However, when it comes to Amazon, pricing plays a significant role in the success equation. The price of your products plays a major role in whether you sell that product to a customer or another seller does.

(Take me to the list)

What is an Amazon Repricer?

An Amazon repricer is essentially a software program that algorithmically changes your prices on Amazon to stay competitive. These repricers will trigger all by themselves, day or night.

However, you usually need to enter some initial criteria so you can have some control over how the algorithm works – which is a good thing. It allows you to customize the pricing algorithm in order to maximize your sales and profits.

Manual Prices Vs Algorithmic Pricing

When starting out, many sellers start their journey repricing items manually. If they notice lots of competing sellers have lowered their price for a product, they figure they too must reduce the price of the product, otherwise, the product may take too long to sell. This is what smart sellers do.

However, past a certain level of products, many sellers realize it’s not really feasible to manually update all these products every day, so they turn to automated repricers!

It’s more than sales

It’s not just about beating the competition. Smart pricing means more purchases, repeat buyers, and positive reviews. If you’re familiar with Amazon at all, you know prices are constantly changing. You may look at something one day and it’s one price, and the next it’s 30 percent cheaper. As a busy business owner, you don’t have time to watch your competitors 24/7 and change your own prices accordingly. Thankfully, there are programs that do that for you. The following is a list of the best Amazon repricing software available.

1. Repricer Express

With Repricer Express, you set the rules, but the software also takes what’s happening online into an account when setting your prices. Decide minimum and maximum prices for a product or groups of products, easily filter your data for products at each price setting, and more. Easily considered one of the best Amazon repricing software products on the market, Repricer Express is available with a 15-day free trial. After that, you can choose from five plans that range from $55 to $249 per month, depending on how many SKUs you want to use with the software.

2. Bqool

Bqool allows you to automate your Amazon business, including pricing, so that you save time and effort. Its repricing tool, which is just one aspect of the software, monitors Amazon 24/7 for price changes, and it can change your prices every five minutes. There’s an embedded price and profit calculator, and you can customize your repricing settings. You can also schedule repricing, view a price history log from the last five days, and create a price safety net to prevent a major drop. Try Bqool for free for two weeks, and then choose from tiered pricing plans that range from $25 to $75 per month.

3. Xsellco

Another option considered to be one of the best Amazon repricing software products on the market is Xsellco. It stays on top of your prices 24/7, even if you don’t. Some of its top features include repricing on multiple channels, consistent pricing, net-margin repricing, price strategy scheduling, and a powerful search tool that allows you to access and filter all of your products with minimal effort. Xsellco starts at $69 with plans that range up to $349 per month.

4. Informed (formerly App Eagle)

When it comes to the best Amazon repricing software, Informed.co is a name you’ll hear often. It’s fully automated and works with Amazon — along with multiple other channels — to maximize your profits and boost your sales with repricing. Its algorithm is advanced compared to many of the other entries on the list and can help you win the Buy Box. Informed is a popular option for many of the top sellers in various niches. Enjoy a two-week free trial and then choose from plans that range from $100 to $150 a month.

5. Seller Dynamics

Seller Dynamics is another software program that works with multiple channels, including Amazon. You can set up as many repricing profiles as you need to, along with rules for various items or groups. It’s definitely one of the more flexible options on the list and an excellent choice for anyone who sells many unique items. There’s even an inventory management feature that incorporates the repricing rules and update inventory levels the moment you add a new listing. Enjoy a month-long free trial before choosing one of five tiered plans that range from $60 up to a percentage of your monthly sales.

6. Sellery (SellerEngine)

Sellery is a great option for FBA sellers because of an extra feature that discounts your products based on how long they’ve been in storage, helping you to avoid fees. The software works in real time, incorporates other intelligent strategies (similar to discounting the stored FBA products), provides private label solutions, and has a reputation for excellent customer service. Take advantage of of a free trail for the first two weeks, and after that, you’ll pay a percentage of your monthly sales. The minimum is $100 per month, and the maximum is $2,000 per month.

7. Teikametrics

If you’re an FBA seller or a seller with a huge inventory who moves many products on a daily basis, Teikametrics might be the best Amazon repricing software for you. Not only does it work in real time, but it allows you to customize your pricing based on who you see as your biggest competition. Other features include FBA shipping management, restocking optimization, inventory analysis, and purchase order management. Not only does it help with repricing, but it can be a great product for other aspects of your FBA seller account. After a two-week free trial, Teikametrics cost a little more than the other options and may range from $900 to $1,200 per month.

8. ChannelMax

The final entry on the list is ChannelMax. It uses the quickness of sales and smart algorithms to do real-time repricing. Available for Amazon in multiple countries, it will also provide you with the tools needed to set a minimum price on your products. Many users like ChannelMax because it provides sellers with easy-to-use instructions and a guide to how it chooses to reprice your items. Try it free for 30 days, and then choose from tiered plans that range from $34.99 to $499.99, based on how many SKUs you have.

The post Best Repricer Tools For Amazon Sellers in 2020 appeared first on fbafaq.

Walmart sells more clothing than any other retailer in the world, but what you probably don’t know is that Amazon is a close second.

Unlike other clothing stores, people don’t necessarily come to Amazon looking for a specific product instead of a brand, like a red jacket instead of, say, a jacket from

The North Face. Or a pair of jogging shorts instead of Nike shorts. This means that you don’t have to have big name recognition to become a top Amazon seller. All you need to do is understand and follow the requirements.

Basic Clothing product requirements

Even though Amazon is not a Gated category any longer, there are still requirements that must be met. The following is a summary from Amazon’s Clothing & Accessories requirements, found here:

https://services.amazon.com/services/soa-approval-category.htm

Types of Products:

• Athletic Wear
• Innerwear
• Outerwear
• Belts
• Wallets

Conditions Allowed

• New only

Approval Required

• No (Not anymore)
• There are requirements

(To find the full details, navigate to “clothing & accessories” and click on the requirements link”)

Clothing product requirements

• Provide Images: you must provide images through your own website or an image hosting provider so Amazon can review them
• Branded Clothing: If the clothes are from a brand, you must list them under the manufacturers UPC code.
• Must be new: Amazon does not allow used clothing.
• Must be authentic: This is an obvious one; all products must be 100% authentic.

Before you begin selling clothing on Amazon, you need to know that you can only sell new items. Gently used or previously worn items aren’t acceptable.

It’s also important to note that your listings, both the information and images, must be appropriate for a worldwide audience of all ages. This means you can’t use any pictures that feature nudity, anything considered pornographic, or anything else Amazon deems “obscene or offensive.”

The company itself will use its judgment to determine if an item is considered offensive, but generally, you’ll want to avoid anything that features violence, racism, hatred, religious intolerance, sexual intolerance, child exploitation and abuse, and human tragedies, as well as products that are culturally insensitive to people around the globe.

Rules About Selling Major Name Brand Clothing

Selling major name brand clothing means following a few extra rules. This probably goes without saying, but if you’re planning to sell something considered a name brand, it must be the real deal.

No cheap knockoffs or counterfeit products are allowed. Any major name brand clothing and accessories must also be listed under the UPC number provided by the manufacturer.

Keep in mind that while clothing is no longer a gated category, many name brands that fall under the clothing and accessories label are restricted, so check out the list before you decide what to sell.

Clothing image standards: Image Dos

Most of the requirements related to selling clothing on Amazon relate to what you can and can’t do with your images.

• Image size: The longest side must be at least 1001px. To get the full zoom functionality – images can also be up to 2560px on the longest side. You cannot go beyond 3000px on the longest side.
• Cropped: You need to optimize the cropping (tight crop) of the image so that you make it easier for customers to view the full image.
• Color Variations: You may have different SKUs based on each color; therefore you must also have “child SKU main image” for each color of a particular product.
• No watermarks: Images cannot have watermarks, etc.
• True colors: Image should represent the true image as close as possible.
• Background Color: The background color should be white.
• Main image: This should be a picture of the single product, not having multiple in the shot.

First, you must host your images on a third-party website or image hosting site so that Amazon can approve them before you create a listing.

When it comes to sizing, your images must be at least 1,001px and up to 3,000px on the longest side. If you plan to use the zoom tool, your photo must be at least 2,560 on the longest side.

Each image should be as high-quality as possible. After all, you want it to sell, and the better the picture, the more likely are to convince that buyer to add your item to his or her cart.

Crop your photos closely so the customer can get a clear idea of what he or she is buying, and any background left showing must be white.

Each image should contain only the product for sale on the page. Both your parent and child images should be shown on a human or model or lying on a flat surface.

If you want to show the item from different views or certain elements of the item, that is okay as long as the images used meet all sizing and quality requirements.

As a matter of fact, the more angles and closeups you offer, the more likely you are to sell your item. Finally, if you have a single product in multiple colors, each color must have its own child SKU main image.

Clothing image standards: Images Don’ts

Now that you know what you need to have in each of your images, take a look at some of the things that Amazon prohibits.

• Tags: You shouldn’t include any tags or product packaging in the images.
• No Boarders: Image shouldn’t have boarders, watermarks, etc.
• Mannequin: images should not have a mannequin.
• Lifestyle pictures: Clothing images should not have lifestyle images, or any color background other than white.
• Other products: No other unrelated products or accessories in the images (for example the above image would not be allowed). You should only include in the images what the customers will actually receive.
• Sketches: Should not contain sketches or digital sketches.
• Graphic design: Images cannot contain star rating graphics, text, size chart, or any other type of graphics added.
• All ages: Images must be appropriate for all ages; no nudity or offensive content.

Never add borders or decorations to your images. Again, use only a clear white background free of any distractions. Your images should also avoid showing any type of packaging, including tags.

