Showing posts with label selling online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label selling online. Show all posts
Monday, 18 June 2018
Friday, 15 June 2018
How to Sell on Amazon and Make a Living: The 10 Best Kept Secrets
My day job was driving me insane.
I knew “someday” that I wanted to own my own business, but I just wasn’t sure what that business would be.
I wanted Freedom–Freedom from the daily grind, from the monotony.
Begging for time off just wasn’t an enjoyable thing. I worked for a big company and dreaded going to work every day.
Sometimes driving out to a client site, I’d think, “what if I just kept driving by and skipped work forever?” I wanted to quit that job so bad.
I guess I didn’t have the nerve. I kept showing up each day, in pain because I did not enjoy the work I was doing.
Working Smarter Should Mean Earning a Better Income
Before owning a business, I felt trapped. I didn’t want to wait a whole year for “raise season” for a raise. I wanted my income tied to my performance.
I got up the nerve and turned in my resignation and took a sales job hoping that it would help me build the skills to own a business someday.
Problem was, I struggled. I had some great weeks, but it became obvious that things weren’t going so well for the whole sales account, and people were jumping ship like crazy.
For some reason, I kept sticking it out, enduring the pain. This wasn’t like me. I knew I can be successful. Why am I having such a hard time?
Take Control. Don’t Let Your Future Be Dictated by Anyone Else
Worries of a family to provide for and a mortgage payment hovered over my head. How were we to make it?
I looked into so many opportunities. I searched how to make money online and as you can imagine, ran into a lot of junk. A lot of stuff that was either over my head, ethically challenged, or just plain outdated.
I didn’t need a quick fix; I needed something that could provide for my family year after year. Something that could be reliable, not just providing cash to pay the bills but money I could use to build a better life for me and my family.
The business I eventually started was the business of selling real-world products on Amazon.com which is the major placeto sell online, and where I’ve found success. Read on to find out How to Sell on Amazon.
Other Amazon Sellers Make Tons of Mistakes
Experience speaks, and little details that made a huge difference in selling on Amazon were being missed by most of the sellers. It was like they preferred to hit their heads against the wall.
Simple Details that fellow Sellers on Amazon were missing:
- What type of account to establish
- How to create a good listing with bullet points and descriptions that sell
- What types of product variations to create
- How to market correctly
- How to run great promotions (ads & sales)
- What type of fulfillment to use
- How to take great pictures
- How to follow Amazon’s guidelines
- How to create new items
- How to encourage reviews
- How to prepare for the Holiday Retail Rush
I needed a business I could run from home without having to hire employees.
Amazon and its Seller Tools Made that Happen.
I wanted the freedom that having my own business could offer, but I also had a number of things that I did not want in a business.
I did not want a business that:
- Worked me to death
- Made it so I could never see my family or travel
- Would tie me up shipping onesie-twosie orders every day
- Made managing returns and refunds a pain
I didn’t want to become chained to my business.
I wanted a business that would let me:
- Take a dream vacation to Europe
- Have time to walk my kids to school while everyone else is heading off to their jobs
- Experience the freedom to “do my own thing”
- Establish a good “emergency fund” of savings (I didn’t like being at the end of my rope)
- Have time to work on my own interests outside of business
Amazon Practically started my Business with FBA
One of the Amazon services that few know about (in fact, it’s one of the best kept secrets) is a Fulfillment Service called FBA where Amazon will ship your products for you.
This is not drop-shipping; it’s way better, and provides a better value for you and for your customer.
A seller or merchant ships product in bulk to Amazon, and when a customer orders, Amazon takes care of the rest: getting it there, customer support, and returns handling.
It’s awesome, enabling, and it’s one of the best tools for how to sell on Amazon…
But order fulfillment (even with FBA) is just one small part of being a successful Internet Business selling on Amazon.com.
I’ve seen people use the fulfillment service and lose money, not sell inventory, and go negative, because the other aspects of their Internet Business are all wrong.
How do you Sell Successfully on Amazon?
First ask, what is success to you?
I wanted and needed income replacement. I needed it to be the major source of my income because my options were limited at the time.
Starting with the right vision, knowing that you want to do well, and provide a good income whether it replaces your old income or supplements your current income with some extra spending money, starting right is important.
I learned the hard way through hours and hours of research and the school of hard knocks. We had a lot of mistakes and setbacks along the way because we didn’t have good guidance of how to do it.
Keep in mind these keys of how to Sell on Amazon:
1. Understand Amazon’s Playing Field
Get to know Amazon’s rules in the Help section. Getting banned is a bad idea, so follow their rules.
