Jack Sparks is back with the conclusion of his
two-part series of articles on the ups and downs which occur when you decide to sell on Amazon. Jack has been outrageously generous in sharing his knowledge and today is no different.
Jack is an incredibly valuable member of the Life Success Accelerator program and my other Facebook masterminds – Online Arbitrage Mastery and Life Success Engineer Mastery. If you missed it, check out Jack’s first article!
Become an Amazon Seller – Winning your Life back with Amazon
So, last time in part one (Why Selling on Amazon Sucks) I may have slagged off Amazon a little bit, with good reason! Especially at a time when Amazon send out emails restricting toys and games and telling people they must remove their items before a date which is the same date as when the email was sent!Anyway, enough of that! In short, Amazon has certainly let a lot of us down recently and will most likely continue to do so going ahead.
But Amazon does not suck. it is one of the best business models somebody could do. This is because of the opportunities Amazon presents that no job, no matter how well paid could ever do. Selling on Amazon brings the opportunity to earn a very good income with very little effort. *BUT this is only after putting in the legwork first!* So, read below the reasons that I believe selling on Amazon is the ultimate way to win your life back.
Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)
I cannot commend Amazon enough for the FBA program! For those who don’t know, you send what you want to sell to Amazon, they ship it and handle the customer service for you at a small fee! This fee is usually at rates that are cheaper than standard delivery, and faster! This basically means that you can save a whole lot of time from the tiresome process of responding to an order updating it and then arranging pickup, notifying customers etc…
FBA can save you a lot of time. It also is more appealing for customers as they associate you with Amazon as you get the Amazon Prime badge. Because you are a ‘Prime’ seller, buyers also have next day delivery options with you, which is another bonus to increase your sales.
How do you win your life back exactly? Because you outsource the whole delivery process which could be very costly otherwise regarding your time and staff. FBA is the glue which holds this business model together, and it is not looking to go anywhere anytime soon thankfully for us!
The Only Way is Up! Amazon sales continue to grow
Amazon is a far bigger business than it was in 2007, but every year it has continued to outdo itself thanks to Bezos and his team purely focusing on growth even still. They are unlikely to cash in their chips for a long time. Their aggressive growth strategy is continuing to suck the life from traditional high street retailers. Most recently seen by the closing down of once strong Toys R Us.The trend to Internet shopping continues to grow and looks to be set this way for years to come.
I would add, most this growth is in Asia where Amazon is battling to become the cultural norm, with small success. For your Private labelers, I would advise getting into these marketplaces right now whilst they are still young!
“But there are so many sellers! Supply is above demand!” There are a lot of sellers yes that is true. If you had joined in 2007 and dedicated yourself to growing your business, you could have been successful faster than by starting now in 2018. But it is what it is, and if you carry on trying, adjusting, improving and growing your business, you will be successful. Remember what Guy Kawasaki said – “The best time to start was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now”
Automations and delegations- I love the Internet!
Starting a business and swearing to do everything yourself or by your own employees in 2018 would be a very costly thing indeed. In theory, you could separate yourself from the business and have employees running all the operations. But that would cost a lot. Not to mention the costs of shipping, HR and customer service software. I’m sure I have missed a lot from that list too!
The internet, love it or hate it, can save you a hell of a lot of time and money with Amazon. Need a job done by an artist? Fiverr. Need an Employee? Upwork or similar. There are experts around the world waiting for you to get in touch, and they will do a good job! Trust me, I have employed 10 people for freelance jobs, all of which did amazing jobs. What you must remember is that because you are not paying for your local cost of living (as you would for a local employee), this means that people who live in a country where much less is required to meet all human needs, such as in Bangladesh, will happily charge much less for a job than say someone in the USA. Both are equally good and both are charging what is fair for them in their countries. The beneficiary here is you. You get the best prices!The internet has allowed us to connect and employ people from literally anywhere on the globe and can save small businesses like you and me thousands in both money and time.
And I haven’t even got to mention the countless software’s made to streamline this process even more, many which are free! Take Jungle Scout and Amazeowl for product research, weeks of research done in hours. Or Repricer express for Pricing all your products, again, if done right, this is hours of works done in seconds! Or Tactical Arbitrage for finding ‘winners’, days of research down to minutes!There are thousands of examples just like this.
Youcan leverage the internet so that you can almost completely outsource operations and the operations you do outsource can be done very effectively thanks to the many tools which exist across the internet!
The abundance of Opportunities to profit from (Dynamic changing business)
When people say, “its so crowded on all the listings I find” or “Private label is dead” they fail to realise one concept. That is, that Amazon is far from static and so are all the niches within it. Everything changes over time! Thousands of new product deals come up every day creating new Arbitrage opportunities. I can bet there is money to be made in thousands of niches or sub-niches by just exploiting weaknesses of best sellers and improving them! Every day, thousands come, and thousands go. Grab them now!
The limitation here is not the business model, it’s the mindset. Scarcity vs Abundance, the only one that is reality is the abundance but many more choose to see with a scarcity lens on.
There is always opportunity if you persistently look for it.
Fixing a problem (PL)
My true passion is not flipping products “like dell boy” as some have said to me. It isn’t to make £1,000,000 (although I cannot wait to do so). To be honest it is to fix a problem and make life better for others, in the process of doing so I also get paid a lot because I am fixing a problem.
Private Label is about exploiting Golden Gaps in the Amazon marketplace whereby you will create something that the customer wants or doesn’t even know that they want it! I love that Amazon gives me the opportunity to impact and help others through selling genuinely valued goods. It’s not an easy process but you get paid for all the hard work in the end.
Conclusion
Amazon has its flaws, it’s not perfect but it could be worse. For all the benefits, quitting would be hard to do, at least for me anyway. Amazon is a rocket ship which is only going up, they are letting us tag along if we wish, they will do a lot of the heavy lifting and we can get other people to do a lot more of the heavy lifting! The result? The customer gets their product, Amazon grows, you employ hard working people and help them make a living and you are left with the profits!
If you are still struggling, just remember this comparison; When a rocket takes off, it goes hardly anywhere and uses a lot of energy, but you see what happens is it gains momentum, it goes faster, and faster, and faster until its going 20 times the speed of sound. When you start out, it will be hard. You will fail, a lot. You will suck at what you are doing to be honest.It’s not the wins that count, its how you react to the failures. Keep failing but keep learning and getting back up and believing in the business model and yourself and you will go from sucking to be an expert! The quicker you are happy to fail the quicker you will be an expert! Simple.
Only when you accept that there aren’t enough products or it’s too competitive do you accept defeat, but I know people have gotten to the other end of this tunnel, including our very own Kev! I am sure he failed many times, but he kept going, he kept growing and now he has the time and freedom to create content for all of us! What would you do if you had as much free time as you wanted? What would you do if you could not do anything for 1 month and earn let’s say 15k? Its all possible, and Amazon is a pretty damn good place to do it.
Keep going, keep believing and you too will win your life back!
I hope you have found value and if so, please like or share 😊
Jack Sparks
Success Partner