Never use a drawing or digitally-altered image. Stick to the real thing. Avoid using any watermarks or text to mark your photos. Never put multiple items in one image. And while you can use human models to show off your garments, mannequin models are forbidden.

You now know that all items sold must be brand new, and that extends to your images. Even if you’re selling something new, don’t depict a used version in the image.

For example, if you’re selling a t-shirt, don’t show an image of a woman working out while wearing the t-shirt with sweat stains on it. As a matter of fact, don’t show a woman working out in your t-shirt at all.

Any type of lifestyle images are prohibited by Amazon. For this reason, if you’re using a human model, it’s best to have that person stand still in a generic pose against that white background.

You’ll also want to avoid accessorizing your model. Again, if you’re selling a t-shirt, your model shouldn’t be wearing a hat, sunglasses, and earrings. The shirt should clearly be the only product available for sale.

Avoid using image placeholders and temporary images. Skip informational images featuring graphs, ratings, and other text about the product.

All of that goes into your listing. Don’t add promotional materials to your images either. If you’re offering free shipping, put it in the listing or use a promotional tool.

Don’t post an extra image that says “free shipping” or write “free shipping” across the image. You should also avoid adding images of sizing charts, maps, and anything that isn’t the product itself.

The post Sell Clothes On Amazon: Requirements for selling clothes appeared first on fbafaq.

With drop shipping, you don’t need much capital to invest to start your company. You don’t need to invest money to buy inventory, store the inventory, fulfillment centers, employees, and more.

You can literally create a big e-commerce business without investing a penny, besides the sweat equity that goes into the marketing the products.

3 types of drop shipping companies

So what are these amazing drop shipping companies? Hold your horses there Lets first discuss what types of drop shipping companies there are:

1. Supplier Database: A company that compiles a database of suppliers that will drop ship for you (Like Salehoo and World Wide Brands
2. Supplier: An actual supplier that will drop ship for you – that may specialize in a category of products or have a whole catalog of different products available.
3. Marketplace: A marketplace that connects you to suppliers (Like Aliexpress)

Which companies are the most popular?

Before digging into each company, I wanted to see which were the most popular. The following is traffic data pulled from Ahrefs, a popular SEO tool for measuring other website’s traffic.

This data is all 15 drop shipping companies, organized by the website traffic each site gets:

You’ll notice that the highest traffic company is Aliexpress, and the lowest is national drop shippers.

Why I sort by traffic: I like to sort all by the traffic numbers because sometimes you can find the best, simply by sorting by popularity. Sometimes the collective wisdom of the crowds gives a good insight into the best products/ services.

With that said, keep in mind that the websites with the highest traffic doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best.

Best supplier databases: if you wanted a purely drop shipping supplier database-centric focus, then the following 5 are likely the best options out of all 15, in no order. They give the best mix of popularity, function, products, and suppliers available, etc

• Oberlo
• Salehoo
• Worldwide brands
• Wholesale Central
• Doba

So keep this in mind when browsing traffic metrics of each website.

Let’s get to a more detailed look into all these companies!

The following list is in no particular order:

Doba

You can sign up for a two-week free trail with Doba to decide whether or not you like it (some people love, some don’t love it — there isn’t a lot of middle ground).

After that, they charge a monthly fee. You can choose from products from multiple suppliers and manufactures which means over two million items to choose from, more than almost any other dropshipping company on the list.

It’s easy to use, and you can build a custom list of products you want to sell that fit your niche quickly. The company is also known for having excellent customer service when you need support.

However, it is important to keep in mind that because you are often dealing directly with multiple suppliers and manufacturers, you may get different results, especially when it comes to shipping speed.

It’s also important to note that you will pay for access to those suppliers and manufacturers — Doba is generally one of the more expensive dropshipping companies on the list which is one reason why some people aren’t huge fans of the company.

SaleHoo

SaleHoo is probably one of the most well-known companies on the list. You pay an annual fee to be a member, and in turn, you get access to its collection of over 8,000 highly-screened suppliers offering over 1.6 million products from around the world.

According to its customers, it offers amazing award-winning support that you can access via several outlets, including phone, web chat, email, and social media.

There’s also a 60-day free trial so you can really get a feel for it before making a commitment.

SaleHoo is based in New Zealand, and it offers plenty of tips and guidance for new sellers, including help finding products that relate to your niche and a research tool that helps you find the most profitable products.

Sunrise Wholesale

Sunrise Wholesale doesn’t offer as many products as some of the other dropshipping companies on the list, but it makes up for it in what it does offer.

The company is based in Los Angeles and has been around for nearly two decades. Items are shipped directly from Sunrise to your customers, so you don’t have to worry about shipping times varying from supplier to supplier.

Because of the smaller offering of products, you won’t find everything you might want to sell here, but it’s great for people who sell electronics, home decor, sports gear, accessories, and a few other niches.

They even offer top brands, ranging from Gucci to Disney. Pay an annual or monthly fee after your seven-day free trial. Just keep in mind that the company does charge a restocking fee if your customers return an item that wasn’t damaged.

One of the most beloved aspects of Sunrise Wholesale is how easy it is to integrate with top eCommerce platforms, like Amazon and eBay.

MegaGoods

Also based in Los Angeles, MegaGoods is a dropshipping company that focuses almost solely on electronics, video games, mobile device, and related products. So, if that’s your niche, you may want to give them a try.

They offer access to over 2,000 products from top brands, like Nintendo, Emerson, iLuv, Philips, and Coby. Take advantage of a month-long free trial, easily-accessed support and customer service, reasonable monthly fees, and the ability to use your own branded packaging.

You can also expect quick domestic shipping. The downsides are that you shouldn’t expect high-tech integration, so you may need to do more manual work to get the products added to your own store.

Worldwide Brand

Florida-based Worldwide Brands isn’t technically a dropshipping company itself, but it does link you to over 9,000 suppliers offering over two million products, and it’s known for keeping up with what’s selling so that you have access to only the hottest products on the market.

Among its trusted suppliers, you’ll find the top brands for thousands of products, and Worldwide Brands will even help you search for just the right items if you can’t find what you’re looking for.

There’s no fee (hidden or otherwise) once you pay a one-time lifetime membership cost, and you’ll find that the suppliers are all high-quality.

However, that one-time lifetime membership cost is on the steep side, and there is some up-selling. You may also have to do some manual work when integrating the site’s products with your own store.

AliExpress

Even if you’ve never heard of any other company on this list, you may be familiar with AliExpress, a subsidiary of Alibaba. The China-based site is a great place to start if you’re new to dropshipping or selling online, and it’s free to sign up.

Aliexpress is the most popular in terms of traffic. But aliexpress is better for specific drop shipping or wholesale techniques; it’s not really a dropshipping supplier database.

Aliexpress is more of a large marketplace, that you can purchase products for at nearly wholesale levels. This is more of a retail arbitrage technique – that you are using for drop shipping.

You’ll receive access to millions of products, each of which fits into one of about 40 categories, ranging from women’s clothing to home improvement products. Even if you don’t end up using it or using it for very long, it’s a great place to do research and learn what’s hot and what’s not before adding products to your store.

It’s also great for beginners looking to get their feet wet in dropshipping. You just have to be sure to vet your suppliers yourself, so they don’t mess up orders and harm your stores reputation.

Also, note that a huge drawback to aliexpress is the shipping time. Most orders will ship from China. So typically, and especially now with the trade war, aliexpress shipping takes a long time – nearly a month in some cases.

So this is the big drawback to aliexpress. With companies now, like Amazon, shipping orders in 2 days, nobody wants to order something online and wait a month.

National Dropshippers

New Hampshire-based National Dropshippers is another one of those sites that doesn’t fully integrate, so you’ll be doing plenty of manual work on your own, but the benefits may just be worth it.

After a seven-day free trial, you’ll pay a reasonable monthly membership fee, or you can pay quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or for a lifetime membership.

Shipping from National Dropshippers is quick. Once you notify them of a sale, items typically arrive within three days or less. All products are tracked once they’re mailed, and you have regular access to customer support via phone and email, no matter what you need.

Keep in mind that National Dropshippers only mails items to customers in the United States, so if you offer international sales, you may need to look elsewhere.

That said, signing up for a membership grants you access over 250,000 unique products.

Wholesale2B

Many sellers love Wholesale2B because of its versatility. The site offers just under two million products from hundreds of unique sellers in over 25,000 categories, including some products that many sellers say are difficult to find.

That can excite you or overwhelm you, but either way, it gives you plenty to choose from. It also integrates well with eCommerce platforms like eBay and Amazon, and you can even use it with your own custom site.

The initial signup is free, though you will eventually pay a monthly or annual fee, depending on which platform you use for your sales.

The site sends you daily inventory alerts, offers analytics tools, and even provides you with the opportunity for to order items to be shipped directly form whatever eCommerce platform you’re using.

The company’s biggest downside is that its user support is practically non-existent. You can’t pick up the phone and talk to a customer service representative like you can with many of the other companies on the list, though you can find limited help online.

Inventory Source

Inventory Source is another dropshipping company that fully integrates with many major eCommerce sites, and it even offers full automation so that you don’t have to take any extra steps when you sell a product and need it shipped to your customer.

Monthly plans are a little on the expensive side, but it may be worth it given how much time it saves you. There’s also a free option, but it doesn’t offer all of the integration and automation benefits the other plans do.

Inventory Source has over a million products offered by over 180 suppliers in its directory. You can take advantage of educational tools and 24/7 customer support access when you become a member.

Oberlo

Oberlo is an excellent dropshipping company that receives high reviews from its users across the board. The catch is that it only works with Shopify, so if you’re not selling on the Canadian eCommerce platform, you may not find it very useful.

