, Amazon FBA stands for Fulfillment By Amazon. This is a service where Amazon will do all of the order fulfillment, picking and packing, shipping and customer service for you. All you have to do as a seller is ship your products to the Amazon fulfillment centers and each time you sell a product, Amazon take care of everything for you. It really is that simple and truly makes this a hands off business model, which I love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike wholesale or arbitrage where you\u2019re reselling other companies branded products, with Private Label you\u2019re selling your own branded generic products. These are products that are sold under your own brand that are not patented or trademarked. Private label is the most hands off and scalable business model in my opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so now that you know how FBA and private label works, how much money do you need to get started? Well, to give you a rough estimate based on my experience, to properly start an Amazon private label business, you should expect somewhere in the neighborhood of $3-5000. Now, if you heard that you can start an Amazon business with as little as $500-$1000, just realize that although it can be done, it\u2019s unlikely. You need to have enough capital so taht you can order enough inventory, properly develop your marketing material and do a prodcut launch. Selling on Amazon isn\u2019t a get rich quick scheme. It will require a lot of your time and dedication and if you follow all of the proven steps and strategies I\u2019m going to lay out, you can expect to see profits within 3-6 months. So, if you were expecting to make 5 figures within the first couple of months, I suggest that you manage your expectations. Now, if you want to find a detailed breakdown of all the start up costs, I do have a video that goes over this and I\u2019ll leave a link it in the video description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so before you do anything, the first step you need to do is see if you\u2019re even allowed to sell on Amazon. There\u2019s no point to moving forward if you\u2019re not allowed to. For the most part, any one can sell in any Amazon marketplace from anywhere in the world. However, Amazon does have a few restrictions. Amazon has a list of countries that allowed to sell on Amazon. If you happen to live in one of the countries not on this list, then you\u2019re not allowed to sell on Amazon. However, there are work arounds such as setting up a business in one of the approved countries, however, doing that is beyond the scope of this video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approved Countries to Sell<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/gp\/help\/external\/200405020<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon also has a list of approved countries where they support payment disbursements from. What that means is if you don\u2019t have a bank account from one of the countries on this list, Amazon will not be able to pay you your disbursements from your sales. Again, there\u2019s also several workarounds if you don\u2019t have a bank account in an approved country, but I\u2019ll cover that later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, now while setting up your new seller account, Amazon will ask you if you\u2019re setting up your seller account as an individual or business. Now, Amazon doesn\u2019t require you to have a registered business to sell on Amazon so, if you want to sell as an individual, you can. You\u2019d just be filing all of your revenue as personal income and you wouldn\u2019t get any tax benefits or liability protection that a registered business can offer. Registering a business is pretty easy. You can do it yourself but the process and costs vary by state so visit your local states government website for more info or you can hire a service like Legal Zoom to help you for a small fee. You can always start your Amazon business as an individual and as you grow, register a business and change your account type at that time. As for which type of business to setup such as a Sole Proprietor or LLC, I recommend speaking to a professional to see which option suits yoou best for your own individual needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legal Zoom<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.legalzoom.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Business Types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.justia.com\/business-formation\/docs\/business-structures\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so when setting up your new Amazon seller account, there are two seller plans to choose from and here\u2019s where it can get confusing for some people. You can choose the Individual seller plan or the Professional seller plan. The Individual Plan you see here is not the same thing as the individual business type. The individual business type means you don\u2019t have a registered business. The Individual plan here is one of two Amazon seller plans. The individual plan is free, there\u2019s no monthly fee, however, you have to pay a $0.99 fee each time you make a sale, whereas with the Professional Plan costs $39.99\/mo and as you can see here, if you sell more than 40 units\/mo, it\u2019s not worth it to have the individual plan. You also get access to all of these selling and advertising features with the Professional Plan. What I suggest is start with the Individual plan so you can get used to the system and upgrade to the Professional once you\u2019re about to launch your first product so you can take advantage of the extra features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seller Accounts A couple of pro tips when signing up for your seller account. I suggest using a different email address for your seller account rather than your personal Amazon account that you buy stuff with. This will make your book keeping a lot easier by keeping your business separate from your personal activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the sign up process, Amazon has become very strict on approving new seller accounts and will verify all of the information that you submit to prevent bad sellers from getting on board. Amazon has a detailed guide that includes all of the required documentation that you\u2019ll need in order to get verified, so make sure you read through this and have all of your information and documentation ready. Make you use your real information as the documents you submit to verify your identity will all need to match. The name and addresses need to match. If they don\u2019t, it can create delays in the approval process. Also make sure the address is a real address where you can accept mail at so if Amazon sends you a verification by mail, you\u2019re able receive it. Amazon is also doing phone verifications now, so make sure your phone number is valid. Also, make sure that your utility bill and banking details all match with the primary account holders name and address. If they don\u2019t, use a different bill or call your bank or utility service and have the information updated to match before signing up on Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon will also require you to have a bank account and a valid credit card. Amazon sends your disbursements to your bank account and if you owe any money, they will charge it to your credit card. