It is easy to do business on Amazon, but it is not easy either, as there are many things we have not considered. Sometimes we do business on Amazon by accident, but later we find more and more problems. How can we do Amazon better and achieve perfection, and make more money from Amazon? Here we will briefly talk about nine questions to help you better think about how to do well on Amazon.
1. It is well known that product selection is a prerequisite for the operation of any cross-border e-commerce platform store. In your opinion, why is store product selection so critical? What are the main points to pay attention to when selecting products?
Answer: Product selection is the source and key to Amazon operations. It is said that a good cook cannot cook without rice. No matter how superb your operation skills are, if you choose the wrong products, you will get half the result with twice the effort. You will work hard but not get the desired performance and profit.
Generally, we select products based on Amazon, that is, we keep browsing various categories on the platform, or you see others paying attention to a product on some websites and search it on Amazon, and then decide whether I want to make this product and whether there is still a chance. Here are 10 things I have summarized to pay attention to when selecting products:
First, price
The most important thing when we make a product is to know whether it is profitable. If the best-selling product in the current market has monopolized most of the sales and its price is far beyond our reach, then you should give up and choose the next product that can allow you to monopolize the market and make it out of reach for others. There is a lot of information hidden behind the price, such as whether it is shipped by sea or air, and whether it is currently in the period of promoting new products with a low-price strategy or in the period of mature and stable profit making.
Second, sales
And it is the recent sales. Good recent sales can stimulate us to improve the ranking, set sales plans and goals, and then rush forward to seize market share. If a product seems to have thousands of reviews, but you check its recent sales and find that they are not very good, I suggest you wait and see. It may be a seasonal product that is dormant in the current season.
Third point, Review
It is generally not recommended to make products that already have many listings and more than 1,000 reviews on the market, because these products with a large number of reviews will basically monopolize 80 to 90 percent of the sales. In addition, products with a general review rating of less than 4 stars will not be considered, which means that the product has common and unavoidable defects. Then everyone must pay attention to the content of negative reviews. We must understand these defects clearly and avoid them in advance.
Fourth point, the time of listing
If the reference you choose has been on the shelves for more than 1 year, it is recommended that you be cautious. If it has been more than 2 years, don’t consider it. It doesn’t make much sense to do it after others have already had it on the shelves for a long time because their products are very mature. You have to choose products that have been on the shelves relatively recently but have seen a rapid increase in reviews and sales to have a chance.
Fifth, product categories
You will find that different people put the same product in different categories. You need to refer to their sales volume to decide which category to put it in. Often, an inaccurate category will affect a large part of the order volume.
Sixth point, product color and size
You need to see which colors and sizes are selling well in the market. Don't blindly send multiple colors and sizes to FBA. This will take up more funds, and you will find that you can't focus when you promote it. Everyone remember the 80/20 theory. No matter how powerful your operation is, there will always be only 20% of the colors and sizes that sell the best. So after we find it out, we just need to focus on these 20%.
Seventh point, search popularity
Generally, use a few core keywords to search for the product you want to make. Don’t consider search results with more than 50,000 results because there are too many competitors. Unless you have some secret weapon that can stand out from these more than 50,000 sellers, forget it.
Eighth point, new release
We should never select products from the bestseller list, because you will find that we have no chance of winning for many products. They are dozens of blocks ahead of us, and it is not easy to catch up. Therefore, we should pay more attention to the new release list, and look for business opportunities from the recently emerging new products. The ones with not many reviews, new listings, and fast rankings are the ones we still have a chance of winning and we need to act quickly to compete.
The ninth point is trend. What is the trend of this product in the past few years? What is the trend in the recent year? Which months are the off-seasons and which months are its peak seasons? You need to promote it in the off-season and be prepared for the peak season explosion. You must know all of these very clearly.
Tenth point, supply chain
It is important to find a factory that can give you strong support. Whether the factory cooperates with you to differentiate and strictly control the quality, it is really not worth it to promote the product with great effort, but then it goes downhill or is removed by Amazon due to quality problems. Also, whether this product requires relevant certification on Amazon. Only if you have complete certifications can you have long-term development. Otherwise, once you sell well, sooner or later the profits you earn will be eaten up by inventory, or even you will lose all your money.
2. In terms of several detailed points of product selection, what do you think should be the first thing to analyze when selecting products on Amazon? When selecting consumers, what is the main direction of your target market research?
Answer: The first thing to analyze is product sales and profits, which is where our motivation comes from. To research and understand a country, you can start from these aspects: country, population, Internet user base, values, leisure activities, lifestyle, favorite sports, favorite food, favorite clothes, housing conditions, daily utensils, means of transportation, shopping groups, shopping preferences, shopping times, holidays. You can conduct research from each point that can help you generate sales, and you can also discover potential markets behind each point.
3. As we all know, the consumption trends in the target market country have a crucial impact on sales. From what aspects do you judge the trend analysis of the market? How to tell whether a product has the potential to become a hit?
