Amazon Physical Product Sales - Ask me Anything!

Harold Finch said:

I know that stretch's business is based off of selling Halloween costumes/props just to let everyone know. You're welcome

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That's one of our niches, yes. If someone really wants to know the niches we're in, it really wouldn't take too many google searches to find out. Considering my userid is the same as one of our old ebay userid's, it's not difficult to figure out.

My theory was, if people really wanted to know that information, they can search and find it themselves.

youtalkmedia said:

I am just wondering how you would find people who promote your competitors products. If i would like to get into contact with them, and offer them a bonus to start promoting mine, how would i go around doing that?

Thanks in advance,
Adrian

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Well, you can go on Amazon and look at the sellers that are selling the products. You can send them a message as if you are a buyer of a product. If you do so, I would recommend using a throw away email address for it. Amazon will filter out a lot of information in those emails, and potentially block the address.

Hi Stretch. Good initiative that you started this thread.

One question. Are there any ways to see public stats of sales figures of Amazon, or are there any Amazon research tools, that can tell you exactly how many of a certain product are sold? If not, how do you do your research?

With Ebay you can use Terapeak, or simply click "completed listings" and count manually. But I've never seen anything similar for Amazon.

ThreadKiller said:

Hi Stretch. Good initiative that you started this thread.

One question. Are there any ways to see public stats of sales figures of Amazon, or are there any Amazon research tools, that can tell you exactly how many of a certain product are sold? If not, how do you do your research?

With Ebay you can use Terapeak, or simply click "completed listings" and count manually. But I've never seen anything similar for Amazon.

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As far as I know, there aren't any specific research tools that give you actual sales numbers. You can use a site like http://camelcamelcamel.com/ that can give you historical sales rankings. The sales rankings themselves are probably the best indicator of the amount of sales an item has.

Once you've been selling in a specific category yourself, you can start to equate sales rankings vs. actual sales. An exercise you can do is to look at your past sales for a certain time period. Then, look at the buy box % for that ASIN in your Amazon reports. So, say have a listing in the toys & games category. Over the last 30 days, you sold 28 units. You look at your reports, and you've had the buy box for 30% of the time. 28 units / 30% = approx 93 units. So, you can assume this item sells just a little over 3 per day if you had the buy box 100% of the time. Now, look at camelcamelcamel, and see what the actual sales rankings were for that item during that same time period. Say the sales rankings bounced from 1,000 - 1,500 during that 30 day time span. That should give you a decent bracket to say if an item is in the 1,000-1,500 sales ranking in the toys / games category, there's approximately 3 sales per day. Keep in mind, these are all made up number for sales, but the underlying theory is accurate.

Do used, refurbished, or new consumer electronics sell better?

Gadsden said:

Do used, refurbished, or new consumer electronics sell better?

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Sorry, I've 100% stayed away from the electronics category. I can't give you a good answer here.

I want to do this something like you. I admire your method

Good information you have on here first year on amazon for me did 300k in sales.

stretch361 said:

Sorry, I've 100% stayed away from the electronics category. I can't give you a good answer here.

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I've heard that electronics are a bit risky because of the scammers who like to do things like swapping old products for new, and part swapping also...

Hello to all and to the person who started the thread stretch361, thanks for inspiring me and providing such an useful information. This thread was the reason for me to register in bhw.

So, I have some questions and will be grateful if you give me some answers. I'm into IM and work with amazon, but as an affiliate. In the good months I was able to make 10k+ visits/day through my aff links with a conversion rate 1-3%. But recently I've started to think about selling physical products myself instead of being just an aff and earning some %. So, I was thinking of making my own store and selling the products there, but your thread made me think of something else now. Can you please expain how does the amazon fullfilment thing work. I'm currently reading the documentation on amazon, but can't quite get it...I'm asking because I'm currently based in EU (Bulgaria), but want to sell mostly on the USA market and the shipment of the products is one of my biggest worries.

I'd be very happy if I can reach you on skype or some place where we can have a live conversation.

Cheers

To all of those who are wondering how many of a products i have through the years had the following experience as to what sells. This is tested and proven for monthly sales in the Health Category which is where I sell mostly

Based of sales rank on AMAZON

1k< more than 2000 units
1.1- 3k about 1800 units
4-7 k about 750 units
8-10k about 600 units
10-15k about 300 units
15-25k about 150 units
25k - 35k about 100 units
35k- 50k about 50 units
50k-75k about 30 units
75-125k about 20 units
125k -200k about 5 Units

The only time this has changed around christmas time where the numbers are just higher as the units go can't give you an exact number because I've only been through one holiday season but for me the increase was about 150%

This applies to most categories outside of electronics and books or ebooks which i have never been in.

Also for clothing category you can take the health number and 25% to them.

So if your trying to figure out how many of something to buy check the item.
Take the rank
now you have a number of items sold
take the number of sellers at about the same price within a dollar up or down of the buy box divide it by the number that sell and thats how many you can sell dont forget to add yourself to the number of sellers. Ive done that before.

