#79: A Beginners Guide to Selling on Amazon with Expert Anna Davidson

Show Notes

While it can be relatively easy to get started as an Amazon Seller, even for beginners, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to start making a profit. You have to be very aware of your costs and the fees you are paying, otherwise you could lose money. 
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In this episode co-hosts Nola Boea and Lori Vajda talk to Amazon expert, Anna Davidson, about her do’s and don’ts for setting up a profitable shop. She’s here to de-mystify and de-stress the process so you can quickly launch your Amazon business.

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In This Episode You’ll Learn 

• Why it’s important to understand your options for selling before you get started.
• How the Amazon Seller app helps you determine which products will give you the best margins.
• White label, private label, affiliate marketing, this is the easiest one for beginners.
• Branding, marketing and selling tips so you can successfully launch your online store on Amazon. 
• 
  

Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:
(05:27:24) Unlike Etsy, it’s the Amazon fullfillment centers that really help entrepreneurs become successful and profitable.
(08:47:86) The costly mistake that turned a highly profitable product into a losing one.
(13:33.18) Why Amazon is pushing more independent sellers to become a ‘registered brand’ in order to receive perks of the platform. 
(17:03.57) The 3 important steps you need to complete before you start selling on Amazon. 
(20:26:44) The ideal number of categories a new seller should be listed in.

Resources 
You can subscribe to Lori and Nola's show, (we love you and want to make it easy) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Connect with Anna Davidson: theannadavidson.com  
Esty Queen Program: website link
Free ebook: Make Money Working From Home
Facebook: Connect on Facebook
Instagram: Connect on Instagram
LinkedIn: Connect on LinkedIn
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AnnaDavidsonThawe 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theannadavidson  
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ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform 
(This is an affiliate link)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: If you've been thinking about starting a passive income stream and are wondering if Amazon is the right business platform for you. The answer is it depends on if you know what to sell and how to do it in a way that outperforms your competition. Stay tuned friends, because we've got Anna Davidson here with us today. She's an Amazon international bestseller and expert, and she's here to share her secrets, so you can confidently say yes to becoming an Amazon online seller. 

[00:00:29] Announcer: You're listening to the Sticky Brand Lab podcast, where time strapped professionals like you learn how to create a business you love in as little as three hours a week.

[00:00:41] Nola: So Lori, do you prefer shopping online or in store? 

[00:00:47] Lori: It actually depends on what I'm shopping for. I enjoy the convenience of online shopping most definitely, but there are some things that I like to buy in-store. What about you? Do you prefer online or in-store? 

[00:01:01] Nola: You know, sometimes I really do enjoy browsing through the aisles of a brick and mortar, but there are times that I really do prefer shopping online, really because. I live in such a small town. There's only like one or two stores to browse isles of. So they don't always have what I'm looking for. So I do find it really convenient to shop online rather than to drive to the next biggest town and hope they have what I'm looking for. 

[00:01:28] Lori: Well Nola you and I are not alone. There are a lot of people who prefer to shop online. An estimated 2 billion actually. And one reason has to do with just how convenient and easy it is. 

[00:01:40] Nola: Yes, that's true. But that convenience doesn't apply to selling online. In fact, there's quite a learning curve and that's the case, whether you're selling on Etsy, Amazon, or your own website or any number of other e-commerce sites. To be a successful entrepreneur, you must understand the details of your business. And the same holds true, whether you're a new or established seller on Amazon. If you've been on Amazon recently, and frankly who hasn't, you know there's a lot of competition. Which is great if you're a buyer, because it gives you options for finding the product you want in stock. But what if you're an aspiring entrepreneur trying to get your product sold? Does having a lot of competition make it easier or harder to be successful on the platform? To find the answers to these questions and many more we're joined by our returning guest expert, Anna Davidson. Anna is a genius when it comes to e-commerce and digital branding. She's the author of the book She Made it Happen. She's been featured in Forbes and as a host of Your Freedom Podcast, as well as the founder of Etsy Queen Accelerator and Amazon 101 Academy where she helps students throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia, and around the globe build products and brands. With more than 15 years of experience in online marketing and her own success as an Etsy and Amazon seller since 2013, Anna is passionate about empowering women to launch their own profitable and wildly successful Amazon businesses. She's here today to share her experience, tips, insights, and marketing, know-how, so you can create and launch your own successful Amazon products. Welcome back, Anna! 

