What is Amazon FBA..? What is the Amazon FBA Program?

Amazon FBA is a program fulfilled by Amazon 'the company' to fulfill your products, orders, packaging, and shipments in their fulfillment centers on Autopilot without you putting in the work on the distribution and shipment side of your business for a 'Fee' that Amazon charges for every sale you make on their platform. There are over 300 million customers on Amazon with over 150 million prime members all around the world of which $3.5 billion + sales through third-party sellers have accounted for the year 2020-21.

Your strategy

Firstly you need to consider which selling strategy fits you best. You can either:

1. Resell existing Amazon Products
2. Become a Brand Owner on Amazon FBA and work with suppliers and manufacturers to produce the product that you want to be made after scouting the Amazon Marketplace and picking out the niche and product that is a competitive market to sell on.

You have two options or plans to choose from when you first create your Amazon Seller Account.

1. Individual Seller - You sell less than 40 products a month without requiring any tools, all your doing is deciding what to sell with limited control over your selling listing.
2. Professional Seller - You sell more than 40 products a month, with complete access to your seller dashboard, Programs, tools, and reports.

How to get started?

Sign up for Amazon FBA

The next step you want to take is to sign up on Amazon FBA

To sign up with Amazon FBA, there are 4 simple steps:

1. Create your Amazon Seller Account
2. Create your product listings
3. Prepare your products
4. Ship your products to Amazon

1. Choose which selling strategy you would like to start with; Individual seller or a professional seller.
2. Complete your registration process and fill out your personal details including your bank account number and routing number/BSB number, your credit card/bank card details, government ID's Drivers license, passport, etc, Your tax information, and your mobile number.
3. To start selling your product on Amazon FBA, you need to create a product listing on the seller central page. There is another way to create a product listing and that is via Shopify or any other e-commerce website where you can connect your e-commerce website to your Amazon account, and that way you can create your product from let's say Shopify and it will automatically import the products for you on your Amazon seller central account.
4. If you're going to do it through your Amazon Seller Central account, you need a GTIN number "Product Identifier" which is an ID product code which you can get from here.
5. You also need to get an SKU code ID number so you can track your inventory which Amazon will generate for you automatically when you create your product after providing your GTIN ID number to the original product listing.
6. Fill out the details that are remaining including price, the condition of the product, how many pieces you're sending to Amazon's fulfillment center, and your shipping options.

How much does Amazon FBA Cost?

Well, you have 2 options to sign up for within their fee's structure:

• Individual Selling Plan which has "no subscriptions fee's" but it does have a $0.99 fee for every product you sell.
• Professional Selling Plan which charges you a subscription payment plan of $39.99 USD Per Month. There is No Fee for every product you sell, however.

There are 2 Amazon FBA fees that you need to know about before progressing further.

1.Amazon Fulfillment Fee: Amazon charges each fulfillment of a product depending on its product size. If it's a small product size, they'll charge you an average of about $3.32 per unit. If it's a big product size, they'll charge you on average $4.95 per unit.
2. FBA Label Service: If you or your supplier/manufacturer have no Barcode labels on each of your products that Amazon provides you to stick on each product, you will be charged $0.30 per item fee
3. FBA Prep Service: If you or your supplier/manufacturer do no prep and package your products "properly" according to Amazon's packaging guidelines, Amazon will do it for you automatically but you will incur a fee of $0.50 per individual product for not doing it yourself or the supplier not doing it properly. If your products are "oversized", then the prep and packaging fee will be $1.60 instead.

Your products being made from Alibaba is a separate thing on its own, and we will discuss that a bit further down this blog article, including the cost of shipping from China "Alibaba" to the US FBA Fulfillment center.

So this is the gist of pretty much the costs involved with Amazon FBA Fulfillments and processing.


How To Make Money Online on Amazon FBA

Well, the first thing you have to do is to do Market Research. Market research involves going and visiting Amazon and spend a day or a few days studying the market and the kinds of products that "Sell" in different niches and making notes on how you want to "strategize and position yourself" in the Amazon Marketplace.

