In this episode of the effective e-commerce podcast, we’re gonna be talking about Amazon Amazon FBA selling on Amazon we’re gonna go over all the details all the secrets and right now I’m doing probably about fifty thousand dollars a month off of Amazon. So I’m definitely not the world’s number one expert in Amazon or Amazon FBA but I’m doing pretty well like it pays the bills and then some actually I’m very happy with how I’m doing. So I’ll teach you everything I know in this episode all the different secrets but one of the first things we should talk about is what is Amazon what is Amazon FBA selling on Amazon what does all this mean. So at this point if you don’t know what Amazon is this is not the podcast for you obviously Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce platform at least I don’t know how it compares to Alibaba actually but anyways it’s as far as I know at least in the US if you are making a purchase through an e-commerce website chances are it’s Amazon I think something like 50 percent fifty to fifty five percent of all e-commerce transactions went through Amazon as of last year. So it’s if you’re gonna be launching a physical product it’s smart to do it on Amazon now a lot of people what they do is they just white label products throw it up on Amazon I think that’s an okay strategy I think that’s a short-term strategy if you want to get your feet wet and learn about it that’s fine to do but I specifically recommend creating your own product more or less from scratch and it’s not as hard as you would think it’s a it’s almost as much work it’s about the same amount of work as white labeling of products except you have something that’s really unique. So let’s talk a little bit about Amazon FBA and some of the tips and tricks.
• Pre Launch –
• Sellers Account
• After you get your account
• Ungating
• Brand Registry
• Craft a Great Product Page
• Images
• Reviews
• Enhanced Content
• PPC Ads
• Header Search Ads

In this what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna be talking about everything you need to do to get started you know from uncaging to brand registry to creating an account all the way to how to make a good product page including everything you need to do craft a good product page which includes keywords titles bullet points images some tips and tricks I have for that as well as some other things such as enhanced content in PPC ads and part of this might make it into a the next episode specifically some of the paid ads components but let’s start from the beginning really where it all starts in my opinion is up pre-launch and I’ve talked about this in a lot of other videos I’ll put a link if you’re if you’re watching this as a video put a link up here if you’re listening to the podcast just go back to previous episodes I don’t remember exactly what episode number but I talked a lot about creating some kind of a pre-launch list and what I did is I originally launched my most recent Amazon quote-unquote product I launched it as a Kickstarter first. So I created a pre-launch list for that and then when I launched it on Amazon I had that entire list everybody that bought from the Kickstarter everybody from the pre Kickstarter launch and I basically just emailed all of them and said hey it’s live on Amazon please go leave a review please go purchase and the way I think about Amazon and this is true for a lot of different platforms but specifically with Amazon is it’s kind of a snowball style platform what I mean by that is the way snowballs get bigger if you ever rolled a snowball down a hill or you’ve you know heard this expression a snowball gets bigger and bigger because it can packs the snow down and it gathers more snow.

It gets bigger over time but if you don’t start with anything if you just start with like a little speck it’s gonna be hard to get anything going you need to you know grab that snowball pack it in with your hand and roll it down the hill for it to gather some kind of momentum the same is true with Amazon if you start from nothing if when you launch your product if you have no sales you have no reviews and you’re not willing to get friends and family to go leave reviews it’s gonna be very very tough on the flipside if you have a giant list of people that you can promote to and as soon as it’s live you can email all them and say hey everybody the new product is live on Amazon go check it out you’re gonna be doing a lot better gonna be a lot more successful. So it all begins in the pre-launch I’m not gonna talk about that in this episode because I’ve talked about it in a bunch of other episodes but keep that in mind that’s probably the most important part of launching an Amazon products from what I’ve seen. So the first step really other than after the pre-launch is creating your sellers account and there’s two types there’s like a basic one I forget the name of it and there’s like a more premium one the more premium one is $40 a month and for a lot of categories you have to do that the other one there’s no fee for but it’s $2.00 a sale. So you can start with the lower one if your category allows it just pay the $2 a sale until it gets up to $40 a month not that that’s just the detail the next thing to keep in mind is Amazon does take some decent-size fees they take about a 15% fee and if you do Amazon FBA which I haven’t talked about yet which Amazon FBA is where you ship them a bunch of products and they fulfill it for you.