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if you don\u2019t have a bank account in one of the approved countries like I mentioned earlier, you can use a service like Wise.com to set up a bank account and credit card. Wise is free and you don\u2019t need a US address or SSN to setup an account on Wise. With Wise, you\u2019ll get a bank account and credit card that you can use on Amazon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in my experience, new accounts have been approved within 24 hours however, I know other people have had difficulty with getting their new accounts verified. This is usually because the documents they submitted were hard to read, didn\u2019t have matching details, submitted incorrectly or was the wrong type of document. If that happens to you, don\u2019t be discouraged or afraid, just fix the problem and resubmit your information. If you want to learn more about how to sign up for a new seller account without getting rejected, I\u2019ll leave a link to a detailed video in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verification\/rejection<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/gp\/help\/external\/help.html?itemID=QRP483PDN88Q3M9&ref=efph_QRP483PDN88Q3M9_cont_G2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, so once you have your seller account set up, the next step is to find a viable product to sell. Now, back in the day, well actually not that long ago to be honest, finding viable products had far more risk and was more of a gamble because there wasn\u2019t any tools available to gather any real tangible data on the product or niche that you can use. You basically chose products based on market trends or an educated guess. But lucky for us, nowadays, there\u2019s powerful product research tools that make analyzing product ideas much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But before we dive into product research, I want to cover an important step that almost everyone fails to do, and that\u2019s putting together a plan. How are you going to know if you\u2019ve found a viable product to sell if you don\u2019t know what makes a product viable? When it comes to finding viable products, you need to know what your goal is and what metrics are required in order to meet that goal. In this case, I\u2019m assuming your goal is to make money. So, take a minute and think about how much profit you realistically want to make each month. Is it $1000\/mo? Is it $10,000\/mo? Be realistic. Once you know how much you want to earn, then we can figure out what type of product you\u2019ll need to find in order to achieve that goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, if you want to make $3000\/mo profit, how many items would you need to sell every month? Well, to figure that out, you need to know how much the profit margin is for each item you sell. And since you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re selling yet, you\u2019ll have to make an educated guess. What I recommend is aiming for a minimum of a $5 profit margin, ideally $10. A lot of people will use percentages when they talk about profit margin and will tell you to aim for like 30-50% profit margins but I don\u2019t like to use percentages because it\u2019s relative. If your product costs $1 and you have a 50% profit margin, which may seem like a lot but that\u2019s only a $0.50 profit on each sale. So in order to make $3000\/mo you\u2019d have to sell 6000 units. That\u2019s 200 units\/day! What\u2019s more realistic is selling 5 or 10 units\/day. And with a $10 profit margin, you\u2019d only need to sell 10 items a day to hit your goal of $3000\/mo. Make sense? These numbers will come in handy shortly. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important that you think about this first so that you have a plan and you know what these numbers are for your own situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, so the product research tool that I use and recommend is Jungle Scout. It has all 3 tiers for you to choose from and includes all the tools and features that you\u2019ll need in order to follow the steps and strategies that I cover to succeed. I\u2019ve also worked together with JS to get all of you the best deal out there. Not only can you try it for free but by using my discount code, you\u2019re not going to find it cheaper anywhere else. I\u2019ll leave a link to the coupon in the video description below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I have developed many advanced product research strategies that I go over on my channel but they\u2019re beyond the scope of this video. For beginners, the strategy I\u2019m going to show you here is in fact how I found my first product. The hardest part of doing product research is actually the product discovery process. It\u2019s impossible for somoeone to just sit around and dream up endless product ideas to research, so in order to get a product ideas, you need access to an endless list of products that you can analyze. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, instead of trying to think up product ideas on your own, the two primary tools you\u2019ll be using are the Jungle Scout product database and the Chrome Extension. With the product database, you can sort through thousands of different product opportunities simply by adjusting different search filters. The product database allows you to find items in Amazon\u2019s marketplace that match specific search criteria that you set. And the chrome extension allows you to quickly and easily analyze product niches by displaying all the relevant data in a convenient window for you to analyze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so this is what the Product Database looks like. It\u2019s a great place to start looking for viable products and it\u2019ll let you get used to looking at specific data and metrics as well as familiarizing yourself with what the different filters mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, this strategy will work in any marketplace but if you\u2019re planning to sell in the US marketplace, choose US. Then pick the categories you want to find products to sell in. I personally only choose specific categories as you can see here. I avoid these categories because, like clothing and shoes, there\u2019s way too many variations and returns to deal with. Electronics break all the time and can be hard to use. I avoid anything that you ingest, put in or on your body like lotions and creams because I just don\u2019t want to be liable if someone get injured or hurt. Toys and games is way too competitive and the lifecycle of the products is way too short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suggest sticking with Standard size products, oversize can be a logistical nightmare with extremely high fees. And for seller types, select them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the price field, I suggest setting the price range between $15 and $50 to start. I don\u2019t recommend selling products that are less than $15 because if you subtract your manufacturing costs and Amazon fees, there won\u2019t be any money left for profit. You can use the rule of thirds here. Typically, \u2153 will go to manufacturing, \u2153 to fees and the last third profit, so at $15, you\u2019ll make around $5. Anything less and you won\u2019t have any margin to absorb any additional or unexpected costs. Now, in the current economy, if you can afford it, what I highly recommend is sellinig high ticket products. These are products that are $50 and higher. High ticket products generally have higher profit margins and due to the higher costs, it\u2019s a barrier to