10 Tools to Scale Your Amazon FBA Business
By
Everyone hates top tens, but everyone loves making
money. That’s why having an Amazon FBA Business is so popular today,
it’s all online entrepreneurs are talking about. And it makes sense.
Entrepreneurs invest in themselves. Amazon’s all
about upfront investment – time and money. Put in the work and pull relatively
passive profit every month. What entrepreneur wouldn’t want that? There’s a
problem though.
We Only Have
24 Hours
We all get it. There’s only 24 hours in a day and even entrepreneurs need sleep. So how do you scale? Scaling is the
only way to true, mind-boggling profit. I certainly couldn’t run my business on
my own. Packing and shipping hundreds of orders a day? No thanks.
Here’s the thing..
Amazon makes it easy. Fulfilled By Amazon, that FBA
acronym we all hear, it means Bezos handles the logistics. Ship product to
warehouses and then just focus on sales – it’s that easy, almost…
Only Half the
Battle
But maintaining is not growing. There’s more to
Amazon FBA success long-term. You NEED to rank higher or launch more products,
or do both – that’s the ONLY way to grow. And that takes time. Time to search
and source products, time to promote and gather reviews. All of this takes
time, time a solo-preneur doesn’t have. And there’s a cliche for it.
You Have to
Work on Your Business, Not In It
Boring. Yeah, you’ve heard it before. But for Amazon
it’s more true than ever. Individuals are commanding massive wealth and
cashflows, all without touching the product or worrying about the little
details. Automation and software is the key. Here are my tools of the trade.
Top 10 Tools
to Amazon FBA Success
I’ve never liked Top 10 lists. I’m process-oriented.
So, here’s a step-by-step process for Amazon success. This is how Amazon
sellers start faster. Enjoy.
Product
Selection
Nothing trumps this. Pick a loser and you’ll have to
restart, pick a winner and the game accelerates. It’s that simple.
Here’s how I do it, in order!
1. The Jungle Scout Webapp
Today, I start here – a database of Amazon success.
I have to thank Greg Mercer for this one. He’s a personal friend, a two
time guest of FBA ALLSTARS and owns Jungle Scout. But believing bias
motivates this selection is foolhardy. The webapp provides a custom filter
system for searching Amazon products and a huge database of information. You
can choose categories, target BSRs (or Best Seller Rankings), sales, reviews,
sizes – the options are vast.
Pros:
·
Fast product ideas
·
Easy to search
·
Filter based results
·
Free 7 day trial
Cons:
·
Recurring billing
·
Helps others find my products too
·
Not a complete database
This makes finding profitable products easier – way
easier honestly. It’s almost scary. But I start here searching for my brand.
After setting filters, everything fits my criteria for successful private label
products. I track these in a Google spreadsheet.
Then it’s time for Amazon + Jungle Scout.
2. Jungle Scout
I thought this was stupid INITIALLY. I’ve done a
complete 180. Jungle Scout is a Chrome extension which saves you hours. It
automatically pulls BSR stats, seller data, review reports and estimated sales
and revenues of all the products showing in an Amazon search. I used to manually
open and search every listing. This is a must have for serious sellers.
Pros:
·
Save tons of time
·
Export data
·
Analysis markets instantly
Cons:
·
Stats are estimates (real data on sales is
impossible)
·
Price
3. CamelCamelCamel
The name sucks, but it’s free. And it’s helpful.
CamelCamelCamel picks up where JS left off, it tracks historical data.
Specifically sales price and BSR. This helps in determining the legitimacy of
sales data. You can tell if products are just launching and spiking sales or
consistently performing. It also helps identify trends over time, a big plus
for seasonal products.
Pros:
·
Totally free
·
Tracks historic data
Cons:
·
Non-friendly interface
·
No other functionality
Amazon
Product Sourcing
After ideas it gets physical. Finding products and
getting samples is an unavoidable bottleneck. It’s often intimidating,
especially since most suppliers are overseas. So, here’s a free guide to get
you started. And it’s easier than you think, sort of.