So it’s called fulfilled by Amazon that’s what FBA stands for versus fulfilled by merchants which means that I have to ship it myself. So so right now when I get a sale on Amazon I don’t do anything Amazon has all my inventory they ship it out for me that’s how they’re able to offer Amazon Prime that’s how they’re able to offer two-day shipping. So it’s usually about 15% for just the sale like a fee and another 15% or. So to pay for the shipping. So you’re looking at given Amazon 30 to maybe 35% and that’s not including returns and all this other stuff. So that’s that’s the basics of creating a seller’s account it’s very easy to do just go on Amazon and you can do that after you get your account there’s some other things depending on what category you’re selling in you may have to get unguided and what this means is basically just got to apply to Amazon and say hey I have a food company and they don’t allow anybody that has a food company just to come along and lists on there you have to prove to them that you’ve actually purchased the proper ingredients that you are a legitimate company and. So once you prove to them that you are a legitimate company you can get unguided it’s not that tough to get unguided I’ve had I’ve heard a lot of people that do have a lot of issues with it what I’d recommend is if you do have some purchase orders you should be fine but you could always Photoshop them and make them seem larger than they are give them a call give Amazon a call and try to see I got I got I was disapproved the first time I submitted my application the second time I was approved.

So and it was the same application the same forms everything the next thing is brand registry you’ll want to get brand registered if you do have your own brand to fit your own products it doesn’t want to get brand registered and what to get brand registered it’s different now than it used to be the way it is now is you have to actually have trademark. So if you’re thinking about selling on Amazon you’re thinking about selling your own branded products I’d recommend getting a trademark ASAP it’s about two hundred fifty dollars for a trademark. So it ain’t cheap but it’s worth it because then your product is brand registered and what that means is a few different things one you can have enhanced brand content which we’ll talk about later which basically means a more powerful a better product description it allows you to put images in there text use some bold and highlights and all this kind of fun stuff. So that’s one part of it but the other thing is it makes it. So nobody can modify your listing. So when you put up a product in Amazon that’s open anybody can modify it. So some other seller can come along and say now I want to change these bullet points now I want to change the title of this I want to change you know all this different random stuff. So you don’t want that to be allowed to happen. So that’s the next thing is applying for brand registry once again with everything with Amazon it can be kind of a pain in the butt or you might get lucky I got somewhat lucky with brand registry I got I got approved pretty easily there’s other issues still though with performance nut butter specifically I’ll get into those in another episode but the next thing I want to talk about is crafting a great product page. So there’s a few different elements to the equation on gaining sales velocity with Amazon a big part of it though. So it’s obviously creating a launch group getting reviews is another thing and then ultimately you need to have a good product page.

