Not all customers are going to provide reviews, but if you use an automated email campaign, they are more likely to give you feedback and reviews.

OFF-PLATFORM MARKETING:

Many sellers also promote their products outside of the Amazon platform, on other parts of the web. Not only does promoting your products elsewhere help you to gain more viewers and sales, but you can also earn a side income by doing so.

Remember how we previously mentioned the Amazon Associates programme? By signing up as an associate, you can earn a commission (3-10%) whenever someone buys your product (or any other product for that matter) through a link that you provided.

Here are some ideas of ways to promote your products around the web:

Post your listing to relevant Facebook groups – make sure to check that you are allowed to post promotions in the group first.

Answer questions on Quora that are related to your niche. Provide links back to your listing.

Post in Reddit communities with fascinating topical information that adds value.

Send free samples to bloggers and influencers in exchange for a write up or social media post about your product.

Create a basic website for your brand.

If you like writing, you can create articles on websites such as Medium and Steemit.

Create an Instagram account for your brand and post great photos. Incorporate relevant hashtags into the posts to reach potential customers.

There are countless ways to get the word out there. It’s just a matter of being creative and thinking carefully about where your target audience spends their time.

Some sellers even list their products on other marketplaces such as eBay and Rakuten – and use FBA to manage the logistics. This is a great way to grow sales once you’re established, but it’s important to stay focused on getting Amazon right first.

Where possible, you should try to build up a mailing list of past customers and people who are interested in your offering. It is much easier to market your products to a group of people who are already interested in what you have to offer.

When you’re planning these marketing activities, just remember to get the basics right first. It is easy to get distracted and focus on things that aren’t generating income. Ask yourself: am I better off doing this myself or engaging someone else to help with marketing? If you understand your unique strengths, then it is best to play to these strengths above all else.

CREATING A ROBUST HANDS-OFF SUPPLY CHAIN

Imagine owning a distribution business that could scale to become a significant organization without the need to physically handle any products. Furthermore, imagine if there were a range of tools and automations that could make running the company simple and eliminate most of the workload.

Welcome to Fulfilment by Amazon. The genius of FBA is that when set up correctly, most of the tasks involved with running the business can be automated or outsourced. Let’s take a look at some of the services and solutions that can help here.

PREP WAREHOUSES:

When you’re running an FBA business from a distance, you need to be confident that any goods sent to Amazon’s warehouses are first grade and ready to sell. Aside from the obvious reasons why this is important, there are a few other reasons why prep warehouses are indispensable:

If customers receive damaged or faulty goods, it will harm your reputation as a seller. Prep warehouses help to prevent this from happening.

Sometimes Amazon damages stock. They handle LOTS of orders. By sending your goods to a prep warehouse first, you can be confident that when items arrive in Amazon’s facilities, they are in good condition. This will help your case when claiming refunds on damaged stock.

Prep warehouses help to keep your suppliers honest – they are your eyes and ears on the ground.

FBA storage fees are expensive. Rather than storing all of your stock in Amazon’s facilities, why not keep some of it in a cheaper storage area and top up your FBA supplies as required?

Prep warehouses can help with packaging, labelling, fulfilling orders from different sales channels and a range of other value-added services.

FORECASTING SOFTWARE:

Apps like Forecast.ly take your sales figures and a range of other variables into account to give you a better idea of when you will need to order more stock. To keep winning the buy box and maintain your great reputation as a seller, it is important to always have inventory available. The last thing you want is to run out of stock during a popular period and lose your place at the top of a listing or keyword.

Forecast.ly helps sellers to predict future demand and run lean businesses as a result.

REFUND MANAGERS:

“Amazon does voluntarily offer refunds on things that they catch and are willing to pay, but that’s not everything.”

There are a wide range of reasons why Amazon might potentially owe you money – damaged stock, lost items and destroyed goods are just a few examples.

Services such as Refunds Manager and AMZRefund look after this menial task so that you can focus on more important things. When they find and receive refunds on your behalf, they take a commission on any money paid out by Amazon.

ANALYTICS SOFTWARE:

“Your accounting system is the 50,000 foot view of your business. It is comprehensive and shows the whole picture. It’s not meant to give you a great deal of detail. That’s where third party analytics tools come in handy, to zoom in.”

Analytics tools like HelloProfit provide a comprehensive set of reporting capabilities that allow you to dial in on your numbers and get an accurate picture of what’s going on in your business.

By using this type of software, you can learn more about the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns, sales figures, payouts and much more in real time.

MANY OTHER AUTOMATIONS AND TOOLS:

Once your business begins to scale, it’s important to actively look at ways to reduce the workload. Some other tools that can help include:

Inventory management software such as Cin7 and StitchLabs.

Customer relationship management tools – namely SalesBacker.

Factoring software like Payability to help with financing during peak periods.

