what's up guys thanks for joining me for
a new video today i want to talk about
some of what i consider to be the dark
side
of amazon some of the things that you
hopefully never have to deal with as an
amazon seller and i'm going to speak
specifically to my personal
experience so i'll probably split this
into
my fbm products which are like my
third party seller uh i don't know how
to describe it
everybody's familiar with fba right
fulfilled by amazon that's where i
source my products from overseas i
personally do private label
and i'm looking into wholesale by the
way maybe i'll talk about that at the
end
but i source them from overseas send
them to amazon's warehouses and then
when the
orders come through amazon's employees
will pick pack and ship it they also
deal with
returns so that i can focus on scaling
my business so i outsource that
with fbm products that's third party
fulfilled by merchant
and actually instead of me going to the
post office every day and shipping out
products
i outsource that work to uh printful and
gear bubble
so when i get an fbm order whichever
of those production partners is supposed
to fulfill that order it could be like a
hat
a shot glass a t-shirt a coffee mug a
bunch of things
whichever one's supposed to fulfill it
they'll fulfill it
now it's been a great business those you
guys that are subscribed to see my
income reports you already know i make
at least a thousand dollars a month
minimum selling
fbm print on demand on amazon in profit
now on better months that could be two
thousand three thousand four thousand i
don't know if i've cracked five thousand
in a month yet
from just fbm print on demand but it's
it's lucrative
however it doesn't come without its
drawbacks and these i would say
are not as bad as what i'm going to talk
about with my fba business that i've had
to deal with recently
so fbm print on demand the biggest thing
i've had to deal with that's negative
is other sellers jumping on my listings
and undercutting me which is within
their right to do
you know the way that it's my
understanding at least that the way that
brand regis
registry is supposed to work is really
for
if you have the exclusive rights to
manufacture and sell a product
and that would apply in my mind to my
private label fba products
not really to my print on demand
products where
i'm taking a generic you know coffee mug
t-shirt hat
you know what i mean all of those
products have like their baseline
they're they're a brand right it could
be a a shirt that's like the gildan 64
000 right
there's nothing stopping you guys from
going and making the same gilded 64
000 and putting the same design on a
t-shirt so i don't want to get caught up
fighting other people undercutting me on
amazon on my listings
if i think amazon might side with them
you know i'd rather fly under the radar
but i have what i've seen that's made
this a little bit harder on myself
is i've seen printers you know like uh
yesterday when i had travis on he owns
his own
fulfillment center for what it's worth
you know what i mean he has the machines
to produce
print-on-demand products himself
therefore he has a massive competitive
advantage
if he wants to jump on other people's
listings and undercut them price-wise
now i'm not saying he undercut me but i
was able to
trace one specific company
in new york city i forget what they're
called but i found them on like
instagram
and they had jumped on like a bunch of
my best-selling
hat listings and easily took thousands
of dollars away from me in profits last
year and i mean it's just part of the
game
i don't want to get caught up i know a
lot of you guys are like ryan how do you
not get
furious and try to fight them over this
and i think it's truly like
the way that amazon wants their catalog
structured i think they are playing by
the rules
so for me i just kind of let it go
that's why i'm always willing to pivot
and be agile
and look for newer trends as well as
always mixing in evergreens
you know they're not going to go after
my hats that sell once a month
or my coffee mugs that sell once a month
so or at least i hope they don't
uh so that's what i really wanted to
share is like the biggest pain point for
fbm print on demand on amazon
specifically
i'm sure there's other things i could
bring up like they don't make it very
easy to run
ads to your fbm print on demand products
it's not that it can't be done like i
can think of ways to do it in bulk
if i really wanted to but you know
that's that's another pain point but
it's not really the dark side of amazon
as far as fba this one has really
sucked lately so when i first got
started on amazon fba
a little bit over four years ago at this
point the first product i launched i
scaled out into a brand
and it has brand recognition to this day
something that you guys know i'm not
that big on brands i'm not a big
believer in brand loyalty
these days because it's so easy for
people i feel like the walls are
crumbling that people thought made it
hard to own your own brand
so to me i was never that worried about
brand loyalty brand identity etc
does that mean i didn't have a brand no
i still had a brand i trademarked it i
did brand registry
and after four years i have the premier
brand on amazon for these products
now here's the problem i didn't invent
these products
they were already selling you know in
retail stores around the united states
probably around the world
and the biggest retailer for them
decides to get on amazon
maybe five six months ago i don't even
know what was it five six months ago
probably
and they're like well who the heck are
these guys
outselling us so they hired a legal team
to an ex expensive one not just any uh
legal team
to basically intimidate other sellers to
try to get them off the platform me
included
and they're giving me special attention
now if you guys are subscribed to my
channel you know that i've got some
lawyers in the family i've got a few so
i can get legal advice for free
but i ended up having to also hire my
own lawyer to represent me
in this uh in this matter and if you
guys end up needing a lawyer by the way
for amazon hit me up and i'll give you
his info
uh his name's preston good guy he knows
his stuff he specializes in
uh intellectual property and e-commerce
so he's a good fit he actually reached
out to me right when i needed him so
it's completely organic
and he didn't even know so anyways i had
to hire him
and do my best to push back a little bit
you know because this is truly like
david versus
goliath as far as these guys are
established they're in retail stores
they've got
capital inflows without even amazon you
know what i mean they don't need amazon
but they finally got their act together
in the end of 2020. you know they waited
till the last possible second
tried to get on amazon and this is their
this is their solution to combat people
like me
that have been there for four years just
doing a good job just creating quality
products
you know what i mean like me and my
