- Hi guys, Neil Waterhouse.
In this video, I want to share with you seven things
to do before you start selling on Amazon FBA.
I was the host and founder of the four largest Ebay
and Amazon groups in Australia, with over 6000 members.
I get to see not just what is working best for us,
but also, what is working best
for the other full-time sellers and the groups.
The first thing to do before you start selling
on Amazon FBA is be realistic with your financial position
and your previous experience selling online.
Is Amazon FBA the best option for you now?
There's a lot of other options out there
which require less than a hundred dollars.
Now, you're not going to make the award wage or more
unless you're going to spend many thousands of dollars
on inventory.
Whereas you can start with other strategies
for less than a hundred bucks and still make
the award wage and greater.
Selling on Amazon FBA inherently requires capital,
as you need to pre-purchase inventory before it sells,
and then ship it to an Amazon warehouse,
so that when it does sell,
Amazon can ship the items for you.
After all, that is what FBA is short for.
It's an acronym for fulfillment by Amazon.
Now time and time again over the years,
I've had people come up to me telling me they want to build
a full-time online business so they can quit their day job,
and they want to sell products either on Amazon FBA,
Ebay, or their own website, or all three.
Bottom line is, the four most popular ways these days
to source products is importing
from places like China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, et cetera,
or source from places like thrift shops, garage sales,
deceased estates, et cetera,
or source from local retail stores, or dropshipping,
where you get paid first, before you need
to purchase inventory.
Now, choosing between these four supply chains comes down
to what sort of business you wish to own.
Do you want to actively work in your business every day?
Or do you want an automated business,
which works without you?
Now, personally, since I started selling online
over 20 years ago, lifestyle's always been number one.
For that reason, I like automation, where I don't need
to spend, you know, my time driving around the countryside
to garage sales, thrift stores, you know, deceased estates,
et cetera, every week sourcing stock.
My personal choice for the last 20 years is to use
a combination of software and low-cost, outsourced,
overseas virtual assistance, which you can get part time
or full time from one dollar per hour.
Now, I'm not going to go into outsourcing here
as I've done it many times before, but I'll put a link
on the screen to a free course showing where you
can get outsource staff from one dollar per hour.
It's rain now, so you know, you have the rain whenever
the flies, unfortunately.
Anyhow, yep, don't get me wrong, some people love going
to garage sales, markets, thrift stores, deceased estates,
et cetera, and that's fine.
We're all different.
There's no right or wrong.
It's just important that you choose a model
that suits your personality and your goals.
Personally, I like to do new items,
which are either imported or dropshipping, you know,
where you get paid first, before you need
to purchase the item.
Now, if you've got the cash for importing,
and you want to do importing, awesome.
But if you don't, then dropshipping is another option
to consider, as you get paid first, before you need
to purchase product.
This means you're always cash flow positive.
Now I'm not going to go into dropshipping in this video
as I've done it a million times before as well,
but again I'll put a link on the screen to a free workshop.
Now, when without going into all the numbers, on average,
to make a thousand dollars profit per week, importing,
most full-time importers selling on Amazon FBA or Ebay
or their own website need to invest around $36,000
on inventory to make one thousand dollars profit per week.
Again, that's 36,000 on inventory
to make one thousand dollars profit after all expenses
per week.
Now, if you don't have that kind of cash available,
or you simply don't wish to spend that kind of cash,
either start small and build up, or dropship.
The second thing to do before you start selling
on Amazon FBA is to make yourself a cup of tea,
grab a comfortable chair,
and read Amazon's terms of service.
This is critical.
Amazon has an attitude of take no prisoners,
and with Amazon, if you don't read the terms of service,
there's a very real chance you will get banned forever.
If you're already an Ebay seller,
Amazon is a whole different animal.
With Ebay, Ebay will very often give you a chance,
you might get a defect, you might get a negative feedback,
you know, you might get a warning.
But, you know, Amazon, Amazon is take no prisoners.
They'll suspend your account, and it can be very hard
to get that suspension ever reversed.