[00:03:25] Anna: Hey ladies, it's great to be back. Loving this show. 

[00:03:29] Lori: So glad that you're here. The last time you were here, you shared your knowledge about Etsy and gave us and our listeners so much helpful information for getting started on the platform. So naturally, we're excited to have you here today to talk about Amazon. But before we do, can you talk a little bit about your background and how you got started on Amazon? 

[00:03:53] Anna: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I worked in the corporate world for many years. Worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I had the whole company car, but always had that entrepreneurial thing that needed to get out of me. And I wanted to run my own business and it was the online world. I really wanted to do that. And that was because I'd become a mom. I wanted to work flexibly, but I was always ambitious in the corporate world. I was going up that corporate ladder and I was the breadwinner at the time for our family. And I think like a lot of women, we want it all. We want to be a good mom, but we also have our ambitions. We want a good income. And I turned to the online world. I did a lot of digital marketing. Invested in myself, which I think is really important to learn new skills and strategies. And I actually laugh at myself cause I did stumble across Amazon and physical products because I remember actually the previous year, somebody who now I'm very good friends with approached me online about selling on eBay. And I really dismissed it. I was like, why would I want to sell on eBay? And then the next thing within like a few months I'd stumbled across that an Amazon webinar. And it really was the fulfillment side of things. The Fulfillment by Amazon, that really kind of got me excited. Because I think it's great that as online entrepreneurs, we can create our own physical product brands, send them from China or India, or even from our own country, like in the U S. or the UK as I am and send them into the Amazon warehouse. And Amazon can do all that kind of messy, but as I say, the fulfillment shipping out to customers, dealing with returns. So we can really focus on building our brands and the marketing side of things. So that was why I got involved and I think for me as well, over in the UK, we have I may be, you've got the dollar store. We have like the pound shop here, so E-bay is a little bit like that, the Dollar Store. Whereas Amazon I think is, we have Waitrose here in the UK and maybe it's a bit like Target to yeah, Amazon. We buy off Amazon because we think we're buying from Amazon as a customer. And we're buying into that, we want the same day or next day delivery. We know we can order those everyday items. We've got the reassurance that we can return those items. I think I meet a lot of solopreneurs, or female entrepreneurs that have really bought into the products they're selling, they're trying to sell off their own store. They've got a boutique store or something like that. But the power of Amazon is that customers trust Amazon to get it on time to prime member. You can get it on time and you know you can return it. And I know that from testing and testing. Offline advertising as well, that I find that if I'm trying to get more sales on my own store, I find it increases my Amazon sales because people will see my product and then come to my store and think, oh, is it going to get here on time? Is it going to come from China? They don't trust my store, whereas they trust Amazon, they'll go look for my brand so, and that's the power of Amazon. As well as of course the fact that right now it's turning over $70 million an hour. And that's just the US marketplace. You know, it's a huge marketplace and they've done so well during the pandemic as well.

[00:07:00] Nola: Absolutely.

[00:07:01] Anna: It's just a trusted brand. 

[00:07:03] Nola: So right now, how many products or niches are you currently in on Amazon? 