Cloud accounting systems – more on this in the next chapter…

By incorporating these tools into your business, it is possible to create a slick machine. One that can almost run itself. Not only does this make your life easier, but it also makes your company an attractive acquisition target.

“Most small business owners aren’t entrepreneurs, but what I’ve come to call technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. In short, they’re doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, busy, busy, busy every single day. They have got a job. They’re self-employed. They work for a living.”

Hands-off businesses that make good money are attractive to potential buyers – after all, people want to purchase an income stream, not a full time job. Keep this in mind as your business grows. Are you creating yourself a job, or a saleable asset?

AMAZON ACCOUNTING MADE EASY

Here at Muse Minded, we live and breathe Amazon accounting. We can tell you from experience that this is where many Amazon sellers fall short. Whilst selling product is the name of the game, if you can’t account for this activity, you’re going to have major headaches in the near future.

Building your backend financial system is a key cornerstone to succeeding in the long run. You need to be keeping accurate records, and understand your financial position in real time.

Cloud accounting systems such as Xero are great because they operate in the cloud – meaning that you don’t need to worry about manually looking after backups. You can securely access the information from anywhere in the world, and they integrate with a range of different apps and plugins. As the base-layer of your accounting tech stack, Xero is a good place to start.

A2X ACCOUNTING:

But how do you enter sales information into your accounting system? Many sellers simply record their settlement payments (paid every 2 weeks) as revenue. However, this is fraught with difficulties. When Amazon pays out settlements, they remove their referral fees, FBA fees and other charges before paying sellers whatever amount is remaining.

Alternatively, you could manually record each transaction (including fees charged) in your accounting system – but that’s impractical. This is where A2X comes in handy.

“A2X will automatically fetch your latest Amazon settlement transactions, and post summarized transactions to your accounting system. Reconcile Amazon settlements down to the cent every time you get paid.”

A2X connects your accounting system with seller central, ensuring that your financial information is recorded accurately on an accrual basis. While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, this saves tonnes of time and makes the task of managing your finances so much easier.

SALES TAX:

During the past few years (2018 in particular) sales tax laws in the US have been in a constant state of flux, and States are pursuing Amazon sellers with a renewed sense of vigour. The penalties for not paying your taxes are severe to say the least.

Storing your inventory in FBA warehouses throughout the country creates what is known as nexus. This refers to sellers having a physical connection or tie to a State, which creates a requirement for you to register for and file sales tax returns in the State.

TaxJar is an app that plugs into Seller Central and can automatically calculate, report and file sales tax returns on your behalf. Through using this plugin, you can gain a better idea of how much sales tax you owe in each State and use this as a guide for deciding when and where to register for sales tax.

As a small Amazon FBA seller, the cost of becoming compliant in every state can be crippling. It is therefore important to begin by registering for sales tax in your home State and becoming compliant in other States as your business grows. There are a few ways to manage this process – we can do it for you, or if you would like to learn for yourself, feel free to sign up to our sales tax crash course.

DO YOU WANT TO OUTSOURCE YOUR AMAZON ACCOUNTING?

We have tailored our business offering to make life easy for Amazon sellers. Rather than worrying about your accounts, why not focus on growing your sales and let us handle the rest?

Accounting can be expensive, but we have found a way to make it affordable and accessible for sellers of all sizes. To do this, we have bundled up our range of services into a set of fixed-price packages that provide sellers with exactly what they need. We understand what it takes to succeed on Amazon, so we cut the fluff and focus on providing real value.

Our standard packages include:

Unlimited transaction processing.

Monthly bookkeeping reports.

Simple monthly inventory adjustments.

Personal income tax returns.

A2X and TaxJar or Taxify technical support.

Payroll automation support.

Local, friendly, dedicated staff.

And much more.

To learn more about how we can help you to succeed, feel free to browse through our website or contact us for a more in-depth discussion.

WHAT’S YOUR ENDGAME?

By beginning with the end in mind, you can create a sustainable business with extreme growth potential that ticks all the boxes. Through leveraging the power of FBA and Amazon’s extraordinary global reach, you have the opportunity to take the business wherever you please – whether that is creating a nice lifestyle or an online empire, the decision is up to you.

As you begin setting up your Amazon FBA business, it’s important to think carefully about where you want to take it. In the world of entrepreneurship, ‘shiny objects’ opportunities and distractions appear very regularly. If you have a clear path of where you are going with a set goal in mind, you can put measures in place to stay focused on your dreams and accountable to your future self.

If you’re interested in learning more about the endgame and where you can take your Amazon business from here, we recommend downloading the free ‘How to Sell your Amazon FBA Business’ eBook by our friends at A2X.

Last but not least – GOOD LUCK!

And if there is anything that we can do to help, please feel free to get in touch.