Fulfillment By Amazon: Quick Start Guide

Fulfillment By Amazon Overview If you are completely new to the Amazon FBA business model then you may be wondering what in the world “FBA” stands for. Well, FBA, simply means “Fulfillment by Amazon”. We realize that saying Amazon FBA is a little redundant but it just seems like the thing to do. Let’s take a quick peak at how Amazon FBA works and then look at both the positives and negatives to this business model. Hopefully, this will give you an idea if it is right for you.

Amazon FBA Fulfillment by Amazon is a simple program that the eCommerce giant has set up to help anyone sell their items on their platform. Here is a short list of what Amazon will do for you when you register for their FBA program:

● Store your products in their warehouses, scattered throughout the country; ● Pick, pack and ship products to your customers; ● Handle all refunds and returns; ● Provide amazing customer service to your happy customers.

So, if Amazon is doing all of this, then what the heck do you need to do if you are selling products using the Amazon FBA program? Great question! Here are a few things you will be required to do:

● Manage your inventory levels, so you always have products in stock; ● Answer customer e-mails about your product; ● Drive traffic to your product page; ● Increase the conversion rate of your product page; ● Focus on expanding your empire.

It is important to note that Amazon will gladly offer their fulfillment services to both 3rd party sellers doing arbitrage as well as private label products. Arbitrage – Basically, this is a labor intensive but highly profitable practice of purchasing products on sale from box stores, flea markets, Craigslist, etc., and selling them for a higher price on Amazon. In a week, you may sell Disney princess dolls, easy bake ovens, kitchen

knives and whatever else you can get a good deal on. Private Label - This is where you source a product from a manufacturer and apply your own personal brand to it. You are the owner of this product! You will store hundreds to thousands of this one product in the Amazon warehouses. For the sake of FBA Empire, we deal solely with private label retailers as it is less labor intensive and offers an amazing opportunity to become financially free. Getting back to the whole Amazon FBA process… It may sound like it is too good to be true but it really is a great program that can help handle a large portion of your business. Much like anything else in business there are some risks, so let’s take a quick look at the negatives and positives of using Amazon FBA for your eCommerce business.

Amazon FBA - The Negatives: Less Control It can be a little scary depending on Amazon to store your product and handle the entire sales process, however, it is also this business relationship that will give you the time you desire to do other things. Similarly, your product will depend a lot on the Amazon platform, so if they decide to increase rates, or deactivate your account for some reason, you will be at the mercy of the largest eCommerce retailer on the planet. There are things you can do to help ease this such as branching out to other platforms and selling your product elsewhere – essentially, you are not keeping all of your “eggs in one basket”. Cost While Amazon is doing a great service for you and handling a lot of the tasks you would rather not do, they don’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. That’s right, they will be charging you a storage fee as well as an FBA fee. These costs need to be considered when pricing your item.

Amazon FBA - The Positives: Freedom While you may be giving up control and paying for Amazon’s services, it is most definitely worth it as they are basically handling all of the mundane, day-to-day tasks of your eCommerce business. This provides you with the freedom to continue building your FBA Empire, hanging out at the beach or going to the park with your kids. The entire time, you know that your business is in good hands and running like clockwork.

Built In Customer Base Earlier we said that you would be responsible for driving traffic to your product page. While this is true, Amazon certainly makes it easier since they have a TON of shoppers already using their site.

Leveraging the customer base of Amazon is simple and it ensures you will always have people landing on your product page. The best thing about this is the people shopping on Amazon are ready to BUY. When people go to Google to search for a product, they may just be browsing and doing product research but when they go to Amazon, they are prepared to open their wallet and buy that wonderful product of yours. Profitability One of the biggest advantages of the Amazon FBA program is the opportunity to create wealth and ultimately financial freedom. The sky really is the limit with the FBA program. If you create a solid brand and follow the FBA Empire methods, you could easily be selling upwards of $50,000 every month…for ONE product. This is certainly achievable and it is one of the things that make FBA such an attractive program. Hopefully this basic overview of the Amazon FBA program gives you a better idea of what it’s all about. From here, you can decide if this program is right for you and your business.