There are 4 categories that you need to request approval from Amazon if you want to sell in those categories and I think you should know them before starting out so you have a clear idea of what you can sell without request and what you can sell but needing a request.

The following categories that need request approval by Amazon are:

1. Jewelry
2. Music
3. Videos, DVD's and Blue-rays
4. Watches

All four categories require a request approval from Amazon, the rest does not need request approvals.

To show you the categories that Amazon allows you to sell without request approvals, here they are:

1. Baby Products
2. Books { Paperback and Kindle eBooks, Amazon KDP }
3. Camera's and Photos
4. Computers and Video Games
5. Consumer Electronics
6. Groceries
7. Health, Drugs, and Medicine
8. Home and Garden " Including Pets "
9. Musical Instruments
10. Office Products
11. Personal Computers, Laptops, Desktops
12. Pet products and supplies
13. Software
14. Sport Products
15. Tools and Hardware
16. Toys and Games
17. Video Games

Let's say you decided to sell in the category for Pets and your sub-category would be "Cats". Let's assume you would like to sell and dominate in the micro-niche for "Cat Toys". So, when you get to that acknowledgment, study the products that you see listed in them. I'm watching this page and there are 3,000 results in this micro-niche and you can tell it has a good market by the number of reviews you see under each product. I will also direct you to a website that shows you the actual number of orders a particular product makes later on in this blog article. So go through the products and figure out what kind of "cat toys" that you would like to make and sell. Most of the time people who use Amazon FBA get their products made and changed by their suppliers and manufacturers on Alibaba. Alibaba is the main source of suppliers and manufacturers that will build, change and make the product how you want it to be.

The most important way to be successful on Amazon FBA are:

1. Find the product that you want to sell in a "competitive to a somewhat competitive market" i.e the Cat market.
2. Is there a way where you can change something slightly "better or different" for a product that's "already selling on Amazon".
3. Your supplier and manufacturer on Alibaba are more than happy to re-create, change or make the appearance of the product better looking or better to use which requires a little extra fee by your supplier but it is worth it to add that extra fee with your supplier to re-create and apply different things about the product "that's already selling" to differentiate yourself from the competitive competition.

There is a powerful tool available to Amazon FBA Sellers which would show you the products or niche's your interested in and exactly how much money they're making. This powerful tool needs to be used if you want to find that winning product to compete. It is called Jungle Scout right here.

Jungle Scout is not only used to find those products/niches that are doing really well, but they also opened up an interface on their website after you sign up where you can even start selling on Amazon via their channel on their own website to help you succeed even further. So you can sign up on jungle scout if you want to create products from their end or you can use their service to only find the product/niche's that show you which are the best and winning products that are making it rain.

Another helpful tip here is after finding the product that you want to compete with, go to their reviews section and read what customers think of the product. Go to the issues and problems that people are finding about the product i.e the 3-star reviews and below that and find out why and what these customers are complaining about, and their complaining is your opportunity for the make-up of your product. So if you combine the best thing about the product in this case "a particular Cat Toy" and you build upon that with the complaints and problems with the product, and fix and re-create or apply those problems and issue these problems to your supplier/manufacturer, well then you've just created a magnificent product with zero customer flaws that solve everybody's needs and problems and there's your success product right there making so much money for you and then you repeat the process for other products of the future.

Also, make sure you use the correct "keywords" in the title of your product so it can be seen by customer search intent. When people search for cats or cat toys, make sure in your listing you've got the "search customer keywords that they are searching for" in your title, but do not overdo it. To find out what people search for on the Amazon search bar, and let's assume you're going after cat toys, type in the search bar the word 'cat', and Amazon's algorithm will show you what customers are searching for. So if I type in "cat" I get on the first list of the search "Cat Toys", so there you go, make sure you got that keyword in your title as Amazon shows you in their search what people search for.

FBA { Fulfillment By Amazon } or FBM { Fulfillement By Merchant }

You have two options as a seller on Amazon in which you get to decide who fulfills your products.

