In this article we cover the biggest mistakes sellers make doing business on Amazon.
#1 Too Little Effort and Time
Whether you’re starting with $1000 or $100,000, the only way to win is to do everything possible to optimize your products, systems and business. The number one mistake sellers make is not putting enough time and effort into their business.
Instead of trying to get a quick win, commit to doing whatever it takes to build the right team and processes to make big profits.
Do you have a systematic process for optimizing your listings? Do you have a fixed day each week when you check the detailed sales and conversion performance of your products?
Do you spend at least five hours a week studying how to improve your Amazon business? Do you spend at least one day a week researching potential new products and developing them?
If you can’t answer yes to all these questions, how do you expect to win against sellers who are doing this?
For any niche the top 1 to 10 products usually make enough sales to generate a decent profit. For some niches it’s only the top two or three products. Yet a single niche could have 1000 or more products.
Only the top 1% win. Are you doing what it takes to come out on top?
#2 Too Much Stock
By keeping your stock level low and delivering just-in-time inventory through careful stock management, you give yourself a competitive edge.
If competitors suddenly flood into the market you can quickly adapt because you don’t have to sell out your old stock before updating your product.
The competitive landscape of a niche can change overnight. You need to be able to adjust quickly and have the capital to pivot and optimize your listing.
Instead of thinking that the product development is done upfront and then you place your order, treat it like an ongoing improvement process. You can update the photos, the packaging and the copywriting any time, so your product can be improved every month.
Not many sellers are doing this, but if you want to be in the top 1% you need to focus on constant improvement.
#3 Not Enough Capital
When choosing a niche, make sure you have more than enough capital to support that product for the next 6 months at least. If it sells well with little promotion, that’s great. But if you expect brutal competition, you’ll be prepared to slug it out over several months.
It’s hard to win if you can’t handle investing for 3 to 6 months before you make a profit on the product.
You might need to keep the price at break even until it starts to rank for your main keywords. Doing a promotion and then raising the price may get you some sales for one month, but to win over 6 to 12 months you need to invest heavily in the product and run periodic promotions and discounts to bully your way to the top of the rankings.
#4 Moving Too Slowly
The hardest part and most important task in your Amazon business is selecting the correct niche.
It can take some people days or even weeks to build a list of 100 or so products to research. That’s too long in a market that’s constantly evolving.
Go to shops, search online, review Amazon bestsellers and pull together a list of 100+ potential products in a day. Look up items that sell for between $15-$80 and keep adding them to your list.
You can use the new niche selector from cash cow pro, which has over 100,000 niches each with the sales, profits, freight costs and product costs. It even tells you the competitiveness of each market and keyword.
Once you’ve found a list of good products, narrow it down to the best few and move to sourcing them as soon as possible. Go for the items with the biggest returns on investment that are light and small.
#5 Quality Issues
Invest in your product. Spend 10 to 20% extra to get better materials, labeling and packaging. Ask your factory what you can do to improve it.
When it comes to photographing the product and building the listing, if you have a better overall product it will show clearly on the Amazon search results. You get more positive feedback and more sales.
Do regular quality inspections. The reason many sellers fail is because they’re trying to sell a substandard product with a poor listing.
The level of competition for quality photographs, copywriting and product bundles is increasing week to week. Make sure your product stands out as the best quality of all in your niche.
You can do this while still keeping the costs very low, because $.50 spent at the factory adds more than $5 to $10 of value for the consumer.
Conclusion
Do everything you can to improve your products and business. Play the long game – not expecting to make quick cash.