Amazon is one of the largest online marketplaces for selling products to consumers. In 2014 over 40% of the 5 billion items that Amazon sold were from 3rd party sellers. A 3rd party seller is a merchant that sets up a seller account on Amazon and uses Amazon’s platform to promote and sell their products and services. It is fairly easy to set up a seller account and is only $39.99/month to maintain a seller account on Amazon. While it is a relatively simple process to set up a seller account, there are many things that can affect your ability to make a lot of sales, or will make you more vulnerable to other sellers hijacking you listings.
As a seller, you become more experienced, and begin to learn the tips and tricks that will improve your sales or increase your profits, mostly through trial and error. However, during this learning period, you will be leaving potentially thousands of dollars if income on the table while you figure out what increases sales and what doesn’t. This difference can be even more noticeable in markets that are more competitive because it takes that much longer to get your product noticed and rise in the ranks until your product is on the 1st page of the Amazon search results for your keyword. It takes even more time to eventually land in the #1 position for your main keyword. In many cases, timing can be an issue… especially during the high selling season, so learning the success tips as you battle for position can cost you even more income.
With many of these potential issues added to the learning curve, it can be a rather intimidating proposition to set yourself up as an Amazon seller. After all, who wants to tie up their money in with a lot of unsold inventory as it sits in the warehouse? For a first time seller, it can seem like there are too many things that can go wrong that would not make becoming an Amazon seller be a comfortable decision.
One of the most effective and efficient ways to overcome the profit losses inherent in the learning curve is to bring on a consultant who is knowledgeable in selling on Amazon. They can help you to create a strategy for selecting a successful, yet not competitive product to start with, source it, and position it on Amazon for more immediate sales results. The biggest issue with choosing this solution is in finding a competent Amazon consultant who has the time to consult you when you need it most… right away. When you choose a consultant, make sure they can show you their own history of successful products that are ranking well, have a lot of good reviews and are selling well. In most cases, it is a matter of repeating a successful system of placement and promotion that will mostly guarantee sales when followed.
Another very effective method of getting successful on Amazon quickly is to take a training course. The benefit of a training course is you will learn the success tips and strategies up front so you will do things right out of the gate. This method will save you a lot of time and frustration because during these training courses, you will usually be able to get your questions answered quickly as you go through the course material. When choosing a course, it is important that you pick one that has a great reputation with a lot of successful graduates. Choose training program where many of these graduates have been able to change their lifestyle because of their success on Amazon. Another important key in a good training course is one that has a great support community made of other students in the course as well as a dedicated team of mentors who have successfully created profitable businesses on Amazon. An important benefit of a strong and supportive community is you get to see how others are doing and the struggles and successes that they are having. That way you don’t feel alone in your own journey on the Amazon selling train. Seeing someone else experience a problem and how they solve it doesn’t make that problem so scary and insurmountable any more. Another benefit of the communities is they share ideas on how to address common issues that Amazon sellers go through, which a single mentor may not have that kind of support at their fingertips to utilize in mentoring on your Amazon selling.
Last but not least, a good training program also offers tools that will further speed up the success of sales of your product through community support and making use of automated tools to perform necessary tasks to keep your Amazon listing strong. These tools can speed up the process of becoming more successful on Amazon and can make it easier for you to pull ahead of your competition.
Becoming a profitable Amazon seller can be a very attainable reality whether you do it on your own and are persistent with it until you are successful, or you want to take a shortcut and learn a successful system from the start. One of the things that you will have to determine for yourself is the money you would be leaving on the table by going through the process of trial and error is greater than what you would invest in to having a mentor or taking a training class. If the answer is the money left on the table is more than the investment in mentoring or training, then learning a success system from the beginning is a very simple answer.