1. FBM: If you chose your Supplier/Manufacturer to fulfill your products for you, then Amazon won't charge you for Packaging and Preparations including Label Services. When you choose this option for Amazon FBM, you or your supplier have the responsibility to prepare, package and ship your products much slower than if Amazon FBA does it. So it would be a slower way to get your products to the customer. The advantage here is, Your products get exposed and seen on the Amazon Marketplace which is great, but can you facilitate your products and ship them fast and efficiently to your customer's door? .. You know best!

2. FBA: Amazon will fulfill your products and packaging for you for a fee and everything else is automated so you can focus on sales.

With Amazon FBA, you as a seller have the advantage for items that are eligible for Amazon Prime Free Two-day Shipping which means by using Amazon FBA, all customers at least in the USA get your product within 2 business days and for Free Shipping on top of that as well making your product or your brand attractive to your customer knowing that they can get your product Fast within 2 days.

So how does Fulfillment by Amazon Work? Easy...

1. Ship your inventory from Alibaba "China Mainland" to the US. They will scan and make your products available for sale.
2. Each order a customer places, Amazon packages and ships your product directly to the customer.
3. Amazon will then collect the payment from the customer and pay you the difference every two weeks.
4. Amazon handles all your customer's concerns, questions, returns, and refunds.

Global Expansion Via Amazon Global Exports

When you first sign up onto Amazon Seller Central, they give you the option of which marketplace you would like to sell to. Mostly everyone will choose the United States for simple reasons that it is the biggest market to make money online and sell to. Later on, after you make steady sales, you can then have the option to "Turn ON" from your account settings Global exports which allows Amazon to sell your products all around the world without you doing anything. This option is powerful once it's turned on, as your marketplace demographic expands to the rest of the world which means more huge opportunities to make money online.

Amazon Advertising Network

You can advertise your products on the Amazon Advertising Network to increase your sales, profits, and demand in the marketplace over other third-party sellers. You can increase your visibility and profitability including sales of course by creating "sponsored ads" that is very easy to set up and get started.

There are two kinds of Sponsored Ads

1. Sponsored Products
2. Sponsored Brands

The first one applies to most sellers, which is a tool to create an advertising campaign for your product which would appear on the product listings on Amazon's Shopping Marketplace feed as well as appearing on other people's detail page.

The second one applied to Amazon Brand Sellers which when creating and running a Sponsored Brand Ad campaign, you get to showcase your brand and product portfolio, your logo, your customized headings, and the selections of your products including adding rich media content like videos giving you the opportunity to grow fast because it will be shown to customers that you are an Amazon Brand positioned on the high end of Amazon.

The higher tier advanced Ad type is reserved for Brands which any person can apply for by the way, but you need to fill out an application and pay about $1200. I will be talking about Amazon Brand further below in this blog article should you decide to go ahead and make it happen for yourself and make those big bucks, because the advantages and edge you get over other sellers through Amazon Branding is where the bread is at.

What makes a great Amazon FBA Seller?

First of all, your first 90 days of doing business on Amazon FBA are very important. Think of it as your testing period on whether you're going to make it or you going to lose, which is very important to make sure you do everything right by Amazon and follow the steps down below to maximize your chances of making it with Amazon FBA.

1. You have something on your account inside your seller central called "Account Health". Make sure that your account health is optimized and that everything is running smoothly without any problems.
2. Use Fulfilled by Amazon which is fast, efficient, and convenient to automate the distribution, packaging, and shipping process.
3. Advertise your product listings using sponsored products on the Amazon Advertising Network to boost your sales processes.
4. Enrol in Amazon's Brand Registry { which we will talk about next } and create your enhanced brand content page.
5. Increase your product type or variations to increase the chance of making sales in case 1 particular product isn't doing well.
6. In your seller central account, you have a button called "Automate Pricing Tool'. Make Sure you turn that on.
7. Go to your settings and turn on "Exports" so Amazon can sell your products all over the globe.

How to have a successful listing for a successful launch

To make sure you have a great impact on your sales and your account health with an increasing level of success, please make sure you list your products on Amazon FBA the right way.