entry for most people so the competition is far less. The only issue is that these types of products aren\u2019t impulse buys, so you need to be far more diligent with your product listing optimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, instead of just putting $15 here like what most people will do. Most people will just set round numbers here, but I want to think outside the box and go slightly beyond the range to capture any listings that are priced close to the minimum and maximum price range, since sellers like to use different pricing strategies. So, I\u2019m going to put $14.97 and $50.25. It\u2019s not rocket science, you can use any decimal amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, remember the planning we did earlier? If your monthly profit goal is $3000, then with a product that has a $5 profit margin, you\u2019ll need to sell 600 units per month, whereas with a $10 profit margin, you\u2019d need to sell 300 units per month. Make sense now? So, let\u2019s set the minimum monthly sales to 300. That\u2019s a good starting point based on the target sales and profit goals that I mentioned earlier and a product with a $10 profit margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, remember the rule of thirds that I mentioned earlier? If your goal is to make $3000 in profit every month, then using the rule of thirds, you can roughly estimate that you\u2019ll need to find a product that generates around $9000 in revenue per month. A third is your manufacturing costs, a third goes to Amazon fees and the last third is profit. So set the minimum revenue to $9000. I\u2019m actually going to set it lower to $6000, again thinking outside the box, I want to capture any outlier products that might be selling decently well but if I can improve it, perhaps it will meet my revenue target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Set the maximum reviews to 300. Reviews is how we determine how competitive a niche is. You want to find niches that have low competition. Niches where most of the listings have a lot of reviews will be much more difficult and expensive to break into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Set the max weight to 2lb, anything heavier will be considered over sized and the fees will be higher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, now keep in mind that none of these search criteria are set in stone. You can play around with them to find different products ideas. For example, you can set a maximum review rating, which is how many stars a listing has based on the reviews to 3.5 or something, so you can specifically look for products that are selling well despite having poor reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now when we click Search, you\u2019ll see a list of all the products on Amazon that match our search criteria. In fact, there are 10s of thousands of products that pulled up as you can see here. You can see the product image, title, price, monthly sales and revenue, the number of review and the review rating, how old the listing is and a ton of other metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pro tip here is if you notice, a lot of listings made it passed the filters that we set. Listings such as clothing, food, and brand name products like you can see here. So, what I do is I have a list of keywords that I want to exclude from the search results. This is an evolving list of keywords that I\u2019ve built over the years. If I keep seeing the same type of product showing up in the search, then I\u2019ll add the product keyword to the list. For example, you can see here I have, men’s, women’s, mens, womens, nike, under armor, shirt, pants, sock, and so on. The key is to make your product research as efficient as possible. Anything you can do to save time and energy will pay you in spades. I\u2019ll post this list of keywords in the description below if you want to copy them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, back the search results, I\u2019m going to make analyzing this really easy for you. Ignore all of the data you see. What I do is I browse through these listings looking for products that catch my eye. I look at the main photo and the title. Products that I don\u2019t immediately recognize or look strange and out of the ordinary are the best ones to look for. If I recognize what the product is, I skip it. Those products are almost always saturated and way too competitive and there\u2019s no sense wasting time analyzing them. The key to finding viable products is efficiency. When you have hundreds or thousands of potential products to look at, you want to only spend extra time on the one\u2019s that have the most potential. Spending an extra 2-3 minutes on every product adds up. The thing is, you don\u2019t know when you\u2019ll find your next product. It could take a day or two or it could take a couple of weeks or longer. Each one of my products took around 2 weeks to find and validate. So, you need to practice patience and manage your expectations. Product research is the most important step to selling on Amazon. If you end up with a bad product idea, no matter how well you do everything else, it simply won\u2019t sell well. It pays to do your due diligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so back to the results, a pro-tip here is, I like to set the page size to 100 so there’s less page loading and I actually work backwards through the results starting on the last page as everyone almost always start on page 1. I want to find products that other people might not be seeing. Remember, you really need to always be thinking outside the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *****<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so, when I find a product that catches my eye, like this Mini small square Precision Machinist Square, it doesn\u2019t automatically mean it\u2019s a good product idea to pursue. This is just a product that happens to meet the criteria that we set in the filters. What you need to do is take a look at the entire product niche, see how well all of the top sellers are doing and determine if the entire niche as whole meets your criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to do that, you need to do a search for the product on Amazon using the main keyword for that product. I\u2019ll figure out what I believe the main keyword is and do a search on Amazon for this product. It\u2019s important that you use the shortest, most relevant keyword phrase that describes the product, otherwise, you\u2019ll pull up the wrong list of products to analyze. In this case, by looking at the title, I know this is a 90 degree precision machinist square. So, I believe the shortest keyword phrase is actually \u201cMachinist Square\u201d. So head over to Amazon, make sure All Departments is selected and do a search for machinist square. Now make sure that the majority of the listings that come up are indeed the same product you\u2019re looking at, otherwise, you\u2019re doing a search using the wrong keyword. In this case, it looks right, so we can pull up the Jungle Scout Chrome extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, as you can see here, the chrome extension has pulled up a ton of info for each listing such as the monthly sales, total revenue, historical sales and ton of other relevant data. This is such a powerful tool because it displays all of this data for you to quickly analyze. Data that you would never have access to otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, deep