Tatiana James is a successful Amazon FBA seller. There are three things she wishes she knew before starting. Number one, she wishes she knew that the ultimate goal was to start on Amazon but not settle on Amazon. The end game, turns out, is not Amazon. Yes, it’s a great opportunity. A great way to build momentum because of all that built in, ready-to-buy traffic. In a sense, you get to participate in their success. And you can start with nothing.
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Meaning, no following, no email list, no brand, no infrastructure, no team, literally nothing. And yet, you can source a product from China, ship it to Amazon’s warehouse, throw up a listing, optimize it to rank on page one, fire up some PPC ads, and begin getting sales, right? The exposure and the reach and the ability to store and package and ship out your products for you and support your customers? Incredible. Millions of everyday people can now make money with ecom who otherwise wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But there are downsides. They nickel and dime you to death. They’re always changing their rules. You’re constantly one mistake away from being shut down without warning. Therefore, the goal needs to be to eventually graduate to where you’re also selling directly from your own website. Where you’re more profitable and you have full control over everything. The messaging, the marketing, the list of leads and buyers so you can follow up with them and get repeat business.
The second thing Tatiana wishes she knew before launching her Amazon business is, you should come up with a marketing plan before you pick a product. You can narrow it down, but once you have a handful of potential products you think you might like to sell, begin brainstorming how you might market each one on Amazon. Does it need a video or just pictures? What would you write in the description and for the bullet points? Would it do well organically or would it need PPC?
Or could you expand beyond Amazon? Would Facebook ads work? YouTube? Could you hit up some influencers on Instagram and throw them some money to give it a shout-out? Based on your answers, there should be a clear winner; a product you could see doing better than the rest. And that’s the one you should go with. Whereas, if you just pick a product because it’s got good margins and fairly low competition, I mean, who cares if you don’t have a way to drive sales?
Third and final, Tatiana wishes, back when she first got going on Amazon, she knew how to get paid the next day for her sales. If you weren’t aware, it normally takes Amazon two agonizing weeks to pay you on any sale that comes through your store. So it’s not uncommon to get into a cash flow crunch while you’re waiting. But there’s a simple solution Tatiana recently discovered. It’s a company called Payability. Apparently they can get you paid literally one day after your make a sale on Amazon.
This way, you don’t have to give up equity or go into debt to keep your Amazon business afloat. Tatiana says there are no credit checks and you can get approved within twenty-four hours. “So those are the three things I wish I knew before starting my Amazon business. Number one, it’s good to start on Amazon but don’t settle on Amazon. Number two, come up with a marketing plan before choosing your product. And number three, a company like Payability can prevent cash flow constraints.”
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