The Basics Just by being here and researching up as much as you can about the Amazon FBA business model, you are already ahead of the game. While selling on Amazon is one of the hottest eCommerce trends right now; it pays off to be thorough and gather as much information as possible before diving in headfirst! Amazon Seller Central: This page is a brush up on basic information needed to sell on Amazon, so if you feel that you have a decent grasp on the basics; this information may seem a bit redundant. However FBA Empire was created to help beginners and experts alike, so learning a bit of the basics (or reviewing the basics) is necessary. You will need to create and Amazon Seller Central Account before you are able to sell anything on Amazon. It is important for us to state that you want the "Professional" Seller Central Account, which will cost you $40 a month (after getting the first 30 days free). Here at FBA Empire we take you through the entire sign up process to make sure that everything is running smoothly for you from the start!!! Understanding Payment Gateways: The next thing we wanted to cover is the reason the majority of you are here: TO GET

PAID!!! If you are from the US (as well as the specific countries discussed in our Module 1 videos) you can have Amazon direct deposit your Amazon account balance into the bank account of your choosing every two weeks (a check can also be mailed out every two weeks if you prefer). It really is that simple!!! For those overseas, we discuss the easiest payment gateways to sign up with so you can get your money converted from US Dollars to your local currency and in your bank account within 48 hours!!! One of the payment processors we recommend even sends you a debit card so that you can pay (swipe your card) for items as you normally would! One of the best feelings I get is checking my bank account every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month and seeing that Amazon deposit sitting in my bank account. The feeling of satisfaction that you not only created a physical product you now own AND have turned a profit on; is a feeling that will not go away no matter how long you are in this business. While that first check you receive from Amazon is so exciting because you have finally have been paid for all the hard work you have put in building your FBA Empire; it's always that next check that intrigues you more because you know it can be even BIGGER than your last one!

Niche Selection Choosing the right niche is arguably the most important part of building your own FBA Empire. While many people want to rush in, choose the first product they think looks "cool" and get some samples sent on the way ASAP, take a few of these recommendations to heart.  Categories to Avoid: While other courses or books may tell you that you can make "any" product work when dealing with Amazon FBA, we are here to tell you that is simply not true. Here at FBA Empire we cut right to the chase and actually eliminate HALF of the categories on Amazon for you. So right off the bat, you are that much more likely to succeed than others who are attempting to launch a product on their own, because you know exactly what categories to avoid with a ten foot pole from the very beginning. Time is the only resource that you cannot get more of, so besides eliminating half the categories to sell in on Amazon, we take it a step further and recommend the top 10 categories that give your product instant approval on Amazon! Brainstorming Ideas: With niche selection playing such a huge role in the success of a physical product launch, your brain will do one of two things. Hone in on a single category and never think outside of selected main idea, or think of every single object you possibly can till you drive yourself crazy...

It is vital to have a plan in place to direct your train of thoughts when selecting a niche. Here at FBA Empire we have got a step-by-step process to aid you in thinking of / selecting the perfect product that does the only thing that matters; SELLS!!! Best Sellers Rank (BSR): You will hear us reference your BSR (Best Sellers Rank) quite a bit in our videos, and for good reason. Amazon keeps it incredibly simple when it comes to choosing what products to rank higher or lower in their search rankings. When you are dealing with Google, you have got to worry about SEO, Backlinks, Unique Content, etc... With Amazon the more units you sell, the better you will rank within Amazons organic rankings. While there are a few other factors for moving up in Amazons search engine listings, such as the conversion rate for your product listing page, tracking competitors BSR's is a vital part to choosing a home run niche. Choose a product that has too high of a BSR, and even if you become #1 in that category; it may only result in a single sale or two a day. Go after a group of products where the BSR's are all incredibly low and you may never be able to break into the top 15 or 20 in that specific product category. Here at FBA Empire, we help our members use not only a products BSR, but FIVE other golden guidelines to help you snag the perfect niche from the very beginning!!!

Choosing A Supplier While Niche Selection often takes longer than one would want, the next step - Choosing A Supplier - is definitely the part of the process that begins to get more hands on. Having a good working relationship with a trustworthy supplier is a crucial aspect of this FBA business model. Request A Sample Product: Once you have narrowed down your niche ideas to a couple of specific products, it is time to get some samples. It is pricey for each sample (anywhere from $50 to $100 each product sent to you) but this is such a vital aspect of the process. You HAVE to see the product first hand, test it out for a few days, get a real feel for exactly what potential customers will be seeing / doing the day they get their product in the mail. Really you must check the quality of the product. While products may look good in a photo, or even a video; get your hands on the actual product before choosing a supplier. Here at FBA Empire we also steer all our members clear of any "supplier" who will not send in a sample product. If a supplier will not provide a sample, it sets off a huge red flag you may be getting scammed; so we direct all members to find a new supplier immediately.