[00:07:08] Anna: In fact, my journey started in the supplement niche, I think because of my background was pharmaceutical industry. I think I secretly probably subconsciously wanted my own drugstore, but I kind of was like, I'd left my industry and I've got to say I'd seen behind the curtain, you know? And I'm a lot more holistic with my approach to healthcare. So I created a prenatal vitamin. I had a skin, hair and nail vitamin, weight loss. Yeah. This is a warning for anybody. It got really saturated. Really competitive. There's only so much you can do really, to differentiate. The big boys, cause this was like my first brand, were completely smashed in it compared to me. And they have that equity behind them to invest in a lot of advertising. So I decided to sell that brand. And then went into beauty products and just sort of really wanted to kind of learn a lot. Sold like a beard grooming product I had, I've done electric scooters and the hoverboard. And then now really focusing on my bamboo brand and also seasonal products this last year. Because there are a lot of summer products that I just did in the UK just to test. I also sell in the U.S. and Australia and there's so many different marketplaces now, like there's Singapore and Dubai and Poland and all those different European locations coming on. And it's great because we can just send all our stock to all of these different fulfillment centers and Amazon will look after the rest. So, there's so many different categories and different products that I sell in different marketplaces because every geography is different. That's the thing to remember. 

[00:08:38] Nola: So to date what has been your most and least successful products that you've sold on Amazon? 

[00:08:45] Anna: So it's funny because the hoverboards I did. Do you remember the Segues when they first came out and they were all exploding at the same time, do you remember? I had 350 of them coming over. It was all going on in the news. It was quarter four, I think it was 2018, I think, or might've been 17 actually. And it was a really popular product. I've never done kind of like a gimmicky type product. You know, there was a trend type product and it was also really high investment because each one was costing me 130 pounds. Probably nearly $200 at per unit. Now they've come down a lot since then, but when they first came out that was the price then. And I was selling them for around about 300, 350 pounds, about nearly $500. So it was a good profit margin, but it was also a high investment because most of my products are selling for like $30 to $50. So it was a big risk, but hats here. So he said, started selling them around black Friday weekend and was completely crushing it was getting, I was like playing tunes on the evening. I'd never seen my Amazon account so big, yeah? And I was also dealing with another guy. We were like doing it together because he had followed the suppliers and we knew that these had been tested. We got a bit greedy and we're like, oh my God, this is going so well, let's get another order through. And we had some more ordered and they got seized at customs. With trading standards. Now I did something that I say to people don't ever do, I was started to sell them not by Fulfillment by Amazon. By merchant. So I was shipping them out and because it was a real demand for them, I was getting the sale and then say that there was going to be shipped within a week. And then they all got seized.

[00:10:21] Lori: Oh. 

[00:10:22] Anna: So I didn't have the stock, to fulfill. 

[00:10:26] Nola: Oh no. 

[00:10:26] Anna: And I always say to people, don't ever do that because you need to make sure that you can fulfill the item. And of course, I then took that risk. Luckily, I was doing it with someone else. So at least we could be like, oh, my god, what are we gonna do, together. Um, we had to find people that had them and the quality ones already had the stock, buy them at wholesale price. It was a lot higher than what we were getting them for to fulfill. And we also then had Amazon send all of our customers that bought one, an email to say, please dispose of the items because of this whole issue with the safety and we'll refund you. And we were like, what? This is costing us so much per unit. Back then you actually, when you got the customer's order you got the customer's address and telephone number. Now, Amazon don't give you all of that information. It's the first time I'd ever had to do this. I actually telephoned all the different customers because I didn't want them to dispose of the item because you know, a lot of people who wanted to scam. I would've said, oh, well, dispose of it and keep it. And we're going to get refund. And just basically a lot of people were concerned because of what they're reading in the media. We assured them, sent them the documentation that we had. Uh, most of the orders we saved, but it was one of the most stressful periods. It just went this massive high of my Amazon account nearly having like a quarter of a million in it. Wow. To just over a few days to then this like return situation, there was a big lesson in that though. One the greed. We should have just had that first order, first number of units, and not got greedy. And also, just selling a product that was really trending in the media and that whole experience around that, and also selling a product that was of higher value. So there was lots of expenses in the start. It was kind of like, it was the best product initially and became the most challenging product overnight. And I so it, just shows the impact of the media. On things like that. 

[00:12:16] Nola: As well as the influence of their controlled of the platform that you're selling on. 

[00:12:21] Anna: Absolutely as well, because I think when you are dealing with these platforms, Amazon is a huge marketplace. It's like dealing with Facebook and Google and there are like lots of, sort of criteria and processes and restrictions, and you can't kind of pick up the phone to a human being. And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize when they get into the Amazon world. 