4. Alibaba
There’s nothing better. Excluding supplements and
skin-based beauty products, most items are manufactured in Asia. The majority
of these are Made In China. And short of flying there (which I’ve done),
Alibaba is your best bet. It’s a matchmaker for suppliers, like Craigslist on
steroids with Yellow Pages added in.
And it’s overwhelming at first. You just have to get
started.
Here’s a few rules
of thumb:
·
Submit buying requests – these allow manufacturers
producing what you want to contact you
·
Search product offerings – you can find most things
if you are crafty
·
Migrate to email or Skype communication ASAP
·
Do your homework and get samples
·
Always start with Trade Assurance
·
AliExpress is essentially Alibaba for samples
·
Many “suppliers” are just trade companies, middle
men for sourcing – they make things easier but slightly more expensive
·
Don’t be stupid
Pros:
·
Basically the only option
·
Connects buyers and suppliers anywhere
·
Trade Assurance protects your investment
·
More legitimate than some sites
Cons:
·
A million and one scams
·
Scary to get started
That’s the basics. The rest you learn as you go. But
production takes time. While waiting, work on your listing. It’s time to
optimize.
Copywriting
and Keyword Research
Sales depend on being found. Even a time machine
would flop if no one knew about it. Keywords and optimization are critical to
Amazon. You need traffic to get buyers.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Amazon’s bad about data. They don’t like sharing
search numbers, or sales. For these you need 3rd party software. Google’s the
biggest search engine in the world, Amazon’s the biggest for products. That
means search data in Google will be similar to Amazon. You can get an idea what
customers are searching for, look at keyword trends and find terms to target
for PPC (paid ads).
The easiest way is to copy/paste competitor URLs
into the tool. Google then spits out its idea of the page’s keywords. BINGO.
Now you know.
Pros:
·
Free
·
Easy to use
·
Tons of data
Cons:
·
Requires an AdWords account
·
Has lots of irrelevant keywords
Review competitor listings and reviews. Here you
will find gems of keywords, phrases and customer complaints, all of which can
help your listing shine.
MonetizePros
Tip!
Google Keyword Planner does the trick but can be
difficult to use. We recommend using SEMRush for everything keyword research
related. It also has a lot of other features that’ll come handy with your
Amazon FBA business. Spy on your competitors, see where they’re spending their
PPC budget, what keywords are bringing them the most traffic and much more.
You must measure progress or you’ll be spinning your
wheels indefinitely. To do this, sales and profit are king. But rankings are
important too. Where you rank determines sales and success. Tracking this is
the only way to monitor your efforts. There’s two I like.
6. AMZTracker
I push hard. It’s the reason my business and FBA
ALLSTARS has grown so fast. To do that I need data. I need to know which
keywords I rank for, what to optimize and the 80/20 of increased sales.
AMZTracker allow me to do all this, plus monitor negative reviews and launch
products easier (and faster) with their review club. Recently they’ve released
a solid competitor to Jungle Scout, Unicorn Smasher, which makes things
interesting as well.
Pros:
·
Simple keyword tracking
·
Product launch review club
·
Negative review monitoring
·
Email updates
·
Unicorn Smasher Free tool
Cons:
·
Monthly cost
·
Doesn’t track PPC data
7. Amazooka
Similar to AMZTracker but different in several key
ways, Amazooka’s making a splash in the Amazon FBA world. While offering
keyword and BSR tracking, negative review monitoring and it’s own review club
(although a bit premature on this), there’s a few features I love. You guys
will too.
First, Amazooka let’s you export customer phone
numbers. That means you can target existing customers on Facebook. That’s big.
But there’s also the autoresponder. Amazooka’s working on a feedback follow up
sequence to make customer communication and review gathering simple and
effective. But that’s not all.