Also if the item is being fulfilled by amazon make sure you get your items fulfilled by amazon and only consider the sellers that are getting fulfilled by amazon.

Hi again Stretch.

Been studying up on physical product sales now, very exciting.

Some more questions. Sorry if you might have answered them previously in the thread.

1. Are you using Amazon fulfillment anything? Or have you before? I see that you run warehouses now, if you still do Amazon fulfillment and storage as well, which stuff goes to your warehouse, and which stuff goes to Amazon? I would assume small, not too heavy, but quite expensive with good margins are best to keep at Amazon.

2. Suppose one sells 100 product every day from home storage AND via Amazon fulfillment. Are there any cool ways of keeping tracks of inventory, and sales for the small scale user? Thinking something in the way of bar-code scanning for private use. I would like to scan anything I sell, and that way have that product disappear automatically from my inventory list or database.

Thanks

EDIT: I see now that you do do Amazon Fulfillment. So I am very curious as to which products go from your warehouse, and which go from Amazon, and what are the criteria for what goes from where.

Thanks for your insight.
Very cool of you to pass along your experience. Please know its very much appreciated. As a new seller on Amazon, I can see the potential and already see success. The frustration im still running into is informational overload. There are so many things someone can do to drive outside traffic to their product page, so many fiverr gigs and freelance services that its frustrating to know what works best.

My question is... for someone who is setup, using FBA, and pushing their own brand in a fairly highly competitive product niche- what do you recommend as the fastest way to drive traffic initially to your listing?

Here is what I've completed so far but really interested to see if I'm on the right track or missing something:
1. basic website that is starting to get content rich with a buy link back to amazon listing.
2. social media outlets established but no real followers just padded slightly to start with paid likes etc...
3. optimized amazon listings- title, keywords, description
4. upgraded professional pics of product used all 9 available
5. created press releases but haven't sent or distributed because not sure how i should send them or even if thats effective for amazon listing? do i use a pr blasting service? where to i link back to???? my product page or website?
6. created animated how-to ex plainer video but minimally distributed because i'm not sure what distribution would be the most effective.
7. sold 17 total in two weeks, by using adwords and amazon ppc, initial reviews posted (4 only all positive)
8. setup all ppc campaigns and optimized

I know more sales + good seller rating + good feedback = higher ranking, better ranking for searches, and ultimately more sales... but in your opinion what is the best way in the beginning to increase ranking? what am i missing? PR or no PR links or no links and if so where to link back to?

Sorry for the long rant just frustrated all while being committed and very exited. I know this can work just would like some insight from someone who's been successful with it.

thanks,
brandon

Hi. This may be one of the MOST informative and cogent postings on Amazon selling from someone doing it - and it's all FREE.
Those 2 characters selling a $4000 course for the info and promising $100k/month are just plain scammers.

I have a question. I just came across a manufacturer close to my home that can offer me a commodity type product in huge quantity (plastic connector clips, buckles, nylon webbing, etc) at a price that is 20% the selling price I'm seeing on Amazon/EBay. So for example - I buy for .05/unit for 5,000 pieces. The "retail" bundle is 100 pieces. I'm seeing these items selling for .23-.25/unit in 100 piece lots. That's around 4-5x my cost. I can be the low priced guy and sell the 100 piece lot for $21 with my delivered cost of $5. Do you believe there is a market for something like this? It's almost like Arbitrage on steroids...LOL

Stretch - if you are located in the NY area, I'd love to meet up for lunch...
I have been selling my own proprietary product in a niche category for awhile so I have experience on EBay - but not Amazon. Did 2,700 units of a $25/retail item over the past 2 years...and trying to get into something else...

Is it possible to show a screenshot of your earnings?

stretch361 said:

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!

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Hello

Im interested in selling weight loss vitamins on amazon - can you help? Also believe I need a method of generating reviews cost effectively to get started. Thanks

Did you read what this guy wrote? Anyone can tell he knows his stuff!
Why would you care what his earnings are - he's not selling you any get rich quick scheme?
Asking for that info is just plain rude...

SEOnetic said:

Is it possible to show a screenshot of your earnings?

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Is there anyone selling on Amazon in this thread? I'm wondering if a backlink strategy to a product listing page will increase ranking in G-search.

Takes time to digest all Stretch361 post. very knowledgable

Hello, I'm interested in what you are referring to on HONEST reviews of products free, I would like to offer you something, I can help you get services for reviews as long as you are sending them the products. You are not paying for the reviews, you are paying me to provide services handing out codes, and the labor. I want to make that completely clear. I do not offer fake reviews, so if you are interested in that please do not comment back.


All my honest reviewers have Prime membership, They do not commence off certain rankings, and each and everyone has their own opinion AFTER testing out the product. They will include feedback, pictures, and videos on each product as well.


I have a provide variety of 500 members on my team, I've done dozens of labor work for many others' I'm hoping to hear from you, and we can go from there, please let me know what you want to do, and decide..

I do not provide fake reviews by the way, these are real reviewers, and even have the top 500 user in my group. Thanks!



IF you know anyone that needs this let me know I'm pretty cheap as well!