But if you are, you’ll probably fall in love with everything Oberlo has to offer. The company provides a 30-day free trial, and when you initially sign up, it’s free.

However, once your sales pick up, you’ll have to move up to a monthly payment plan. Each one of the company’s suppliers is hand-picked by Oberlo, so you won’t find yourself working with anyone who is questionable, and the inventory management system is amazing.

You can customize your own product pages, and it’s all really easy to use.

Dropified

Not only is Dropfied a great company to work with if you’re looking for automation, but it can connect you with over 7,000 suppliers and manufacturers, all located within the United States.

Use the site’s tools to import items from AliExpress, manage your inventory, and keep up with your stats, all from your own dashboard.

When you sign up, you’ll receive a two-week trial period, and after that, you’ll pay an annual fee which can be on the expensive side, especially if you’re a new seller.

Like Oberlo, the site integrates seamlessly with Shopify, though you can use it with some other eCommerce platforms as well. You can take advantage of integration with Facebook ads, and it will help you find videos across the Internet that you can advertise on if you wish.

The downside is that unless you’re a premium member, you have limited access to customer support. You can’t pick up the phone and call a customer service rep, but you can contact the company through email, web chat, and social media.

Dropship Direct

Update: It looks like not only is their SSL not active (happens), but their entire site had been deleted. Their website now goes directly to the default WHM server landing / error page.

If you’re a new seller, paying a big monthly or annual fee may not be in the cards. That’s where Dropship Direct comes into play. The company does not charge a fee, and it offers over 120,000 products from multiple categories.

You can customize your own packing slips with your brand logo if you wish, and you can take advantage of sales metrics provided by Dropship Direct. There’s no minimum requirement, and each item is shipped directly from the company’s warehouse in Michigan.

They’ll ship domestically, as well as internationally to Canada, Australia, and Europe. However, don’t expect too much from the company’s website; it’s pretty basic.

Wholesale Central

Wholesale Central isn’t a dropshipping company exactly, but it does help connect you with suppliers and manufacturers, no matter what type of products you sale.

Founded in 1996, it may be one of the oldest companies on the list, but it does offer one of the biggest varieties of products. It’s free to use and easy to use, even if it is a bit outdated.

Just keep in mind that not all of the suppliers listed offer dropshipping, and you will have to do much of the work manually if you choose to use any of its products on your site.

There isn’t much in the way of integration. That said, it can still be quite a useful tool, especially if you’re having trouble finding products in a certain niche.

Modalyst

Modalyst promises fast shipping and a vast selection of products available for dropshipping, and according to its users, it delivers.

You’ll find millions of products that fit into many categories and many price ranges, and it integrates fully with select eCommerce sites. If you’re new, you can get started for free, though you will eventually have to pay a monthly fee once your sales pick up.

And if you want work with the “premium suppliers,” you’ll pay an additional annual fee. You can customize product details, like price, before you upload them to your site and take advantage of the site’s great inventory management system.

You’ll also find several resources and educational tools available to new and experienced sellers alike.

Printify

Last but not least, Printify is an excellent choice if you sell customized products online.

This is a great company for Print on demand drop shipping, but you need to make the designs for the products first. So if you are looking for purely drop shipping, where the products are ready to go, look elsewhere on this list.

If you are reading this article, you probably want access to a database of multiple suppliers who will drop ship their products for you. But some are interested in the (POD) Print on demand model.

Here’s how the POD model works: You choose a product form their site, and send them the logo, artwork, or words you want printed on the product.

They send you a sample, you set up a product listing in your store, and once your sales come in, they print up more products and mail them to your customers.

If you use Shopify or Etsy, you can also take advantage of full integration. The site is initially free to use, but you’ll need to upgrade and pay a monthly fee if you have multiple stores or already have a great number of sales.

The way Printify makes money is by taking 40 percent of your actual sales each time you order newly-printed products.

If you are interested in print on demand, you should submit your designs to the plethora of other print on demand companies.

The post 15 Best Dropshipping Companies / Suppliers appeared first on fbafaq.

Ask anyone who sells products online, which part of the process they wish they could have some help with, and you’ll typically hear the same answer: shipping.

This is one of those things that is not very glamorous in business, but very necessary for any successful e-commerce business that sells on their e-commerce store, Amazon, eBay or any other marketplace.

Ensuring the right product gets to the right customer on time, in one piece, and without getting lost in the mail can be a costly and time-consuming process. You also need a system to customers and their orders so customers can stay in the loop.

Luckily there are many shipping solutions out there can help. Many of them are online versions (that work on Mac and PC), but some have desktop software versions that offer more features. Unfortunately, many of them are only for PCs.

If you’re a Mac user, your options are limited, but you may want to give Endicia a try, as its one of the few to have dedicated mac software.

What is Endicia?

Whether you ship your products from a home office or warehouse, anyone who uses the United States Postal Service (USPS) to get their products to their customers can take advantage of Endicia’s services and features.

They include discounted USPS shipping rates, printed shipping labels, verified addresses, the ability to purchase insurance or delivery confirmation, scheduled pickups, and tracking for all of your packages.

Endicia handles both domestic and internationals shipping and even includes a few extra perks for international shippers, like the fact that you don’t have to fill out customs papers on your packages and you can take advantage of address verification that extends to over 240 countries.

Endicia Overview

Endicia and Amazon

Endicia is particularly popular with eCommerce retailers, such as those who sell on Amazon, because you can streamline the shipping process a bit by importing all of your orders from Amazon to Endicia’s software.

It also works with Paypal, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, Yahoo!, Magento, and several other major marketplaces. See the full list of Endicia integrations.

Endicia and Mac Users

Without a doubt, Stamps.com is one of Endicia’s top competitors. Many will wonder should they choose Endicia or Stamps.com. While both options are perfectly viable there are certain considerations for both.

For example, while the two services offer many of the same advantages, Stamps.com Desktop software isn’t available for Mac users – so you lose out on some advanced features like batch shipping.

Endicia, is available for both Mac and PC, though if you want to use it on both platforms, you’ll have to set up two unique accounts. When using the program for Mac, you’ll pay a monthly fee plus your postage, and once you’re signed up, you can download the software to your computer and get started.

You can then integrate your eCommerce sales with the software and import all of your orders. From there, all you need to do is weigh your packages, print your labels, attach the labels to the packages, and schedule a pickup with your mail carrier. It’s definitely a time-saver, especially if you don’t like to go to the post office and stand in line every day.

Pros of Using Endicia

Of course, saving time and money are the ultimate reasons why you’d use a service like Endicia, and it definitely provides you with those opportunities. It also:

• Integrates well with Amazon and other major eCommerce sites
• Allows you to print multiple labels at a time for bulk shipping
• Makes international shipping as easy as domestic shipping
• Provides a service for Mac users that isn’t readily available from competing sites like Stamps.com

Cons of Using Endicia

If you search user reviews online, you’ll see that not everything regarding Endicia is pretty good.

First of all, if your printer jams or runs out of ink while you’re printing a shipping label or you discover you’ve made a mistake, you do have 24 hours to reprint the label.

However, after this time is up, you need to ask for a refund, which can be a pain. The issue of refunds seems to be the biggest complaint among users.

A few reviewers also state that they don’t necessarily find Endicia’s software user-friendly at first (though they liked it after the initial setup), and a few others have remarked on problems they’ve had with support and customer service.

The bottom line

So, should you give Endicia a try? That’s up to you, of course, but if you’re a Mac user looking to save time and money on shipping, it may be worth it.

You’ll also need to make sure you only use USPS shipping services and that paying the monthly fee is worth the savings, depending on how much you sell each month. There’s no annual contract, so you can always cancel your account after a month or two if it doesn’t work out.

The post Review of Endicia appeared first on fbafaq.

Anyone who mails packages regularly has probably heard or seen an ad for Stamps.com, and it probably piqued your interest.

After all, shipping is usually considered one of the most monotonous tasks for anyone who sells their own products online. And anything that can make that task easier is worth a shot, right?

Not only can Stamps.com make shipping easier, but it can save you time and money.

What is It?

Stamps.com is a shipping website that allows you to buy postage for any packages you plan to ship through the United States Postal Service (USPS). However, you pay for your shipping at a discounted rate.

Once you’ve purchased your shipping, you can print your labels from any home or office with even the most basic printer, slap them on your boxes, they are ready to ship.

If you want, schedule a USPS mail carrier to come by your home or office and pick up your packages, eliminating your need to visit the post office and wait in line to mail your products out to your customers.

Most Stamps.com users feel the service is easy to use and has more to offer than doing your shipping directly through the USPS website or physical post office.

How Much Does It Cost?

Stamps.com isn’t a free service. When you sign up, there’s an initial trial period, but once it’s over, you’ll pay a monthly fee. That fee starts at $17.99 for a pro plan, $24.99 for a premier plan, and enterprise users will pay a custom rate.

For simply signing up for a free trial, you’ll get five dollars worth of free postage to use, and new customers receive a scale that allows you to weigh products up to five pounds.

In turn for paying the monthly fee, you get a discount on both domestic an international shipping, plus insurance for your packages. There are no annual contracts — you can cancel your account at any time.

Stamps.com Features

All USPS Services

Stamps.com allows you to ship through any of the USPS services offered. Here are the following USPS services that most Amazon sellers will use with their stamps.com account:

• First Class Mail®: (2-3 days now, used to be 2-5 days)
• Parcel Select Ground: (2-8 days)
• Media Mail: (2-10 days)
• Priority Mail®: (1-3 days)
• Priority Mail Express®: (1 day or 2 day, by 3 p.m.)
• International Mail: (7-21 days)

With a click, you can add any of these USPS services and you can also add tracking, registered mail, insurance, return receipt and other services they offer.