Answer: I usually get the target market country trends directly from Google Trends through keyword queries. From there you can see the sales trends of a product in a specified country, such as the United States, over the past few years, the past year, or even the past few days. Trends are very important, because if the general trend is not right, it will be useless to put in a lot of effort, and it will only waste time, manpower and material resources. To determine whether a product has the potential to become a hit, we need to consider all 10 points mentioned in the first question. Among them, the most important is the product’s recent sales, its future trends, and its review and ranking increases. These four points should be taken into consideration to determine whether it has the potential to become a hit.
4. During overseas market research, how do you monitor your competitors’ sales?
Answer: There are many tools on the market that can achieve monitoring. For example, DataPulse, ZiNiao, and Yimaibao all have monitoring functions. There is also a purely manual way, which is to add competitors' products to the shopping cart yourself. The daily sales volume can be calculated by subtracting yesterday's inventory quantity from today's inventory quantity.
5. Many Amazon sellers have actually felt the important help of Reviews in sales during the store sales process. So, as a seller, how can you obtain Reviews in a more effective way?
answer:
1. When you naturally place an order, you will be asked to give a review. Of course, the product quality must be excellent, and the logistics must be FBA, otherwise it is very likely that all the reviews you receive will be bad. Don't just say "give me a five-star review" when you send an email. The content of the email should be valuable to the buyers. For example, tell them the correct way to use the product, what occasions it can be used in, and hope that they will enjoy using it. You can even send them dozens of blessings on different holidays, wishing them happy holidays, etc., to make them happy and they will naturally give you a good review.
2. Top reviewer evaluation. Of course, now you can no longer send emails to exchange reviews for products as you did before. You have to let them buy the product normally and then leave a review, and then you will give them a gift card or cash back.
3. Facebook group, post in various review groups, inform those who are interested to come and buy, and then communicate and leave reviews.
4. groups. This is the most popular method currently. Many foreigners also have . You can then set up groups. Sellers can post product information in the group and those who are interested can contact you to leave comments. Or you can contact them privately one by one to ask if they are interested.
6. Nowadays, the market homogeneity phenomenon is becoming more and more serious. How can sellers avoid direct competition and increase profits by creating product differentiation?
Answer: This is a good question. Only differentiation can avoid copycat sales, improve product cost-effectiveness and increase profits. You should still go to the platform more often to see what the most common complaints from buyers about the products you are making. This is your opportunity as a new seller. For example, for a tool kit, the buyer says that the knife in it is too small and difficult to use. In that case, can you negotiate with the supplier or find a knife with a better feel as a replacement? There are also many products that foreigners buy as gifts for friends, so packaging is very important. You can design the packaging to be very beautiful and high-end so that buyers will not mind paying a few more dollars to buy your product. Then you need to design and print your own LOGO on the product to prevent others from copying your product and to create your own brand impression. There are many ways to differentiate products, such as different colors, different PCS, function upgrades, accessory upgrades, and packaging upgrades. The most important thing is that everyone must remember to consider from the perspective of consumers what can be done to make it more convenient and what they need more.
7. From product selection to the subsequent process of creating a hit product, what are the main stages in creating an Amazon hit product? What are the key points in each stage?
Answer: I divide the stages and precautions of creating a hit product into five stages:
In the first stage, a combination of punches was used to break through from 0 orders to 1 order - traffic was the key.
The second stage focuses on the beginning from 5 orders to 10 orders - conversion is the key.
In the third stage, the focus is on breaking through the increase from 10 orders to 50 orders - ranking is the key.
Stage 4: Setting goals to optimize quality – differentiation and profit are key.
The fifth stage: Mistakes that have been made - learning from experience and reviewing are the key.
8. Is it crucial to get the first order for a hit product? How do the first few reviews help subsequent sales?
Answer: Yes, because only when there are orders will your products be ranked, and only with rankings will you know whether your subsequent promotion is effective and whether the ranking continues to go up, so I think the first order is very important. The first few reviews are also the basis for your subsequent operations and promotions. Products without reviews have a very low conversion rate because no one wants to be a guinea pig. Research reports show that a product must have at least 3 reviews to make buyers feel safe to place an order.
9. Many hot-selling products are short-lived. How can Amazon sellers maintain the “life cycle” of hot-selling products? How to maintain the phenomenon of explosive sales?
Answer: Indeed, every product has a life cycle. We need to try our best to maintain the product's life cycle. Don't compete on price, but on cost-effectiveness. Upgrade your product functions, explore other customer needs, and continuously meet customer needs to extend your product's life cycle as much as possible. At the same time, we cannot expect a product to last forever. Once a product is popular, you should start looking for the next hit. Be prepared for danger in times of peace so that your sales do not rely entirely on one product. The key to maintaining a boom in orders is to stabilize your ranking, continuously receive 5-star positive reviews, control the quality of each product you ship out and get the lowest cost price for bulk orders, seize the commanding heights as quickly as possible, reduce logistics costs to a minimum by replenishing stocks through sea freight, and ensure that there is a sufficient capital chain to ensure that there is no shortage of stocks. This way, the sellers behind you will see that there is no chance, and you will be a monopolist in this market.