diving in to how to analyze niches is beyond the scope of this video but I\u2019ll go over a few of the key points. First, you can see that the chrome extension has pulled up several metrics for the top listings in the search results. Its important at this point, that you do not resort these listings or rearrange them. This is a common mistake many beginners make. The default order that you see is exactly how the listings are organically sorted in the search results by Amazon. You want to analyze niches with the listings arranged in their organic order. This is because these top listings, especially the listings on the first page of the search results, they are the listings you\u2019ll be competing directly against. If you resort the listings, you could be looking at listings that may have sold well months ago but are no longer selling, or the niche has tanked in the last few months and is no longer a good product idea. So don\u2019t sort the listings by sales or revenue or whatever that I see a lot people doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You also want to ignore all the sponsored listings. These are the listings that say Sponsored next to them. These are placed here based on the PPC advertising system. Basically, whoever bids the highest for specific keywords get the best ad placement, so those listings aren\u2019t placed there organically. You can see these same listings here in the chrome extension with the AD logo next to them. You want to ignore these. You can actually turn these off so they don\u2019t show up at all in the chrome extension by clicking on Filter Results and choose Hide sponsored products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, by analysing the data, such as the price, sales volume, revenue and reviews, you can determine if this niche meets the criteria you set out in your plan and if it\u2019s able to hit your profit and sales goals. It\u2019s important that you do you this. Just because one or a few of the listings are making a lot of sales, doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s a good niche. You need to make sure there is enough demand, the competition is relatively low and most importantly, that you can break into the niche and capture a part of the market and hit your profit and sales targets. For example, are most of the top listings selling 300 or more sales per month? Are most of the top listings selling around $6000\/month?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, it\u2019s important that you don\u2019t be lazy and make any decisions based solely on the averages that you see at the top here. Always analyze the actual data of all of the top listings. Averages don\u2019t accurately represent the niche as a whole. For example, it only takes one or two listings with really high or really low figures to throw off the average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, physically count, are most of the top 12-15 listings selling 300 units or more each month? Are most of them doing at least $6000 in revenue each month? And to make sure that the competition isn\u2019t too high or if the niche is saturated, do most of listings have less than 300 reviews? Are most of the listings 3-4 months old or newer? Additionally, you also want to make sure that the niche isn\u2019t brand dominated, meaning there\u2019s no brands that have more than 3-4 listings in the top 10. You also want to make sure the product is seasonal, patented or trademarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, this is just the basics, I\u2019ll leave a link to a very detailed video on how to properly do product research in the video description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While you\u2019re analyzing products ideas, you want to also keep in mind how you can differentiate. You can\u2019t just sell the exact same thing as the other sellers and expect to do well. You need to have a competitive advantage, otherwise, you can only compete based on price and you never want to do that because it will always end up in a price war and a race to the bottom where everyone keeps lowering the price until no one is making any money. You always want to differentiate and offer a high quality premium product so you have a competitive advantage and more importantly, you can charge more. Now, there\u2019s several ways you can differentiate. A method I like to use is to look at the reviews on the competitors listings and see what people are complaining about. You can find excellent ideas on how to fix a problem, add feature or improve it. One of my favorite ways to differentiate is by bundling. This is adding a small bonus item to the product that doesn\u2019t add much costs but adds a ton of value. You can get bundling ideas by looking at the frequently bought together section in the listings or buy using your own intuition. Just make sure that you\u2019re not pairing two main items togethers and that the bonus item makes sense to pair with the main product. The bundled item should be a small bonus that the buyer is essentially getting for free, for example, if I\u2019m selling a yoga mat, I could bundle it with a small resistance band. However, bundling the yoga mat with a back pack wouldn\u2019t make sense. In todays economy, don\u2019t think you can differentiate simply by having a better listing. Nowadays, all the top sellers will have top notch, fully optimized listings with excellent professional photos and copy. You should always have a top notch quality listing anyways but I\u2019ve seen some niches where all the listings are terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, beyond making sure that the product meets all of the research criteria and you\u2019ve identified a method to differentiate, there\u2019s also a few things you should consider. You want to make sure that product is small and lightweight. Ideally, you want the product to be able to fit inside a shoebox and weigh less than a pound. Otherwise, the shipping and Amazon fees will be much higher. Also make sure that the product is easy to manufacture. The more complicated it is, like if it has a ton of pieces, moving parts, or requires assembly, there can be quality control issues as well as much higher manufacturing costs, especially if you want to differentiate and it requires retooling or new molds. I also suggest staying away from products that are difficult to operate, require instructions, can break easily, electronic devices or anything that can be a liability where someone can get hurt like food, lotions, creams or anything that would go in or on your body. Or products that people often return like clothing or toys. It\u2019s not worth the risk or getting bad reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And lastly, one of the most important product research mistakes I see people making is not making sure ahead of time that they are allowed to sell the product on Amazon. Some products are prohibited or have restrictions in order to sell them on Amazon. With prohibited products, you can\u2019t sell them on Amazon period. So make sure you find out ahead of time before you invest any money on inventory. Restricted products may need approval before you can sell them. Additionally, some products fall under what\u2019s called gated categories. That means you need to apply for approval in that category before you can sell products in that category. Many of these gated categories are actually pretty easy to get approval for, you just have to answer a few questions and you\u2019ll get instant