This event enlightened us all about Importing from China, China manufacturing and
Private Label selling on Amazon.
Didn’t make it out to Hong Kong?
Not a problem! I got your back. Below you will find a few highlights that I took away.
Let’s start with the boring stuff: Quality Inspection.
All kidding aside, If you are serious about this business, please don’t overlook this part!
The typical inspection cost is around $300. In the overall scheme of things, this is not much. For example, if you order 1000 units, this only amounts to .30 cents a unit.
Just mentioning to your supplier that a Quality Control (QC) will be performed will force them to keep an extra eye out for your order.
Here’s a some takeaways from the speaker Habib Rkha of Asia Quality Focus.
And the number #1 thing that hit home to me?
Habib’s main takeaways
And finally, request 2 samples. Send the 1 you approve to a Quality Inspector to have on the day of the inspection.
I have never used Asia Quality Focus, but I have used other services including Asian Inspection and I can attest to their quick turn around flexible rates.
There were around four speakers representing their respective sourcing companies. Each provided a unique perspective.
To summarize:
The most interesting advice I received in regards to sourcing was to consider sourcing from a smaller (but still vetted) factory.
This makes sense.
If the factory has consistent purchase orders from Wal Mart or Costco, we are considered relatively small fish. Meaning we might not receive the coveted small business treatment with higher customer service…as a result, our orders can potentially be pushed to the back of the assembly line, or our concerns will not be addressed via email immediately.
Ash from IMEX SOURCING mentioned a few mistakes new Amazon sellers make
How do you know when it’s wise to send it via Air or when to have patience and ship via Ocean?
Recently Nicola from Shapiro gave a very informative presentation with this topic in mind. Similarly, Anthony Chen from Flexport gave a great recap of Freight Forwarding and how to get it to Amazon’s warehouse for distribution.
There are two shipping methods, Air Freight and Ocean Freight.
Air is much faster, but costs more. Whereas Ocean is slower, but if you are importing the right quantity, you will save a lot of money.
Shipping a Product
Express Shipping (<100 kgs)
-FEDEX
-UPS
-DHL
Freight Forwarding (> 100 kgs)
-FLEXPORT
-SHAPIRO
-KUEHNE + NAGEL
In Anthony’s presentation he highlighted a few Best Practices that will help insure your good transport smoothly to FBA.
Best Practices
The Fun Stuff!
Anthony Lee from ZonBlast made us solve this formula
But then gave us a shortcut to skip it and still see excellent results.
The key?
Focus on Sales Velocity. A sales velocity just means how many units you sell per day. If you aim to get your product ranked in the 10,000 – 20,000 BSR Rank, and the average units sold within this BSR (Best Sellers Rank) is 10-15 units per day, it’s a good idea to do a giveaway to match this sales volume. In this case, if you initially sold 3-5 units, doing a giveaway for a few days of 7-10 units should get your product to it’s target rank (10-20,000k) in this case.
This is what some consider the secret component of Amazon’s Algorithm.
Anthony mentioned to use these 3 pillars
Other methods to increase conversion (and subsequently sales velocity) is to use high converting images
Action Shots show the product in use.
As a result,
Similarly Paul Johnson from Seller Labs shared one of my favourite Amazon listing photos of all time:
It’s just so smooth. What I like most about it is it’s simplicity.
He also mentioned to follow these 4 guidelines
Going full circle regarding Sales Velocity, it’s his opinion that it is okay to lose money on Ads, because advertising will drive improved sales velocity, which boosts organic Amazon ranking, which improves sales and ultimately make up any losses on advertising.
Next up was a presentation titled, “Choosing A Product That Actually Sells”
I’ve heard of this guy before.
Around 11 months ago Greg crushed my dreams of becoming an inventor and told me
“Your Product Idea… Probably Sucks”
After the initial tears, I realized this was the best advice I’ve ever received in this industry. He of course didn’t mean my Private Label idea was bad. He meant that I shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Jungle Scout allows you to verify demand before launching a Private Label product… Effectively minimizing the risk.
During the Summit, Greg reiterated some points we are now accustomed to
Winning Criteria
And the bread and butter Demand criteria:
Here is the Full PowerPoint presentation given by Greg
Manuel over at Import Dojo was the first speaker at the event and I mention him here last because he is in the process of a live case study where he launches a highly competitive $40 kitchen product on Amazon that incorporates much of the lessons mentioned above.
He covers the research, sourcing, inspections, giveaways for reviews and sales velocity, and when all said and done lands his product (French Coffee Press) on the front page of his targeted keyword where he continues to receive consistent high volume orders.
You didn’t have to make it out to Hong Kong (although I would have loved to meet you!) but I do advise you to always take a proactive approach. If there is a Free webinar related to selling on Amazon (Logistics, PPC, Product Launches, Review Clubs, etc.) I recommend you treat it like food for your Amazon Brain!
You can also consider every Amazon Facebook group like a Summit or Networking event. Ask questions, learn from the mistakes and experiences of others, and keep moving forward.
We are all in this together!
Next Time I’ll give you a sweet update on our Quest
Until Next time 🙂