TAS 139 : Ask Scott Session #38 - FBA Amazon Questions

The most amazing part of having an Amazon Private Label business is that it allows you to build your own real business to support your family and the lifestyle you desire. And there’s a huge community of people making their living this way, and most of them are inside Scott’s TAS community on Facebook. On this episode you’re going to hear Scott’s congrats to one of the members of that community for the great success he’s beginning to see in his business. Be sure to listen to this “Ask Scott” episode to hear that shout-out and to hear some very practical questions answered.

 

What kind of budget should I have to get started with an Amazon private label business from scratch?

 

A listener to the show asks a very important question today regarding the beginning stages of beginning a business like Scott has on Amazon. It’s all about budget. How much money should you expect to put into the launch phase of your new Amazon business? Scott says “it depends,” on your product, your niche, and lots of other things - but overall he thinks you should try for around $5,000 to get started, even though there have been some very successful sellers who began with much, much less. Listen to this epiosode to hear Scott’s full answer and to get your head around the steps involved in finding a product, producing it, and getting it into Amazon to sell.

 

I want to double check the quality of my products before sending them to Amazon, but I live in Sweden. What do you suggest?

 

International Amazon sellers definitely have some unique hurdles to get past in order to build a successful business that sells on the U.S. Amazon store.One of those has to do with assuring product quality when it comes from an overseas supplier. Scott typically recommends that you have your products sent to you before sending them to Amazon, exactly SO you can check the quality before it goes to Amazon. But for international sellers that requires an extra shipping step and therefore an extra expense. There are some creative ways current international sellers have dealt with that issue, and Scott highlights some of those things on this episode, so be sure to hear his explanations.

 

I’m new to this Amazon private label thing. What’s a UPC code and what is it used for?

 

Ahhh...the mysterious UPC code. What is it that’s encoded into that numeric and striped barcode? It’s not really all that difficult and Scott’s going to cover it on this episode. Basically, Amazon uses the UPC code to ensure the proper identification of your product. For that reason, every product or variation of a product has to have its own unique UPC code. That means that a bundle of products would need an individual UPC code that is different from each of the products inside that bundle. It sounds confusing but it’s not. Listen to this episode to hear Scott’s run down of how Amazon uses UPC codes and how you can get UPCs to go on your products.

 

How do you determine what product supplier to use when they all are vying for your business by dropping the prices on each other?

A listener has a very good problem. He’s been researching his products from a handful of suppliers and each of them keeps dropping their prices based on the quotes the others are giving him. He’s trying to decide which supplier he should use and feels bad to turn down these suppliers that he’s had such long conversations with. Scott’s got some great insights into this issue and points out that it’s not only a pricing issue. There’s also supply issues, turnaround time, shipping methods and times, and more. For some powerfully important things to consider when sourci