[00:12:40] Nola: So I have a comparison question now. If I were a successful seller on Etsy, would that skill directly translate to Amazon? Would I make a good seller on Amazon, just because I'm a good seller on Etsy? 

[00:12:55] Anna: Not necessarily. It all depends on the product. Amazon is better for those everyday items, but also because it's got more competitive over the years, being a little bit more quirky and standing out a little bit is a lot better. I mean, I actually have my products on Etsy and sometimes fulfill some of them from Amazon. So I link the two. Not all of them, but some of them have stock in the Amazon warehouse. I think the benefit of Amazon is one, it's a huge marketplace. And two, it's got the fulfillment side of things. Yes, you can get your own fulfillment center, but different fulfillment centers work different ways. So that if they're going to ship a product out late, they will pay the cost to make sure it gets there. Amazon want to kind of remove or make it harder for people who are not selling brands. You know, they want us to be trademarked. You don't have to be, but they're encouraging us and rewarding us for being a brand. You get superior listings, you can link it with the influencers and now with, I don't know if you've seen Amazon Live. Well, it's like a QVC channel. Imagine Facebook Lives. It's all integrated on the Amazon marketplace. If you go to amazon.com forward slash live, you can see it. And you can only be part of that if you are a registered brand. 

[00:14:04] Lori: To me, Etsy, you are the brand. If I go there, I can send a message directly to you. But when I'm on Amazon, I often feel like the product is front and center. I have no idea who the actual person that is sending me the product I'm interested in. All I know is one fulfillment can do it today and maybe somebody else can't do it until next week. Am I thinking about this correctly?

[00:14:36] Anna: Yeah, because Etsy is more of a personal that's got like personalization. Amazon, a focusing on that, the brands more than the individual shop owner, even though 60% or nearly 6 percent, it's like 59% of the product sold on Amazon are individual third party sellers like me. Which I think a lot of people are surprised about. 

[00:14:56] Lori: Yes. I'm very surprised by this. So you have an academy, you teach people how to sell on Amazon. Is that for somebody who's just beginning or is that for somebody who has been on Amazon and wants to take their game to the next level? 

[00:15:11] Anna: It's for both really. What I've put together with the Amazon 101 program is it's a 12-month coaching program. And it gives you that time to build your a six-figure Amazon business at the end of it. And within it, we have a weekly mastermind call. So you get all the videos, you get the step-by-step. I introduce you to my Chinese agents and my contacts in India as well. I'll take you through from discovering what niche you're going to go to, or create, similar to like the Etsy stuff we were talking about previously, but really focusing on brands. And how do you actually create your own private label brand from either importing from China or more recently, because there have been sort of fulfillment delays and logistics and stuff like that, maybe create it in Mexico, in the US, or from maybe wholesalers in the UK, having that flexibility of where you source sourcing from. But I think sourcing from somewhere like China is quite scary for someone who's not done it before. So I bring my Chinese agents into the group and we have different master classes where people can actually speak directly and know that I've dealt with these people for years. And these people have the, you know, the ones to trust type of thing. And I think the weekly hand holding, because like I was touching on Amazon isn't probably the easiest, just like it's similar to Facebook, Google and all these kind of digital platforms that find a course, it all good isn't it, if you've got the video step-by-step but you are bound to get into a bit of a challenge. Guaranteed. Like I'm like a hundred percent on that, that you are going to need to reach out. But it's having a weekly Zoom call where not everybody attends every week, but generally most people do. But for me, it's about getting stuff done. So I bring different experts from the industry in on different topics, whether it's PPC advertising, or you want to get a trademark for your brand. So that is really like a mastermind, but it's a 12-month program. It's a long-term program. 

[00:17:03] Nola: Wow, that sounds really fascinating. What would you say are the very basics to getting started? What are the things that they need to keep in mind or some pre-steps that they need to do? 