You can also print out certified mail and international mail forms without filling them out by hand like you would have to at the post office. You can also print out USPS postage for flat rate boxes and envelopes. Basically, anything that you can do at the post office you can do on your stamps.com account.

Print Shipping Labels

Though you can do some other cool things like printing stamps or directly onto envelopes, printing shipping labels will be the main purpose for Amazon and e-commerce sellers wanting to fulfill their orders. stamps.com allows you to print out shipping labels for all your orders.

You can print them on shipping labels that have a peel-back sticky surface or you can just print them on Plain paper if you wanted, and then later fix them to your package. However, we definitely recommend the adhesive printer size shipping labels or something like a DYMO LabelWriter.

Postage Discounts

Depending on how much you ship, the discounts may be worth the price of your stamps.com subscription.

• Up to 18% off First Class Package Service
• Up to 13% off Priority Mail Express
• Up to 39% off Priority Mail

Batch shipping on Stamps.com

Ah, batch shipping! For me, this is the most important part of any shipping software. Its all about workflow and saving time.

The batch shipping feature is what makes stamps.com, Endicia, and especially Shipstation, Amazing for e-commerce, eBay and Amazon sellers. The batch shipping feature of stamps.com pro software allows you to very easily do batch shipments for multiple orders.

There is a catch though. Read on Mac users.

Though Stamps.com does allow batch shipping, if you are a Mac user you will not have access to their batch shipping functionality. Windows users will have access to the desktop software, whereas Mac users will need to use the online version of the software. 

To see a full list of Stamps.com online version versus the desktop software, check out this comparison list.

If you are a Mac user, you should opt for shipstation instead.

Here is an overview of the batch shipping functionality:

Import E-Commerce Orders with Stamps.com

What good wood a batch shipping feature be without being able to import your orders from eBay Amazon or your eCommerce store? The stamps.com software allows you to import your orders from your E-commerce web stores for batch shipping. There are many stamps.com integrations available, and many ways to import orders:

• Excel: Learn how to import orders from excel with stamps.com
• CSV or Text File: Learn how to import orders from csv or text files with stamps.com (mac or windows)
• E-Commerce Store Integrations: Learn how to import e-commerce orders with stamps.com (mac or windows)

Amazon Integration

Though stamps.com can work with a variety of marketplaces, many of the readers on this blog will be primarily using Amazon. Amazon sellers will love that Stamps.com allows you to connect to Amazon to painlessly ship your Amazon orders. Here are some of the features stamps.com offers for Amazon sellers:

• Import orders from Amazon
• Easily Print shipping labels/packing slips
• Automatically get the best shipping rates based on the shipping speed you prefer
• Automatically send tracking numbers to your customers!
• Automatically post back the order & tracking info to your Amazon store

*Note: Amazon, eBay and Etsy shipping integrations work on both Mac and Windows!

Online Marketplace:

• eBay
• Amazon
• Etsy
• PayPal
• Rakuten
• Yahoo!

Online Shopping Carts:

• 3dcart
• Magento
• Sears
• Shopify
• Volusion
• WooCommerce

Connect to a File:

• CSV or Text File

Importing Orders from Other Sources:

• Manually Add an E-commerce Order

Online Marketplace:

• eBay
• Amazon
• Etsy
• PayPal
• Yahoo!
• Rakuten

Online Shopping Cart:

• 3dcart
• Bigcommerce
• Channel Advisor
• CS-Cart
• Magento
• OpenCart
• OsCommerce
• PrestaShop
• Sears
• Shopify
• Volusion
• X-Cart
• Zen Cart

Connect to a File:

• Excel
• CSV or Text File

Connect to an ODBC Data Source:

• ODBC

What are Some of Stamps.com’s Other Features?

At Stamps.com, you can do more than just print shipping labels. You can add messages to your labels, hide your shipping costs from your customers, print in larger batches, email your customers with tracking updates, and import order information from many large eCommerce sites, including Amazon.

Beyond that, the following features may help streamline your shipping processes:

Postage Wizard: Stamps.com Pro has a postage wizard that helps youShipper orders by offering a step-by-step guide to help you pick the right package sizing, wait etc.

Print Postage on Envelopes: Stamps.com allows you to print directly on envelopes which is very convenient for people who ship stickers and other small items that they may want to use an envelope for.

Print Postage Stamps: Don’t have time to stop by the grocery store to pick up a booklet of stamps? Well with stamps.com you can print your own stamps online.

Print International Postage: International shipments can be a pain especially if you go to the post office and have to fill out all the paperwork manually. The nice thing about using a shipping software like stamps.com is that you can print out the International Postage and Customs form in one step without having to fill it out manually by hand.

USPS Pickup: Usually you have to schedule a USPS pick up online, but with stamps.com software you can easily schedule it straight through their interface which is a nice feature that cuts out an extra step.

Refund labels: it’s very common to make a mistake on a label and to need to do a reprint. In this case, you can easily refund your label with a mistake and print out a brand new one.

Search Order: this is a nice feature if you need to manually look up a tracking number or specific order.

How does it work?

Though the interface has changed a little, here is a quick overview of how you would print a shipping label with their software:

Pros:

For a full list of pros, see the review box at the end of this post.

• You can skip those trips to the post office by printing your own shipping and scheduling mail pickups at your home, office, store, or warehouse.
• You and your customers can track your packages through the system.
• Address validation software helps to prevent the number of packages that get lost or are returned to you.
• If you ship in large quantities, you save money on shipping.
• You can import all of your Amazon orders.
• You can take advantage of a free trial and cancel at any time.
• You can purchase shipping for all types of mail online, while other services only allow you to purchase priority mail rates.

Cons:

• There’s a monthly fee which means even if you aren’t selling as much in January as you did in December, you still have to pay.
• Once you cancel, you lose access to your account, including all of your previous shipping history.
• Stamps.com software is only suitable for use with Windows PCs.

Is it worth it?

At the end of the day, only you can determine whether Stamps.com is worth it. How much you ship, whether or not you currently use the USPS, whether you use insurance, and how much time you spend at the post office each month may all play a role in your decision.

However, if it will take some of the pain out of shipping your products, you may find that it’s at least worth signing up for the free trial.

The post Review of Stamps.com appeared first on fbafaq.

That’s where an app like Jungle Scout comes into play. Also available as a chrome extension, Jungle Scout provides you with real data on products currently for sale on Amazon. Find out how much certain items sell for, who sells the most, how much those sellers make, and much more.

While Jungle Scout is an excellent program for many new and current Amazon business owners, it’s not the right fit for everyone. For some people, its monthly fee is just too expensive.

For others, they require something more powerful or that offers more features. Whatever your reason, if you’re searching for a great Jungle Scout alternative, you’ll find plenty on this list.

Helium 10

Helium 10 is probably one of the closest and best alternatives to Jungle Scout. In fact, Helium 10 is one of my favorite Amazon seller tools besides jungle scout.

Helium 10 has many tools that benefit Amazon sellers in several ways. They have one of the best reverse ASIN tools on the market in my opinion, along with many other tools for product research similar to Jungle Scout, and more.

• Helium 10 Extension: helium 10 extension is very similar to Jungle Scout extension except it has a little bit more functionality, in my opinion. Well, at least it is a little bit quicker to use in some cases. For example, using the ASIN inspector allows you to export more products than Jungle scout, without having to keep pressing buttons to load more products.
• Reverse ASIN: (Cerebro): the stools great to find keywords that your competitors are ranking for.
• Black Box: this tool is great for uncovering product ideas and product discovery.you can simply type in a keyword and filter out certain criteria just like you would in Jungle Scout web app.
• Scribbles: scribble is a great app that allows you to optimize your Amazon product listings and keep track of all the keywords you’re using in those listings.

Jungle Scout Vs Helium 10: Extension

Both extensions are very similar and it really depends on your preference on which one you end up liking. Honestly, you can use both extensions and be totally happy.

Jungle Scout Extension for the term: “Golf Clubs”

Helium 10 Extension for the term: “Golf Clubs”

In my opinion, the two most powerful Amazon software Suites in this space are helium 10 and Jungle Scout. This is because they give you all the tools you would probably ever need for creating a successful Amazon business.

Which one you choose really depends on your personal preference since both tools have very similar functionalities. However, I would say that helium 10 offers a little bit more advanced features in some areas that I really like.

Whereas jungle Scout seems like a more polished and more stable software. I would almost liken helium 10 to the Android OS because it’s a little bit more advanced, and the jungle Scout would be like iOS since the UI is more appealing to the eye and stable (but maybe less advanced features).

This is again a toss-up. You should try both out and see what works best with your workflow and budget.

Unicorn Smasher (Extension)

If you’re looking for a free alternative to Jungle Scout that, more often than not, receives raves reviews, Unicorn Smasher is an excellent choice.

It integrates fully with AMZ Tracker if you use it, and Unicorn Smasher allows you to switch back and forth between niches with ease. Find info on everything from pricing to ratings when you’re on the hunt for a particular product.

Unicorn smasher gives you a surprisingly good amount of data for free. Most other extensions that give this level of data are going to be around $100 (one-time fee). But not unicorn smasher! This is a great tool to try out to get your feet wet with Amazon product research.

AMZScout

AMZScout isn’t free, but it is a cheaper alternative to Jungle Scout with packages that range from $19.99 to $39.99 a month. Start out with a seven-day free trial to decide if you like it (which most users do end up liking this software).

With AMZScout, you can keep up with keywords, monitor your competitors’ analytics, track up to 80 products at a time with the most advanced package, and much more.

