What I told would-be million dollar sellers at our meetup

The Power of the Conference

Hi Friends, Andy here.

Have you heard the old adage: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”? Yeah, me neither, but I just looked it up and thought it sounded good 

In all seriousness, over the past several years Nate and I have attended a ton of Amazon seller conferences and it has been a HUGE part of our Amazon success.

To be alongside others who are passionate about the same things we are is hard to replace.

Recently, we traveled to Springfield, MO for a gathering of mostly Retail Arbitrage and Online Arbitrage sellers.

The day before the conference, we hosted a one-day deep-dive class for about 30 Amazon sellers looking to build their own private label brands. It was the best one we’ve ever done!!

We started our session by having the participants break into small groups of 4. We gave each group a product that we had bought on Amazon and asked them to critique the product. The group members were to analyze and evaluate the product around these ideas:

• How could this product be improved?
• Was there a pain-point the product was not adequately addressing?
• What needed to be changed or improved with the product in order for it to overcome any negative reviews it may have received?
• Was there anything that could have made this product a stronger competitor in its niche?

Choosing a Niche & Cross-Referencing the Keywords

We explained that if you want to get a successful product up on Amazon, you need to target a niche and really understand it. Choosing a niche and then a well-designed product within the niche is super critical to private labeling a product that is going to surpass your competitors. It sounds straightforward, but the truth is, you can’t just choose a niche without conducting some necessary research.

A crucial step is determining the level of demand for the product and the specific keywords attached to your potential product. What keywords do customers use to search for your product? Are there any? Is there demand for your product based on the keyword search? You’ve got to find this out before you move forward, because if you don’t have relevant keywords associated with your product, no one will be able to find it. If there isn’t enough demand for it, then you may be left with an unsellable product and a lot of dead inventory. Understanding your niche and being passionate about it can be really helpful, but knowing the associated keywords and potential demand for your product is an essential starting point.

Testing Your Product

As we dug deeper with our participants, we used a concrete example for a real hands-on learning experience. We brought out a silicone spatula set that was currently being sold on Amazon. It was a top seller in the Home & Kitchen category with over $100K a month in sales. Even with a product this successful, there was still room for improvement. When looking at the product reviews, some of our participants noticed that there were complaints about some of the claims in the listing copy, specifically that their product was dishwasher safe. Several reviews pointed out that these spatulas actually melted from the heat of the dishwasher…a clear sign the sellers should have rectified this problem with their manufacturer.

This little exercise revealed another essential step everyone should take before putting a product up for sale. You need testers! Give your potential product to friends, family, neighbors, or if possible, people highly familiar with the niche your product is targeted toward. Let those individuals test your product, even abuse it. This will let you know what needs to be tweaked, changed, or improved before you put your product out there in its best possible form.

New products need to get into the hands of testers before you list them on Amazon. Get some pictures of your product being used and some statements from your testers as to the perks and strengths of the product, as well as the weaknesses. This is what we have done in the past and what we do now. Through careful planning and repeated testing of our products, we have gained over 10 thousand followers on Instagram.

Private Labelers & Brand Builders – Listen Up!

We weren’t able to properly address all the questions and concerns that come with manufacturing your own product and selling it on Amazon at a one-day conference. For this reason, Nate and I will be developing a 6-part video training that dives deep into some of the steps you need to take and the hurdles you need to overcome before you start building your own brand.

This training will address some of the following items:

• The exact methods we use to consistently build 7-figure brands on Amazon
• How we dominate a brand new niche and instantly steal market share
• How to leverage your insider knowledge to create a winning brand
• How we are leveraging external Amazon traffic to build our 8-figure brand
• How to create a Freedom Plan that will build true brand equity for the long term
• Much more.

Is this something you’d be interested in? Right now we are just planning to do this training with those who attended the meet-up, but if others are interested we may look at opening it up to more.

Hit reply and let me know if this is something you would want.

A New Adventure for Us

There are always things to learn as we continue our journey in the eCommerce business. We sell successfully on Amazon, Shopify, and other online marketplaces. We feel like experts in this arena, because we have been living and breathing Amazon for many years. We know and understand the BSR, rankings, PPC, and all things Amazon. Interestingly though, we are about to embark on something we know less about: brick and mortar retail. Stay tuned for details.

A Final Word

We are proud of the growing number of sellers in our Amazon Seller Tribe that are gold lanyard members. The gold lanyard member is one who has reached a million dollars in sales. It blows me away when I see the number of million-dollar sellers we have as part of our distinguished group. Just know that with the teachings of Garry and Gaye, it’s possible. Success in the Amazon business is within reach when you have the right coaching and the right mindset. So, if you are looking to do arbitrage and get started selling on Amazon – Join our Tribe today!