Amazon Physical Product Sales - Ask me Anything!

[stretch361]

Hello,

I've been on BHW for a while (mainly a lurker), but I've been selling physical products for a long time on eBay, Amazon, and our own websites. Since late 2011 (2 years), my company has generated over $6.5 million in sales. Very few if anyone talks about selling physical products here on BHW.

This thread is mainly a response to a recent thread by Dan da Man. He had a very valuable thread that gave out a lot of great information, and I figured I would help.

Most of my expertise is on Amazon physical product sales. If you have any questions, I'll try to do my best to answer them in a timely manner!

 

[teribithia]

Dear I want to expand my product brand popularity. How to get so much product test and reviews from buyer in internet gadget computer and ... review sites.

I search my brand just got less than 10 "real review" in gadgets site in google.

When I search my Competitor, there are hundreds , I think they may send some sample to get review.

how to do that?

 

[Veyron]

Well, I guess my first question would be:

"Do you have proof that you've generated $6,500,000 in gross sales"?

Just some screenshots or even a brief video would suffice.

If you can prove that you've generated this much revenue then yes, I'd have quite a few questions for you.

Veyron

 

[stretch361]

Dear I want to expand my product brand popularity. How to get so much product test and reviews from buyer in internet gadget computer and ... review sites.

I search my brand just got less than 10 "real review" in gadgets site in google.

When I search my Competitor, there are hundreds , I think they may send some sample to get review.

how to do that?

Are you selling the items yourself on Amazon, or are you referring to others selling your brand?

 

[stretch361]

Well, I guess my first question would be:

"Do you have proof that you've generated $6,500,000 in gross sales"?

Just some screenshots or even a brief video would suffice.

If you can prove that you've generated this much revenue then yes, I'd have quite a few questions for you.

Veyron

I sent you a PM with a screenshot of one of our Amazon accounts. I'm not too keen on posting it for everyone to see. That one has $5.4 million gross since 12/1/2011.

 

[banchi08]

What kind of products are you selling, are you making your own?

I'm also planning to get my feet wet into oem/odm, setting up a brand and such, do you have any tips for me?

 

[stretch361]

What kind of products are you selling, are you making your own?

I'm also planning to get my feet wet into oem/odm, setting up a brand and such, do you have any tips for me?

We mainly sell products we have purchased wholesale. We've also done some dropshipping as well. We imported a few items directly from China, but never specifically branded anything. That is on our list of "to dos".

Sorry, OEM is one area I can't be terribly helpful with!

 

[banchi08]

We mainly sell products we have purchased wholesale. We've also done some dropshipping as well. We imported a few items directly from China, but never specifically branded anything. That is on our list of "to dos".

Sorry, OEM is one area I can't be terribly helpful with!

Ok, so did you start small, and do you deal directly with manufacturers? I've already got a couple of contacts in China, but their minimum order quantity is 100pcs/design which I find way too many for my startup. So how was your starting inventory? And how about importing duties, do you have the shipments undervalued?

Thanks so much.

 

[stretch361]

Ok, so did you start small, and do you deal directly with manufacturers? I've already got a couple of contacts in China, but their minimum order quantity is 100pcs/design which I find way too many for my startup. So how was your starting inventory? And how about importing duties, do you have the shipments undervalued?

Thanks so much.

Yes, I actually started extremely small. Started in 2005 throwing money on a credit card. The key was to source product I knew I could sell within 30 days. That way, when the credit card was due, I just paid it off. Luckily, it was a part time gig for a few years. I would buy a case at a time - in most cases would be 6/12/24/48 just depending on the supplier and the product. As I sold more product, I would just continuously pump the money back into the business. By 2008, I did almost $400,000 of revenue...out of my basement. In 2009 is when I decided to finally get my own warehouse, and that's when I started doing it full time.

I do deal directly with manufacturers. There are some products that we carry that we aren't quite large enough to buy directly from the manufacturer. In those cases, they'll send you to a distributor.

For the China stuff, it was mainly just small purchases on Aliexpress.com. Be careful though - I did end up getting screwed on one deal. They claimed it was a genuine product. Received it, and it wasn't a genuine product. In hindsight, I would have just asked for a 1 piece sample to be sent ahead of time. The loss was about $900. There's a whole story behind that one. Long story short, credit card company was involved, Aliexpress wouldn't do anything. Seller walked away scot free.