SellerApp

SellerApp allows you to track products that interest you whenever you visit the Amazon site. It ranks each listing’s quality and alerts you every time the listing quality changes.

Keep up with what’s trending, as well as what your competitors are doing and any changes they make each day.

ASINspector

Another pay alternative, ASINspector actually does more than Jungle Scout (in some ways), so you may find that it’s worth the one-time licensing fee (and the small monthly recurring fee if you opt for the Pro version).

Considered a great time-saver by some of Amazon’s top business owners, it’s ideal for bulk and wholesale sellers. You’ll learn more about each product than you ever thought possible, and it includes keywords for a product, search rankings, and a profit calculator.

Inventory Spy (Extension)

If you are focused on what your competition is doing at any given time, Inventory Spy is the great Jungle Scout alternative for you. The app tells you how much inventory your competitors have at any specific point.

This is an excellent guide for determining how much you should sell your products for or how much inventory you should keep in stock. Inventory Spy is free at the basic level, though you can upgrade to Pro for a price. Best of all, it works on every Amazon site in every country.

Cash Cow Pro

Cash Cow Pro has a reputation for being super easy to use, even if it is a little on the higher side price-wise. Amazon itself actually promotes its use.

Like the other options on the list, Cash Cow Pro offers a number of helpful features, including sales data tracking, keyword tracking, automated feedback collection, inventory monitoring, and conversion rates.

Amachete

Amachete packages start at $39, but after you take advantage of the two-week free trial, you may find that it’s worth it.

As a matter of fact, many users say that Amachete is actually more accurate than Jungle Scout most of the time.

The Chrome extension is simple to use, and one of its best features is that it alerts you if someone tries to hijack your Amazon listings so you can handle it as soon as possible. Helium 10 also has this feature.

AMZ Shark

Another one of the higher-priced options is AMZ Shark, though you can take advantage of a 30-day free trial to decide whether it’s worth using it to monitor your business.

One advantage it has over Jungle Scout is that it’s compatible with some versions of Amazon based in Asian countries. A favorite feature for many users is the way the app tracks product sales using the infamous 999 methods.

Sellers also enjoy the way it ranks niches based on how competitive they are.

So What Should You look for in a Similar Jungle Scout solution?

Let’s take a look at what Jungle Scout offers, then it may help you decide which alternative is best for you.

Note: You may or may not need all the tools they offer. Some just want the keyword research aspects, while others may be focused on the product research aspects of Amazon.

Here are some functionalities and benefits of Jungle scout, that you may want to look at for other similar software:

• Browser extension
  • Product research, sales trends
• Web App
  • Product research, sales trends
  • Keyword research, listing optimization, etc.
• Supplier Database
  • Find suppliers to work with
• Launch
  • Email automation/email marketing software

Best features of the Jungle Scout (Web App)

Find New Products

With the web app, you can filter out amazon products by your desired criteria. For example, say you wanted to find a product in the kitchen niche, but you only wanted to see low competitive products that also sell well.

In this case, you can filter to only show products that sell well, but have a low amount of reviews.

Sales and Trends

With the jungle scout app, you can also pinpoint great selling products by looking at the estimated daily/ monthly sales, profit, reviews and more. Armed with all this data makes it much quicker to estimate how profitable a product will be for your Amazon business.

Track products (Validate your ideas)

You can pick products to track so that you are sure not to pick a product that heavily changes based on the seasonality of demand (swim shorts during summer months).

Keyword research/listing optimization

You can do reverse ASIN searches to uncover keywords that competitors rank for. Then you can optimize your listing using jungle scout.

New tools for 2019

• Supplier database: Find suppliers all over the world that have a proven track record of success and reliability.
• Email Automation: Use the power of email marketing automation to further boost your Amazon sales. You can also leverage email to increase positive customer reviews and prevent negative ones too!

Jungle Scout Vs Others

A Free alternative?

Many people looking for a different jungle scout-like program are usually looking for something free.

Looking for something free? Sure, try the free solutions. But they often only have very limited functionality where they aren’t useful.

I don’t look at the amazon selling tools as expenses though – I look at it as an investment. In my mind, it is a very important investment in any amazon business.

The reality is, you will likely have to pay for a really good and comprehensive solution.

Amazon Product research software, for me, acts as a compass to move me in a direction that makes it more likely I will achieve success. It also saves me a ton of time, which is so valuable. And frankly, I couldn’t do a lot of what I do without the data they have.

I have not found a free solution that works as well as Jungle Scout or Helium 10. But don’t take my word for it. Try the free programs like unicorn smasher and compare it to Jungle scout and Helium 10’s free trials!

A Better Solution?

And as far as a better solution? That’s tough. The only thing that could be considered better is Helium 10. However, I couldn’t even say Helium 10 is better.

There are a few things I like better about Helium 10 and there are a few things I like better with Jungle Scout. That’s why I use both.

I typically recommend trying out a variety of software for any purpose to make sure you pick the best solution for you. You may find some free solutions that are useful.

I use Jungle Scout – it really is a great software suite for Amazon sellers. I also use Helium 10. They both have pros and cons. If you are looking for a Jungle Scout alternative, but haven’t tried jungle scout, I highly recommend trying them out first.

Conclusion

Jungle scout is not for everyone. I get that; different software has different designs and workflows that appeal to different personalities/ business processes.

So what are the top alternatives? I would say it is based on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a similar full-featured Amazon seller tool, Helium 10 is worth a shot.

However, if you want a completely free extension, then Unicorn Smasher is worth trying out.

Best alternatives:

• All-around tool: Helium 10
• Cheapest Alternative: Unicorn Smasher (extension)

The post Top 9 Best Jungle Scout Alternatives (Free & Paid) appeared first on fbafaq.

If you’re going to sell on Amazon, you’re going to need good accounting software to keep up with all of your financials. You need to track all expenses, income, cost of goods sold and Amazon fees — especially if you have vast Amounts of inventory or sell a large volume of items.

In the past, QuickBooks was a go-to choice for Amazon sellers, but today, Xero has quickly gained steam. A short time ago Xero used to be the new kid on the Block, but now they are one of the new kings of the hill, competing directly with QuickBooks to get Amazon sellers and other businesses (and accountant’s) attention.

Xero is the hottest accounting software in places like Europe, and it’s now taking the United States by storm. If you’re thinking about using or switching over to Xero, right now is a great time to make the switch.

What is Xero?

Xero is a cloud-based accounting software. Most Amazon sellers, especially those who are FBA (fulfillment by Amazon) sellers, use either Xero or QuickBooks to keep up with all the transactions and financial data associated with their businesses.

Some also use simpler solutions like Godaddy Bookkeeping, which has the benefit of including direct integrations with Amazon. But for those that want a more comprehensive accounting solution, Xero and Quickbooks are usually the top two contenders.

Xero works with any type of business, no matter what type of goods and services you sell. The interface is easy to use, even for beginners. So for those who aren’t really tech-savvy, will probably really like Xero.

One thing I like about Xero is It’s also constantly improving. Many love it because it integrates well with other programs like A2X, Stitch Labs, and many other Amazon Seller tools.

What’s the Cost?

To use Xero, you’ll pay a monthly fee, though the first 30 days are free on a trial basis. After that, you can choose one of the 3 tiered plans:

• Early: $9 per month
• Growing: $30 per month
• Established: $60 per month

Monthly fees start at $9 per month for the “early” plan and range up to $60 per month for the Established plan. One of the key differences between each tier is how many people it allows you to have on your payroll and other features. No matter which plans you choose, you can take advantage of 24/7 customer support, financial reporting, banking, and more.

What are Some of Xero’s Key Features for Amazon Sellers?

Xero can do just about anything you need it to do to keep your business organized and thriving. Inventory management, sales tax management, receipt tracking, cost of goods sold, and financial reports are all right there for Amazon sellers to access and utilize at any time.

As a matter of fact, if you are keeping track of your sales and other expenses the way any business should, Xero will automatically generate a number of financial reports for you to quickly gauge the health of your Business.

Xero also connects easily to any bank account, PayPal account, credit card, or other financial institution associated with your business. Even better, once you categorize a transaction, Xero can automatically update feature similar transactions. You can Keep up with balances, invoices, and more in real time.

Not only does this make it easier for Amazon sellers to keep up with their finances, profits, and other numbers, but it makes tax time easier, too. Whether you do your own taxes or hire an accountant, all of the information is right there to print and reference.

Xero and Amazon integrations

One benefit of Xero is that there are several possible integrations with third-party apps. You can connect Xero with Amazon to automate a lot of the mundane accounting tasks.

A2X for Amazon

The A2X Xero integration is a popular choice for those that want to automate Amazon + Xero. As stated:

A2X posts Amazon sales and fees to Xero simply and automatically, and reconciles to settlement deposits. Supports Amazon marketplaces world-wide.

Learn more about A2X

Zapier

Zapier is one of my favorite apps (along with IFTTT, which is the free version of Zapier). However, Zapier does have a free account and is more flexible than IFTTT. If you aren’t familiar with Zapier, check out the following video that explains what Zapier is.

With Zapier, you can integrate Xero with your Amazon FBA business:

In a matter of minutes and without a single line of code, Zapier allows you to connect Amazon Seller Central and Xero, with as many as 6 possible integrations. Are you ready to find your productivity superpowers?

With Zapier, every time there is a new order on Amazon, you can trigger Xero to:

When this happens: Amazon Seller Central (action)

• New Order: Triggers when a new order is received.