You wouldn’t go through all the work to get products into Walmart and then decide you really don’t care to play by their rules would you? You’re in their store. Think of selling on Amazon, eBay, Overstock, and so on, as being in their store…having your products in their store.
Play by the rules and always work with professionalism when contacting Amazon. Be sure to do an easy check of the competition by searching on amazon for what is selling if you have a product in mind to sell. If not don’t worry, there’s help for that.
2. Become an Amazon Featured Merchant
You need a real sellers account on Amazon to make it happen, and it’s easier than you think.
You need to get good feedback and have good sales, but once you make it to featured (which doesn’t have to take more than a few months), you’ll be rockin.
Amazon doesn’t give away the exact formula for becoming a featured merchant but the basics are just be a good seller (good feedback, the right type of seller account, and product sales). I’ve seen the status reached in a very short time, so it can be done when done right, and it makes all the difference in the world.
A featured merchant on Amazon has the chance at getting what’s called the Buy Box on Amazon. The Buy Box provides you with the default sales.
Meaning, when someone clicks the big “Add to Cart” button for the product, you get the sale. Depending on the demand for the product, winning the Buy Box can easily double your sales.
3. Take Full Advantage of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
We’re not talking warm and fuzzy feelings here. Don’t fulfill product yourself. Let Amazon ship your products for you.
It’s one of the best kept secrets out there.
Imagine not having to ship each individual order! You can ship your products in bulk and the fulfillment service ships the individual orders for you.
This frees up your time so that you can spend it growing your business instead of trying to play catch-up to stay afloat.
4. Price your Products to Win & Use Amazon Promotions
Find the sweet spot. One lesson I learned not too long ago was that most of us tend to under-price our products.
Sure you have to look at the competition, but I prefer to play where there is little or even no competition (especially direct competition).
If you need to put something on sale to get a little more sales rank, then go for it.
If you want to earn more profit, try raising your prices. Nothing is off the table, but it comes down to how well you market, and how smart you are about the bullet points, pictures, and descriptions on your Amazon listings.
You can use tools to discount for a time to get your Amazon Sales Rank up on your items and watch the sales continue on in after the discount. It’s just one strategy of many, but it works.
5. Package Products the Right Way
It doesn’t do you much good to send something to Amazon only to have it damaged in the way.
Provide enough packing in your shipment so that if the box were dropped, your products would still be okay.
Use 1/2″ bubble wrap or Kraft Paper, and add extra packing if your items are heavy or fragile.
Kraft paper can sometimes scratch your product packaging if the paper is bunches up with lots of hard wrinkles, so keep that in mind when choosing what dunnage (or packing fill) to use.
Make sure to stay away from packing peanuts. Amazon doesn’t like them, and they create a huge mess.
6. Monitor Success & Possible Changes in Amazon’s Seller Central Reports
Amazon’s Seller Central (the place where you access your seller account) offers great tools and reports.
The last thing you want to do is run out of product to sell, and probably tied with that, you want to make sure you’re making money. The report showing Amazon Buy Box percentage also show if someone else is encroaching in on your products–handy to keep an eye on that one.
Download the reports and use them in your forecasting. The last thing you want to do is run out of a hot item.
7. Build Your Amazon Profits
This is absolutely critical. It can’t be over-emphasized.
Your profit margins are everything.
When you buy a product to sell, you have a product cost you need to cover. So many sellers simply want to make a few bucks and price low, but they don’t realize all the fees that need to be covered!
It’s sad to see so many businesses that just don’t get it. They’re running themselves into the ground with work that is costing them money not earning them money!
Don’t let it be you. Get to know every fee involved, know the product costs of your products, the shipping costs involved, taxes, etc.
I keep it all in a spreadsheet that I show in the paid membership training so I can instantly see if a product is a good choice or not.
I also have the Amazon app on my phone so when I’m out and about looking at something thinking it might be a good idea, I can check to see if it or something similar is on Amazon already and determine if it’s a good idea or not to pursue.
I did some consulting with a company that supplies Walmart, Target, Staples (you name it), and their mantra is “No Margin, No Mission.”
Keep track of those margins.
8. Let Amazon Market your Products
Amazon makes it easy to get your products noticed especially if you know the tools available to you that many sellers miss.
Amazon Enhanced Branded Content & Storefront
Amazon Enhanced Branded Content pages makes it easy for you as a third-party seller to create a listing that drives sales. Amazon storefront lets you showcase your products and tell the story of your brand.
Amazon Promotions
Amazon Promotions allow you to create coupon codes that you, and deals that allow you to drive more sales. For example, you can create a promotion that gives 10% off if a buyer purchases 2 or more of your product. The wording gets displayed right on the product page.
