Why Amazon FBA Trumps Selling From Home Every Time
If you want to start selling products for profit, you can set that up from home with relatively little trouble. Just order the products wholesale and then deliver them to your buyers when they buy them from you.
This might make you question why you would need a service like Amazon FBA that handles the delivery for you.
Here’s why.
In a typical reseller business model, a business owner or entrepreneur would first identify a product they liked the looks of, then go directly to the manufacturers/wholesalers. They’d next put in an order for 100 units (or thereabouts) which would get delivered to their own premises. A small entrepreneur might keep the stock in their front room, while a bigger business might own a warehouse. Either way, the individual then markets the product themselves, and makes sales. Each time they sell something, they will package up the product, place a label on it, and pop it in the post.
When you buy wholesale, you will typically be able to get products at a discount. Usually this is a very significant discount, as the sellers see the value in guaranteed sales and thus are able to offer the low price.
This means that for every pair of jeans, blank CD, or set of dumbbells you buy for $5, you can sell them onward for $10 or $15. Sell off your entire inventory, and it’s normal to make a solid 100% profit or more.
Except not quite: because you also have to think about things like storage and fulfilment. This is where things can become significantly more challenging. Many independent entrepreneurs for example are not going to have the funds to afford a warehouse for storage, and nor are they going to hire staff to attach labels. Therefore, it becomes their job to store all those items in their own homes, while making sure they keep track of how many items are in their inventory (and preventing things like moisture and mold from destroying your goods.
Delivery is complicated too. You’ll now need to calculate the cost of the delivery, find the best couriers for buyers in all markets (including overseas in most cases), and make sure you have a smooth process capable of handling large influxes of orders without missing deliveries! Imagine if you have a sale and you sell 250 units. Would you be able to manually package and deliver all those items?
That’s where Fulfilment By Amazon comes in.
(And yes, Amazon FBA does translate to Amazon Fulfilment By Amazon).
Getting the Best Reviews for Amazon Products
Depending on the nature of your industry, a few reviews can even make or break your business success. A perfect example of this is the mobile app industry. If you release an app and the first 10 reviews leave a 1 star rating, then you can all but guarantee your sales are going to slow down or even completely halt.
The same is of course true for Amazon sellers, and it only takes a few bad reviews – which are displayed right in the search results – to ensure that people choose a different product over yours.
So, what do you do? Providing the very best product and service you can is one important step but these additional tips can also help a great deal…
Offer a Freebie
One way you can avoid negative reviews is to offer a free sample of whatever it is you’re selling. That could mean standing outside your restaurant with tasters, or if could mean having a free ‘trial version’ of your app. This isn’t just good marketing – it also works to actively turn away the kinds of customers you don’t want.
Of course, this will cost you money as an Amazon seller and it only works if your product is inexpensive (ideally something people order in bulk). While it might hurt you upfront, it can pay off big time in the long run – it’s called a “loss leader.” Give away one of your amazing razors from your website, then link your lucky recipients to your Amazon listing.
In turn, this will then help you to make sure that the vast majority of your reviews are positive. Why? Because anyone who tries your freebie and doesn’t like it, won’t become a customer. The only people entitled to leave a review are people who paid for your services and if they have all previously tried whatever it is you’re offering, then you know that in theory they should at least be impressed. Meaning positive reviews only!
Over Deliver
Another strategy is to over deliver on your promise by pleasantly surprising your customers. You can do this in any number of ways. One obvious strategy is to deliver a parcel faster than you say you will, another is to include a free gift. Otherwise you can just make sure that aspects of their experience are better than they would have predicted.
Either way, people will be so pleasantly surprised at getting something ‘extra’ that they will be almost guaranteed to leave a positive review.