Then do this: Xero (trigger)

• Create Sales Invoice: Creates a new sales invoice (Accounts Receivable).
• New Bill: Triggered when you add a new bill. (Accounts Payable)
• Create/Update Contact: Creates a new contact or updates a contact if a contact already exists.
• New Sales Invoice: Triggered when you add a new sales invoice. (Accounts Receivable)
• Create Bill: Creates a new bill (Accounts Payable).
• New Contact: Triggered when you add a new contact.
• Create Payment: Applies a payment to an invoice.
• New Expense Claim Receipt: Triggered when you add a new draft expense claim receipt.
• Create a Purchase Order: Creates a new purchase order for a contact.
• New Payment: Triggered when you receive a new payment.
• Create Credit Note: Creates a new credit note for a contact.

As you can see, there are several possible combinations you can use to automate the accounting process with Xero and Amazon through Zapier.

Webgility

From Webgility’s website they state:

Webgility 1-Click Accounting

• Automatically posts Amazon orders, refunds, expenses, and payments directly into Xero
• Instantly reconciles the seller’s accounting with their Amazon Settlement Report with no additional data entry
• Syncs Amazon sales and refunds daily as a batch
• Tracks Amazon fees/expenses as separate transactions or records them as one line item
• Syncs historic data from Amazon Settlement Reports going back 120 days

Scores of Other Integrations

With Webgility and Xero, online merchants can automate their operations by integrating with a broad assortment of other ecommerce cloud technology vendors

JMA Xero Add-on

Another option is using the JMA Xero add-on. As stated on their website:

Easily integrate Xero with Amazon! Sync customers, inventory, products and orders to Xero automatically. Keep accurate inventory in Xero. The integration works with FBA, Amazon U.S., Europe, and Amazon Canada. No plugin or files to install! Installation is simple and requires no programming skills.

Veeqo + Xero

With veeqo, you can sync your Amazon orders in a single click! Further, you can:

• Export Amazon data
• Convert orders into Xero invoices
• Sync order purchase data
• Automate profit calculations
• Customize the Xero + veeqo integration

What are Some of Xero’s Pros and Cons for Amazon FBA?

The following video shows a more detailed description of the intricacies of using Xero accounting software with Amazon sellers. It goes over the pros and cons for Amazon FBA sellers:

There are definitely more pros for Amazon sellers using Xero than cons. As mentioned, it’s so easy to use that practically anyone can figure it out in minutes.

Xero Pros (for FBA):

Comprehensive accounting software: Xero works great for any business owner whether they run a small, medium or large business. It’s also great for Amazon businesses because of all the Amazon tool Integrations.

Comparable to QuickBooks: both QuickBooks and Xero do essentially the same thing, with only slight differences. The biggest difference seems to be in the user interface.

Many Integrations: Xero was an early adopter of integrating with other third-party software which makes it easier for Amazon sellers to run their business.

Xero Cons (For FBA):

Possibly too simplistic: However, some people feel that it may be a little too simplistic, especially if they’re long-time QuickBooks users. However, I have found them both to be quite comparable.

Accountants may be more familiar with QuickBooks: my sister is a CPA and several years ago she told me that the benefit of going with QuickBooks is that most accounts are familiar with QuickBooks. However today it seems that the gap is getting narrower. And it could be in part by Xero’s smart affiliate marketing campaigns targeting accountants so that they recommend it to their clients.

Try it for yourself – start a free trial

The best way to decide is to explore the free trial and play around with it yourself. At the end of the day, it’s a personal preference that won’t impact your overall business structure.

Another reason many sellers love Xero is that it’s constantly evolving. You’ll see new features regularly, and because it’s cloud-based, you can access them as soon as they’re available. The number of third-party integrations is another reason why Xero is becoming more and more popular with Amazon sellers.

The post Xero for Amazon FBA Sellers: Using Xero + Amazon, Automating with Integrations and More appeared first on fbafaq.

Amazon has done this by eliminating most of the pain associated with shopping. Shopping on Amazon is not only quick, easy and inexpensive, but you also have the benefit of customer reviews to make a good purchasing decision.

Because of the ease of shopping Amazon provides, they have garnered over 100 million prime members. And that’s just their prime members! There are millions more Amazon shoppers that don’t have an Amazon Prime membership.

This may make you think – how can I leverage Amazon’s massive network of buyers, to create a thriving business?

Meet Amazon Private Labeling: This is where entrepreneurs get a generic product made with their own logo. They then market it and sell it on Amazon, utilizing a thriving marketplace of buyers.

For example, if you go on Amazon, you are sure to find many of the same exact salt shakers from different companies, and with different branding. This is an instance of companies utilizing private labeling on Amazon’s marketplace.

It’s not uncommon for people to start a private label private label business on Amazon and start making hundreds or thousands of dollars every month.

The best part is that Amazon has the infrastructure (Fulfillment centers – FBA) to allow a one-man team to build a relatively big business through private labeling on Amazon. However, keep in mind, that it’s still going to take a lot of work to achieve this.

Private labeling is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a real business that you have to first build and then run. It also has some upfront capital investment, in the form of inventory, software, courses to learn the model, etc.

What is Amazon’s Private Label?

In a nutshell, the private labeling business model is all about selling generic products on Amazon, that you brand as your own (with your own logo).

When selling private label products on Amazon, you generally find generic products/product categories that seem to be selling well on Amazon (yet with an eye on competition as well).

Then they find a manufacturer (usually in China) that produces the same generic product. If you can find an ODM manufacturer (most of them are ODM) that also offer good prices, with a reasonably low MOQ (Minimum Quantity Order), then you may be off to a good start!

After you find the product you want to offer, then you create your own logo to place on the products. Finally, when you are ready to make the order, provide the manufacturer with your logo and they will create your branded products for you.

How much can you make Private labeling?

How much you make, really depends on how much effort you put into this business. Also in my experience, the higher number of products sellers have a higher probability that they will be successful.

There is a phenomenon called the 80-20 rule that I have witnessed applying to many things including Amazon, KDP print books, Kindle, etc.

In terms of private label products on Amazon, the 80-20 rule usually goes something like this: About 20% of your products will result in 80% of your profit.

So essentially the more products you have the more chance you have of finding several high-profit winners. If you only have 1-2 products you can still make good money, especially if you nailed the product research and picked a good product.

However, if you probably won’t make nearly as much as someone who has 50 products (though you may have an easier time managing cash flow and inventory with only 2 products).

When you sell private label products on Amazon you can expect to make anywhere on the lower end between $500-5,000 a month all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars per month in profit.

The most successful sellers out there can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month in profit. Lofty goal? Maybe. Achievable? Absolutely.

In my opinion, it seems that people work harder at a 9-5 job than it would take to get to a $5,000/mo level selling on Amazon.

Yes, it takes a ton of work getting it going, but over time, there is much more effort to reward ratio working a 9-5 than it is selling on Amazon. Over time, I think that creating a business on Amazon has the potential to allow you to work less and make more than a 9-5.

It is powerful and life-changing. It has changed my life. My main income is from Amazon.

Even though I work on diversifying income (since its obviously the smart thing to do), I feel that Amazon will always be a HUGE part of my income, even 10-20 years from now. Amazon is just too big of a success to not to ride on the coattails of Amazon.

Disclaimer: it’s important to set your expectations correctly in the beginning. Do not think of the Amazon private label business as a get-rich-quick scheme. It is a real business that takes a lot of work.

However, I believe that this business model is more scalable and will probably result in more profit than a lot of other businesses out there. Just know that it takes a lot of patience, hard work, and persistence.

Private label steps Overview

Though, no two business processes are the same, here is what the private label process generally looks like:

Sourcing products for private label:

1. Product research: you want to find a product that has a healthy demand but not too much supply (aka competition). It’s really about finding a balance between these two factors – basic economics.

2. Research suppliers: Alibaba is a great place to find suppliers. You want to find a reputable supplier that will deliver high-quality products for your private label business on Amazon.

The fact is that Amazon customers expect a certain level of quality and you must choose a manufacturer that meets the standards.

3. Branding: branding is an important process for your private label products. Over time, you will build brand equity which will become an asset for your business and allow you to sell more products.

You want to make sure you do this part correctly. Branding involves your logo, packaging, how you communicate your message through graphics, etc.

Branding is the overall image of your business and can have a dramatic effect on your long term success for your Amazon private label business. This and product quality could be the foundations of your success as an Amazon seller.

4. Sample order: you always want to get a sample order of the products to make sure that the quality is to your liking. Often, I will get sample orders from several manufacturers, so I can pick the manufacturer with the highest quality products.

No matter what a manufacturer’s MOQ is ( minimum order quantity), you should always be able to get a much smaller sample order – for example, maybe you want to get 5 to 10 items.

5. Place a full order: after you a validated their quality, it’s now time to place a regular order. This could be several hundred items up to a thousand or more.

It just depends on their MOQ, your confidence in how well they will sell, and the amount you have to invest. Note that the MOQ is usually higher when you put your logo on the products.

6. List your items on Amazon: then you will list your item on Amazon, implement strategies such as Amazon SEO, Listing Optimization, keyword targeting strategies, promotion, etc to start getting sales. You may also run paid campaigns to boost sales & reviews early on.

Step 1: product research

So where do you start? Product research. Get used to loving product research, as this can make or break your business.

You may have an idea of what you want to sell, or you may just want to sell anything at all. Be sure to do your research first. See what’s already selling on Amazon, but avoid items that are overly saturated.

The most important step

For those people that take product research seriously and don’t rush this process are the ones that are most likely to succeed on with an Amazon private label business. Product research for private label products is the number one step in this whole process.

If you choose a product that is too competitive or doesn’t have enough demand, your products won’t sell much.

On the contrary, if you pick a product that is in fairly high demand and where the competition is much lower, your business is more likely to thrive. It really comes down to simple economics – supply and demand.

