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Automating Amazon

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 9, 2023 0 comments

FBA outsources a lot of your work to Amazon. But if you’re an FBA seller you’ve already discovered that it doesn’t outsource all of it.

However, there are ways to get a lot more of your basic business processes either automated or outsourced. Using integration tools to automate processes that you’d otherwise have to do manually is a smart move; it frees your time up, saves money, and also helps prevent those tiny errors that creep in when you have to retype figures from one place to another.

(Disclaimer: We have a great product that does a lot of this stuff. Want to know more? Here’s our job description!)

One area you can outsource is prep. Most suppliers can do more of the prep work; for instance, they can barcode your product, provide pack inserts, and so on. If you use ThomasNet or AliBaba for your sourcing, they may even be able to ship direct to Amazon, taking their cue from inventory levels reported to them from Amazon without your having to do anything to make it happen.

Making your FBA business more profitable in 2023

By AMZ Tracker last updated on January 5, 2023 0 comments

A new year is about to begin. Let’s see how you can make it a more profitable year; call that your New Year’s resolution if you like!

The best approach is to look methodically at each aspect of your business. Find out which areas are making the most profit, and which are not contributing much if anything. Then, simply do more of the first and less of the second, and hey presto! More profit.

Taking and managing great photos for your listing

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 29, 2022 0 comments

Photos are really crucial for selling on Amazon. Unlike a bricks and mortar shop, customers can’t touch and feel what they’re buying, so they rely on your photos to get a feel for the product.

You may think you need to have a DSLR and a whole load of studio equipment to take good photos. Actually, you don’t. Taking product photos is all about the set-up.

Amazon FBA: Free Your Creativity!

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 19, 2022 0 comments

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut when you’re in business. But sometimes you need some creativity. What can you do when it’s not there to call on?

Well, there are plenty of ways to free up your creativity and get your brain making all sorts of creative connections. Once you’ve done that, you’ll find you’re getting new ideas all the time; ideas for new products, new marketing angles, new ways to operate your business, whatever it is you’re focused on.

Time Management for FBA sellers

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 13, 2022 0 comments

A lot of people think selling on FBA is going to be easy. They see it as passive income; set up your products, ship them to the warehouse, and wait for the money to come in.

If you’re already an FBA seller you know it doesn’t work like that. There’s a lot to do, from sourcing new product to running advertising campaigns, responding to client issues, and ensuring you know just how much inventory you have.

So you’ll need to manage your time. If you’re not managing it properly, your work is managing you, instead.

How a consultant can improve your FBA business

By AMZ Tracker last updated on December 6, 2022 0 comments

Many FBA sellers get started as a side hustle. Their business is, at first, run from the garage, or the kitchen table. They may be CEOs, but they don’t have a finance guy, a marketing consultant, or anyone else on the team.

Once you’ve been in business a couple of years you may think you’re doing pretty well. Perhaps you’ve got a photographer and a copywriter and an SEO person on the team. So do you really need to bring in a consultant as well?

Sold by eBay, Fulfilled by Amazon

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 28, 2022 0 comments

Amazon has really great delivery; everybody knows that. Amazon is the master of logistics, and not just in the US. And if you’re an FBA seller, Amazon takes the entire task of fulfillment off your shoulders and does it for you, admittedly at a price.

Compare your poor eBay seller. They get contacted by eBay that someone’s bought some stuff, then they have to pack the order, get it posted, message the buyer and keep on top of deliveries, all on their own.

Pricing for the holidays: what to do, and what not to do

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 21, 2022 0 comments

Q4 is the top selling quarter for retail, including FBA sellers. Unless you’re in a mainly B2B area like office stationery, you’re likely to make far more profit this quarter than the rest of the year. A lot of that will be pushed into the time from Black Friday and Thanksgiving through to Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa, and you’re going to have a bit of stress in your life making sure you have inventory available, managing your ad campaigns, and getting your pricing right.

Pricing is particularly important in the holiday season as you don’t want to leave any money on the table. Even if normally you try to have the bargain product, it may be worth taking a slightly different tack right now.

Stop the leaks! Where Amazon profits leak out and how to stop it

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 14, 2022 0 comments

Leaky pipes are a big problem. You start with a gush of water and you end up with just a trickle after it’s all leaked out of one little hole or another.

An FBA leaky business is the same. You start with a great selling product, but when you come to look at the profits, somehow they all leaked out along the way.

So let’s look at where those leaks are and how to stop them up!

A big one is Amazon fees. You need to build those into your business plan from the get-go.

Relaunching Your Amazon Product

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 9, 2022 0 comments

Maybe you have a product that didn’t get off to a good start. You launched it at just the wrong time. Or maybe you have a product that has started to see sales tailing off. Is it time for a relaunch?

It certainly could be. But before you start thinking about a relaunch strategy, do your homework. Find out what are the main issues with the product. For instance, is it not attracting any traffic, or is it not converting viewers into buyers? Whichever is the case, a relaunch could work well, but you’d need to take different actions in each case.

PPC Strategies that work

By AMZ Tracker last updated on November 1, 2022 0 comments

PPC advertising starts off very simply, You choose those keywords that fulfill two basic conditions; that they’re relevant to your product, and that they are affordable to your budget.