[00:17:14] Anna: The biggest question I get asked is what kind of products should I sell? You know, what are the best policy to sell? Everybody wants to know that. And I think deciding on your first product or which niche you're going to go into is a bit of a challenge. It took me six months to decide. When I was on my journey in the program, we have a one-to-one 90-minute session at the beginning when people come into it so that we can come to that call brainstorm all the different products that you are interested in. And I gave them a few different sites to go and look at like Google trends or looking on social media and different things, as well as current. And come to that call with three ideas. So I'll give you some tasks that then on that call, we can make the decision which needs you're going to go into and which product we're going to dive into. And I helped them look at clinical softwares, whether it be Jungle Scout or Helium tan, these softwares can help us research the demands and the competition. But I think the difference. I make is I kind of support people, making that decision because it is like all, so many thousands of different products, which one is the right one to start with?

[00:18:12] Lori: You know, there's a saying you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. If you're an aspiring seller, should you automatically be thinking only Amazon, Amazon's the place for me, or Amazon is the first step, and I should also think about being on Etsy and eBay or having my own website, E-commerce site. What's the right way to think about it?

[00:18:37] Anna: I agree with you. I think you should put all your eggs in one basket. I do think Amazon is probably the quickest to get started because it's the biggest marketplace. But I think once you start growing your brand on Amazon, then you want to start looking at other marketplaces, like does my brand fit for, Etsy, cause it might not. And then of course building your own store. I think building your own store is most challenging to get customers, but you need to invest in building a customer base. And also marketing but the great thing about it when you have is that it's all yours, isn't it? And you build that brand and long term. So you, right. I think starting on, Amazon gives you that foot in the door, max acceleration, but then. I think it's important to make sure that you are selling on other marketplaces and your own store. So you can really maximize your brand online. 

[00:19:19] Nola: On the episode with Etsy, you talked about the categories, there were three main categories for Etsy: Handmade, Vintage, and Unique. Is that the same categories for Amazon or does Amazon have a totally different category?

[00:19:36] Anna: Yeah. Yeah. It's totally different on Amazon, basically. The world's your oyster on Amazon, but it's just say really different categories that you can go for. There are certain categories that you have to get on gated. It means that you need to ask permission to Amazon to sell in those categories because on Amazon, you have to get approved to sell grocery beauty, jewelry, health, and personal care. So anything where the customer needs to be protected toys as well. And Amazon just wanna make sure that where you're sourcing the item from, and that you are a legitimate company at the end of the day. So to protect the customer. 

[00:20:09] Lori: How many categories are you in currently? 

[00:20:11] Anna: I'm only in three categories, the makeup and my Bombay products. I've got mainly in home kitchen. And I also sell some beauty products and I've done some seasonal products. And then I also did some ones that were for the summer period as well. So they’re home and garden product. 

[00:20:26] Nola: So would you advise people to enter Amazon in more than one niche or is that really reserved for the pros?

[00:20:34] Anna: So I think the beginning, I tried all these different categories and I think at the beginning, you don't want to build the Ferrari. You want to just get the practice and learn from the whole. Sometimes it's a bit light when we focus on logos and building our website, but we haven't thought about customer side of things, you know. So I think it's important to just follow the process and learn at the beginning. Maybe try a different few categories that you're interested in, If you want to focus on one particular niche and have several products that you build on that brand, and you can exit that brand and make quite a considerable amount of money for yourself. So that is what I'm focusing on with my bamboo range at the moment. And that's what I'd recommend. To anybody that's kind of going into this market that you can, you know, you've learned all the process, learn all the skills, you exit that brand and get quite a good chunk of money for doing so, and then start off in a different niche and do the whole process again. So I would recommend focusing on one niche if you can, but I think just at the beginning to gain the experience. I say a lot of paper to so try and different products.

[00:21:35] Nola: Well, that's a really great strategy. Can you just give us a few more details about how people might choose their first product to sell and market on Amazon?