Amazon Advertising
Amazon is pushing their Advertising service. You pay when a customer clicks your ad which appears in the search results as “Sponsored.”
Now why would you pay Amazon when your product could just appear in the search results naturally?
Well, it’s really hard to get your product noticed at the start. It begins with no sales history and no reviews. Amazon Advertising lets you get your products noticed on the first page of search results, and getting noticed is key to success on Amazon.
The easy to access advertising reports show if the advertising is really paying for itself. In our experience, it usually does, and it’s a great tool for getting noticed in the beginning.
Amazon has now allowed 3rd-party merchants to create lightning deals. It’s an amazing tool that when used correctly can get your products selling fast.
9. Skyrocket Sales During the Holiday Selling Season
During the holidays, it’s possible to see 5 Times the normal sales on some products.
It can be one of the greatest times of year for your business unless…your product runs out of stock.
You don’t want to buy so much product that you have too much after Christmas, so you need an easy way to forecast your demand during the holidays.
There are lots of crazy ways to forecast demand. But is forecasting important if it’s just you working from home? …yep.
Your products may be highly seasonal (slip-and-slides for example), weather related, holiday related, etc. But almost everything gets a big lift at Christmas.
How much?
It will depend on your products.
Sellers can see as much as 5 TIMES the normal product sales at Christmas.
If you’re not prepared, you’ll sell out of all your inventory, and kick yourself because you can practically taste the sales that you’re missing while you try to get product back in stock.
I created a pretty simple seasonal profile forecast in a spreadsheet to manage forecasting. It’s not perfect, and I’ll still run out of items (which stinks), but I’m a lot better prepared week by week.
Keep it simple, and a seasonal profile works out just fine (when you learn what your peak seasons are that is). Walmart offers their suppliers seasonal profile information, and that’s good enough for me.
10. Select the Best Products to Sell (with your Own Brand too!)
If you’re going to be selling sofas and mattresses and still want to work out of your basement, you’d better have a big basement.
If you have a warehouse, no problem, but if you’re going to do this on your own, you’ll need products that you can easily manage.
Now there are some tricks and tips for getting the big stuff in, and you don’t have to touch it. It’s part of the advanced strategies.
Choose products and a market that you are genuinely interested in.
This will help you write the best sales copy because you’ll be familiar with the market, and you’ll care about it. You’ll be able to show potential customers why your product is better, and shoppers will pay more for the product they feel is better, and that’s always a good place to be in.
You can sell other people’s products, and that’s fine to start, but to create a business that lasts and that keeps the competition at bay, consider creating your own branded products.
Having your own branded or private label products on Amazon opens up opportunities to have your own branded store, protect your products from the competition, and truly create something of value.
Learn Below How to Create Your own Branded Private Label Products that Can Launch your Success on Amazon
Your Freedom and Fulfillment is Worth it
Selling on Amazon provides entrepreneurs all of the world the chance to create successful businesses allowing for fun and important things like:
- Spending time with family
- Walking the kids to school
- Setting your own schedule
- Vacationing where and when you want to
- The ability to leave the daily grind
Making Business Work for you and Not the Other Way Around
With the right set-up, you can go far, but it still can be a challenge to get buyer attention on Amazon, and that’s why marketing is critical to your business success.
It’s about finding the secret message-to-market-match, and that’s why we recommend the trainings we do which can help you learn from the mistakes and successes of successful sellers.
It’s time to take control and discover new possibilities.
Sunday, 4 March 2018
How To Build A Website 2018 | You Don’t Have To Be A Tech Geek
If you’re wondering about how to build a website (even for free), then this article will be helpful for you.
Have no idea where to start? That’s perfectly normal, to be honest.
You’re not alone as for most people, building a website online is still a bit of a mystery.
For most people (including us a few years ago), creating a website is something that only IT geeks are capable of doing.
These coders lock themselves in basements, have no friends, and wear thick glasses. Right?
Right??
Well, that was the old school stereotype that most people had for coders (including us a few years ago when we struggled to get started – we confess!)
I’m not sure if it’s because of the media, movies, whatever. But that’s definitely not how a lot of websites are actually built nowadays, and that’s definitely not how coders behave!
You don’t need to be an IT geek to learn how to build a website from scratch today.
You don’t even need to know code (a bit will help, but not a necessity and it won’t hold you back), you don’t need to manage hosts / servers, and you don’t need to have a lot of money.