For this reason, take the time
to read Amazon's terms of service before you list
your first item.
Now, this leads to the third thing
to do before you start selling on Amazon FBA,
and that is diversification.
If you've got products to sell, why not sell them
on Amazon FBA, as well as Ebay, as well as your own website?
Every marketplace has its own audience.
The more marketplaces you sell on, the higher your revenue.
Diversification is key with any business.
The fourth thing to do before you start selling
on Amazon FBA is put in an exit strategy straight away,
right at the beginning.
Thirty years ago, when I started importing,
my accountant told me to put in an exit strategy,
but it took years before it finally clicked as to why.
Years later, I discovered there's
a much, much better reason.
If you wish to sell your business, you have
to make your business run and grow completely without you.
Otherwise, you're not going to get top dollar for it.
But this is the awesome thing.
If you build your business
so it runs completely without you,
and grows completely without you, bingo.
You now have a life.
You have a business that gives you time and money.
You have a life so you can enjoy your weekdays
doing exactly what you want to do.
Seriously, take the time to do this.
We're all only on this planet a very short amount of time,
and every day that we're not making the most
out of every day, is just a waste.
None of us will ever get those days back.
The fifth thing to do before start selling
on Amazon FBA is get some experience selling
on Amazon FBM.
FBM is an acronym for fulfillment by merchant.
In other words, fulfillment by you.
With FBM, when you sell items on Amazon,
you ship the items yourself, just like Ebay,
you know, have a look around your house
for some items to sell, you know, for practice.
Most people have got some stuff lying around
collecting dust.
Most full-time sellers, myself and my wife included,
started by selling used items.
This gives you terrific experience.
You can read and read and read,
but there's no better experience
than getting your hands dirty by listing
and selling items yourself.
Just remember though, you know, you're not going
to be listing this stuff forever.
It's just at the beginning to get some experience.
Learn the task, and then outsource it to a virtual assistant
from one dollar per hour.
Other great places to get stock while you're learning
is retail stores, especially when they have sales.
Again, this is not for long term,
this is just so you can learn.
You can use apps like Egrow to search how much items
are selling for on Amazon, and then compare those prices
to how much the shops are selling for,
when they've got those items on sale.
You can even put the app, or the apps, on your phone,
and then scan the items at shopping centers
to see which items have profit.
If you want to know more about that strategy,
I've got another free course
called How to Make $4000 Profit per Week Selling
on Ebay and Amazon, I'll put a link on the screen.
Now, the sixth thing to do is download the Amazon app
or the Amazon seller app onto your phone.
That way, you can always monitor your sales, your messages,
and also, if you're looking at a supply,
you can also use the app to research how much items
are selling for, as well as how often they sell.
And also, calculate how much profit they make per sale.
The seven thing, or the seventh I should say,
seventh thing to do, before you start selling
on Amazon FBA is be patient with yourself.
It's all about baby steps.
If your goal is to sell on Amazon FBA, you will 100% succeed
if you're patient with yourself.
Most people overestimate what they can do in the short term.
Oh, we've got a storm coming,
better get wrapping this up quick.
There's lightning just there.
But anyway, most people overestimate what they can do
in the short term.
But they way underestimate what they can do
in a longer term.
Nobody masters this overnight.
Just like building a Lego set, it's all about baby steps,
one brick at a time, or one step at a time.
The only difference between people that succeed
at building an Amazon FBA business is exactly the same
as to why people succeed at building a Lego set.
You've just got to keep doing
the baby steps until it's finished.
Or another way of putting it, to win the game,
you just need to stay in the game long enough
to win the game.
Now, once you've got these steps I've just gone through
in place, the next step is to start selling on Amazon FBA.
And, here's a link to a free Amazon FBA course.
That's all for this week, please scroll on down
and leave me a comment below, I want you there.
Make sure you hit the subscribe button
for more Ebay and Amazon hints and tips.
Until next week, list more, sell more,
this is Neil Waterhouse.