The biggest shopping season of the year is wrapping up on the biggest shopping marketplace in the world. Where is that? Amazon, of course! Since you can find just about anything there, this is the place most people do their online shopping. Including YOUR potential customers. Are you considering selling on Amazon using FBA in the new year? Now is the time to get started if you want to hit the ground running in January.
First of all, what is FBA?
When you are shopping on Amazon, you will notice that the product you want might be available at several different prices from several different sellers. Some of those sellers may or may not be named specifically—you just see the cryptic words, “Fulfilled by Amazon.” (Hence, FBA.)
Why Use Amazon’s FBA Instead of Selling Directly?
If you find yourself spending the bulk of your time for your business taking orders and shipping them out, then you have a problem. A good problem, but a problem nonetheless. The good news is: you have lots of people interested in your product. Hooray! The bad news is: You don’t have time to do anything else. Boo. With FBA, all your inventory goes to Amazon’s warehouse, and they take care of filling the orders for you as they come in.
Since Amazon charges a flat $40 fee for this service, you should only consider it if you are making more than that in a month to cover costs. Otherwise, the $1/item fee charged by Amazon marketplace might be more what you are looking for.
How Do I Start FBA?
Find a Product to Sell
After doing your research (here’s a site that can help you), you should have come up with a product that is already selling well on Amazon. Your next step is to try to figure out what adjustment you will make to it to make it unique. Once you have done that, you are ready to get in touch with us at Private Label University to move the process along.
Get a Supplier to Make Your Product
You will want to make a list of about 10 different supplier options and compare them for samples, international availability, and most importantly, prices and terms. Some popular suppliers to try could include: alibaba.com, aliexpress.com, and globalsources.com. These aren’t bad options if you’re just starting out, but you may expect to see smaller profit margins. Or, you could go directly to the source at the Canton Fair in China. By cutting out the middle man and working directly with suppliers, you could see a much bigger profit on all your products. Our next trip is in April.
Set Up a Listing on Your Amazon Account
If you don’t already have an Amazon account, consider setting up either a professional or individual account. The professional account is for those with more serious volume aspirations, as it offers more options to help you (at a cost, of course.)
Once you have an account, click “Start selling” to get to the catalog and make a listing. There are many steps to getting this step right, which is why you can surely use the help of Private Label University.
Ship Your Product
When you create your listing, you’ll then move to the portion on shipping. You will enter your supplier’s address and the amount of the product you have to sell. Amazon can do most of the rest of the work, if you elect for them to do so.
Get More Sales!
Even though you have just outsourced your distribution, you still have plenty of work to do. The most important way to get sales is to get reviews for your product. So, get the word out and sell, sell, sell! The more reviews you have, the better the chance your product will be shown on one of the first pages of a search.
Still looking for guidance in selling on Amazon FBA? Our latest book has a whole section on FBA, and it’s packed with all the information you need to start private labeling. You can also book a one-on-one call with us, sign up for our free boot camp, or join us in Colorado for classroom training and hands-on experience. See what Private Label University can do for you today.
I’m interested about the Canton Fair. I have a year selling on amazon. no PL experience at all. I started getting samples from different suppliers and getting quotes on alibaba. I noticed that the profit is not as much as i wanted but i’m willing to start somewhere with small margins. how much money do i need to go roughly? Thank you,
Brian Monge.
HI Brian, that is so exciting you are getting started. A perfect way to start off the new year. We have been traveling to the fair and doing business in China for over 3 decades and have privately labeled tens of thousands of products for chain stores, retailers, online entrepreneurs and of course ourselves. And I agree Alibaba is expensive and it takes a very long time with the back and forth communication and samples before you see any traction.
The Canton fair makes it real simple to get everything done quickly. Many of our students who attend the fair with us are new to PL. In fact, many of them, this is their first time and have had no experience and background in PL. We understand that and focus on training before the fair, during and after with 100% support (all included) (You even get your own PLU team member with you IN THE FAIR the whole time we are together) and that is why our students have 100% success at the fair. I will be honest there are other “canton fair experiences” but their main focus in on Amazon training which will get you nowhere at the canton fair.
Our training focuses on international business and how to be successful in the fair and out. You will know exactly how to navigate around the fair, negotiate properly (this is a skill), know what to do in a booth and how to interact, products, importing and product development strategies that we use with the huge chain stores, build international business relationships and a ton more so that you can apply all these very important skills and strategies to your online business.
And yes we do talk about Amazon but our focus is on PL and products and how it applies to Amazon and online sales and retail brick and mortar. You want products that can be everywhere not just Amazon. You dont need to go to China for Amazon training we give you FREE the training with sign up. I recommend you set up a call with us. It is free but we can walk you through the 8-day live training and answer your questions. You can set up a call with us on our website at the top of the page.
Thanks Karen
Here is the website for our next china event… All the details are here…