[00:21:44] Anna: In fact, I do a free program on there because it is one of the things that everyone asks me and it's called the Amazon profits. Accelerator tend to do it once a month. Sometimes it might be every sort of six week. And this is what I go through is finding the first product at the end of the three days, you should have that first product picked. So I just thought I'd jump in there and offer that so that it's less than what I did. I think the first step is just brainstorming all the different products and ideas of different categories and different products you've seen, maybe go onto QVC, go on amazon.com forward slash live. Go onto different, you know, I've got a social account purely for research. Because I sell bamboo products. I follow all these different bamboo brands on Instagram. And then they'll advertise back to me with their new products. And it gives me ideas and not saying, okay, write and copy them, but it gives me ideas of product bundles I can do with, or maybe go onto Pinterest and research products. Go onto Google, have a look at Google trends of what the most common things that people are searching for. Another strategy is I have a look at amazon.com. So the US platform, and see what products you in the US. So I can bring that product to the UK. And you could also probably do that with maybe some of the other European countries or maybe Australia just have a look at different marketplaces, have a look on Etsy, and then have a look on Amazon. What products are not being sold on Amazon because the same customer might want that product next day. Whereas it an Etsy seller can't deliver it next day. And then you really need to get kind of like a, a key elementary lesson, the at seat interview. Yeah. It's SEO, it's keywords. It's what are people typing into Amazon? What is the demand? But we don't want really to be going for those saturated products or if we do, how can we be different? Because you've got to think who is my customer? How can I stand out? Can I do a different color? Could I have a different material, could have bundle something where there that nobody else is doing, what is going to be my unique selling proposition to the customer. And, um, rather than all get or slap my logo on it. And I'll just hope for the best. 

[00:23:44] Lori: There's so much to learn about selling online, especially selling on Amazon is they continue to grow and you've shared so much information here. We hope that you'll come back again so we can explore some other topics and take some deeper dives. That would be great. But before we wrap up today, just to give listeners an idea of a little bit more about you. If there was to be a superhero named after you. What would that name be? 

[00:24:15] Anna: I love the question. Definitely gotta be wonder woman. That sounds really big-headed, and the only reason I'm saying that I've recently been, I'm looking long term vision at different investments, different things. I've been learning a lot around NFTs and I've recently got all the NFTs that is Wonder Woman. 

[00:24:43] Lori: Oh, you shouldn't. Do you see my, my poster back here is that is Wonder Woman. 

[00:24:48] Anna: Is it Invisible Woman as well or Incredible Woman who 

[00:24:52] Lori: I like Icredible Woman. I think you would be an Incredible Woman.

[00:24:56] Anna: So you definitely gotta be one of those, I think because yeah, I'm obviously always of empowering, inspiring women and I think there's women, we can help each other a lot. We can just empower each other and really support each other. You know, I've got this goal that I really want to inspire and impact a million women globally.

[00:25:14] Lori: Oh, wow. We'll get on that bandwagon. 

[00:25:17] Anna: Yeah.

[00:25:22] Nola: That's awesome. So thank you so much for being our guest. I can't wait to have you back in the meantime, if someone wants to learn more about you and your offerings or services, where should listeners go? How can they connect with you? 

[00:25:37] Anna: So I mentioned about the Free program I do, the Amazon profits accelerates. I do that on a Facebook group. So if you jump onto my Facebook profile, find Anna Davidson, there's a link in my bio with details of that. And the same with Instagram. On Instagram, you've got to put in The Anna Davidson because they say many of us. I'm obviously the one you can also get the Anna davidson.com as well.

[00:26:02] Nola: Okay. And we'll be sure to have all of those links in our show notes as well. So thank you so much for. To this episode, we hope it makes all the difference in you getting started on your business so you can create your best and most exciting life. If you found the information shared here today, helpful let us know by posting here where you're listening or on our Facebook page, 

[00:26:23] Lori: Not sure how to turn your idea into a profitable side business? Contact us at stickybrandlab.com/contact We'd be happy to help you. 

[00:26:33] Nola: Be sure to come back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for another informative, inspiring and motivating episode. And remember action creates results. So tap into your desire to create a business and brand you love by taking one percent action every day. Small steps, big effects.
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