approval. However, other categories may be more involved and will require you to submit invoices or certifications. If you refer to this list of gated categories, it\u2019ll tell you what you need to do and what the requirements are. Keep in mind, some main categories that are not gated may have subcategories that are gated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, some products must meet specific compliance requirements or certifications in order to sell on Amazon such as hazmat, FDA or CPC certifications. Amazon actually has new compliance tool to make it easier for sellers to check if the product has any of these requirements. I\u2019ll leave a link to this new tool in the video description below but it\u2019s actually really simple to use. Just do a search for the products keyword and the tool will tell you what requirements are necessary for you to sell it on Amazon. For example, if you want to sell baby pacifiers, you can see that it says you need to have the following requirements. CPSIA as well as these certifications. Test reports that meet CPSA section 14 a5. A childrens product certificate or CPC. As well as a Test reports from a CPSC-accepted lab. Also be aware that if you don\u2019t find your product using the tool, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that there isn\u2019t any requirements. Make sure you refer to the prohibited and restricted products pages as well as speak to a Seller Support agent to verify. Always do your due diligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Product Compliance<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/help\/hub\/reference\/200301050<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Compliance Tool<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/help\/hub\/reference\/G2JX2MAWJ27DWAY6<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/ckp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n And last, I see far too many beginners get in trouble selling products that are patented or trademarked. Selling patented or trademarked products will require you to get permission from the IP owner in order for you to sell them on Amazon. I personally suggest avoiding patented and trademarked products altogether, it\u2019s far too much of a pain and risk. Just because you see other sellers selling the product doesn\u2019t mean you can. They may have gotten permission or they simply haven\u2019t been caught yet. And don\u2019t believe what your manufacturer tells you. They may not know the that the product is patented or trademarked and if you decide to sell it, your products are considered counterfeit and the responsibility falls on you, not them, and you can get sued. Again, I\u2019ll leave links in the description below if you want to learn more about these restrictions and requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, so now that you\u2019ve found a product, you need to find a supplier to manufacturer it. As you\u2019ve probably already guessed, the most cost effective way to get your products made is overseas in China. You can use a website called Alibaba to find suppliers. Alibaba is basically a huge database of manufacturers where you can find pretty much any product you can think of. You can just do a search for the product you want to sell and you\u2019ll get a list of all the manufacture that make them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, if we\u2019re looking to sell the machinist square, do a search and Alibaba. In you can see that all of these manufactures make them. You can see how long the manufacturer has been on Alibaba, their reviews, as well as what the price and minimum order quantity is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now before moving forward with your product idea, you can go one step further to verify if the product is viable by double checking whether it will even be profitable. By looking at the list of suppliers, you can now get a rough estimate of what the unit cost is and armed with that info, you can calculate an estimate of what your monthly profit will be and if you can hit your profit goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, if we take a look at the list of suppliers, we can see that the average price per unit is around $5.00. And you can see that on some of these listings, it shows what the shipping price is. For example on this one, the shipping cost is $3.16. That\u2019s if you just buy 1 unit. My guess the shipping is going to be less than $1 each when you buy in bulk. So this is a good starting point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if jump back to one of the machinist square product listings, we can use the built in profit calculator. Click on one of the listings on the list here and you can see that the product details have been pulled up for that product such as the sale price, product dimensions and weight. These metrics are all necessary in order to calculate the proper fees. Now we can leave the default figures that this seller has for their product or you can change the Sale price or how much it costs to manufacture as well as the costs to ship to Amazon. For example, leave the sale price as it and we change the unit cost to $6. Thats the $5 unit cost plus the $1 estimated shipping we got from Alibaba, it will tell you how much profit you\u2019re making if you were to sell the exact same or similar product. You can see in this case that the FBA fees are this and your profit is here. Pretty cool right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if you don\u2019t have Jungle Scout, you can use Amazon\u2019s FBA calculator. It\u2019s free. I\u2019ll leave a link to it in the description below. Grab the asin of one the competitors, you can find the asin here in the chrome extension, or if jump on the product listing, you can get the ASIN in the URL, it always starts with a B0. Copy it and paste it here and you can see that it pulls up all the product details for you and just like the JS calculator, you can edit the Sale price, how much it costs to manufacture and ship to Amazon, it will tell you how much profit you\u2019re making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you see how powerful this is by taking these extra steps? If the profit margin doesn\u2019t meet your target and you can\u2019t think of a way to lower your cost or add value so that you can increase the sale price, then this may not be a viable product idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if the product does meet your profit target, then you\u2019ll need to find a supplier to manufacture the product. What you want to do is make sure you select Trade Assurance and Verified Supplier. This will filter out the suppliers that accept trade assurance and are verified suppliers on Alibaba. A verified supplier is a manufacturer that has been vetted by Alibaba and has a proven historical track record. Trade Assurance is Alibaba\u2019s secure payment is protection service where your payment is held in basically an Escrow, and only when the transaction has been completed in accordance with the contract will Alibaba release the payment to the manufacturer, things like the quality of the product and on-time delivery, otherwise, you can get a refund. By selecting the Verified Supplier and Trade Assurance filters, only suppliers that have been vetted and agree to use the Trade Assurance service will show up in the search results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alibaba also offers product inspection services to ensure that the final product