1. If you have a product that comes in with different shapes, colors or sizes then please make sure you create "Variations" for that product. Just a quick tip! when shipping your products either from your own home, office, or from your Alibaba manufacturer, Amazon will tell you when your "preparing" your shipping label to have "each variation in their own package box". Meaning do not have all different variations sent off to the Amazon fulfillment center in one box. "Each product variation must be in their own package box" and each variation box, Amazon will tell you to download the shipping label for each "variation" after you complete your shipping label for each variation.
2. Your images for your product listing must have a pixel of at least 500 x 500. If you have a High-Quality Image, then you can use a pixel of 1,000 x 1,000. The product must fit at least 80% of the image area, and the background should be White.
3. Make sure you input the right Product ID's GTINs or UPC's. Sku's are created automatically by Amazon so no need to worry here.

Amazon Seller on Mobile

After finalizing everything and you have everything in place and you're ready to sell, You can go ahead and download the "Amazon Seller App" on your apple or android play store which is easy to navigate your seller's dashboard for any sales made and other metrics including managing your inventory over the phone app, finding out how much inventory you have, research and sell other products, Manage orders and including checking on your Amazon Ads.


Amazon Brand Registry

Would you like to have a "Special" edge over everyone else on the Amazon Marketplace? Amazon has created something special in the area of branding for those of us that want to sell as a Brand and have special privileges over everybody else.

Welcome to Amazon Brand Registry where you can build and protect your products and your brand from other shady sellers mimicking your products and pretending to be you and selling your mimicked products on Amazon or eBay marketplace.
Enrolling in the Amazon Brand Registry opens a suite of high way advanced tools to build and protect your brand, creating better experiences for your customers around the world.

Visit the Amazon Brand Registry here and enroll now.

Building your brand on Amazon via FBA is such a special way to do business on the higher tier end of the marketplace. You will get 3 different components for your enrolled Brand that makes you different than everybody else.

1. A + Content demonstrates and helps businesses build and showcase a great Branding story for their customers including product features and design features including rich text, rich images, and videos on the detail page of their product listing which helps drive conversions easier than other sellers, which also increases traffic coming towards you creating easy sales.
2. You also have been given a powerful advertising tool called "Sponsored Brands" a tool only available to Amazon Brands that give them leverage on top of the competition, allowing you to feature in your logo, and up to 3 product listings you have in the inventory.
3. Amazon gives Brands a special treat which is an Amazon Brand Store if that wasn't enough already, allowing you to promote an Amazon Brand Website inside of Amazon with multi-pages in the store for FREE.

You're also given an Amazon Brand Analytics Tool to get some really powerful data. When you are enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, you get options that are not available to the normal seller because there is a barrier to entry to become a brand. To become an Amazon Brand, you need to fill out applications and pay about $1200 to process that application. Amazon has partnered with about 5 Trademark attorney companies, which Amazon co-signes on your behalf allowing the process to be a Brand that happens faster throughout the Amazon Ecosystem.

Using Amazon Brand, you get tools nobody has which for here includes stuff like searching powerful search terms, finding out which products are doing well, finding search terms and where they rank, an all-exclusive powerful tool for the elites of Amazon if you are an Amazon Brand. You also happen to get customer behavior reporting, you also get a proactive brand protection that is automated by Amazon designed to look for any seller trying to mimic or do suspicious infringment on your products and brand. You can also reprot violations if you happen to see any being made that has come to your attnetion and Amazon will get rid of that asap allowing you to have a pretty safe cool experience for your customers.

Let's answer a few questions you may have in mind

How many Brands does Amazon have?

Amazon has more than 500,000 Brands registered

What is the Amazon Brand called?

It's called Amazon Brand Registry

What does Amazon Brand mean?

It means Amazon provides a service called Amazon Brand Registry, allowing sellers to become Brands on Amazon.com

Is selling on Amazon FBA worth it?

Yes it's worth it, if you start small with one product while having a good profit margin after Fulfillement fees.

Can Amazon FBA make you rich?

