hi and welcome back to another Amazon selling video if you're new to my channel my name is
Nikki Kirk and I've been selling on Amazon for six years now I'm currently studying in
the door of my she shed because I wanted to show like it's spring outside in the
background but it's also Oklahoma and so it's really windy and so this is my attempt to shoot
a video Outside Inside situation hopefully it's coming across and not just me totally washed out
in today's video I'm going to be covering the five fbm mistakes or missteps that I have made in
my own Amazon fbm Journey so again if you're new to my channel I've been selling on Amazon doing
FBA for six years and really not until 2020 did I really get into fbm fbm is fulfilled by Merchant
or as I like to call it fulfilled by me where I am taking the orders I have all my inventory here in
the shed I was trying to like figure out where I can do it without showing everything so I have all
my inventory here I am the one who packs it up and sends it direct to the customer FBA of course is
where Amazon warehouse is it for me and they ship it to the customer it makes a lot of sense for me
when I was starting because I live in an RV and so I didn't have a lot of space and was traveling
all over the country so it worked out really well now that I have space I have this shed I'm getting
into fbm some more with fbm I do it year round now but I really do it the most during Q4 and
actually the Q4 bolo group really helped to push me I think it was in 2021 we were all chasing this
hot item and so it really helped to push me to fbm more and now I'm always helping other sellers
out there like you want to fbm you want to learn how to do it you got to do it because it's going
to be crazy and so worth it during Q4 in fact in my more recent video where I'm covering the best
items I've ever sold in six years almost all of them wear fbm items that I sent so there really
is something to fbm I have a whole video on how to fbm is called fbm 101 I'll link it below but
you can search for it also on my channel it's in the Q4 prep playlist because if you're not fem if
you're scared to do it I really think now is the time to do it June historically is just a slow
month for Amazon but retail in general people are out and about enjoying the summer weather they're
doing whatever right they're not really shopping online they are but you're going to notice that
your cells are kind of slower compared to other months so June is a great time to set out and try
something new see something that you wanted to kind of test with your Amazon business but maybe
didn't have the time I promise you in June if you make the time you will have it because sales are
kind of slower if you don't want to try anything and you just need a vacation from your business
June is an also great time to take a vacation but anyways I highly recommend FBI M if you're
not yet give it a try and I'm gonna tell you the things that I have made mistakes and also things
that I've heard come up throughout the community so that you can hopefully not make those mistakes
the Q4 bolo group is going to be back for 2023 so stay tuned later this year that's coming mistake
number one is just not having the right supplies so or tools this is something I've learned time
and time again with anything I'm doing in life so when we renovated the RV we didn't have the
right tools from the start and it made it so much harder once we got those tools it was like
wow this is so easy same thing happened last year with my garden you guys I was spending two hours
hand watering my whole garden until I finally was like why don't I have a timer why don't I
have hose drips around or whatever I can't wait this year to set it all up and I do not have to
spend two hours of my day watering my garden so the right tools and supplies are crucial in
anything in life but fbm especially so you want to make sure before you ever list an item that
you have the box or shipping package that you're going to send it in because nothing is worse than
selling something and freaking out trying to find a box or something to put it in especially if your
Walmart happens to be sold out of padded mailers like you might have to drive around to Walgreens
or Target and find them somewhere and you don't want to be doing that after it's sold anytime I
find something in store I'm going to list fbm I either make sure I have something all fitted at
home already or I buy the thing I make sure I like at Walmart you can get the pen and ink boxes you
don't want to get the boxes at Walmart that say Walmart all over the ones we do for FBA like the
medium small large the reason is that I have done it when I had to because I didn't have another box
that would fit the item but if you get in trouble for Drop Shipping if the customer just happens to
mention that it came in a Walmart box to Amazon customer service you can get your account shut
down for Drop Shipping because you're not allowed to drop ship on Amazon however the plain boxes is
at that say like pen and ink gear or pen and gear whatever it says at Walmart they come in like six
by six Eleven by seven by five those boxes are just fine to use for fbm in addition to having the
right boxes you want to make sure that you have the right padded envelopes so if you're gonna send
something USPS through the post office and you did not buy the flat rate shipping you can't send it
in a flat rate envelope recently somebody was like oh no what happened my thing got sent back to me
because they sent a lip gloss via Media Mail but Media Mail is just media so it's books DVDs CDs
that's all you can send Media Mail there may be some things I don't totally do it so I'm not sure
but I know it has to be media to be able to send Media Mail so all those things if you're gonna do
a padded flat rate envelope those are free from the UPS sorry free from the post office USPS but
you have to buy that one so you can't send it in the envelope if you buy the padded one and vice
versa so just make sure when you're buying your shipping that you're buying the right thing you
have you can't send it in a flat rate box if it's not the flat rate box that you purchased through
Amazon during Q4 last year I went ahead and I ordered a bunch of different sizes of boxes from