In my opinion, it’s better to niche out and err on the side of a lower supply than being tempted by higher demand product markets.

I find it is better to make less on a product that has lower demand / low supply than to make nothing on a product with high demand / high supply. Sometimes markets are just too hard to enter, especially for new sellers.

Product research: Tools of the trade

Amazon best sellers: The Amazon bestseller list is a great way to start your product research.

If you have absolutely no idea what product or what market to target, browsing the Amazon bestseller list is a fantastic way to brainstorm new product ideas.

Paid Product Research tools: there are many product research tools such as jungle scout and helium 10, which allow you to drastically decrease the time that it takes to do product research but also do things that you can’t do manually.

With product research tools you can filter through the noise and find good niches or products through certain criteria ( such as low reviews and high sales).

Another thing I love to do (more so when listing the product for sale) is to You reverse engineer other successful product listings on Amazon through doing a reverse ASIN lookup.

Amazon reviews: browsing the Amazon reviews of a potential product you want to sell is a great way to separate yourself from the competition.

If you take note of the positive reviews, and especially the negative reviews, you may start to see a pattern of what people like and dislike. Doing this, you can get really get a good overview of the market on what people want out of that product.

So for example, if there was a product that 10 people commented saying it needed a certain feature, now you know one aspect you can add to your product that would separate yourself from the competition.

Borrow from experience: sometimes the best products end up being products you desire personally or products that you see lacking in some area that you can improve on.

Buy competitor products: You can also buy your competitor products so you can get a feel for the quality of the product and more, which will come in handy for when you search for your suppliers.

Step 2: Research suppliers

One of the first things you’ll notice when searching for a manufacturer is that many of your competitors use manufacturers in China.

So why use china? the reason is simple — it’s much cheaper than choosing someone in the united states.

Whatever your views of overseas production and outsourcing, the fact is, money typically dictates business decisions.

Obviously you want to help people with the products your business offers. You want to find the best, highest quality products possible.

My stance is if you can achieve the same thing with China manufacturers I don’t think there is anything wrong with that if it’s going to help you succeed.

Saving money and maximizing your profits is even more important when you are just getting started and every dollar counts.

At the end of the day, the choice is yours. U.S. Manufacturers sometimes have better quality control, but they are much more costly compared to China.

Yes if you look a the statistics of faulty products, I’m sure China would take the cake on lower quality control.

But if you do your due diligence and find a good quality supplier in China, I don’t see why they couldn’t produce the same quality or better as a US manufacturer.

The fact is, China specializes in manufacturing. It’s not like the old days, where China products were crap. Look at Apple, most of their products are made in China!

Just make sure you investigate thoroughly and choose a reputable manufacturer because if something goes wrong, your business will suffer. Focus on finding a good price, but don’t ever sacrifice quality. The key is negotiation and finding a high-quality manufacturer.

The best way to do it is to actually go to China to inspect their facilities and make connections, but we can save that for down the road. For now, head over to Alibaba!

Most sellers utilize Alibaba to find manufacturers since it is one of the biggest networks of china manufacturers. It’s like the google of manufacturers – it is amazing for people like us looking to sell on Amazon.

It’s pretty easy to find manufacturers because you can sort your results by Gold supplier status, ODM/ OEM suppliers, company size, etc. The hard part is filtering through the sheer amount of suppliers, as there will likely be a lot in any product category.

Also, you will want to see if the manufacturer you choose charges an additional fee for adding your Logo/ brand name. Most will just increase the MOQ, but still something to consider.

3. Branding your private label products

Now, it’s time for the fun part. You get to design your logos, labels or packaging, and other promotional material that you’ll add to your products and use as a part of your brand’s image.

You can do the design work yourself or you can hire a graphic designer.

I recommend hiring a designer if you aren’t a naturally talented and/or trained designer. There are thousands of designers that you can find on freelancer sites (like upwork or peopleperhour), just waiting for this type of work, and they probably don’t cost as much as you might think.

With design, you can usually get a good price if you take the time to find a good designer. You can also often find inexpensive, yet great designers in other countries. Remember there are no language barriers to design, so it doesn’t really matter what country you find a freelancer from.

If you do choose a different country besides the United States, you will often be able to hire much cheaper freelancers because the labor rate is much lower.

Just look at their portfolio before testing out their services. You can usually get a good idea of how talented a designer is just by their portfolio.

As a general rule, you’ll want to avoid crazy fonts, too many colors, and other complicated designs.

Opt for something memorable, however. You’ll also want to make sure your company name if it’s new, isn’t already in use and take the steps to protect it legally so that someone else doesn’t come along and steal it.

4. Place a sample order

You always want to purchase a sample order from the manufacturers that you are considering working with.

Never place a full order from a manufacturer unless you have first placed a sample order first. By “full order” I mean you are attempting to start building your inventory for your Amazon business.

For example, a regular, full order would probably involve spending $500-$1000+ or more for your first order (this number is variable and can get much higher, but for new sellers, $500-1000+ seems reasonable).

If you’re worried about the MOQ that the manufacturer has, this doesn’t apply when you place a sample order. Every manufacturer is going to understand the concept of ordering a “sample order”.

They know what you are talking about and they are completely understanding that you want to place a very small order to check the quality.

Keep in mind that your per unit cost will be higher than normal when placing sample orders. This is because you’re going to be paying more expensive shipping on just a handful of products, so expect to pay anywhere between $50-100 or more for sample order.

This will usually include a handful of products and shipping. It really all depends on how many samples you opt for, the product and more. But generally, $50-200 should suffice for a sample order.

5. Place your first order

Once you have ordered a sample order to test the products, preferably from multiple manufacturers, you can begin comparing products. You can test products from each manufacturer to see which ones are the highest quality and the best fit for your business.

Once you decide on your favorite manufacturer, you can then place your first real order that will be used to fill your inventory. This will be the order that you will then send to Amazon fulfillment centers if you’re using Amazon FBA (you should be using FBA).

Even if your sample order had very high-quality products, now’s the time to do further quality control with your order. The thing is with manufacturers it’s all about the percentage of quality.

Again, each manufacturer is going to differ on their own quality control standards. However, since these are your products with your brand name it is 100% your responsibility to make sure that these products are very high quality so you do not get bad reviews and disappoint your customers.

Note: Some people send their shipments from their China manufacturers straight to the Amazon fulfillment centers. This sounds very savvy on first look, but be wary of this in the beginning.

I definitely don’t recommend doing these types of things even though they sound like they might save a lot of time – at least in the beginning when you are getting to know your manufacturer.

You want to get a feel for the quality of products first. You should first check each and every product yourself to make sure that they live up to your level of standards of quality.

Because trust me, your Amazon customers are going to be having a higher standard of quality than you do with your own products, which support your income and your life!

Customers will want the highest level of quality possible. So you want to make sure that each and every product goes through multiple checks of quality control.

6. List your products

Now that you have your products, complete with your amazing logo, it’s time to start listing them on Amazon so consumers can buy them!

If you don’t already have an Amazon account, you’ll need to set that up and make sure you’re familiar with the Amazon’s rules for listing products. You don’t want to do things that can jeopardize your Amazon seller account.

Instead of listing step by step instructions (that is beyond the scope of this article), I will include some tips for creating a listing that will attract buyers to your product listing:

Use high-quality images: you want to make sure that you use plenty of high-quality images. This can be a huge factor in your conversion rates, which not only lead to sales but to your Amazon rankings which lead to more sales.

You want to have good conversion rates to create a good sale cycle (Amazon SEO & their algorithm).

People want to see what they’re getting, as closely as they can. When a lot of people get into the vine mode, they turn into crazy ninja researchers.

They read reviews, they look at pictures they want to see pictures from every which angle, and more.

You want to make sure they have enough visual representation of your products to encourage them to make the purchase.

If you are not a photographer, I would highly recommend hiring a professional for Amazon product photography.

Use as much detail as possible: nothing is more frustrating than receiving an item in the mail that isn’t quite what you thought it would be, based on the Amazon description.

For example, add measurements, explain what you get, explain what the product is, what the benefits are, etc. Failing to accurately describe your product is a quick way to earn negative reviews.

In fact, I’ve found that managing expectations are one of the best ways to increase your Amazon reviews. if you can somehow undersell yourself and over-deliver, this is ideal because it would result in the highest numbers of Amazon positive reviews.

What you don’t want though is to not give enough information, where it leads them to be disappointed in your product when they receive it.

Set your items apart: tell consumers why yours is better than your competitor’s products. Explain how it can add value to their lives. The good way to set your private label products apart is by doing research before you seek out a product or manufacturer.

One great way to read the Amazon reviews of competing products and see what the customer is like about those products and what they, more importantly, disliked.

If you can have the manufacturer create the product a little bit differently to include aspects of your research, you will automatically have a superior product.

Though going this route where you customize the product slightly may require a much bigger MOQ, sometimes you can also search on Alibaba until you find the product that matches your specifications.

Avoid big blocks of text: nothing is more painful than trying to read a huge block of text. You’re going to prevent people from actually reading your product listing if you do this.

You want to make your product description easy on the eyes and scanable. To do this you want to avoid long walls of texts by using subheadings, bullet points, and bold statements and more.

Focus on keywords: You don’t want to just list your Amazon products willy nilly, without any strategy.

You may think it’s as easy as create, what seems to be some good copy, of your product description, bullet points, etc and be done with it. You really want to focus on keywords.

Keywords are your bread and butter your Amazon business – at least in 2019 and beyond (until amazon’s algorithm changes).

Amazon’s algorithm is based on keywords just like Google’s algorithm is based on keywords. But I would say that Amazon’s algorithm is a bit more archaic than Googles (which is a good thing for sellers).

