I work with a lot of Amazon sellers everyday, helping them set up and grow their Amazon account. I see a lot of people do well – but I also see people who don’t.  What’s worse is that for some of them there are reasons for this, out of their control, and they might have been better off focusing their time and effort into another marketplace.

In this episode I share why Amazon might be the right platform for you, how to determine this and things that you might want to consider.

Listen in to hear me share:

• An introduction to  me and why I wanted to record this episode (00:24)
• The foundations of getting started selling on Amazon (03:25)
• Why you should sell your product on Amazon (04:29)
• The advantages of FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) (07:15)
• Accessing a global market (08:15)
• Things that aren’t so great about Amazon, seller support (09:08)
• Things that aren’t so great about Amazon, there is a lot of competition (10:33)
• Product listing rules you need to adhere to (11:52)
• The sort of products that Amazon works well for (13:27)
• The importance of researching the market and your competition (15:44)
• Free tools you can use (16:34)
• How I can help you get started with selling on Amazon (19:59)

JUNGLE SCOUT DISCOUNT CODE:

Go to get.junglescout.com/vicki to access a whole suite bestselling tools for building and running a successful Amazon business.  

USEFUL RESOURCES:

I have written a blog post to accompany this episode, which you can read here

PODCAST: Where’s the best place to sell your products online

FREEBIE: How to Successfully Launch a Product on Amazon or Rescue One That's Not Selling

PODCAST: Common Amazon issues and how to resolve them

TOOL: Jungle Scout 

BLOG: Jungle Scout - My favourite tool for selling on Amazon

TOOL: FBA Revenue Calculator

HOW I CAN SUPPORT YOU ON AMAZON:

My Free Resources 

Is Amazon Right For You? Mini Strategy Session

Amazon Account Audit

Amazon Launch Package

Amazon Training Q&A Hour

Book a Power Hour with me

LET’S CONNECT:

Join my free Facebook group for product makers and creators

Find me on Instagram

Work with me 

If you enjoy this podcast, and you’d like to leave a tip, you can do so here: https://bring-your-product-idea.captivate.fm/support

Mentioned in this episode:

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Speaker: 00:00:04

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast.

Speaker: 00:00:07

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling

Speaker: 00:00:09

products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

Speaker: 00:00:13

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert.

Speaker: 00:00:16

Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational

Speaker: 00:00:20

stories from small businesses.

Speaker: 00:00:22

Let's get started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:24

Hi.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:25

Thank you for being here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:26

So this is an another episode where it's just me again, and this episode was

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:30

inspired by the fact that every single day I hear from lots of people on small

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:35

businesses who want to start selling on Amazon, and as you'll probably know, I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:39

also help and work with a lot of Amazon sellers every single day on either

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:43

getting started on Amazon or on improving their sales on their existing account.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:48

And I see a lot of people do really, really well on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:51

But I also see people who don't and what is worse, I think and what I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:57

really feel for is that some of these businesses have, you know, there are

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:02

reasons why they're not doing as well on Amazon as they might, but some of

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:06

this is actually out of their control.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:08

Um, and of course I will talk later in this episode about the things that

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:12

are within your control, but it might be that they would've been better

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:15

off focusing their time and effort into another marketplace instead.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:19

By the way, I'm not meaning to be harsh at all when I say that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:21

You hopefully know by now that my goal is to help as many people do as possible,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:25

do as well as possible, whether that's on Amazon or on another platform, but

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:30

Amazon definitely isn't for everyone.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:32

And I'm not saying that those who don't do well don't have a great

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:35

product, although of course this is essential wherever you sell it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:38

Could just be that there's another marketplace that

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:40

suits their product better.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:43

And I have actually recorded an episode about the best places to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:45

sell your products, and I'm going to link to that in the show notes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:49

So I guess what I'm saying here is, that there are sellers who I think if

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:52

they'd realized how competitive the category they're selling their products

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:56

in, or you know, maybe there's a really dominant seller there already who's

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:00

selling something very similar who has maybe a couple of thousand reviews.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:03

It can be really, really hard to get started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:06

And that's say, not saying that you shouldn't sell, by the way.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:09

I just think it's better to go in knowing that, okay, there's

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:12

somebody else doing really well here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:14

