Some sellers say that Amazon is an asset-intensive game.
Early product costs, logistics, Amazon platform commissions, warehousing, personnel costs...all made sellers breathless.
However, the legendary stories of getting rich overnight on Amazon continue to attract more and more sellers, forcing them to grit their teeth and lose their fortunes to join this profit-seeking game. The result is predictable. With only the dream of getting rich quickly but no operational ideas, there are countless sellers on Amazon who burn through their money in one round.
An Amazon seller who earns a million per month has summarized the major pitfalls that need to be avoided in operations based on his years of experience selling on Amazon.
01. Asset investment
When sellers first enter Amazon, they are optimistic. However, excessive optimism can easily make sellers lose their minds. Don’t rush to follow the trend just because the platform is selling well. When deciding to start an Amazon business, you must make a reasonable budget plan and test the market in the early stages. If a model is successful, it is very important to summarize the experience and replicate it immediately.
Small and medium-sized sellers should invest in assets gradually, set a budget and plan their finances so that they can cover the Amazon business. Don’t invest too much at the beginning, and “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
02. Product selection
To choose products to sell on Amazon, if you don’t have the support of advanced technology and funds, the following product selection ideas can help sellers avoid pitfalls:
1. Avoid stocking many different products and consider looking for products with inelastic demand;
2. Avoid large, choppy and difficult-to-transport products;
3. Avoid using trademarked products and counterfeit products;
4. Avoid choosing products that suit your own preferences and ignore market demand;
5. Avoid products with fierce competition and low prices dominated by big sellers, such as the three lucky treasures (mobile phone cases, USB cables, chargers);
6. Avoid excessive pursuit of differentiation, exclusive models and upgraded products, which are time-consuming and the gap between expectations and the market may lead to high trial and error costs;
7. Avoid seasonal products;
8. Avoid selling products on Amazon in categories dominated by big brands.
03. Product logistics and product listing
When launching new products and shipping goods, you should be careful to avoid the following situations:
1. The product belongs to the wrong category and will be deleted;
2. Abuse of variants, once discovered by Amazon, will be split;
3. If pricing is incorrect, Amazon’s costs are higher than the actual costs;
4. Frequently deleting shipping plans during FBA shipments, resulting in FBA shipping eligibility being banned;
5. Filling in the trademark name arbitrarily while launching the product, which leads to the infringing behavior and its removal from the sales organization.
04. Amazon Operations
When running your Amazon business, avoid intentionally or unintentionally violating the following rules:
1. Using black technology to make fake orders and fake reviews will result in account closure
2. Poor product quality, slow delivery, and poor customer service. Amazon will suspend or terminate accounts with excessively high ODRs.
3. If the order is not set correctly, a large number of low-price orders will appear in a short period of time, resulting in serious profit losses;
4. Wrongly setting up ads can lead to spending over budget;
5. The price adjustment of the spiral model is used for sales when the product is launched. If there is insufficient follow-up, it will cause excessive losses; the price increase of the product is too large, resulting in the loss of shopping carts or being judged as sales manipulating the Amazon system.
05. Sellers’ operational difficulties
Suffering malicious attacks from competitors:
Malicious attacks on competitors or malicious attacks on competitors: complaints about sales, bad reviews, clicking on competitors' PPC ads, hijacking competitors' lists, quality and safety issues after purchase;
The listing was secretly changed by a competitor to an adult product attribute and was blocked by the system.
The dilemma of Amazon sellers caused by platform rules:
1. Infringement, quality issues, certification issues, including safety issues, such as no CE certification for electronic products, no UL certification, no CPC certification for toy products, etc.
If the above rules are violated, the product will be deleted by Amazon, and in serious cases, the sales rights may be revoked;
2. Changing bank account information while the business is running will result in the deletion of account sales permissions: Different bank accounts have different fees, which are also in customer service. If you want to change your bank account information, there is a three-day security retention period to take effect. Funds transfers cannot be initiated until the hold expires.
Before changing the information, it is best to open a case and contact Amazon Customer Service, explain the situation to the Customer Service Department, and ask the Customer Service to help you take notes in the background to avoid canceling the sales privileges;
3. Large fluctuations in sales may also lead to the cancellation of sales rights;
4. Some categories of products require certification, such as the recent CPC certification for baby products and children's toys, MFI certification, UL certification and authorization of Apple product accessories, LED light strings may need to submit UL certification, etc. If there is no certification, the listing will be deleted;
5. Violation of listing mergers and review mergers may be determined as manipulation of rankings, abuse of variants, manipulation of sales, etc., resulting in the account being deprived of sales privileges.
Although for sellers, we may not be able to completely avoid any mistakes in our operations, if we can remember these lessons and turn them into our own common sense, we can avoid many detours.