supplier are like this like
it i it's just it's one of these things
that sucks you know what i mean because
it's messing up the business
relationship with my suppliers too
because i'm not reordering as much you
know i'm trying to like not get caught
with too much dead inventory there if i
do need to pull off amazon but
what i was going to share is that today
i noticed that amazon pulled down
my two best-selling products out of my
entire catalog that just so happened to
be in that brand
actually maybe they're not the best
selling i guess it depends on time of
year but
these two products easily they make no
less than 150k revenue
a year no less that's like the bare
minimum so it's most likely higher than
like 200k
and they're just gone they're just off
the catalog
no message nothing and so i
contacted seller support put urgent
and you know i'm not trying to be the
guy that complains about uh
people that work in customer support but
like
yeah the person i got on the phone was
not helpful but they what amazon doesn't
want is you opening multiple cases for
the same issue so i'm kind of stuck i
was like
politely asked like hey is it possible
to escalate this to somebody else that
might be able to help more
and they're like well you'll hear from
them in four days or you know four or
five days so that's where i'm at right
now it's it's not ideal obviously this
isn't ideal
uh and it does make the case for why you
should diversify now i'm not just saying
like oh
go you know this is where most people
are like this is why you should be on
shopify you're not wrong
but a fraction of a fraction of one
percent of people that jump on shopify
actually are successful and profitable a
fraction of one percent do you know why
that is i mean again i don't want to
make this video about shopify but guys
if you're on your own website
you need to make a website that
functions well that's where shopify
comes in
you need to make it convert so you need
to install a bunch of add-ons do do
extra stuff set up an email
like there's all the stuff you need to
do then you need to actually drive
traffic
which arguably is the hardest part of
that whole equation
you know and i know better than most
because i actually run a successful
website gets like two to three hundred
thousand hits a month minimum
for the last ten years so i know better
than most right so i'm not saying you
shouldn't be on shopify but
it doesn't necessarily like keep in mind
there's only one amazon right now
walmart may catch up but there's only
one amazon so amazon was always my
priority also keeping in mind that like
all sales on amazon whether advertised
whether it's me sending
off amazon traffic to amazon to my
listings if it converts it helps my
product listings
rank so i was very amazon centric
and i was rewarded handsomely for it to
be honest and you know if anything this
just makes the case to at a minimum
diversify onto ebay you know i've made a
bunch of sales on ebay of these same
products
etsy uh walmart you know i'm still
trying to get into walmart so hopefully
i'll get in and i'll let you guys know
how i did it
but there is a dark side to amazon guys
and i guess if there's a light to this
um you know
coming back to what most people talk
about as like a pain point with amazon
is like
dealing with hijackers on your listings
but honestly they've gotten way better
about that
now there's this ip accelerator program
too so instead of you taking a year to
get your trademark to get brand
registered and have the tools you need
to
try to protect your listings you can do
ip accelerator
pay like 850 dollars get your trademark
and get your
get into brand registry in about two
weeks and that's the most important part
if you ask me because then you can do
the enhanced brand content
and have some tools to defend your
listing amongst other things but
that's really what i wanted to share i
vented a little bit here about what
happened
uh today with my two best my two best
sellers
straight up in my fba business at least
right now bestsellers
in the spring i'll probably have another
product or two that jump it but
it just sucks what do you mean what else
is there to say so i'm just making this
clear i'm trying to be transparent guys
um
one thing that you could do if you're
thinking like don't just complain give
us a solution well
man i mentioned earlier wholesale and i
did an interview
two weeks ago with dan and dillon from
the wholesale formula now today is the
last day you can join the wholesale
formula
then i believe they closed the program
until next year now i've taken their
class
and i am trying to do wholesale amongst
many other things as you guys know i'm
busy i plan on doing at least one
wholesale product
the one that if you guys watch the live
stream go back and watch the live stream
if you missed it
i have one product in mind that may be
really good because it's the best seller
in retail stores but on amazon their
brand presence sucks so i'm going for
that
and if you watch the live stream you
already know what i'm talking about um
but
that is something if you can get
exclusive rights to sell a product
from a big brand that maybe isn't on
amazon and they should be
that is a nice way of setting up and
carving out a pocket of amazon
and they're doing the brand recognition
brand trust brand loyalty
advertising off of amazon for you and
then you just help optimize their
presence on
amazon and you know if you can again if
you can rank their product which by the
way
most customers probably already
recognize if it's a big brand uh you can
make some real coins some real profit
so i'm definitely thinking about that as
a um alternative not an alternative i
don't wanna i'm not giving up right i'm
not giving up my private label i have
other products obviously
but it sucks when it's like your best
sellers you know what i mean it sucks
when you're getting bullied
because i don't want to back down you
know it sucks it also sucks to light
money on fire
paying a lawyer because we know they're
expensive but you know it is what it is
right that's that's the whole purpose in
my mind that's the purpose of the legal
system it's so that
the big guys can bully the little guys
that's just my personal take though
um but yeah that's it guys so look into
wholesale i'll put a link to the
wholesale formula if you want to check
it out because it is i think the last
day
so um but yeah i mean that their course
is really top-notch too
it teaches you things outside of just
the amazon scope as well as far as like
starting your business
um tax llc forming all that stuff so
it's not just amazon centric and that's
pretty much it guys hey before i start
rambling and talking about other stuff
while i wrap the video here thank you
for listening through till the end do me
a quick favor hit that like button hit
that subscribe button and i'll see you
guys
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tomorrow
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you