This niche is really saturated, but I'm going to, you know, open eyes and I know

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:18

that rather than going and spending time and money on selling on Amazon, getting

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:24

yourself set up and, and just not having any clue really as to whether things

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:29

might work, um, whether you might sell your, you know, maybe you might make lots

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:33

of sales, your products, or whether it's going to be tricky to make any sales.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:37

And on the other hand I should say that it might be that Amazon

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:41

is not somewhere you've even considered selling your product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:44

And maybe you're listening to this episode because you're considering that and I, you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:49

know, you think it could be a good fit.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:50

So do listen on whichever one of these applies, or maybe none of them

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:53

applies, but do listen because I, hopefully you'll find something useful

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:57

and interesting that you can apply.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:59

So you have probably heard me say many times by now that Amazon is a

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:02

tricky place to get started, even if you have an amazing product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:06

And it is in fact so hard that I wrote a free guide all about this, which is called

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:10

How to Successfully Launch a Product on Amazon or Rescue One That's Not Selling.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:14

I'm going to link to that in the show notes as well, because whether you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:16

are on Amazon already and you're not seeing the sales you'd expect, or

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:20

whether you're thinking, actually, I think maybe I'd like to get set up.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:22

I think this is all just really useful information to have.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:25

I'll touch on some of this today, but there's a lot that goes into getting

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:28

started on Amazon, particularly if you're going into a category where

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:33

there's already a lot of competition and other sellers are doing well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:36

You have to be able to compete and when I say.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:39

I don't really like that word.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:40

What I mean is you also, let's assume these sellers are doing well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:44

They're going to have really great listings.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:46

You need really great listings.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:47

They need really great images.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:48

You need really great images.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:50

They're going to be well optimized for seo.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:51

You need to be well optimized for seo.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:54

And I do apologize if some of this is obvious, but, um, do know that I say

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:58

this from a good place because lots of times when I see people and they

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:01

say, oh, I'm not doing very well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:03

I've had my listing up for a couple of months, but I'm not selling any, um,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:06

sometimes, not all of the time, but often I can pinpoint exactly why that is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:11

And there were really practical things they can do to make improvements.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:14

But obviously they might then have, you know, they might have spent that first

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:17

couple of months not making any sales.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:19

And that's not what I want for anybody.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:21

And you know, even if it's, even if it is only a month or two, that's a month

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:25

or two, you could have been making sales.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:26

So I think it's really good to know a lot of this from the start.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:29

So I want to talk a little bit about why Amazon is an appealing

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:33

place to sell your products.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:35

So whether, you know, whether you find it appeals to you, maybe it's

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:38

somewhere you want to sell, or maybe you're just considering it

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:41

and you want to hear my take on it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:42

Well, I think there are lots of reasons.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:45

It's obviously a huge well-known marketplace.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:48

I didn't have to tell you what Amazon was, for example, I'm pretty

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:50

sure if you're listening to this episode, you know what Amazon is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:53

You've heard of them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:53

You've probably shopped there before.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:55

Lots of us do shop there, so we're familiar with it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:58

And there were lots of customers there already.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:00

So if your product is what people are looking for, it can be easier to convert

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:03

them into customers than on Google, for example, as they're usually there to shop.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:09

So if they're in the search bar and they're typing, I don't know, shampoo

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:13

for curly hair, if they're typing that on Google, they might be doing a bit

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:17

of research trying to find out what products are out there or trying to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:20

find out should you shampoo curly hair.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:22

If they're typing shampoo for curly hair into Amazon, chances are that

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:26

customer is looking to buy shampoo for curly hair and like of any marketplace.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:31

And as I said, I have a podcast episode where I go into all of this in more detail

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:35

for all kinds of online marketplaces.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:38

There are good and bad points about selling on Amazon too, so

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:41

I'm going to start with the good.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:42

So as I said, Amazon is a large, recognizable marketplace.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:45

People know and trust and as well as knowing and trusting.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:49

They usually know and trust them enough to put their card details on there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:53

So, I don't know about you, but I have my card details.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:56

I think I have even done probably more than one card detail save on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:58

So if I want to buy something, I can just do it with one click.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:01

It's really, really easy.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:03

So that's, you know, that's good for you as a seller because it means there

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:06

aren't that many barriers to someone actually being able to buy your product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:09

They're not worried about is this site secure?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:11

Put my card details in here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:13

Do I even know where my card is?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:15

Except, you know, it's really, really easy to buy from.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:18

And as I said, the customer is there already, so you don't need to worry

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:20

about getting them onto the site.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:22

