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Writer's pictureTalton Roberson

Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Selling On Amazon

Updated: Jul 26, 2023

Selling on Amazon is not as hard as calculus, I would know having a degree in Math, but it's not the easiest platform to sell on. Amazon has many hoops to jump through if you want to successfully sell on their platform. Some of these hoops may be just like any other business such as finding suppliers, pricing your inventory, and making sure customers get their orders. Amazon has its own special set of rules and guidelines that sellers must comply with such as providing invoices from distributors, labeling products using certain sizes labels, and packaging products a specific way, In addition, navigating sellercentral.amazon.com can be a daunting task in itself. Lucky for you I have been selling on Amazon for over 3 Years and have learned many things in that time that I can now share with you! So Here are are my top 5 things I wish I knew when I first started selling on Amazon.



Watch this video if you prefer watching over reading!


 

1. Don't Try To Learn Everything Before You Start


Amazon has many rules they set into place to protect the company, and deliver unprecedented customer satisfaction with their systems and operations for delivering packages in 1-2 days for most items. As a new seller, you dont need to learn everything before you start. Most of the time learning too much information at once will cause paralysis by over analysis. My suggestion is to get started and make it your duty to learn a little everyday as you progress. When I first started selling on amazon I didn't know how to do anything but create an account and use the amazon seller app. I would go into stores scanning barcodes with the amazon seller app look at the price and then calculate profits. That is really the first step to learning this business. If you are just getting started I would definitely take the time to get familiar with the app and learn how to scan bar codes and calculate the costs before buying anything!


2. Rank Is Not As Important As You Think


Yes, you heard me correctly, Rank is not as important as you think. Best Sellers Rank or BSR is not as important as days of sales or unit sold monthly, or even average rank. The rank of an item varies and can go up or down depending on the current market. Also, rank has different parameters depending on the category. For example, a book ranked 300k will probably sell pretty fast, but if that was the rank for an item in video games you would see that it never sells. Other factors are more important than rank but rank can be used a reference but don't solely rely on the rank to make your decisions without taking consideration of other factors such as days of sales, or monthly sales.


3. Tools Are Necessary


You wouldn't try to dig a well with a shovel would you? No, of course not. you may be able to dig down a little deep but you wouldn't be using the right tool for the job. Same thing applies to an amazon business. Tools are necessary for many things when selling on amazon. If you are a bookseller, its hard to find inventory if you dont have a scouting tool. If you buy wholesale, it's hard to determine which products you should source to get the most bang for your buck without some type of analyzer tool. Let's not forget some other tools that are necessary to send inventory to amazon like a printer to print labels, or a tape gun to tape your packages. When selling on amazon, tools are necessary but you dont need all the tools just starting out. Get just the essentials and upgrade as you begin to make more.


4. It Can Be An Emotional Rollercoaster


Amazon can cause you to have many feelings, whether its doubt, reluctance, hopeful, joyful, angry, or ecstatic, I have been there before. When selling on amazon you will have many emotions especially if you are just learning how to sell. Sometimes I feel down because I'm not having a good day of sales, or amazon may just crashed like it did this week. Other times I am super happy because I sold an item for a hundred dollars and it only cost me a few. This will be the case for most sellers in general, but the most important thing to do is to keep pushing long enough and the little hiccups don't hurt as bad, and the big wins, well they still feel like big wins!


5. It's Not A Way To Get Rich Quick


Yes you heard that right! You will not get rich quick on amazon but if you work hard, you can find yourself with a lot more money. Let me be clear, it took me slightly over a year to break through the 100K mark of gross sales. Your journey is different than mine and your success should not be compared to mine. You may be able exceed what I did and you may come short of your goal but in that time you will learn. Selling on Amazon has quite a bit of a learning curve, but after you have sold on Amazon for a year you will have accumulated a lot of knowledge. Once you've gained a significant amount of knowledge, paired with an appropriate level of action, you will be alot more prone to success on Amazon. I am still learning myself, but I continue to strive to be better, faster, and more efficient with my business and over time my business rewards me.


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