On the import duties, a few of the sellers on their own would just purposely mark down the prices to save on the duties. There were a few where we got nice large bills from Fedex or DHL. I'm sure if I ended up doing more business in China, I would be more diligent in tracking down the exact costs.

 

[SPQR]

Now that you have made a decent amount, what kind of staff do you hire? Also, may I have a screenshot?

 

[stretch361]

Now that you have made a decent amount, do you own a warehouse of goods -- or do you mainly do affiliate and dropshipping?

We upgraded to a 25,000 Sq ft warehouse this year. We also use Amazon FBA extensively - our monthly warehousing bills from Amazon range between $1300-$2500 per month, depending on the time of year.

We don't do a ton of dropshipping or affiliate. One of the goals moving into 2014 is to diversify holdings. I'm moving into affiliate, dropshipping, adsense sites, and education.

Here's something to think about with physical products. This year alone at one point, I had $1 million of product, mostly on credit. Like most retail businesses, you are banking on 2-3 months out of the year to generate most of your profits. So essentially, I have a $1 million bounty on my head every year...banking we'll sell through enough product. Want to talk about nerve racking...

 

[Cryptocurrency]

What kind of products do you usually sell? I have heard that electronics are the best to sell on Amazon, but I am worried I will not be able to sell anything.

 

[thedorf]

Say you have 1000 products in a store - how do you build backlinks to the inner pages of your websites? Or do you? Are you using organic search for traffic?

 

[stretch361]

What kind of products do you usually sell? I have heard that electronics are the best to sell on Amazon, but I am worried I will not be able to sell anything.

We've probably sold things in almost every category EXCEPT media/books, and electronics. Let's put it this way - our philosophy was, if we can get it wholesale at a price that is profitable for us, it has a good sales ranking on amazon, and amazon themselves doesn't sell it - it was fair game.

 

[stretch361]

Say you have 1000 products in a store - how do you build backlinks to the inner pages of your websites? Or do you? Are you using organic search for traffic?

The key isn't to necessarily worry about backlinks for the product pages themselves in general. Here's the best way to look at it... Every category on your website is a separate "niche". Treat those inner category pages exactly how you would treat any standard niche site, then treat the product pages like you would treat inner pages on a niche site.

For inner product pages, your best bet is to see what products you make the most margin on, and potentially would have the highest volume. Those are the products you should for sure be writing good quality content on / sales pages. Set up google alerts for any keyword mentions on that product (buzzbundle works great for this). Anytime you see any mention of the product, how to use it, or anything related to it, do a backlink to that page. In reality, those links might not drive up your rankings for a specific keyword, but it will drive quality traffic to your inner product pages - which inherently drive sales.

 

[jem001]

I sent you a PM with a screenshot of one of our Amazon accounts. I'm not too keen on posting it for everyone to see. That one has $5.4 million gross since 12/1/2011.

Hey, can i see c ur screenshot too? And my question is "is Playstation 4 a good product to promote? I'm currently promoting it right now and no sales so far! can u help?

 

[stretch361]

Hey, can i see c ur screenshot too? And my question is "is Playstation 4 a good product to promote? I'm currently promoting it right now and no sales so far! can u help?

I just sent it via PM. I'm not necessarily going to send it out to anyone else, and I'm going to remove the file shortly. Hopefully the information already provided in the thread can help show that I'm legitimately here to help people.

As far as Playstation 4... are you trying to promote this on Amazon? What sites are you trying to promote this on?

 

[jem001]

Post/Comment Removed!

 

[jem001]

I just sent it via PM. I'm not necessarily going to send it out to anyone else, and I'm going to remove the file shortly. Hopefully the information already provided in the thread can help show that I'm legitimately here to help people.

As far as Playstation 4... are you trying to promote this on Amazon? What sites are you trying to promote this on?

I have a link from amazon for it! I'm promoting it on different classified ad sites like craigslist, backpage and more!

 

[Dan Da Man]

Awesome thread. For you guys wanting to see his proof, just look at what the guy has written so far. You can tell just by those responses that he knows what he is talking about. I have talked with stretch361 via email and he DEFINITELY knows his stuff.

So... Stop asking for proof! He knows his stuff