You just need to focus on them being able to find your product and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:25

then converting them into buyers.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:28

And there are lots of inbuilt marketing tools you can use on

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:30

Amazon to attract customers.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:32

And these get better and better all the time.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:33

So you can do advertising to your listing, you can advertise to your Amazon store.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:38

If you have an Amazon store, you can target by keyword searches.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:43

You can choose to advertise on other people's listings, you can do video ads.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:47

There's just so much that you can do, and it does get better and better.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:51

And I have to say, I wouldn't consider myself an advertising expert.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:56

But I have great results using Amazon advertising for my clients, and I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:00

actually think of all of the ad types of advertising I have tried and I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:04

have tried a few over the years.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:05

I feel like the Amazon advertising is actually pretty good and, and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:09

pretty easy to use, and at some point maybe I'll do an episode all

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:12

about that if there's any interest.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:15

If you decide to use Fulfilled by Amazon or Amazon fba, then this

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:18

means they handle the logistics.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:20

So that's the storage and the shipping for you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:22

This can be expensive, so I definitely don't recommend you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:26

thinking, oh, that's great.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:27

I'll send them hundreds of units of my product because you know,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:31

as I said, it can get expensive, particularly if things aren't moving

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:33

as fast as you'd like them to.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:36

However, for a customer, if you use fba, it means they can benefit from Amazon

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:40

Prime and which is often next day.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:42

Not always next day delivery is it, but often it is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:45

But anyway, it's fast.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:46

It's free if you, if you're a prime customer, which lots of people are.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:50

So that's another benefit really.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:52

Although I also point out, if you're thinking about selling on Amazon and you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:55

don't want to use FBA for any reason, that is also fine, especially as I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:59

just mentioned, prime delivery for me anyway, I don't know if just where I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:03

live, it isn't always next day anymore.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:05

So as long as you can get your products customers within a few days, you know,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:09

reasonably quickly, I don't think that's something that should worry you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:12

So, yeah, don't hold back.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:15

And finally, you have the opportunity to sell globally if you want to as there

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:19

are marketplaces all over the world.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:21

And so plenty of opportunities at the time of recording.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:24

There are 19 marketplaces in total.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:27

The last time I looked there were 18, so it's grown even since then.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:31

And I can only imagine that number gray, so you can certain

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:34

in Europe, the Americas, uae, Japan, Australia, all over the.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:40

And of course there are additional logistics and things to think about when

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:44

you're doing that, but it is possible.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:46

And I will also mention here again, I'm not going to go into great detail

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:49

that selling into Europe, if you're based in the UK or you're selling

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:54

you know, your selling from the UK is actually much simpler now on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:58

And if you ever want to know more about that, just let me know

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:00

because I won't go into detail here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:02

But Amazon certainly are working to try and make things a little bit

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:05

easier in, in this aspect anyway.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:08

Um, because I'll come onto the things that I think aren't so great about Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:12

And the first one I will say is that the seller support isn't that supportive.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:16

And that's me being really, really polite.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:19

Lots of sellers struggle.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:20

Because you might have an issue when you get set up or with a listing

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:23

and lots give up, which is such a shame, but it is because dealing

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:27

with them can be so difficult.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:28

You need a thick skin and you need to be really tenacious

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:31

to get anywhere with them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:32

I will be honest, I have got, I think it's about this time I'm recording this,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:36

which I think I've got about three clients that I'm managing cases for with Amazon,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:40

and I've literally spent in all cases an hour, maybe three hours in one case,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:45

trying to get something sorted that you would think would be relatively simple.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:49

That is the reality.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:50

Um, and I'm not sharing that to put you off.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:52

I'm sharing it so you know what to expect.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:54

Because often people are really surprised because obviously customer

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:57

service as a customer is pretty good.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:00

Um, but it genuinely can be quite hard to get things sorted

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:04

out if something goes wrong.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:05

Um, not to say anything will, but based on my experience,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:09

things can and do, and it's hard.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:11

And I should also say that I did record an episode all about this.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:14

Again, I'll link to it in the show notes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:16

So I explain how to kind of avoid things going wrong and if things do go wrong

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:20

what to do and I'm, hopefully, I mean, I hope you're never in that situation.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:24

If you are, you want some help.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:25

You know where to find me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:26

If you want to handle it by yourself, which by the way, you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:29

absolutely can, hopefully that episode will really help you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:33