Then you can refine your mix of keywords by investing in the ones that work, ceasing to use the ones that don’t, and building a negative keyword list to exclude the ones that cost you money for no return at all.

But there are also a few strategies you could adopt to achieve particular objectives, and those are what we’re going to talk about in this post.

How to track your PPC ad metrics

By AMZ Tracker last updated on October 24, 2022 0 comments

To get the best out of your investment in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you need to start tracking your ad spend and its results on a regular basis. It’s best to create a regular process, looking at your ads every week or month, so you know what’s working, and what’s not working and can be trimmed away.

Getting the rhythm right is important. Amazon will deliver constant data insights in real time, and it would be easy to just keep clicking away all the time, so you may need to discipline yourself to just do the regular reviews. Equally, some FBA sellers get so immersed in product launches, inventory management, and so on, that they find it difficult to get round to reviewing their metrics.

When your FBA business takes over your life

By AMZ Tracker last updated on October 18, 2022 0 comments

FBA businesses can grow surprisingly fast. One moment it’s a side hustle you can easily run in your spare time, the next it’s a monster which requires a more-than-full-time CEO. Success can easily be overwhelming. So if you have a Godzilla-style FBA business, how can you cope?

First of all, you need to sort out what needs to be done, and focus on that. In fact, you also need to sort out the difference between important and urgent. An important thing needs to be done, but it could be done today, tomorrow, next week. An urgent task is one that needs to be done right now. Some tasks are neither important nor urgent; just cut them out. You actually can afford to delete them completely from the to-do list. Other tasks are one or the other, but a select few tasks are both important and urgent. These are the top priority.

Things not to do as an FBA seller

By AMZ Tracker last updated on October 12, 2022 0 comments

Sometimes it’s as useful to know what not to do as it is to know what you should do. There are a few really basic things that, as an FBA seller, you should steer clear of. It will save you a lot of trouble.

First of all, don’t break the rules. Don’t even try to be a little bit clever and get around the rules. Amazon is very strict, and it has crackdowns every so often, too. Breaking the rules could get your account closed down without notice. So: don’t break the rules.

(And you should make a point of keeping yourself informed about Amazon’s rules and any changes that are made over time. Your product might be fine today and banned tomorrow.)

Structuring your ad campaigns on Amazon

By AMZ Tracker last updated on October 8, 2022 0 comments

Many FBA sellers get started with PPC ads in a pretty rough-and-ready way. They either select Amazon’s automatic campaign for their first product, or pick a few keywords and see what happens.

That’s fine for a first product, but once you grow your business it becomes difficult to manage. Structuring your campaigns becomes more important. There are some big benefits; a well structured campaign is easier to run, easier to monitor, and easier to improve.

Building Relationships With Customers

By AMZ Tracker last updated on September 26, 2022 0 comments

Every business needs to build strong relationships with its customers. But if you’re an FBA seller, that’s difficult, as you don’t control the relationship. The customers are Amazon’s customers, and your ability to interact with them is strictly limited.

So you need to look for ways to build those relationships outside Amazon. That means building on your customer’s common interests rather than on the transaction. In some cases, you’ll be building relationships with people who aren’t customers, but might well become customers.

Growing a multi-million dollar Amazon brand

By AMZ Tracker last updated on September 19, 2022 0 comments

If you’re a brand registered FBA seller, your brand may be a nice side hustle for you. Or it might have become a full time job.

But you might want to go further. Can you make it into a multi-million dollar brand?

It’s a stretch. You’ll need to expand your team. You’ll need to think of yourself as a CEO and marketing manager rather than as a small business owner. You’ll need to make a big commitment. And you might need to smarten up in a few areas, too.

How many products do you need to sell on Amazon?

By AMZ Tracker last updated on September 13, 2022 0 comments

You may have got started with a single branded FBA product. Many sellers do. Considering that samples and inventory for a single product are likely to cost you $3,000 to $5,000, launching with more than one product can be capital-intensive.

Even if you already retail through your own sales channels, remember that you’ll have to set aside a certain amount of inventory in Amazon’s warehouses. That can eat up your cash so you might want to start with a skeleton portfolio, or only highlighting your new products, for instance.

Finding the right products to sell on Amazon

By AMZ Tracker last updated on September 5, 2022 0 comments

When you’re looking for products to sell as an FBA seller, you’re looking for products that will make you money. Being an FBA seller isn’t like being a craftsperson on Etsy, in which case, you sell the things you already make, and perhaps try to make them a bit more market-orientated. It’s not like running a hardware shop, in which case you have to sell all the bits and pieces people want. You just want to choose products that are profitable.

But how do you find them?

Keyword stuffing: what it is and how to stop doing it

By AMZ Tracker last updated on August 29, 2022 0 comments

If you’ve ever read a page which repeats the same words over and over again, quite often without really saying anything worth your reading, that’s a keyword-stuffed page.

Back in the very early days of the internet, search engines were rather simple things. They looked for keywords in web pages, and they counted how many times the keywords came up. Then they awarded a score for that. The more keywords, the higher you ranked.

So canny people made sure their keywords appeared lots of times in their web pages, even if it didn’t really make sense. You got a feeling they had looked at Roget’s thesaurus too much. You’d find sentences like “when you open the box you will feel amazed to see such a stylish pen, stylish writing instrument, good-looking ballpoint.”