Uline you guys it does not take up a lot of room I think I got six different sizes it makes my
fbm life so much more enjoyable it is so much more fun to ship it because I'm not stressing
out I know I have a box that's gonna fit fit it because I have a ton of different boxes so having
the right supplies I have an RV right that's why I'm storing them those boxes are down in the RV
because that's where I ship from so it takes up time it's like it's not a lot of room that they
take up so if I can store them I know you have a closet or garage or somewhere where you can store
them too having the right supplies is crucial to fbm mistake number number two I've made is not
allotting enough time every day to pack up the fbm orders for whatever reason I tend to think I can
do more than I can in little time so I'm like oh I can do that in 15 minutes and it ends up taking
me like an hour even 10 orders if you have like a lot of prep that you have to do it can take a
while to pack them up so make sure you a lot Monday through Friday time that you're gonna
do it you can do it in the morning after you do whatever you want but I tend to do it right first
thing in the morning just get it out of the way I'm a morning person maybe that's why you can do
it at night at the end of the day if I'm out and about sourcing or just doing other things that
day I will pack them up at the end of the night because Amazon tells you when it has to ship so
my handling time right now is one day so anything ordered today by customers I have to ship out by
tomorrow so sometimes I just print the label and I ship it out the next day which is fine as long
as it's going to get there in time but make sure you allot time to pack up those orders if you're
just starting make sure you a lot more time than you think because for whatever reason I always
think I can do things fast than I really can and I am always frustrated with how long it takes so
a lot how much time you have every day to pack up your orders because I have made that mistake time
and time again and I'm like super frustrated after an hour's gone by and I'm still packing up orders
sometimes during Q4 it can take like four hours and you only have I mean only 80 orders right I'm
saying only but that's a lot of orders and that's a lot to prep I actually recently got so sick of
doing fbm orders because it's like one two three like it's not a lot of orders I get every day that
are fbm and it takes time and so I actually just went through my shed and was like you know what
I'm just gonna send this FBA because I got burnt out doing fbm so there's times there's like waves
right when you want to do it and when you don't want to do it which is a great thing about fbm
if you don't want to do it you can send it in Amazon or just turn your store on vacation mode
mistake number three I made for fbm and honestly FBA also not utilizing UPS pickups so where I'm at
now I am 45 minutes from a UPS store or a Staples I don't even have like a Walgreens or whatever you
can drop off I got nothing it's quite a while to drive when I was traveling it's you know
they're not that far away all the time but now I'm stationary and it's 45 minutes away it's an
hour and a half round trip so I finally thank you to the Q4 group for that one final push I finally
have got pirate ships set up so that I can get UPS pickups now they cost 6.50 for me they might
be 450 for you I don't know why it cost me more some normally I think it's 450 for every pickup
but that is worth it especially with gas prices right that's worth it for the UPS guy to come pick
it up if the UPS guy is already delivering to your house you just happen to see them you can also
give them or her the package so I've done that a couple times where none you don't have to pay for
it all you can also and you should actually set up a free UPS business account because then you can
get free boxes and they're called like security boxes but you can get free thermal printers so
I have a huge box of a thousand labels that I got for free from UPS through my free account you can
schedule pickups through there but they're more expensive so it's like 9.50 if I do it through
the ups or pirate ship it's 650. now pirate ship is good tool to know if you want to estimate how
much something might cost to ship however if you buy your shipping through pirate ship you
are going to get less protection on Amazon so if you send an item and you didn't purchase the
shipping through Amazon if that item gets lost or stolen from someone's porch then you are not
going to be protected whereas if you bought it from Amazon you get your money back the customer
gets their money back and Amazon gets their money from UPS I have the post office five minutes away
so I don't do Post Office pickups but you can also through pirate ship schedule free USPS pickups to
your house on Monday when my orders go out for my FBA shipment I just put whatever because you know
Amazon has cheaper shipping options if you use ups but for me it's sometimes not worth it if
I'm not going to go to UPS or I'm not going to pay that six dollars to have them come for one
order I'll just bite the bullet and pay an extra dollar to ship it through the post office versus
ups but having UPS pickups for your massive orders or just if you have a lot of orders and you don't
have time in the day I just leave them outside he comes and grabs them sometimes we're here
sometimes they're not it's been awesome and I so regret not doing it sooner fbm mistake number four
not charging enough for shipping so when you're starting out I always recommend in fact I do a
lot of lightweight things if it's under a pound you know that you can send it through the post
office for at most probably 650 because of all the shipping charges increasing but normally it's a
little bit cheaper if you do UPS but if you just assume it's going to be 650 it's under a pound
even if you end up putting it in a cardboard box it still can be under a pound I do a lot of beauty
items that way and now you know what it's gonna cost now recently it's been rolling out I don't
know if all sellers have it just yet but in the Amazon app when you go to seller fulfilled the
fbm shipping credit is finally gone so that makes math so much easier the app works as it should and
you can say how much you're going to charge or how much it's going to cost to ship how much you paid