As I alluded to earlier, another negative is that there's a lot of competition.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:38

I can't remember, I don't think I know how many product listeners there are

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:41

on Amazon, possibly millions, and it gets harder and harder to get started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:46

So I like to tell people this because something I, you've probably

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:50

heard me to talk about this before.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:51

Sometimes someone will contact me and say, oh, I put my listing on Amazon

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:54

two months ago and I can't find it myself, and nobody's brought it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:58

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:58

That kind of the reality is that unless you do something, even

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:03

if you have an amazing product and you have a great listing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:06

You've done everything I suggest.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:07

The final piece of this is you need to get people over to your listing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:10

You need to do something to get attention on it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:13

In the guide I mentioned earlier, I've got loads of ways that you can do this.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:16

A lot of them are free.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:17

I'm not saying you have to pay for advertising, you certainly don't.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:20

I know that that's, you know, that definitely might not be in your budget,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:24

but you do have to get, do something to get people over to your listing

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:26

because in lots of categories there were going to be other products and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:31

other sellers who've been on there for ages, they've got reviews, they've got

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:34

sales history, and they're going to come page one of the search results

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:37

every single time, along with the people that are paying to be there, of course.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:41

So it is really tricky.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:43

But you know, it is also possible I should say there's, I hope I'm not

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:47

focusing on the negative too much, but I always like to be balanced

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:50

and I also like to be honest.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:52

So another thing to think about is there isn't definitely an art to create a

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:55

great product listing on Amazon and you need a great product listing that I've

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:59

said lots of times and there are also lots of rules to adhere to and break in.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:03

Any one of them can get your listing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:05

Which isn't as bad as it sounds, you know, they just shut it down and then

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:08

you fix it, and then it goes live.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:09

It's obviously not a big deal.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:11

So this includes the wording you can use.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:13

So you know, be careful about claims that you make.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:16

You can't link to external websites.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:18

Your main photo has to be on a white background.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:21

Do not, to be honest.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:22

It's nothing that should cause you any problems, but it's

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:24

just worth knowing about it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:25

And then the final thing that I think is a bit of a downside selling on Amazon

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:30

is you don't get any customer details.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:32

Obviously if you are fulfilling orders yourself, then you'll get whatever

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:35

you need for shipping, but that is it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:38

Um, you can communicate with customers, but you have to be very careful

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:42

about what you can and can't say.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:44

It's tricky.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:45

I mean, my advice really is unless they contact you, reaching out to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:49

customers via email portal possibly isn't a good idea because if you say

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:54

something you're not meant to say, you're going to get yourself in trouble.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:57

So it's always better if you are selling on Amazon to try and get customers on

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:01

your email list Another way, so things, for example, having something in the

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:04

packaging maybe, or having something on the packaging just with your website so

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:08

the customers can find you off Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:10

And then hopefully, you know, go to your website, following your social

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:13

media, whatever you want to do, but ultimately get on your email list because

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:17

if the worst did come to the worst and suddenly you weren't on Amazon anymore

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:21

for some reason, and someone wanted to buy from you again, it would be great

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:25

if they could find you somewhere else.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:27

So in terms of what kind of products Amazon is good for, because I think

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:31

that's worth, really worth touching on.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:33

You can sell most things on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:35

I did have a look at things you can't sell on Amazon in the UK and some of the things

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:39

that came up with vehicles you all used.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:42

Yep.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:42

I think that makes sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:44

Airbags.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:45

I didn't even know you could buy an airbag separately.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:47

If I'm on a vehicle airbag that is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:48

Used clothes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:49

I think we all knew that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:51

Clothing made from animals.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:52

I think we hopefully knew that this isn't the full list and there are, there

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:57

is a list of restrictions that you can check for anything you want to sell.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:00

Hopefully, whatever you want to sell is something you can sell.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:03

In most cases, whatever.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:05

There's been very few cases, someone's come to me and said, I want to sell this

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:08

on Amazon, and I've had to say, sorry.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:10

You actually can't.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:12

The only recent example I can think of is a product that can contains

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:15

CBD oil that couldn't be sold.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:17

You might need to request approval for the product that you want to sell.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:21

That can take a little bit of time.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:22

And also remember that requirements can and do change.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:25

So for example, there was a time when Amazon were accepting sellers for CBD oil.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:29

So if you Google it, you will see CBD oil products on Amazon, but they're not

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:34

accepting new sellers at the moment.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:36

