Amazon FBA expert Tom Wang says selling on Amazon ain’t what it used to be. In some ways, it’s gotten better; in others, it’s gotten worse. But it’s still a viable business opportunity if you adjust to the changes and do it right. For instance, if he had to start all over, today, there’s two things Tom would do different. Number one, he’d stop picking the same products the same way as everyone else. You have to be unique, some way, somehow.
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Ideally, you set yourself up to where you can apply for a patent or trademark down the road. It’s one of the only ways to build a moat for your Amazon business; otherwise, the competition’s just gonna copy you verbatim. “One of the things that Amazon sellers are not doing enough,” Tom says, “is they’re not spending enough time talking to real customers. If you were to launch a dog product, go to the dog park, talk to dog owners for ten, twenty minutes.”
“You’re gonna be so surprised at the things that they tell you,” he continues. “And these are the pieces of information that you can begin to incorporate into your product to make it stand out, to make it better. In fact, I was recently interested in launching a dog product so I went to the pet store and talked to the manager. I said, ‘Hey, what is the number one selling product at your dog store?’ He said, ‘Well, actually it’s dog toys.’ So I go, ‘Okay, with dog toys, what’s the number one complaint you’re getting from dog owners?'”
The biggest gripe, apparently, was that their dogs would rip these toys apart within a few days of them buying it, and then they’d be right back at the store getting a different one (after asking for a refund, of course). Boom. Right then, Tom knew an “indestructible” dog toy would do really well. So that’s number one. Be smarter in your approach to picking which products you’re gonna list on Amazon. Talk to buyers, find pain points, carve out a USP.
The second thing Tom would do different, here in 2023, is he’d focus on building his own audience instead of just relying on Amazon to spoon-feed you customers. Gone are the days where you can just rely on giveaways and pay per click ads, because everyone’s already doing that. They all went through the same FBA courses, right? So learning how to get in front of people who might wanna buy your stuff is invaluable. Tom’s fiancee is currently doing that with her new line, Super Major snacks.
She’s leveraging TikTok and a free Facebook group to get feedback and make tweaks and build demand for her upcoming launch. That’s how you create a long-term, sustainable brand. “Now there’s many different ways to do this,” Tom says. “If you don’t wanna make TikTok videos, that’s fine. You can create things like an eBook, a lead magnet, to offer value to those people that you’re serving [and] getting them into a community, whether through an email list or Facebook group or whatever it is.”
That way, you end up with a hundred, five hundred, a thousand people who’ve raised their hand, expressed interest in your product, even helped you put the final touches on it before you go live. And when do, instant sales, right? And then Amazon will take note of that, rank you higher in their search results, and hopefully it’ll snowball from there. “So these are the two things I’d do very differently if I were to start an Amazon business in 2023 and beyond,” Tom says.
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