To wrap up the year, I’m looking back at the most common questions I’ve been asked by sellers during Power Hours, training sessions and conversations this year.

These questions come up time and time again, whether someone’s just getting started or already established.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why your listing might not be showing up in search
• How to get your first reviews (and what not to do)
• When to start running ads, and how to keep them effective
• The best way to launch a new product
• When it makes sense to expand to other marketplaces

I also reflect on what these questions tell us about where sellers are right now — and how much progress so many have made this year.

If you’ve had any of these questions yourself, you’re not alone. And if you’d like ongoing help with your Amazon strategy, I share how we can work together one-to-one in 2026.

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Welcome to the Bring your product idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started. Hi and welcome to this episode of Bring your product idea to life.

So today I want to do a little short, hopefully quite fun episode covering some of the Amazon questions I've been asked the most this year.

So I've been having a little think about some of the things, you know, when I do my membership calls or I do workshops other people do, I go on other people's podcasts or I do power hours, I've been trying to think what are the things that I've been asked most this year?

Year I thought this would be a nice wrap up episode and hopefully you're all going to learn something new from this as well because as you can imagine, I spend a lot of my time speaking of Amazon sellers and there are genuinely certain things that come up all of the time. So I'm going to answer those questions today.

I should also say that for next month I'm thinking it'd be really nice in December to do an ask me anything episode where you can ask your questions.

So today the questions that I've selected from the ones that I get asked most often, and I promise I have been very honest here, these honestly are the questions I get asked a lot. But you might have your own questions that I'm not going to cover here today.

And if that's the case, you can contact me vickykywineberg.com or contact me on LinkedIn or Instagram and let me know what you would like me to answer for you in a future episode. It can be something quite broad like the questions I'm covering today, or maybe it's something that's quite specific to you.

Obviously don't make it too specific because if it's, if it's too specific, it might be something I can't answer without a bit more context. But do please send me your questions and I will look forward to answering them in that episode.

So the first question I get asked a lot is why isn't my listing showing up in the search results? And this can be for a number of reasons. So if this is a brand new seller asking me this, it's usually a matter of time.

When you first get started selling on Amazon, you have to set up Your listing, as we've spoken about before, and then that's, you know, one tick in the box. However, you do have to do something to drive traffic to your listing.

You are not going to start ranking, first of all, probably not even for your brand name, let alone any of the keywords you've put in your listing. Because until someone has found your product, bought it, Amazon has got no kind of data to say this product is really relevant for this keyword.

So I think the mistake people sometimes make is they do a lot of keyword research. They make sure all of the keywords are contained within their listing text.

And then they think, okay, now what will happen is someone will search for this keyword and I'll pop up. But unfortunately, that isn't the case because, you know, your product could be really relevant for the search term.

I don't know, let's say blue umbrella. I'm just throwing something out here, probably because it's raining as I record this.

So you might be selling a blue umbrella, and your product might be really relevant for blue umbrella, but you won't be the only one.

And there'll be plenty of sellers using the keyword blue umbrella who also sell blue umbrellas and have sold blue umbrellas and have great reviews for their blue umbrellas. And those listings are going to get shown a lot higher than yours. And that is just how it works, unfortunately.

So step one is always getting set up on Amazon and doing a really good job. And of course that's really important as the basis for everything. However, you also need to do something to drive traffic to your listings.

Amazon can start to see, oh, okay, people who search for blue umbrellas go on to buy this product. It's obviously relevant for some blue umbrellas. Let's start increasing their ranking. But that is something that takes time.

And again, even for your brand name, it might not be that you show up on page one immediately. It takes a little bit of time for you to start ranking and for the algorithm to kick in.

So please don't panic, but please do something to drive traffic to your listing.

So whether that's running ads, which we'll talk about a bit later, whether that's using social media, your email list, word of mouth, asking family and friends to buy your product, asking your current customers to buy your product, you have to do something to drive traffic to your listings, or they're just not going to get a pound. So the second thing I get asked a lot is how do I get my first reviews? And this is actually a really good Question.

Because reviews on Amazon are really important and I actually had a call with someone just this week where I was explaining, so they're brand new on Amazon, we've just got them set up and I was explaining that before we go ahead and switch on ads, which they're really keen to do. And I do think, you know, that's a good thing to do. And I will talk about ads in my next question.