meets your requirements and I\u2019ll go over this later on in the video. Alibaba also gives you additional information on each manufacturer to help you vet them such as how long they\u2019ve been on Alibaba as well as a star rating like you can see here. These metrics will help you in making sure you\u2019re only working with the most reliable and trustworthy manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so when it comes to contacting manufacturers, don\u2019t just contact a couple that you think are the best option for you, like the ones with the lowest price or lowest MOQ. You want to contact around 20 to 30 or more and this is for several reasons. First, don\u2019t be surprised but you probably won\u2019t even get a reply from many of them. While others may be slow to respond, you might not hear from them in several days or weeks. With suppliers like that, you obviously don\u2019t want to work with them. It\u2019d be a nightmare. Some suppliers may have poor communication skills, like they don\u2019t speak English well or are difficult to understand. I suggest avoiding suppliers in those cases as well, make sure you stick to manufacturers that respond quickly, communicate well and also thoroughly answer the questions that you have. This is so you can avoid any potential miscommunications or misunderstandings. Remember, you\u2019re trying to build a long-term working relationship and you want to work with someone that is easy to deal with. And of course, the more people you contact, the more quotes you can get to find the best price and option to go with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if you\u2019ve tried to contact suppliers in the past and didn\u2019t get many responses or got extremely high quotes, it\u2019s probably because you didn\u2019t sound professional during the correspondence. Remember, these suppliers are probably getting dozens of inquiries every day and they\u2019re going to quickly filter out the ones that they don\u2019t think are serious and a waste of time. Now, don\u2019t worry I have you covered. I\u2019ll leave a link in the video description to a contact template that you can download and use for free. This is the exact same template that I use to contact suppliers. It sounds professional and has all the details and information that you\u2019ll need to get from the supplier in a single correspondence so you don\u2019t need to go back and forth several times to get the information you need, which because of the time zone difference can take several days. Just customize the template for each supplier, replace the fields with your own details and fill in the template with the product details and copy and paste it into the contact supplier inquiry form. And make sure you\u2019re not contacting the same supplier twice. It\u2019s not uncommon for suppliers to have multiple listings so make sure you\u2019re keeping track of who you\u2019re contacting. It doesn\u2019t look professional sending the same email to the same supplier several times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, so once you\u2019ve contacted suppliers, received quotes and negotiated the price and MOQ, narrow down the list to your best 3-4 suppliers. Keep in mind though, the best price may not always be the best option. Always consider the quality, service, delivery times as well as the price. Then order samples. Always get samples so you can physically see, touch and feel the product and judge it\u2019s quality. Not every manufacturer is going to produce the same level of quality. Samples are typically free but you have to pay for the shipping which is usually around $50-75 each but the supplier that you end up working with will usually reimburse you the cost of that sample so make sure to mention that to them when you place your order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So after receiving the samples, you should be able to make your final decision on which supplier you want to work with. Make sure that you\u2019ve discussed the shipping terms as well. Not all suppliers will or can ship your products for you. I suggest always asking them what they can do for you as well as contacting freight forwarders to get a shipping quote. Then you can compare to see which option is best for you. If you\u2019d like to learn more about how the shipping process works and what the shipping terms like EXW, FOB and DDP mean, I have a separate video on this which I\u2019ll post a link to in the video description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you have an idea of the quality of the products, you can further negotiate with all the suppliers or if you have any changes you want to make you can communicate that to them. Keep in mind that everything is negotiable, so if one supplier is offering something that another isn\u2019t, you can try to negotiate to get better terms for yourself. You just have to be willing to walk away if they aren\u2019t willing to meet your requests. And remember, sometimes the best price may not be the best choice. Consider how well they communicate, the quality of the products, how quickly they can complete the order, the price on future orders, for example, the initial cost for your small first order may be a bit higher but they\u2019re willing to offer you a better deal on future orders when you place a larger order etc etc. Use all of these metrics to help you vet the suppliers and narrow them down to a single supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pro tip here is, when you initially contact the suppliers, it\u2019ll most likely be through the alibaba messaging system. Most suppliers may probably ask you to continue the conversations on Skype, Whatsapp or Wechat and that\u2019s totally normal. The Alibaba messaging system is cumbersome to use. Just make sure that everything you\u2019ve negotiated and discussed outside of Alibaba\u2019s messaging system, you then accurately document in your contract and purchase order agreement so that Alibaba has a record of it since none of the conversations are recorded in their chat system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of purchase agreements. I also have a purchase agreement template that you can download and use. I highly suggest you use it because it covers everything you need to include in a purchase agreement from what each party is responsible for to all the terms and conditions. You can easily taylor it to suit your needs and I\u2019ll leave a link to it in the video description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, once all of that is said and done, you\u2019re supplier will want you to pay for your order before they\u2019ll start manufacturing. Don\u2019t be surprised if they want you to pay 100% of the cost up front. However, that wouldn\u2019t be very smart for you to do. Typical payment terms are 30-50% upfront and the balance upon completion. Just whatever you do, don\u2019t pay 100% upfront. You also want to make sure you\u2019re protecting yourself with how you make your payment. Do not pay using a wire transfer or bank transfer. You\u2019ll have absolutely no protection. Once the money leaves your account, it\u2019s gone. If something goes wrong, you have no means of recourse. What I suggest is use Alibaba\u2019s Trade Assurance and pay using Paypal or a credit card to pay for your order so if something happens, you can file a dispute through Trade Assurance, Paypal or your credit card company. Ideally, I recommend using Paypal AND setting up your credit card as the payment method on paypal. That way, if for whatever reason Paypal denies your claim, you can still file a claim with your credit card company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, once your supplier has completed manufacturing your products, one important step is to have a product inspection done. I can\u2019t emphasize how important this step is. There have been times when the quality of the final production units don\u2019t match the quality of the samples, or there was some miscommunication and the products were made wrong. Always have an inspection done. And always have the inspection done before your products leave their factory. I\u2019ve seen people try to save some money and have the products shipped to their home so they can inspect it themselves. Don\u2019t do that. If something is wrong, the logistics and cost to ship the products back to china will be prohibitive alone. And in most cases, the supplier will deny any liability. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to have the inspection done before the products leave your supplier, that way your supplier can\u2019t deny any responsibilty. And again, make sure to use the free purchase order template I have because there\u2019s a clause in there stating that a product inspection will be done at your expense, however if the inspection fails, your supplier will need to fix the problems and pay for the second inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, in some instances such as when the product is extremely simple and easy to manufacture, you could consider to just have your supplier send you detailed photos of your product at varying stages of production so you can verify that they are being done correctly. Or do a live video chat or facetime call so you can see them. You\u2019d have to decide if it\u2019s worth it to get an actual inspection or not based on your risk tolerance. Inspections aren\u2019t that expensive and is good piece of mind. A typical inspection costs around $150-300 depending on what you want checked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so once you have your product taken care of, another thing to consider is your branding and product packaging. I would ask your supplier what their standard packaging is for the product and decide if it\u2019s what you want. If the packaging is some plain generic box or polybag, you may want to repackage it in something custom designed and more premium or decorative. By creating a custom designed package, you can add value to your product without much additional cost. At the same time, you can also have your brand or logo printed on to the packaging to help increase your products perceived value and build your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now when it comes to naming your brand, I suggest choosing a brand name that is generic and not niche specific. Something niche specific locks you in to a specific type of product. For example, if you started selling soap dishes and your brand was Bath and Bodyworks, it wouldn\u2019t make sense if you started selling cell phone cases under that brand. Something generic that isn\u2019t niche specific would make more sense. I also suggest hiring a logo and package designer to create your package design and logo for you. You can find really good designers on fiverr.com. And at the same time, you can have them incorporate the Amazon barcode and any other required markings into the package design such as the country of origin. That will help you save some money instead of having to label them separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pro tip is to also have your designer create an insert card that you can include inside the package. The insert card can thank the buyer for their purchase and ask them to leave you a review. And here\u2019s where buying the top competitors products would help you immensely. You can see what your competitors are doing, the quality their products, their package design and and if they\u2019re using insert cards and how you can improve on them. Just make sure that the insert card doesn\u2019t violate any of Amazons insert card guidelines. I have a separate video on how to create powerful insert cards and I\u2019ll leave a link to it in the description if you want to learn more about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, speaking of branding, Amazon doesn\u2019t require you to have a registered brand or trademark to sell on Amazon. However, if you do register your brand, you get access to advance features such as brand protection, Brand Registry and A+ content, which means you can add videos to your listing, have much richer content in your listing description including photos and themes. You also get access to tools help prevent and remove listing hijackers and other intellectual property violators. You can register your trademark yourself directly through the USPTO.gov website. But be aware, if its something you plan on doing, it typically takes around 6-9 months to get registered. However, you can apply for Brand Registry on Amazon right away once you\u2019ve submitted your trademark application and get your registration number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright, so once your product is manufactured, you need to get it shipped from your supplier\u2019s factory overseas to Amazon\u2019s fulfillment center. This can be a complicated process, so I don\u2019t recommend trying to do this yourself. I highly suggest that you hire a freight forwarder to handle this for you. Arranging the shipment and filling out the paperwork must all be done correctly, otherwise your shipment can be lost, held up somewhere, incur penalties, or sent back to your supplier. You can find a freight forwarder on alibaba or on freightos.com. I\u2019ll leave links to these pages in the description below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep in mind that shipping by air is the most expensive, however it is the quickest. Shipments typically take 7-10 business days, whereas shipping by sea is the cheaper method but can take 3-8 weeks. What I suggest is for your first order, which is usually pretty small, ship it by air so you can start selling right away. Then on future orders, you can either ship it entirely by sea or split the shipment up, shipping some by air and the bulk by sea once you understand your sales velocity and can manage your inventory to accommodate the 3-8 week shipping time. Be aware that ever since covid, the entire supply chain has been affected. Everything from materials availabiliity, to manufacturing, shipping and customs are extremely delayed. And this includes Amazon processing inbound shipments at their warehouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, one thing to consider is to ask your supplier if they will ship your products for you. Some may, some may not. Some may only ship it to the local port. Ask them and see what they\u2019re willing to do and if they offer DDP shipping. DDP is an inco-term which means they will arrange the entire shipment and take responsibility for it from their factory all the way to Amazon\u2019s fulfillment center. You just need to pay your supplier. Doing this can cut out the FF and can save on time dealing with logistics and costs. So, get quotes from your supplier as well as from several FF\u2019s and see which option will work best for you. If you want to learn more about how shipping from China to Amazon works and how you can save money, I\u2019ll leave a link to a video in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, before