Lead Time: A suppliers lead time is how long it takes for them to not only make the quantity of products you ordered, but to ship the items to your desired location as well. Many first time sellers here the supplier say a "14 day lead time" and they expect their items to be in the US within two weeks. Unfortunately that is not quite how it works. 99% of a suppliers lead time is how long it takes for them to make the products you ordered, THEN you have got to ask what the shipping lead time will be as well. You will have two main options for shipping (either Air Freight or Sea Freight). As you can expect, Air Freight is definitely faster, but more expensive. Sea Freight can get you a better bang for your buck, but will take almost FOUR times as long to get to the US as an Air Freight shipment would. Profit Calculator: Making money is the main reason our members join this course, so it would only make sense that we guide our members to choosing EASILY profitable products. That is a big difference here. Other course or books simply want you to be a premium product, so if your competitors are at $7.99 you will sell at $8.99. At most your making $2 to $3 true profit per unit at the end of the day, and is that something that really excites you? Cause it sure doesn't do much catch our attention... A major aspect of choosing a supplier is getting their tiered pricing list from your direct contact so you can compare what you CAN price the item for on Amazon, versus what it ACTUALLY cost you to purchase it overseas. FBA Empire members gain access to our minimum & maximum price points to sell effectively on Amazon, helping you create the most profit per unit sold as possible. This business model is definitely a nerve racking process the first time you send a large sum of money overseas to receive a large shipment of products in return. To help ensure your success, our FBA Empire course covers in detail other "hidden" expenses that pop up and surprise first time sellers on Amazon; so our members know EXACTLY how much profit they will be making from a single item sold BEFORE they even place your first order!!!

Creating Your Listing You have taken the plunge and ordered your first product (most likely from overseas). Our next step is to make sure that your product listing on Amazon stands out from the crowd. Our goal is to help our members create a high converting product listing that stands apart from not only current competitors, but future competitors as well.

 Product Title: Many courses and books offered online are selling dated information, and the dated information on Product Titles hurts new time sellers the most. The go to trick for all sellers on Amazon was to stuff your product title with as many MAIN keywords for your product as possible. Amazon has finally caught onto this and made a significant change across the board. Amazon is now putting a character count limit on all product titles made from now on. So product titles that keyword stuffed from a few years back, if those sellers decide to NEVER touch their product title, they are grandfathered in and are allowed to keep their product title as is. The moment they try to even add a single letter to that product title, those sellers will be forced to comply with the new character count rules. Adding main keywords and having great readability for potential customers should be the main two goals of all sellers on Amazon now; NOT keyword stuffing a title that cannot places random keywords one after another after another!!! We take our members through the exact process Nathan and I use for our own top selling products; products we help stand out with eye catching and specific selected words to draw potential customers into clicking on our page (and not our competitors). Conversion Rate: Any decent businessperson (online or not) keeps track of their conversion rate. Most eCommerce stores average between 1% to 2% conversion rates. So for every 100 customer who visit their site, they have 1 or 2 people purchase a product. If I told any eCommerce store owner I could help them get to a 5% conversion rate, they would be jumping through the roof!!! What makes the Amazon FBA business model so attractive is the number I am about to say right now: FIFTEEN... The number 15 is the conversion rate percentage we set as a goal for all of our members. If you have chosen the correct niche, found a trustworthy supplier and created a solid product listing then we aim for our members to be converting at at LEAST 10%. Again I know this number may be blowing away many of our readers right now, but we truly believe that any FBA Empire member converting under 10% has made a misstep somewhere along the line. The average conversion rate for my personal products selling on Amazon is between 13 to 25% every single day (this rate will vary daily, but looking at it on a monthly basis gives you a better idea for how your product listing is doing overall). I will repeat that again, on some days myself and MANY other sellers on Amazon are selling our products to 1 out of every 4 customers who visits our product listing. That is absolutely INSANE conversion numbers!!! In Module 8, we show our members exact screen shots, and

even take screen shares of a product we launched to show you these exact conversion rates (from inside our seller central account) taking place every single day...

Driving Traffic You have chosen a niche, you have found a trustworthy supplier, and you have your product listing page ready to convert at a high level. This is where you get to see all your hard work pay off; by driving traffic to your newly created product page to see the sales start to roll on in.