Here is a quick snapshot of some of the website builders nowadays that can help you build your website – without having to learn how to code or breaking your bank account.
| How To Build A Website | Drag& Drop Website Builders |
|---|---|
| Recommendations |
If you’re not familiar with them, keep reading and we’ll show you how to you can create a website in less than a day, and a list of basic items you need to get started.
And don’t worry, the surprising part is that entire process won’t cost you very much.
HOW A LOT OF WEBSITES ARE BUILT NOWADAYS
Technology has advanced tremendously over the past few years. The internet has grown faster than ever before.
Facebook has taken over, Google is king, and normal folks like yourself can build your own website for free.
More and more people are creating websites online as a way to express themselves and get in touch with others. Businesses cannot afford not to have websites as a way of reaching more potential customers.
If you want to build a business, or if you already have a business but haven’t built your website yet, you’re falling further and further behind.
But is building websites easy? What is a good website builder? What do you need to get started? How much does it cost to build a website?
In the past? Very challenging.
Today? Not challenging or super expensive at all.
Think about it. Facebook made it easy for you to connect with hundreds, if not thousands of people. Smartphones make it easy for you to surf the web on a tiny device.
It’s not that hard to believe that building websites can also be easy, right?
There are a lot of website creators that have emerged over the past few years that enable you to build websites without knowing how to code.
They programmed the website building software so now you literally just have to use your mouse and drag a slideshow, a block of text, images, videos, into the website. You can then insert your own text, upload your own pictures, insert your own videos (such as YouTube), and click publish. That’s it.
Weebly.com (Click to see)
I know it sounds ridiculously easy.
After all, we’ve been taught that if something is too good to be true, it’s probably not, right?
Well, that’s a good rule of thumb, but not always the case.
In terms of learning how to build a website from scratch, this is definitely not the case.
For sure you will have to invest time into creating your own content and setting things up. But the days when only super tech geniuses can make websites are long gone.
HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE: YOUR STEP BY STEP GUIDE
Just to show you how easy it is to make a website I have listed the steps below:
- Choose a website builder – you’ll want an ecommerce builder if you plan to sell online
- Sign up for a free trial (or jump straight into a premium account!)
- Think about & choose your domain name (aka your website address)
- Choose a professional, ready-made template to customize
- Customize your website design by dragging and dropping text & media
- Preview & test your site to make sure it looks & works the way you want it to
- Publish your site & share it with the world!
Follow the steps above and you’ll be online in no time at all!
CHECKLIST: WHAT YOU NEED TO BUILD A WEBSITE
Before we dive into what drag & drop website builders are all about, I know you’re just itching to know what exactly you need to make a website!
No – you don’t need to be good at coding, or math, or coming up with an exotic formula to send a rocket ship into space (though that would definitely help further science!)
Here are the 9 things you need to make a website:
- Domain name
- Business email address
- Website building software
- Website hosting
- Website template design
- Logo
- Highly quality images
- Image editor
- Google Analytics
Keep in mind that these are just the basic items you need to create a website, and you can expand this list as you become more comfortable with the process.
It’s not that intimidating, right?
If you’re still a bit unsure whether you can do it, especially if you feel that you’re not the creative type (such as designing a logo, picking good pictures, etc), we have a dedicated, comprehensive “What You Need To Build A Website” guide that covers all of the checklist items above in detail.
The bottom line is – don’t let these thing intimidate you. Remember, technology nowadays makes it easier for you to build a website.
ARE ALL WEBSITE BUILDERS GOOD & EASY TO USE?
All website builders are built differently – each has its own pros and cons. Some are easier, some are more challenging.
I think the general guideline is that the more sophisticated and powerful the builder is, the higher the learning curve. That makes sense, right?
So for instance, WordPress is a very powerful website builder. It is flexible, advanced, and can almost be programmed to do almost anything you want as a website.
However, the learning curve to become proficient with using WordPress is rather steep. You will most likely have to invest quite a bit of time to learn how to use it well, and perhaps you will have to pay some freelancer or WordPress expert to help you set up your website.
Then there are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), drag and drop website builders. These are the ones that do not need you to know any code to get a website up and running in a little amount of time.
(The following promo video is from Squarespace – Click here to see Squarespace)
These builders are ideal for people who don’t have the time to learn code (life is busy, right?) or don’t have the budget to hire someone to help build a website.
It’s great for people who enjoy DIY (Do-It-Yourself).
WHAT ABOUT WEBSITE DESIGN AND TEMPLATES? MY SITE HAS TO LOOK GOOD!
Website builders nowadays give you a really good selection of design templates to choose from.
Let’s face it, the majority of us don’t know how to design well, let alone coding up our own web design!