I've said to them, before we start running ads, please can you go away and get some reviews. And, and there's a number of ways we can do this.

So one thing you can do is use Amazon vine, which I've done a whole episode on before, which is where Amazon trusted reviewers get sent your product and you have to be using FBA to participate in Vine. They get sent your product for free. So you have to donate your products and then they will review it.

And as I said before, it doesn't mean they're necessarily going to give good reviews. They're not. They don't have to give you a good review, but they have to give you an honest and fair review for your product.

And as I say, that does involve you giving away your products. And then you also have to pay a fee for vine as well, depending how many items that you're including. So that's something that you can do.

So yes, it does cost a little bit of money to do vine. However, it can be a really great way of getting reviews. Vine reviewers are encouraged to leave really high quality reviews.

So not necessarily, as I say, great reviews, but your product's great, you're going to get great reviews.

But vine reviewers, to keep their place as a Vine reviewer and get access to these free products, they have to write really detailed reviews, they often leave pictures, they need videos, they're good quality reviews. It's not just someone saying this is nice, you know, they're reviews that will add value to their customers, which are really important.

So if you can afford to find is something worth considering, even if you can only afford to give away a few products, you can actually give away 2, 2 items of every SKU and not pay anything. So yes, you are paying for giving away the products, but that can be a nice way of doing it as well.

So for the brand that I mentioned, that's what we're going to do. So we're going to be giving two items of each SKU because there's no additional fee for that.

And then they're also going to be going away and using their existing customer base to get some, some reviews. So reviews are hard work. Your existing customers are also a great way of getting reviews because you know that they like your product already.

They buy it already.

Of course, it might be better for you, for your customers to continue buying on your website rather than go to Amazon because you know, most of the time a sale on your website is more profitable than it is on Amazon. However, you might want to encourage them to buy on Amazon as a one time thing. So you might.

For example, something I've done with brands before is we've set up like a little discount code only for existing customers.

So a secret code that they've sent by email to their existing customers and said if you buy on Amazon the next 24, 48 hours, however long the code is going to work for, you can get this exclusive discount you're not going to get anywhere else. Oh, and by the way, can you also leave a review that can work really well. You can ask your friends and family to leave reviews.

Not technically meant to do that, but you can. So I'm going to mention it because getting reviews, as you probably know, is really, really hard.

And it's something you definitely need to put effort in.

So as well as getting the effort to get the first sales I mentioned in the last question, you also need to put some effort into getting reviews on your listings as well. And I know that's not probably what you want to hear, especially if you've gone through all the work into getting set up in the first place.

It does feel like it's going to slow things down. It is another step. However it is, it is essential. So the next question is, do I nearly? Do I really need to run ads? And my answer to this is no, but.

So, no, you don't have to. But my but is but you have to do something, particularly if you're brand new on Amazon.

Actually, I should caveat that I'm talking about those of you who are really new.

So if you've just recently launched on Amazon and you don't have the budget for ads or you don't want to use ads, that's absolutely fine, you don't have to. But you are going to have to put in effort.

As I mentioned, my answer to my first question into getting your first sales on Amazon, because if you don't do anything, your people aren't going to find your product listing. And that's the brutal truth. And I hate telling people that. It's not a nice thing to say, but.

And I will say again, if you don't do anything to tell people that you're on Amazon, whether that's through paid ads, whether that's through social media, whether that's through your email list, however you're doing it, people won't find your listing on Amazon, so you don't have to use ads. But they can, can be a great tool, particularly if you're starting out.

If you've been on Amazon for a while, you might also say, do I really need to run ads? And the answer to that is, well, that kind of depends.

If you are making the level of sales that you're happy with on Amazon organically, then you probably don't need ads. Running ads might increase your sales, but they might not.

Because as we know, ads can take a bit of trial and error and a bit of testing before they start working for you. If you want to grow your sales, it could be something to consider, but again, it doesn't have to be. There are other things you can do.

All of the things I mentioned for new sellers.

So using your existing customers, talking on social, your products being on Amazon, on social media, how you having links from your website to Amazon, if that's something you want to do. As I said, it's not going to work for everyone. It really depends on your reasons for being on Amazon.

