I have thoroughly enjoyed my journey of learning how to sell on Amazon, honestly. Â The trial and error, the wins, the losses, and the stalemates have brought me to where I am today. Â The only thing that I do wish is that I would have implemented a few strategies earlier.
This isn’t a regret, per se.  Just knowing what I do now I realize my business would be in an even better position had I implemented just three tactics much earlier in my business.  These three things are what I am going to share with you.
Networking
Many months passed by before I ever posted in any Amazon related Facebook groups. Â Mostly this is because I was worried I may ask a stupid question and make a fool of myself. Â In retrospect this was foolish.
When I started to participate more in groups and actually network with people my knowledge about how to sell on Amazon grew by leaps and bounds.  People would actually share information with me.  They would teach me tactics I didn’t know, share ideas on how to maximize profits, and so much more.
Many people were happy to share information. They wanted to see me succeed. Â They even wanted to go out of their way to help little old me. Â I know now that this is not uncommon in the Amazon community. Â You need to jump into the deep end and start gleaning information from those people who have made mistakes and overcome them. Â Doing this will help you in ways you can only imagine.
Online Arbitrage
In the beginning, I only knew of retail arbitrage.  It helped that I enjoyed the hunt.  It did not help that I was only able to practice the fine art of searching for money laying on store shelves only when I could shirk my responsibilities at work and home.  Had I known earlier that I could supplement my sourcing with a virtual assistant or with the help of a software program like Tactical Arbitrage I believe I would have been able to become a full-time seller much faster.
I also could have used the assistance of a VA to source for me while I slaved away at my day job. Â Either of these methods would have helped me find and sell products at a faster rate than grinding away in stores.
Just to clarify, I am not knocking retail arbitrage. Â I still believe it is an important part of an Amazon business. Â I still source at retail stores and I still love it. Â I just think that diversifying your stream of product sources is extremely important. Â Especially as the competition in the Amazon marketplace increases.
Don’t Pack Boxes
If I wasn’t out sourcing I was at home packing boxes to ship to Amazon.  This is likely the case for many people just learning how to sell on Amazon.  I think that it is something we should all know how to do and then we should all quickly move that responsibility away from ourselves.
Packing boxes does not make you or I any money. Â Sourcing product makes us money. Â I suggest finding a prep and ship company that will accept your retail finds. Â Here in Ohio (where I am located) we just happen to have a great option with buckeyeprep2prime.com. Â They will gladly accept retail arbitrage items as well as online arbitrage shipments. Â If you do solely online arbitrage and would like to deal with someone in a tax-free state you should look no further than primezeroprep.com. Â These folks really have a handle on how to take care of your business like it is their own.
Conclusion
There are several other business changing ideas I have learned over the past few years. Â But these three tips would have helped me grow my business by leaps and bounds from the very beginning.
I hope that you will implement one or all of these in your business as you learn how to sell on Amazon. Â If I can personally help you in any way please reach out to me.
Finally, what tips have you learned that could help someone else grow their business faster? Â Share it in the comments.
Audentes Fortuna Juvat
Chris
Hey Chris,
Great post. I am still relatively new and learning. These are all great tips. I do only OA as I am in a wheelchair and it makes it hard to do RA. I agree 100% about the networking; it has helped me out tremendously. Tactical Arbitrage pays for itself in just one hour. Thanks for sharing your experience and for all your videos and post on Facebook to help everybody out.
-Gary
Gary,
I appreciate you brother. I appreciate your awesome attitude and what you do to give back to the FBA community! You are a winner in my book man!
I love the idea of finding a prep and ship company that will accept my retail finds since this is definitely taking far more of my time and energy than I would like, but doesn’t the extra postage from home to prep center then prep center fees plus more postage to Amazon FC negate most of the gains from RA?
Douglas,
thanks for reaching out man. It doesn’t necessarily have to beat into your bottom line. The key is to raise your top line revenue by taking $10 an hour jobs and giving them to other people.
This will free up your time to work on things that are top line revenue generating tactics.
Hope that helps