The dashboard is the gamechanger. See all your sales
by product, by country (even by state) right on an easy to use interface. Any
seller with multiple products knows the poor job Amazon does of displaying
this.
Pros:
·
Keyword tracking
·
PPC tracking
·
Negative review monitoring
·
Email updates
·
Customer phone number exports
·
Powerful dashboard
·
Feedback follow up
Cons:
·
Monthly cost
·
Still in its infancy so occasional bugs
Customer
Interactions
Emails get excessive. When you sell hundreds of
units a day, you cannot email everyone. That hurts. Rankings are partly
dependent on reviews (likely feedback as well). But gathering reviews is hard.
Have you ever left a review on Amazon? There’s a trick.
Email automation, it’s vital. Like an autoresponder, Feedback Followup software allows entrepreneurs to
individually, automatically email every customer. This automates customer
service and allows sellers to ask for seller feedback and reviews. That means
more organic reviews and sales – it’s a flywheel.
But what’s the talk of feedback and reviews, what’s
the difference? Well seller feedback reflects your performance as seller, it
also has minimal impact on rankings and conversion rates. Reviews on the other
hand are product focused. These directly affect ranks and build customer trust
and boost conversion rates. I ask for the feedback prior to reviews, despite
their lessened importance as this provides a filter. I’ll only then ask happy
customers for reviews which as you’d expect, leads to better reviews. There are
two solid softwares, I use the first.
8. Feedback
Genius
While Feedback Genius allows Amazon sellers to
automate their messages and track negative seller feedback as well – avoiding
customer complaints and issues before they begin. But that’s not all.
The biggest differentiator for me in Feedback Genius
vs Salesbacker is in the reviews. Feedback Genius filters customer feedback.
When a customer leaves a positive feedback, that triggers a custom message
asking for a review, hence my safety net filter. And it’s automated,
Salesbacker can’t.
Pros:
·
Automates feedback requests
·
Automates review requests
·
Tracks negative seller feedback
·
Automatic safety net
Cons:
·
Analytics software is ineffective
·
Hard to track open and conversion rates of emails
9. Salesbacker
Salesbacker doesn’t have this feature of feedback
triggers. It does however have quite a lot Feedback Genius lacks. Chiefly,
improved analytics and testing. It’s also got canned emails which help you get
setup. And in case you haven’t got a rank tracker, Salesbacker’s got your back
on BSR tracking.
Pros:
·
Automates feedback requests
·
Automates review requests
·
Tracks negative seller feedback
·
Tracks BSR
·
Offers enhanced analytics
·
Comes with template campaigns
Cons:
·
Doesn’t enable feedback filtered emails
Product
Launches and Reviews
Sales don’t start themselves. You need to do a blast
to build up reviews, boost your rank and get sales going. That’s how the
algorithm works. Amazon makes money on sales. That means your product needs to
sell to make Amazon succeed. Sell and you’re rewarded, stagnate and your
rankings drop.
It’s not all about sales though. Reviews help too.
Reviews are social proof that strengthen conversion rates. A solid base of
reviews with spiked sales and your listing will start itself.
10. Tomoson
Reviewers love products. Sellers love sales, and
reviews. Tomoson’s a way to work together – matching sellers offering with
promotions with product testers. It has an awful interface and is challenging
to use, but it’s free, it’s easy and it will help you find reviewers faster.
Plus Tomoson has a free month trial so time it right and you won’t pay a dime.
Play with the site before getting started and then scouting reviewers. It’s
time to promote your product with coupon codes and speed those sales.
Pros:
·
Plenty of experienced reviewers
·
Free month trial
Cons:
·
Painfully bad interface
Pro tip: use one time use claim codes for your
promotions or risk ALL your inventory evaporating overnight. And NEVER use a
percentage off. It’s a recipe for disaster. Imagine one person buying your
entire stock,90% OFF. That’s a bad day.