for it and get an accurate estimate of what your profit is probably going to be why this helps is
if you see that your item might cost 10 15 to ship you want to make sure your shipping template is
set up to charge that ten or fifteen dollars when you're just starting list one item especially even
if it's not just starting I do this still today if it's a large item I'm not totally sure I will just
list one even though I bought six I'm only listing one and when it sells I can get a estimate of what
that shipping is and decide if I want to change my shipping template at that point I have at the
moment four shipping templates I highly recommend don't just use Amazon shipping template set up
your own it is not that hard if you go to the fbm 101 I show you how to do it I show you what
mine looks like I was charging during Q4 like 19 a pound for shipping and people are paying for it
during in January there was a cold medicine shortage and I totally forgot to change my
template from Q4 so people were paying 15 to get little bottles of cold medicine and so I
was making money on the shipping so you want to make sure that you're not losing money and how
you do that is by charging for shipping if you're not sure people will pay for shipping also don't
lose money by offering one day or two day or even expedited shipping if you're not able to actually
afford to do that so on your shipping template you want to make sure that you check those off if
you're not sure if you're not sure how much it's going to cost or you're not willing to bite that
bullet if it ends up causing you a lot of money I have a shipping template that is ground only and
that is for my large items because I'm not about to bite the bullet and pay thirty dollars to ship
something and I don't want to ship it overnight which might cost sixty dollars so I have a ground
only on that ground only it has standard and then it has the free if you add expedited to
that ground only make sure you're charging not overcharge customers don't have to buy it and if
they do you want to make sure that you're covered I recently had an item shipped out yesterday it
was an fbm order it was just like a couple it was a bundle of cough drops and what happened was it
was going to like an Air Force Base or something and it had to go UPS now this item sells for like
15 and I had to pay eight dollars to ship it at this point I was just like doing a service for
the customer really but now I'm learning okay I don't want to offer that or on this one since I've
sold hundreds of them it's okay for one where I'm pretty much either cutting even or losing money
on that because normally they cost four dollars to ship not eight on your shipping templates you
want to make sure if you're not going to be able to pay to ship it to Alaska Puerto Rico or Hawaii
that you check those off those are optional you can check them off so I highly recommend doing
that because those are expensive to ship to if you're not ready for it mistake number five not
actually making any money on the items that you're selling so I have had this happen I'm sure you
have to and that's just a part of learning but if you don't take the time to look at how much money
you're actually making you could be losing money and not even know it so what happened with me is
in January again the cold medicine shortage so I was listing things and selling them and I thought
I was making money only to look and sell the board and see I made 25 cents like yeah I wasn't losing
money but it's not worth my stress time and effort gas money to go buy something to make
25 cents seller board is the easiest way for me to see my profit because it pulls in how much you
paid for that shipping and it obviously it has your cost of goods and everything and it tells
you what you made on that order but you can also see it in Amazon if you want to you just
go to the transaction and look at the thing look at all the fees take out your cost of goods and
you'll be able to see if you made money if you're not diving into your numbers you are not going to
know if you're making money or not seller board has a two-month free uh link the link is below
you can try it out it's your guide.com sellerboard and you can see if you want to test it out for two
months for free I had someone actually recently reach out so the fbm shipping credit is now gone
right out of your app or hopefully if it's not for you it will be soon and they were freaking
out because they thought that they got that credit they're a professional account they did not get
that credit but they've been fbming all this time thinking that they get it so if you're not diving
into your numbers you don't know if you're making money and you might be losing money
don't just list fbm and assume you're making money every time something sells if it's new to you you
want to make sure that you do the math and do the accounting and make sure you're making money and
if it doesn't make money return it to the store or just stop selling it or look for other listings
maybe there's bundle listings you can list it on but worst case I just return stuff to the store
if it ends up not making money that item I did sell all of them really fast because I assumed
I was going to make money on it luckily it was only like four of them but again if it wasn't for
seller board I would have been stressing out going to try and find more and it just would have been
a waste of time hopefully this video was helpful and you found a couple tidbits that will help you
on your fbm journey from my mistakes hopefully they help you now not to make those mistakes if
you want to join an Amazon sign community and get awesome leads every month join the bolo group it
is really awesome it's every month you get a list of leads but not only that you get the supportive
sellers in the Amazon community who are helping you with any questions that you have along the
way I'm in there all the time answering questions but also everyone else in the community who is
really awesome is there to answer questions too no matter if you're just starting out or you've
been selling a while join the Retail Arbitrage bolo group today I know you won't be disappointed
thank you guys so much for watching I will see you back here for another Amazon selling video
thank you [Music]