7 Common Mistakes that Amazon FBA Sellers Make
Amazon is a huge hub for eCommerce and business. Selling on Amazon means that you’re taking a piece of the multi-billion dollar pie.
But selling on Amazon isn’t easy. It’s not some get-rich-quick scheme. Whether you’re about to start your journey as an FBA seller on Amazon, or you have some experience under your belt, you’re bound to make a mistake (or two… or a few).
Making a mistake isn’t the end of the world. It just means that you’ll avoid making the same one in the future. Another way to avoid mistakes is to learn about the most common mistakes that Amazon FBA sellers make. We’re going to go over the 7 most common mistakes that Amazon FBA sellers make and how to avoid them.
1. Picking a Bad Niche
One of the first things on the agenda for selling an FBA product is picking a niche. It’s also one of the most important things in the FBA business.
Beginners often think that they should sell a popular product. On paper, this makes sense. Sell something with high demand, you’ll have a steady stream of customers. Right? Not really.
Huge corporations dominate the search terms for popular products. You can’t pick something too competitive. Other businesses have years of experience and millions in revenue to compete against you.
But picking something completely unknown isn’t a smart decision either. A general rule of thumb: if you search up your product’s keywords and the first 10 sellers have more than 100 reviews, the product is too competitive.
You know you have the perfect niche if it’s not too competitive but not nonexistent either. Your product should have a unique selling point to set it apart from the competition.
2. Putting Up a Bad Product Listing
Your product listing on Amazon is the impression you’re going to make with potential customers. You want it to be a good one, too. If your product listing isn’t the best it could be, then you’re going to lose out on a ton of customers.
So how to avoid creating a bad product listing?
- Contract a copywriter. A copywriter is a wordsmith that knows how to turn your product’s features into irresistible benefits. They’ll write an awesome product description that’ll get customers to fall in love with your product before they even order it.
- Take high-quality photos. High-quality photos will make an impression. Customers want to see what they’re spending their hard-earned money on.
- Get help from a graphic designer. A good graphic designer will put together a graphic for your product that’ll turn visitors into customers.
3. Selling for an Unoptimized Price
While a good product listing is important, the price is what sways the decision for many customers.
Your product can’t be too cheap, or else you’ll lose money and maybe even push away customers. They might think it’s too cheap to be any good!
But it can’t be too expensive either. They’ll just go with a cheaper option.
Try to look at what your competitors are charging and find the average price. That’s your ballpark.
If you want to learn more about pricing, then click here to learn how to price your products on Amazon for max profit.
4. Doing Business with an Unreliable Supplier
Choosing a reliable supplier is key to your success. You need to rely on them in order to make money. Do your research before committing to a supplier. If they have proven experience in a similar niche or even the same one, that’s even better.
Regardless of how reliable your supplier is, you should always have a backup plan just in case. Even if it seems like your supplier will always be there pumping out product.
Be prepared to even lose money by going with a supplier that can start immediate production at an increased cost. Just until everything fits back into place.
5. Not Investing in PPC Advertising
PPC is short for pay-per-click advertising. This is when you pay Amazon a certain amount of money when someone clicks on your ad.
Advertising is an important part of running a business, and that’s especially true with eCommerce. It gives your product more exposure and increases the number of sales.
Something awesome about Amazon’s PPC program is that if your product makes a sale through PPC, it increases your organic ranking. That makes it easier for people to find it on search. PPC is good for your product’s sales numbers.
If you think you’re selling enough without running ads, then consider this scenario.
Let’s say for every 10 visitors you get on your product listing, 1 person buys the product. So if 50 people visit your listing, you sell 5 products.
Now imagine if you invested in PPC. And you got 500 visits, that’s 50 products sold! Let’s say the ads only cost you about 10 products worth. That’s definitely a good investment.
6. Breaking Amazon’s Rules
Obviously, you know that you shouldn’t be breaking Amazon’s rules. But there are so many weird rules that you might be unaware of unless you read up on them. Here are the most common ones that vendors break:
- Registering more than one seller account
- Leading customers off the platform with URLs in the listing
- Using colored backgrounds, bordered images, or cartoon images in the listing
- Including promo text/coupons in the listing
7. Mismanaging Inventory
Inventory management is an essential part of any business. But in the Amazon FBA industry, it’s the difference between thriving and starving.
Not having enough inventory in Amazon’s warehouses will result in your product being “out of stock”. Which is horrible. This will plummet your product’s ranking on Amazon. All that hard work might go down the drain.
So just order enough inventory to last forever, right? Well, not quite. You’ll rack up fees from Amazon for using way too much space. This will cut into your profits.
Click here to learn more about managing your Amazon FBA inventory all on your own.
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