So what do website builders do? They create design templates so you can use them for your website, allowing your site to look good.
Think about them as “clothes” for your website. If you don’t like one set of clothes, just change to another one to give your website a completely different feel.
Click to see some beautiful free website templates for you to use
Almost all website builders give you these templates for free, and hands down, using these design templates will give your website the biggest visual impact in the least amount of time.
You don’t need to touch any codes whatsoever!
In fact, if you are just starting a new business, we HIGHLY recommend that you don’t bother with hiring a website designer – for good reasons (see our arguments here).
Drag & drop website builders (see our recommendations below) give you really good looking design templates to give you a head start already. There are more important things to focus on while your business is still young than hiring a professional (and potentially expensive) designer.
POPULAR DRAG & DROP WEBSITE BUILDERS
If you don’t want to learn how to code, or if you don’t have a large budget to hire freelancers to help you build a website from scratch, there are a few good website builders that you may want to test out to see if they can help you out. You just might enjoy using them, too!
Here are a few website builders that we recommend to help you build a website:
- Wix.com – see our review
- Squarespace – see our review
- Weebly – see our review
- Jimdo – see our review
All of them have their own pros and cons, and some of them are better at certain things.
When we started making websites ourselves, we researched for days as it was hard to figure out which one best fit our needs.
There was so much information out there that it overloaded us, and pretty much paralyzed us in terms of choosing which website builder to use.
So we decided to test a lot of them. After investing hundreds of hours in using many different website builders ourselves (gosh those days were painful!), we’ve compiled a few different guides / resources so to help make your research (and life) a bit easier:
At the end of the day, there really isn’t a “one website builder fits all” type of solution.
We recommend that you narrow down your search to 2 or 3 website builders, and just invest a day to trying them out. It’s almost like shopping for a car (except MUCH cheaper). It makes a lot of sense to test drive a few of them just to see if they work out for you.
All of the website builders that we recommend are free to sign up, or at least they have a free trial period where you can give it a test drive.
WHAT ABOUT E-COMMERCE WEBSITE BUILDERS?
If you are thinking about building an online store, there are e-commerce website builders for you as well!
The best of the bunch that we recommend is Shopify if you need a very comprehensive e-commerce solution.
Their themes are great, and they have a very powerful App Store to add more powerful tools to your store.
Shopify is great if you have many products that you want to see online, or if you already have a physical store and you just want to start selling products online.
They have a Point of Sale system where you can take advantage of using iPads to run your physical store while having all the inventory, sales records, fully integrated with your online store. If you use Shopify, there is no need to separate both your online and offline store anymore.
If you don’t need too many advanced tools and only have a handful of products to sell, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly and Jimdo are also excellent candidates to consider. These are great e-commerce solutions if you are selling unique, boutique products, photographs, art, or just anything that are not mass produced.
WHAT ABOUT DOMAIN NAMES, HOSTING, SECURITY EMAILS?
One of the best things about these growing website builders is that they take care of a lot of your concerns so you can focus on just learning how to build a website, creating content and growing your website.
They provide all the hosting services for you so you don’t have to pay for it separately.
They also take care of all the security upgrades for the hosts so you don’t have to bother with all this techie stuff. They ensure that your website is always up and running, and doesn’t get hacked.
Hosting by Shopify for your Ecommerce Store (click to see more information)
As for domain names, you can either purchase your own custom domain name through the website builder, or you can purchase it on your own through registrars such as GoDaddy or NameCheap.
Some website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo and Webs will give you a free custom domain name if you sign up to their premium plans.
Keeping your own domain name requires you to pay an annual fee and the yearly investment is roughly around $12 for most people. So signing up to their premium plans will save you the domain name fee, which will effectively lower your yearly investment in the website builder if you sign up to their premium plans.
Just bear in mind that when you purchase a domain name from a website builder or through separate registrars, you own the domain name and can take it to wherever you want.
This is a very common question we get (and certainly one of our own question when we first started as well!) so hope this clarifies things a bit for you.
A lot of you also wonder about how to get your own custom email address. Not all the website builders provide email services built into their platform.
If you see our comparison chart, you’ll see that Jimdo, GoDaddy and IM Creator provide email services if you subscribe to their premium plans.
If you decide to use the other website builders what don’t offer email services – fear not. Google’s G Suite (using the friendly Gmail user interface) can also help you create your own email address for a few dollars a month.
In fact, Wix, Squarespace and Weebly all partnered up with Google to offer you this customized email addresses. Google’s G Suite email service is integrated with these website builders so setup is straightforward.
CONCLUSION – HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE
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