And you know where you'd prefer customers to buy from you, because for some brands, you know, sales, sale, you don't care where it comes from. But I know for others, Amazon is more of like a gateway to get people to know the brand and come over to your website.

So depending what your goals are, you absolutely don't need to use ads.

There are other things you can do, but it's just good to know that, particularly if you're starting, you haven't had any or many sales yet, you do need to do something to drive traffic to your listings. And then the final question that I've been asked is when should I expand to other marketplaces? And again, I feel like I say this a lot.

I don't have a black and white answer for this one. So first thing I will say, and this applies to everyone, is launching just one marketplace at a time.

Sometimes I will speak to brands and they'll say, oh, I'm going to launch in the UK and the US and Germany. And I'll say, great, but which one first? Because ideally you do one of them first, do it really, really well and replicate it in the others.

And I'm not saying that you can't launch your products in the UK and the US for Example, but I would focus on doing one really well and then doing the other, if that means you're doing it immediately after.

Or maybe, or maybe if it's say the UK and the US as an example, maybe you are doing them in parallel, if you've got the time in the or the resources to do that. So maybe you are launching on both at the same. At the same time.

Although of course they're different marketplaces and depending where your business is based, there's going to be different tax implications and all kinds of different things. So maybe you are going to do them in parallel.

But as a rule, I would say make sure that you have one marketplace that's set up well, your listings are fully optimized, everything's working, and then think about expanding somewhere else.

Unless, I guess, my exception to this, because I said there's no black or white, the exceptions this would be if you have something and you think actually the Germany or France or there's somewhere that you think will be a better market than the one you've set up in. So maybe you're selling your product in the UK now, but actually you can see that products like yours do really well somewhere else.

And you're like, actually, I think this could actually be a better opportunity for me than the market I'm in. So I work with some UK brands, for example.

Well, no, I work with some people based in the UK who only sell in the US for example, because their products, for various reasons, they know that they're going to sell better in the US than they are here. But that is the only market that they sell in.

So it might be that you've tried the UK and you're like, actually, Germany is going to be a better market for me. And there's lots of reasons why that is, and I think I'm going to try that.

In that case, I would say do that whenever you're ready, do the same checks into another marketplace that you would if you were going to sell in the uk. So check that you can sell your product there, you know, because different markets will have different regulations.

So check that you can sell your product there, check that there's demand and people are buying products like yours over there. And check the fees.

And ideally do this with a accountant, tax expert, someone who really knows what they're talking about to make sure that it's going to be profitable for you. So really, in terms of when you expand to other marketplaces, you know, there's no black and white answer.

But what I will say is, do Your research first. I also would expand to one at a time. When I was selling on Amazon years and years ago, I started selling in every country in Europe all at once.

This was before Brexit though, I should say so it's a lot easier back then. But also given my time again, would I have just jumped into all of them? I don't know. Possibly because as I said, it was simpler back then.

But equally, I am a fan of doing things slower and better. Much more of a fan of that now. I used to be more like oh let's just jump in. And it's particularly because it was my my business and my brand.

But I did make some mistakes that way. So I would say expand slowly. There's absolutely no rush and good luck with it. So that is all of your I say your questions.

All of the questions that if you've been in my membership or you've had a one to one with me over the past year, then you've possib ask one of those. I hope that there's been at least one that's resonated with you and has been really useful.

Just a reminder that if you have any specific questions for me, I will be doing Ask Ask Me Anything episode which is going to go out. I'm looking at my list which is going to go out at the end of December.

So a nice roundup for the year and I really, really would love your questions for that. So please do send them vickywinebag.com and if you need a bit more bespoke support.

So if you have some questions, whether I've covered them here or not, but you need a little bit more than a five minute answer on a podcast, then please do book a power hour with me and I will put a link for how you can do that in the show notes for this episode. So thank you so so much for listening. I can't believe we've made it to the end of November.

I'm recording this the end of October, but I'm sure the end of November is going to be here in no time. Please do continue to listen to these episodes. I don't think I say this enough, but please do rate review.

Please subscribe so you don't miss any future ones.

Please tell your friends if you've got friends that you think would find this useful, your friends, your colleagues, people in your network that would help me out so, so much and thank you as always for being here. I hope you found this episode useful and I will speak to you again next week.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the Fullback catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vickywineberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.