Corporate Website & Blog: Creating a main website for your new business is something that we recommend to all FBA Empire members. As we mention in our private members area, you are creating a legitimate business, and you should be treating it as such. As you sell more and more products, your company brand will begin being searched on Amazon, Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc... as the exact product / company name. By creating a corporate website you will ensure no matter what search engine your exact product /company name is searched on, potential customers will find a professional website that can be easily navigated to answer any product questions and to take in any new orders. Creating content for your corporate blog is a great way to not only drive targeted traffic to your website, but to make yourself an expert /authority in your specific products niche. If you were to sell weight-training equipment, providing 10 Muscle Shredding Upper Body Workouts or 7 Insanely Effective Fat Burning Exercises for men and women would be examples of great blog topics. Writing a new blog post on topics like the ones listed above, even once or twice a week, would begin to drive highly targeted traffic to your main corporate health product site, as well as help convince potential customers that are on the fence about purchasing (because again you are making yourself / company a major player and authority in the niche). Amazon Ads: I am not sure of many businesses that can be run where you can drive targeted customers to your product within minutes of launching it. Amazon Ads gives you the ability to send highly targeted traffic immediately to your product listing page (not that you necessarily want to right away). However this is where FBA Empire differs from other courses or books on this topic. Many people start with Amazon Ads being used to make a few sales and to simply get their feet wet and break EVEN for the first few weeks. Breaking even should never be the goal of a FBA Empire member... I would bet that a significant majority of you reading this are looking at the FBA Business model to make significant income and to replace your 9-5 wages each week; not to put in all this time and effort to break even day in and day out. Nathan and I have never run a negative Amazon Ad campaign, and we would never ask our

members to either. Creating a profitable Amazon Ad Campaign will truly help your product soar above your competitors because you will be making profit from multiple streams of traffic (organic sales AND pay per click sales). Never settle for breaking even!!!

Crucial Tips & Tricks When you are getting started selling on Amazon, you will feel like there are a million things you have to accomplish all at once. We have taken the time to help you narrow in on the main things to focus on once you have launched your product.

 Dealing With Negative Reviews: As with any business, reviews can make or break your business. While having a solid product and great customer service will help, in general most customers are more likely to complain and leave a negative review the moment something goes wrong versus leaving a positive review when the product works as it should. We teach you our tried and proven technique to help you not only weed out customers who may leave a negative review, but we help ensure that 95% of all negative reviews never reach your product page for potential customers to see. Words cannot explain how vital this is, and how it will make your product stand out versus your competitors (especially in the long run). How To Create A Promotion: As you have learned in our previous modules, lowering your BSR is vital to ranking organically (which should be the goal for everyone selling on Amazon). Promotions are a great way to spike sales on a particular keyword to shoot up the rankings for a bit. There have been absolute horror stories across the Amazon FBA community of first time sellers on Amazon, creating a Promotion and losing over 2000 units in less than 30 minutes!!! Their entire stock of inventory has been wiped out in the blink of an eye, and it could have been avoided with a bit of regulations set in place. FBA Empire covers ALL of this to ensure you will never promote more units than the exact amount you feel comfortable with. Free Product Samples: One of the major things covered in FBA Empire is how to test product samples before purchasing large quantity orders. This allows you to not only see the quality of the product yourself, but also helps weed out possible scams. If a supplier EVER tells you they cannot send you a sample, do not even bother contacting them again!!! The thing about getting samples sent from overseas, is that each sample could easily cost you $50 to $100 a pop. Something many people do on their first go round with importing is

not ask enough from the supplier (whether that is not negotiating the unit price enough, shipping times, etc...). Almost every single supplier will actually COMP you the price of the sample, if you end up choosing them as your main supplier.

While a $100 sample may seem insignificant to some, let's say you can get the unit cost of your product + shipping to the US for $4 each. That would be a 25 unit increase to the original order you were going to place. If you make $20 profit per each unit sold, you just made another $500. Again maybe $500 does not seem like much to you, but that $500 could purchase an extra 125 units you would not have been able to before, which translates into an extra $2500 profit ON JUST YOUR SECOND ORDER!!! I could continue this math onto your 4th and 5th orders, but I think you get the point.

Again these are just a few main points to keep in mind that can really help take your FBA Empire business from doing average, to killing it in a very short amount of time. We have many other crucial tips and tricks to help you maximize every single dollar coming in and going out of your Amazon FBA business, to help you unlock the true potential of FBA Empire.