So the first thing actually I’ll list all of them and then we’ll kind of dive in deep to each one of them individually. So keywords titles bullet points and images. So let’s start with keywords and you’re probably at this point in the podcast familiar with what keywords are I’ll give a quick overview but keywords are basically what are people typing into Amazon and you want to try to rank for certain keywords. So for instance with performance nut butter it might be paleo nut butter when someone types in paleo nut butter I want to be number one just like it used to be you’d want to rank number one in google now it is you really want to rank number one in Amazon because that’s where everyone’s going to spend their money. So what do you need to do you need to figure out what keywords you want to rank for there’s a ton of different ways to do keyword research I’ve talked about this in other episode. So I’m not gonna belabor the point but look at Google Keyword planner there’s some definitely there’s some definite overlap and if funny enough my little google app just went off as I said that. So if you heard the beep that’s what that was and they’re listening to us it’s getting crazy the artificial intelligence anyways before I go on my rant. So you want to find a bunch of different keywords. So if you look at my performance a nut butter product page it’s pretty obvious to figure out what keywords I’m trying to rank for. So what do you do then you’re gonna put it in your title there’s also spots in the back end and I forget the exact term that they use but in the back end when you’re creating your product there’s spots where you can put in what keywords you want to rank for go ahead and do that but I think the title is probably even more powerful. So you want I only think you want to craft a title bit that reads that’s fairly legible but at the same time you want it to be stuffed with some keywords I think we’re still at the point that Google was 5 10 years ago where titles they still mine through the titles to try to figure out what keywords. So if you look at the title of mine here I’ll pull it up right now as we speak but it’s something like let’s see performance nut butter I’m searching it performance nut butter macadamia coconut and cashew nut butter keto paleo and vegan friendly low-carb healthy fat bomb perfect ketogenic and whole 30 approved snack. So that’s what it is. So if you can tell which keywords I’m trying to rank for. So performance nut butter is a key word I’m trying to rank for macadamia is a key word I’m trying to rank for coconut cashew nut butter all keywords I’m trying to rank for keto paleo vegan friendly low carb healthy fat bomb. So fat bomb is a big one ketogenic and whole 30 approved snack all those are things that I’m trying to rank for and after you know after that the next thing we’re gonna look at is the bullet points and.

So my bullet points I try to craft something this is your chance to add more keywords and I’ve heard different things whether or not they index the bullet points but it’s also a chance for you to sell your product. So my first bullet point is paleo vegan and keto friendly there’s a reason that just about every diet out there includes nuts it’s because nuts are packed with nutrition and good for your body the next bullet point is just four ingredients macadamia nuts coconut cashew and Himalayan sea salt thought thought thought that’s all superior tastes. So I just highlight all these reasons all these benefits of why people might want to buy it pretty simple to do let’s see what else we have here. So after that is the description and once again if you’re new to Amazon FBA you’re gonna want to write a decent description write it for humans I heard that it doesn’t actually index. So this may or may not be true but I’ve heard it doesn’t index and the search results. So don’t worry as much about using keywords as you do writing it for humans and any time you write something that’s keyword quote-unquote optimized it should also still be legible for humans. So keep that in mind when you’re doing that let’s see what else we have here okay. So next up is the images. So the images are really where it’s at this is the thing that is going to help you convert as much as possible because people do is they look at the images on the product page and they try to figure out if that you know what the product is and when people go to Amazon you’ve seen this yourself you’ve definitely gone to maybe back in the day eBay and I remember I remember very specifically back in the day on eBay some listings would not have an image and others would have an image if it was the same price I’d always go with the one that has an image even if it’s just a crappy you know low-quality image and remember back in the day that was before cameras were even in your phone but it was just the digital camera you know one megapixel it was just good to know it was reassuring to know that they actually had the product nowadays images sell in different ways it’s basically replicating what it would be like to own the product. So when you go to Amazon and you looked at look at a product page you want to know exactly what it’s going to be like to own that product it’s gonna instill that emotion into you. So what should you do you should first up you should have a lot of different images from different angles images and and use. So here’s what I wrote down this images are the most important thing for conversion the first image you need is one with just up the product and a white background now if it’s clothing someone could be wearing it if it’s an edible product like performance a nut butter is you could potentially show someone eating it that’s all fine I believe check Terms of Service I might be wrong on that but it definitely needs to have a white background some other pictures you should have is an action shot another one is a comparison shot show a picture of your product versus the competitors show what makes your product better. So I recently just did this actually just actually I just put it up yesterday I believe but I showed a chart and showed my product and it said something like peanut free paleo friendly