So just because you see something on Amazon, you think, oh, I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:40

definitely saw that there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:41

They might have set that listing up months ago, years ago, when that was, okay.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:45

What Amazon very rarely do is retrospectively,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:48

retrospectively remove anything.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:51

So just because you see something on the live site, don't assume that

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:53

you can sell something similar.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:55

Just check out the restrictions.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:57

And it also might be that you can sell the product, but if you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:00

wanted to send in for fba, you'd have to submit a safety data sheet.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:04

If you have a product that needs a safety data sheet, you'll

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:07

know what safety data sheet is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:08

I am sure.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:09

So I'm not going to go into details about what that is, but you know the

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:13

kind of products you might need that for are hand sanitizers, fragrances, food,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:18

cosmetics, and I guess the only issue might be is if you are a handmade seller.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:24

So for example, if you're selling a candle kit and it contains a fragrance

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:27

oil, you might get asked for a day safety data sheet for that fragrance oil.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:32

Having said that, it very likely wouldn't mean that you can't sell that product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:37

It would just mean that you couldn't use fba and that's not necessarily a bad

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:41

thing or a reason not to sell on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:44

So I guess the next thing to think about is how to know if there is demand

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:49

for your product, um, and if there, you know, and what the market's like.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:53

And I definitely, definitely suggest doing some research before

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:57

listing your products on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:59

If demand and competition for products similar to yours are really high already,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:03

it can be really hard to stand out and you'll be competing with sellers who

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:07

already have sales history and reviews.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:10

As you know, as I've said plenty of times, and they're going to be on page one.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:14

Equally, let's say your product is really unique, so maybe people don't

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:19

even know a product like yours exists.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:21

Or maybe it's something that people might not necessarily go to Amazon for.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:25

Um, it can also be really hard to get noticed, so you do

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:29

want to do a bit of research.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:31

If you want to carry out your own research yourself for free.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:34

My favorite tool is the Jungle Scout Sales Estimator.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:38

It's a, as I said, is a free tool, and this will give you a

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:41

rough idea of how many sales a product makes on Amazon per month.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:44

I have a blog post and a video within that blog post that explains how

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:48

to use it, but I think it's pretty intuitive, but I'll link to it in the

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:52

show notes, both to the tool and to the blog post, explaining how to use it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:56

And then what you can then do is get an idea of what the fees

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:00

would be, which is also important, using an Amazon tool, which is

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:04

called the FBA Revenue Calculator.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:06

Again, this is a free tool and I'll link that in the show notes, and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:09

basically what you can then do is work out based on what your product

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:14

is and what you'll be selling it for, what kind of fees you could expect.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:17

If you're selling it on Amazon and they really break it down, they'll say,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:20

okay, this would be the fee you'd pay for actually getting the sale, and this

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:23

would be what the shipping will cost you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:24

This is what the storage will cost you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:26

It is an estimate, you know the tool is called an estimator, but I think

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:30

it's definitely worth taking a look at.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:33

If you wanted to invest in an Amazon research tool to do your own research.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:37

So if you actually wanted to pay for something, I recommend Jungle Scout.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:41

It's probably the tool that I use the most.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:43

I have the full tool and I also have the Chrome extension, and that allows me to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:47

see it a glance how well any product sells on Amazon and what the monthly revenue is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:52

So when I do a search on Amazon, which is really weird by the way, when I'm

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:55

shopping, not working, um, when I type something in the search bar and the

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:59

results come up, I get to see when that product was listed, how many

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:02

sales they make, what their revenue is, all this extra information, and which

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:07

is useful because you can, you know, you can do that for your competitors

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:09

if you've got someone who you think, oh, they're quite similar to me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:12

Let's see how many sales they're making on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:15

You can find that out.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:16

You can also search for products and all, all for keywords, and you can see what

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:20

the competition is like, what the demand is like how well optimize the listings.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:25

Your com.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:26

I say competing again.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:27

Again, I don't like that word, but after listings in your category are

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:30

like if you were selling a bamboo baby towel, let's use it as an example.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:34

You could search bamboo baby towel.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:36

You could see what comes up.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:37

You could see how, what you know, which towels are selling the most.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:41

You could see what keywords they're using.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:43

You could see how, you know how many people are selling that product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:46

It's all really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:48

Um, and then there's a full tool and that also has product ideas for sort

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:51

of products with really good potential.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:53

It has Amazon specific keyword tools.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:56