Tools & Resources As you are creating your FBA Empire, there are a few tools and resources that you can use to make the process much easier on our members their first time through. We do want to make clear that FBA Empire members are not asked to purchase any of these additional tools or resources to launch a successful product on Amazon, but if you want to double and triple check your work along the way with the tools listed below; feel free to do so!!!  AMZ Shark: AMZ Shark is one of the most popular tools out there for Amazon FBA sellers. It’s a great tool that allows you to track keyword rankings within Amazon, track recently left reviews, and monitor daily / weekly sales for your product (as well as fellow competitors products). It was really the ability to track how I was doing, relative to my competition, which sucked us in to purchase the monthly subscription plan. Besides doing everything listed above, AMZ Shark has a Super URL creator (as we discussed in our private members area) to help you shoot up the rankings for specific keywords you are targeting. Again we do want to state that none of this is necessary for you to launch a successful product, but AMZ Shark does do a nice job of putting useful information all in one place for easy access to. Speedy Barcodes: Amazon requires all incoming products to their warehouses to have a scanable barcode and UPC number. If you search online you will find that UPC numbers can get as high as $500 a code... That is a ridiculous amount to pay, so we were lucky to find Speedy Barcodes and their incredibly reasonable prices. You can get your barcodes here for less than a $1 a

code!!! We are in no way saying that Speedy Barcodes is the best of the best service when it comes to shopping for barcodes online. What we are saying is that Speedy Barcodes is the service Nathan and I have used to purchase the barcodes for our own products, and not once have we ever had an issue with anything related to the purchase. If anyone recommends another online service selling barcodes, feel free to post it in the comment section below! If you put me on the spot and asked me right here and now that I had to select a SINGLE tool that everyone SHOULD use, it would be the same one we recommended in our members area for Module 7. Just the ease of use, the amount of time it saves each and every day (especially once you start averaging 10+ sales a day) makes it well worth the $19.99 a month price tag to it.

Amazon FBA Case Study We are doing something a bit unprecedented in the Amazon FBA community as we are doing a live case study with one of our actual products currently selling on Amazon. All FBA Empire members get access to an ongoing video series where we not only show our product selling on Amazon, but the profit we have made so far, how exactly we have set up our ads, how many units we are selling a day; if you can think of it, we most likely have covered it in a video already.  Sales & Ads: As I stated above, we open the books to show all of our members our exact sales copy for our product listing page, what our daily conversion rate has been since we launched, how much we are spending on ads each day, and most importantly; how much money we are making on a daily basis from this SINGLE product. All of this information has been broken down into our Sales & Ads Case Study video by doing a live screenshare as we take you through our Seller Central account and go right down the list of all the things listed above. No blurred out screenshots or doctored numbers. As we click through each item on our list to show you (sales per day, profit for the week, etc...) the video is recording everything so you can feel confident the numbers you are seeing has actually taken place. Many of our members have told us that they had to pinch themselves the first time they saw the 6 week direct deposit we received from Amazon. New Videos Added Monthly Based On Questions From Our Members: Every month we take a list of the 5 most commonly asked questions in our forums (or directly emailed to myself and Nathan) and we create a poll for our members to vote on. The question(s) that get the most votes will get a video done on them using the same case study product we are sharing with our members from the very beginning.

So Nathan and I thought to ourselves, what is (arguably) the biggest no-no once you are

selling well on Amazon. It is generally accepted that you should NEVER run out of inventory once your product is live and you are selling well on Amazon. Most sellers will even increase the price of a product to 4x - 5x the original cost, JUST to ensure the item won't sell and their inventory does not "technically" run out in the eyes of Amazon. So of course that is exactly what Nathan and I have decided to do for our first new video for our members. If for some reason you DO run out of inventory, we will show you just how far your BSR plummets, how your organic keyword rankings will drop like a rock, and most importantly how quickly can you recover. We are in the process of completing this video as we speak; showing our members how long it would take a product with a sub 2000 BSR, to drop to below 200,000 BSR, and make its way all the way back to that original 2000 BSR mark (or better). This is an UNHEARD of feature our members have access to because EVERY 30 to 60 days (time varies depending on the question that gets selected that month) you will be able to learn in-depth answers to questions you may have wondering by voting / selecting the questions that would help you and your FBA Empire grow the most!!! Are you ready to start your own Amazon FBA Business? Great! Now you just need some products to sell :) Click here to access our top 10 products to profit from. To your success, Michael Coghlan and Nathan Richer