you can physically ship your product though, Amazon requires you to create a shipping plan so that they know what to expect when your shipment arrives at their fulfilment center and who it belongs to. You can create the shipping plan in seller central. But in order to create a shipping plan, you need to have a verified seller account and have created the listing for your product. So, if you haven\u2019t already completed those steps, you\u2019ll have to do them first. I realize this is out of order but I\u2019ll go over how to create your product listing in the next part of this video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, a couple of key points to note when creating the shipping plan is to make sure you choose Individually Packed vs Case packed. Individually packed means inside each shipping carton, you can have mixed products and each shipping carton doesn\u2019t have to be exactly the same size or contain the same products or quantities. Whereas case packed means every carton is exactly the same and contains the exact same product and quantity. Even if your product is cased packed, I suggest always choose individually packed. This is because if for whatever reason, your supplier packaged your shipment in different sized cartons or put a different number inside the cartons, if you choose case packed, you won\u2019t have the ability to enter different sized shipping cartons. You\u2019ll thank me later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also want to make sure that you choose Merchant for who labels. This means you are going to put the Amazon barcode on all of your units, not amazon. You meaning your supplier. If you don\u2019t have your supplier do it, you can have Amazon do it but Amazon will charge you $0.55\/unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FBA Label service<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/sellercentral.amazon.com\/help\/hub\/reference\/external\/200483750?locale=en-US<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n You also want to make sure that you enter the dimesions and weight for your unit and cartons in the correct place. If you enter the shipping carton size and weight as the unit size and weight, it will throw off a bunch of calculations, your product will most likely end up being classified as oversize, you\u2019ll notice that your FBA fees are exorbitant and you\u2019ll get an error that you dont\u2019 have enough storage space. So make sure you don\u2019t mix those up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing I want to point out is, you\u2019re most likely going to always choose SPD here, unless you\u2019re shipping a huge shipment where you\u2019re taking up a half or an entire container. And a pro tip, Amazon offers deeply discounted shipping rates for domestic shipments if you use their Partnered Carrier Program. Because Amazon do so much shipping volume, you can save a ton of money on your domestic shipment, so talk to your freight forwarder and see if you can take advantage of that for the domestic portion of your shipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And while we\u2019re here, take note that new seller accounts typically have a storage limit of 1000 units. You can see what your storage limit is on the bottom of the shipping queue page. Double check to verify what your limit is because if you place an order with your supplier that is more than what your storage limit is, then you can only ship inventory up to your limit to Amazon and you\u2019re going to have to find a solution to store the extra units somewhere else, either at your home, a storage unit or 3PL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon recently upgraded the shipping plan workflow and it can be quite confusing navigating the new system, so if you want to learn how to use it, I\u2019ll leave a link to a detailed video in the description below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, once you\u2019ve completed the shipping plan, you can then print out the shipping labels which will have the Amazon fulfillment center addresses on them. You can actually download the shipping labels and email them to your supplier so they can put them on the shipping cartons. If there\u2019s more than one carton, make sure the correct labels go on the corresponding cartons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alright and now onto creating your product listing. In seller central, click Menu > Catalog > Add Products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because we\u2019re doing private label, click on I\u2019m adding a product not sold on Amazon. Don\u2019t enter anything in the search field. Now, in the search field, type in your product and amazon will find the correct category for your product. Select the category. And now, you\u2019ll need to fill out details for your product listing. Anything in highlighted in red or a tab at the top with the red exclamation mark, means there are required fields that you haven\u2019t completed yet or have invalid data. You won\u2019t be able to complete the listing unless you\u2019ve filled in those fields at a minimum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing to note, in order to create a listing for private label products, you need to purchase a UPC barcode. Amazon\u2019s UPC barcode policy states that you need to buy your barcode directly from GS1 or you risk having your listings shut down. In the past, sellers would buy barcodes from 3rd party resellers like barcodes mania or nationwide barcodes for around $10 each to save some money, which is what I used to do, since GS1 barcodes used to cost $250. However GS1 has recently updated their pricing and it\u2019s no longer worth while to do so. You can now buy official GS1 barcodes directly from GS1 for $30 as you can see here. You only need to buy one barcode for your product. Once you enter it into the listing here, you\u2019ll never need it again. Barcodes and figuring out how many you need to buy can be confusing so if you want to learn more about them, I\u2019ll leave a link to a detailed video in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, for the brand name, if you have a registered brand, enter it here. If you don\u2019t, just make up a name. You don\u2019t need to have a registered brand to sell on Amazon. Now, if you run in any errors when you choose your brand, I have a detailed video on how to resolve them and I\u2019ll leave a link in the description below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok. Now, a few important things I want to point out. When you\u2019re creating your title, bullet points and description, you want to make sure that you\u2019re using as many of the most relevant keywords as possible. You can get a list of all the most relevant keywords by using free tools like keyword inspector and keywordtool.io, but these free options aren\u2019t very thorough. The best keyword research tool is JS\u2019s Keyword Scout. By enterinig in the seed keyword for your product, Keyword Scout will generate a huge list of all the relevant keywords and keyword phrases for you. You can download the comprehensive list of all the relevant keywords for your product and use them to create the title, bullet points and description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.keywordinspector.com\/simple\/index.php?search_history=1&completed=1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/sell.amazon.com\/pricing.html?ref_=sdus_soa_priov_n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n