Yes it can if you chose the right product and did everything written in this article

How to ship products from Alibaba to Amazon FBA

Well, the first thing we have to do and deal with is to open and sign up on Alibaba right here.
sign up and then scout the Chinese marketplace. You need to have somewhat of a checklist when browsing around whether it is to find a product or finding a trusted supplier/manufacturer.
There are 2 rules you should go by when dealing with Alibaba suppliers.

1. They must be Verified Suppliers
2. They must have Trade Assurance

I would also like to suggest that it would be better if they have been in business 5 years + but that's up to you on that one.

If you're trying to create an Amazon Brand for your products, you need to have a logo made and a product label design. If you dont know how to get or create a logo and a design label for your product, hire somebody from Fiverr in the graphics and logo design category and tell them what you need made and they'll create something cool for your branded products. Also, let them know what the product is, so they know the dimensions or pixels for each area of the product, etc...

How do I get my products from Alibaba to Amazon FBA?

After you get your design made, head over to Alibaba and speak to the supplier about the particular product you'd like to private label. There are a few points to consider when speaking with the customer service of the manufactureres and or suppliers.

1. Please speak English, but do no complicate your words otherwise they would not understand you. Basic English would do.

2. Have them clarify and confirm on the things you guys have talked about so both of you understand what the call to action is.

3. Ask them about the products, if the products need safety certificate labels for hazards or chocking, or a kid's safety certificate depending on what the product is, the material used to manufacture the product, is the product safe for use or consumption depending on Amazon's guidelines, how big is the product, dimensions, etc...

4. Ask them if they're familiar with Amazon FBA, and talk to them and let them know that you're an Amazon seller.

5. Ask them about the barcodes, can they make the barcodes, or would you want Amazon to create the barcodes for you for a fee.

6. They will ask you for your images, logo, label design, etc.. supply them that. They will have it digitized so you can see how it may look when it's done. If your happy with it, ask for real samples with your logo and label designes attached and have them delivered to your house to inspect the product and to make sure everything is the way you want before they create your mass production.

7. Like I aways say, when it comes to testing the market especially when it comes to Amazon FBA, always start small. Somehwere between 10-50 pieces of the product is the goal here, nothing more please becasue Amazon prefers that too.

8. Create shipment from your Amazon Seller Central page, and fill in the details about the product. If your product comes with variations i.e color or size, please create shipment for "each variation". Do not mix the variations together.

9. Click shipment label, download the label for each product or for each variation, and send the shipment label to your Alibaba supplier/manufacturer in the Alibaba chat. Make sure they place the shipment label where Amazon wants it to be placed.

10. Your supplier will send off your finished product to the fulfillment center address shown on the shipment label. Please also realize that you will be paying for shipping with the costs of those products in your Alibaba account.

When choosing an Alibaba product, please make sure the product is not registered, branded, or patented so you have the ability to sell it without any problems to trademark claims.

Is the product considered a dangerous good to Amazon FBA? If yes, then you need to find out from Amazon if the particualr product is allowed under their guidelines of restricted products that your allowed to bring in, so before you go ahead with anything with regards to your Alibaba supplier/manufacture, find out if the product is dangerous or prohibited or restricted by Amazon FBA.

When choosing a manufacturer/supplier, speak to at least 10 suppliers so you can get a better deal. Always ask for discounts, and find out what their Minimum order quantity is MOQ and negotiate that if you can.

Now let's answer some questions about Alibaba and Amazon FBA

Can you ship from Alibaba to Amazon FBA? Yes you can

Is Alibaba good for Amazon FBA? Yes it is because you would find the best deals, at a cheap price with many products to choose from.

Is it legal to buy from Alibaba and Sell on Amazon? Yes, it's perfectly legal.

Thank you for reading this blog article, hopefully you now have a step by step system that will easily navigate your way to an Amazon FBA Success story. If you are looking for another business model, visit the open marketplace here at "Make Money Online" where you get to post and share with other entrepreneurs and business owners on any business model that you would like to know about while exchanging your ideas, strategies, knowedlge, practical advice, experience and action steps to making your financial freedom a reality by choosing a business model that fits well with your personality.