Just know that you don’t want to spam your listings with keyword stuffed copy. But you want to utilize a variety of keywords in your title, bullet points, description, and the back-end keyword area.

Not only that you want to focus on finding the best, most relevant keywords for your product, but you also don’t want to choose keywords that are oversaturated. You want to choose keywords that you can actually rank your products and make money.

Utilize bullet points: 

Bullet points are important for both keywords and for conversion rates. You want to highlight the best aspects of your product in your bullet points.

Most people don’t have the time (or don’t think they have the time) to read online articles, let alone product listings. The fact is, most people are skimming!

The majority of people are going to scan Amazon product listings, and will instead default to looking at reviews.

However, one way that people scan a product listing is through bullet points. Needless to say, they are an important part of the equation.

People are going to look at the bullet points and decide if the product is for them or not. They may see certain features that prompt them to buy your product.

Gain Customer Reviews:

Customer reviews on Amazon are part of the holy grail of product success. Of course, this is assuming you’ve gotten all the other aspects down, like keyword placement, choosing the right keywords, the right product, etc.

People want to find the best product for the best price. So they look for a combination of prices and reviews. These two factors, along with product pictures and what problems your product solves, goes a long way in the success of your product.

So how do you gain reviews? Well, that can be tricky. The days of fake reviews are over because it’s very risky.

Not that it was ever a good business move, but those that used to engage in it are now at a loss of what to do. At the end of the day, you really want to focus on having the best product possible so it results in organic, natural good reviews.

This is and always has been my focus, even when fake reviews were extremely common just a few years ago.

Hell, they still are common, but just much more risky as Amazon has cracked down on it. Gaining real reviews is your best bet for long term success on Amazon.

The post 6 Steps to Amazon Private Label – How to Make $5,000+ a Month on Amazon appeared first on fbafaq.

You’ve got to make that product stand out from your competition. You’ve got to make that product appealing to new consumers, and you’ve got to make that product easy for your customers to use.

The perfect product label does all of that and more. It can be the basis on which you build your brand. If you’re in the process of creating a label for your products or even if you’re just thinking about it, these ten tips will help you come up with something special that sends your profits soaring.

1. Make it easy to read.

No matter what else you do when making your label, you must ensure that it’s easy to read.

It’s fun to get excited by fancy fonts and typographic pairings, but if the customer can’t read the name of the product or any other important information, your label is fairly useless and potentially even misleading. It’s enough to turn a customer away.

2. Be unique.

Something else that’s important is standing out from the competition. You can’t do this by copying what they do, so make sure your label is bold and unique.

If you saw it in a brick and mortar store, you should want to buy it or, at least, check it out just because of how cool the label looks.

3. Don’t forget about size.

If you sell something small, obviously, you’ll probably use a small label. A small label will look terrible if it’s cluttered with lines and lines of type and multiple images.

If your product is larger, you have more room to play around with those extras. The shape of the product, say a bottle instead of a box, will also play a role in what you put on your label.

4. Don’t forget about the label material.

Labels aren’t made from any one material. They may be glossy paper, matte paper, plastic, foil, wooden, metal, cloth, recycled materials — the options are practically endless if you want to be creative.

But when it comes down to it, images and fonts look better on some materials than they do others, so keep that in mind when making your selection.

5. Always choose quality first.

It’s easy to go cheap. You can find designers online who work for pennies but may not do a great job. You can even use software and design your own levels, but unless you have some experience, they’ll probably look a bit amateurish.

If you can afford to spend a little extra on higher-quality labels, do it. Think of your own shopping experiences. You’re probably willing to try a new product if it looks professional, right?

6. Know your target customers.

When designing your labels, do your research on who your target customers are. Age, gender, hobbies, whether they’re parents, interests, education level, where they live — find out as much as you can about the person who will buy your products through whatever research you can access.

Certain labels just aren’t going to appeal to some people. For example, if you sell tools to auto mechanics, you probably don’t want to create a label with pastel colors and flowers on it.

7. Remember that colors are important.

Speaking of colors, they may be the first thing a potential customer notices about your product label, so choose them wisely. The color of the label should look good against the color of your product or packaging.

If you aren’t sure which colors to use, go to your local Walmart, Target, mall, or grocery store and take a walk down the aisles. Look at how products in every category use colors to make their labels more appealing.

Consider what you like and don’t like. You can also use online tools like Color Blender to pick out a scheme that compliments itself.

8. Consider your branding.

If you sell multiple products, you’ll want each of your labels to look like a part of your brand. While they don’t have to match exactly, they should at least look as if they are from the same company.

Look to your company logo, the print work on your business cards and mail enclosures, and any other branded items you use for inspiration.

9. Think about the non-creative aspects of the label.

It’s easy to get caught up in colors, fonts, and images, but don’t forget to leave space for the important stuff. Bar codes, for example, make your product look professional (and make it easy to track), but they should be incorporated into your design.

You’ll also want to add a clear way for customers to contact you with questions about the product, such as a phone number, email address, or the link to your website. Some products are self-explanatory, but others may require directions.

Take time to work this information into your label without it appearing too overwhelming.

10. Get some real world feedback.

Before you send your label out into the world, get some live feedback from actual consumers. This can include people you know or people you don’t know but may have access to.

Give them each a sample product with your proposed label, and ask them questions about it. Do they like the design? What does it make them think of? Does it fit with the product? Would it grab their attention if they were shopping online? Does it fit your brand or image?

The post How to Create a Product Label appeared first on fbafaq.

The fact is that you have dozens of options, and the one you choose should be the one that makes the most sense for your business model and, more importantly, your bottom line.

Buying inventory up front is a big investment, so you’ll want to get it right the first time. Here are some of your best choices:

1. Wholesale

One of the first sources for products that comes to mind is probably wholesale. Buying a large quantity of items at a discounted rate to resell sounds like a great idea.

And, generally, the more you buy from a specific manufacturer or other source, the better the discount they’re likely to give. There aren’t too many problems to run into here.

Just be careful when selling name brands, as many of the most popular ones only allow authorized businesses to sell their products, and Amazon does stay on top of this information.

You’ll also want to make sure you’ve done your research before buying 1,000 of the same item. If it doesn’t sell at all, you’re out plenty of money and stuck with, well, 1,000 of the same item.

2. Retail Arbitrage

Another popular option with some sellers is retail arbitrage — both online and in brick and mortar stores. Basically, this means going to your favorite stores, like Target and Walmart, and seeing what’s on clearance, on closeout, or marked down.

It may be seasonal items or something the store no longer carries or ordered too much of in the first place. You can do the same thing by shopping these stores and others online.

The downside is that you have to take more time to search, but it’s usually one of the least expensive options. It’s also a great way to start if you’re a new seller.

3. Secondhand Items

A similar option is to search places where you can buy secondhand items. Garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores, consignment shops, auctions, eBay, Craigslist — these places can be goldmines for inventory.

Unfortunately, many sellers assume that they should only sell new items, but over one third of Amazon sellers offer gently used items, too. The downside, again, is that it can be time-consuming, and if you discover a really profitable item or two, it’s hard to find duplicates of it.

However, you don’t have to pay much upfront for your inventory, and you aren’t typically left with hundreds of items sitting around, taking up space in your home, office, warehouse, or other storage facility.

4. Liquidation/Surplus

Another choice when it comes to scouring your local stores and favorite websites for inventory is to shop at liquidation and surplus stores and sales.

Stores that are going out of business have been known to discount their products up to 75 percent. The big box retailers eventually send their clearance items off, and some of it ends up in liquidation stores for up to 70 percent off the retail price.

Inside these stores, you’ll find everything from clothing and food item to toys and office supplies. Again, the only real downside is that you’ll have to put in some legwork — or finger work if you’re doing it online — to find the best items and deals.

5. Private Label

If you’re all about branding and making a name for yourself, you may want to go the private label route.

Basically, this means you take a product that is already out there, have it manufactured or buy it wholesale, and you add your own label and details to make it a part of your brand.

Stores like Walmart do it all the time with their own brands, like Great Value and Sam’s Choice, and many Amazon sellers have found success doing it as well.

It does take some time, but once you’ve done your research and initiated the process, it speeds up pretty quickly. It’s also a great way to stand out among your competition.

6. Drop Shipping and Outsourcing

Drop shipping is one of the riskier options on the list, but it can be the most convenient if you don’t want to handle or store your own inventory.

Basically, you don’t purchase the items until you’ve made an actual sale to a customer. Once you do, you have the manufacture or wholesaler ship the item out.

Just keep in mind that because you don’t actually see the product yourself, you can’t guarantee quality, and this makes you more vulnerable for poor feedback.

It’s also possible that the manufacturer or wholesaler will go out of business or sell out of an item at just the wrong time.

7. Alibaba

Many Amazon sellers get their inventory from Alibaba, a Chinese wholesale retailer. It’s actually one of the largest eCommerce retailers in the world, and they sell just about everything.

But there are a few things to keep in mind if you decide to go this route. First, because it is based in China, rules and standards aren’t quite the same as they are in the United States.

It’s possible to run into counterfeit items that are prohibited on Amazon, though Alibaba is working to reduce this problem. You could also eventually run into the issue of tariffs on imported Chinese goods.

8. You

Finally, if you make your own stuff, go ahead and sell it on Amazon. From cosmetics to art, many people choose to go this route if they already have something in mind to sell.

Yes, it takes some time, and it may cost more to initiate, but if your business grows, you can look into less expensive ways to manufacture your items. You also eliminate much of the competition when you sell something unique.

The post How to Source Products to Sell on Amazon appeared first on fbafaq.