Has analytics, you can look at your sales margins and profits.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:59

That's if you do start selling, selling on Amazon, you can link your account up.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:03

And you can also do some automated emails to customers on Jungle Scout as well,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:07

which is something else that I did.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:09

So I used to have something where every time somebody asked for a

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:12

return, they'd get an automated email seeing if I could help them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:15

And that was a really good way of cutting down negative reviews as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:19

And if you are looking to build or expand your business on Amazon,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:23

I personally think Jungle Scout is well worth flicking into.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:26

And I will provide a link for that in the show notes as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:30

Um, I will be very honest and tell you this is an affiliate link.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:33

However, as I say, this is a product that I use so much.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:37

I'm happy to recommend it to anybody.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:39

Well, anybody selling on Amazon, not just anybody.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:42

If you're not selling on Amazon and you're not interested in selling on Amazon,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:45

it's probably not the thing for you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:47

So if you, however, heard me say all of this and it's ju, you're just

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:52

like, this sounds very complicated and you want to avoid doing all of this

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:57

yourself, I can actually help you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:59

So I offer what I call mini strategy sessions where I can find out for you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:03

whether it's worth selling your product on Amazon, and then I can tell you what

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:07

I think and why, plus all the steps you need to take to make it happen.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:11

So basically everything that I've just told you, you could do, I do instead.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:15

So you find out whether there's a market of a product like yours based

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:17

on research that I'll do myself.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:20

So we would set up a call, but before we have a call, I would do

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:23

loads of research and I'd produce a nice little report for you as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:26

And I would give you my honest opinion on whether or not you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:30

should sell your product on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:32

And I'd be, as I said, I'm pretty honest.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:34

I would never say, absolutely go for it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:36

We absolutely don't.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:38

But I will say, I think that you could, and this is why, or I think that

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:42

maybe you shouldn't, or I might say, I think that you could, however you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:47

need to know this, you know, you need to know this is a busy marketplace,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:51

or I've noticed that your product has this feature that others don't.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:54

So if you do decide, sell on Amazon, this is what I would sort of lead with.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:58

And then I would talk about what's involved in setting up and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:00

launching a product on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:02

I.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:03

You know how much time you need and what exactly is involved step by step.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:08

So if you do this as well as a call with me, you get a bespoke market

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:12

research report, which includes all the competitive analysis.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:15

You get the Amazon Sellers checklist, which steps out the steps you need to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:18

take to get your product on Amazon, and you get my Amazon launch guide

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:22

to get you off to a great star.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:23

I honestly think this is an investment worth making because you can find out

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:27

whether there's actually potential for your product on Amazon before

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:30

you start thinking about spending any time or any money on getting started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:35

This can actually save you a lot of money and time, not to mention all

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:39

of the frustration and heartache.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:40

If you just jump in, then a few months later, find out actually it's just

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:44

not the right place for your product.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:46

I also take you through how to get started, how to do really well,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:50

because as I've said in this episode, there's a lot to know about how to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:52

get off to a great start on Amazon.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:54

So you need the great listing, high quality images.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:57

It's useful to know about all the features available to sellers,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:00

especially as many of these are free, but often people don't know about them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:03

And if you want to know more about what's required right now, you can

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:06

download the Amazon Launch Guide right from the show notes, so

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:09

you have that to get you started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:11

So I really hope that was a useful episode.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:14

I hope that you've taken something from it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:17

I probably haven't answered your question, on should you be

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:19

selling your products an episode?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:20

I'm really aware of that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:22

But you know, for each and every one of you, it's going to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:25

be a really different answer.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:27

Um, because it really depends on what your product is and what category

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:30

it's in and all kinds of things.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:32

But hopefully I've given you enough information that you can

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:34

go away and at least think about it, consider it, and think what

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:38

your next steps will be, if any.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:40

So as always, it's been absolutely lovely talking to you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:44

If you have any questions, you can get me on Vicki, that's v

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:46

i c k i and vicki weinberg.com.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:49

You might want to go far through the show notes as well, actually, so you don't

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:52

need to look up how to spell Weinberg.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:54

Um, um, but I genuinely, genuinely love hearing from you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:58

So if you have any questions, feedback, anything at all in this episode, then I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:02

would really love you to get in touch.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:04

Have a lovely rest of your day.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:06

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

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:09

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:13

on my website, vicki weinberg.com.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:15

Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:19

and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.