and it show a checkmark next to all of mine and then it would show my competitors and it would show no no no. So you could see and I didn’t actually put my competitors I think I put competitor number one competitor number two competitor number three and you could see the difference some other pictures I recommend is a picture of maybe your product with some descriptions like pointing you could point at it in saying only four ingredients paleo friendly keto friendly and like showing like easy tear like pointing to like the tare easy tare option for you know on-the-go consumption and then pictures with people. So this is kind of similar to an action chop but pictures with people happily using it once again you want to make it seem like yeah when someone’s gonna buy it they’re not the first person ever to buy this thing that it’s already it’s got social proof and people want it people like to buy things that have social proof people like to buy things where all their friends say this is really amazing you should go buy it. So the next thing we’ll talk about is reviews and with reviews yeah there’s this is probably one of the most important factors for continuing the success of your Amazon listing cuz everything else we’ve talked about. So far is pretty much in the first week or two but then reviews is something that’s an ongoing process now you’re gonna want to start with a large group a pre-launch group and get as many reviews as soon as possible it gives many purchases as soon as possible absolutely you should go and get family and friends now don’t get too close to family it is technical against Terms of Service I left a review on a friend’s product page and they did kind of catch catch that and delete the review part of the reason I was hesitating earlier in this podcast actually as I just looked at my reviews and it looked like someone’s review was deleted which is sad another thought is you can get strangers you can get people that you for instance I’m not saying I would have done actually now it’s okay to say I did this I’d go to a bulletproof cafe for instance which is a cafe where people go that would like performance nut butter and I walk around you know and I give out free samples and then I’ll strike up a conversation with people and tell them how important it is for Amazon reviews and a good percentage of the people end up going to Amazon buying a product and leaving a review. So trying to get those reviews is very very important definitely keep that in mind a lot of people will do things like free and exchange. So I might tell my family and friends or it can even be people to go to the same gym as you or people that go you know that are part of the same or any kind of organization I’ll tell them hey I’ll give you a free box in exchange for a review. So you buy it I’ll venmo or PayPal you the money and then just give me you know give me a review basically and there’s also promotion groups I’ve had friends that have talked about doing this and friends that have done this where you guys all get together and you invite your friends and family and they say to everybody you’ll get free items in exchange for reviews. So it might be let’s say my friend Stu Stu comes in and you know we have a group of 20 people and Stu says hey I just launched this new product everybody can get you know my free products for free but just please leave a review and you know we all would do that for example now is that against Terms of Service yes it is but are they gonna catch you maybe maybe not last is when you’re doing reviews you want to get pictures in video whenever possible. So ask people to take a photo of the product and post it ask people do video of the product and post it that’s all okay to do on top of that what you’re gonna want to think about there are groups I forget the name of them there are groups where you just completely like I think viral lunch is one of them you just give away the you give the product away for free to a ton of people in hopes that they go and they leave a review now there’s no guarantee that they will but it’s like it’s quote-unquote vetted people that know that they’re gonna get free products and if they like it they’ll go leave a review. So I’m probably gonna wrap up right about there and this is relatively long podcast for me just to do by myself I realize now how much easier it is when you have a co-host. So anyways let’s talk about or if you’re interviewing something that’s also easier let’s go over everything again first step most important step in my opinion is creating a pre launch group getting people excited about the fact they’re going to be launching a product then you’re gonna get your sellers account you’re gonna get unguided and brand registered you’re gonna create a product page and creating a product page is all about the keywords what keywords are gonna rank for the title the bullet points making high quality images this is where this is what will differentiate your product against other peoples in your product page versus other peoples is the images and then the name of the game is reviews this is the thing that all my friends in the Amazon world talk about all the time is how do we get more reviews how do I get more reviews. So that is definitely the name of the game and the next episode we’re gonna talk about enhanced brand content PPC ads and header search ads. So that is it for this episode make sure if you haven’t yet please go to iTunes leave a five star review I pick a new winner every month to get a free one-on-one consultation with me. So by going to iTunes and leaving that five star review not only are you entering to win a free one-on-one consultation with me but on top of that you’ve helped out the podcast cuz that’s how people find out about this podcast and that’s how I’m gonna know to I should continue to do this I I’ve had a podcast in the past that I stopped because didn’t seem like anyone was listening to it because I wasn’t getting any reviews. So hopefully I can keep this one going hopefully your founding value in this and hopefully you’ll leave that five star iTunes review thank you. So much have a great rest your day and that’s it have a great week bye