Podcasts about fnsku

We're back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10's Sr Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10's newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. TikTok Search Ads Campaign launch in U.S. https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-search-ads-campaign-launch-us-446927 Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Brands https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tariffs-targeting-chinese-e-commerce-could-dampen-demand Google Search Tests Shopping E-Commerce Card https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-e-commerce-card-card-38105.html Experience Amazon Accelerate 2024 on demand https://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/amazon-accelerate-on-demand-content Target Circle Week 2024 https://www.today.com/shop/target-circle-week-details-dates-deals-2024-rcna171858 Lastly, in our training tip of the week, Carrie walks us through how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode labels to give to your factories. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie covers: 00:51 - TikTok Search Ads 02:48 - New Chinese Tariffs 05:59 - Google Search Tests 07:09 - Accelerate on Demand 07:50  - Target Circle Week 09:39 - Walmart Lending 10:14 - Walmart Repricer Dash 11:14 - Helium 10 New Features 13:07 - Easy Barcodes ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: TikTok shop ads launch in the US new potential tariffs targeting Chinese e-commerce sellers, and Amazon, Walmart and Target are battling it out for deals in October. All of this and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz. Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the news stories that are going on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We highlight the latest new feature alerts from Helium 10, and we review a training tip of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Now, today, our host is going to be Keri Miller. So, Keri, take it away and let us know what's buzzing. Carrie Miller: Okay. So the first story is that TikTok search ads campaigns have launched in the US, and I'll go ahead and show the article here. It's basically allowing for keyword based search ads that target users directly in the search results. Now if you're a TikTok user, you know a lot of the ads actually come on your For you page when you're kind of scrolling. So it's kind of a more generic approach. But now sellers can actually target keywords when consumers are actually searching in TikTok for something specific. So this is potentially stepping up competition with Google Ads, as TikTok is becoming a go-to search engine, in addition to becoming a social media platform. So let's go ahead and take a look at this article. If we scroll down a little bit, it says previously ads on the TikTok search page were more generic, but now brands can tailor their ads to align with specific search behaviors. Now it goes on to further say why this matters. It says that TikTok has a growing role as a search engine for younger users. 57% of users use the app's search function, according to internal TikTok data, and this new feature lets you capture attention at critical moments of intent. TikTok's move could threaten Google's dominance, as younger users are increasingly using social media for search instead of traditional search engines. So, if you recall, last week Bradley actually did talk about this on the Weekly Buzz and he said that there's a report that says over 50% of Gen Zers are going to be shopping on TikTok for the holiday season. So that's very interesting and very good numbers if you really wanted to start targeting on TikTok. And let's talk about the actual numbers of these actual ads. TikTok's testing shows that combining search ads with in-feed ads boost conversion by 20%, with users who don't engage with an ad initially more likely to interact with after seeing a related ad in the search. So that's very interesting information. So definitely something to consider when you are going into Q4 and wanna really boost your sales this holiday season. Carrie Miller: Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the next article Now. The next article is interesting and it's titled Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Could Damp Demand. Okay, so this is definitely something that is gonna be very interesting for a lot of e-commerce sellers because, as I don't know if anyone remembers if you've been watching I actually mentioned that Amazon is launching a direct-to-consumer program for Chinese sellers to sell directly to consumers in the US through the Amazon platform, and I mentioned this might make some US sellers a bit upset, you know, because a lot of the small parcels they're not taxed the same, you don't have to deal with the same logistics charges and things like that. So you know this basically gives Chinese sellers a much higher margins because of the lack of tariffs. You know, no warehouse and distribution costs associated with the traditional kind of container imports. There's a lot of other things that kind of go in with these small parcels. I know, for example, me as a consumer, I did order something on TikTok that I thought was gonna be great quality and it was actual garbage. It actually was shipped directly from China through customs. So really kind of is an interesting you know thing that we should really be considering for consumer protection as well as well. As you know, for US sellers, when you're providing quality, then it's going to help boost you a little bit more because it's going to kind of close off this way of kind of things that are come low quality coming into the US without having to even pay those taxes or being searched. Carrie Miller: So in this article, if I scroll down here, it says the White House this month said it would soon tighten eligibility and increase information requirements for low value imports that qualify for duty free status in an effort to prevent businesses from evading duty payments. It goes on to say a little bit further down it says the proposal is expected to result in higher consumer prices for small shipments. So that actually could be a better thing for US sellers who are offering the quality. But then if we go down further, this is really where it gets interesting for the consumer. Let's scroll all the way down. It says. Over the last 10 years the number of shipments entering the US claiming the de minimis exemption has exploded from about 140 million to more than 1 billion a year, according to the CBP figures, and the US is on track to import nearly 1.5 billion parcels in the current fiscal year, 4 million per day, and that is actually going to end on September 30th. Carrie Miller: The overwhelming volume of parcel shipments has made it difficult for us customs and other agencies to enforce trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and clothing made from forced labor from entering into the country illegally. That's kind of an interesting thing to to take a look at, especially as a consumer. You know, like I said, I actually it was like a hair oil that I ordered from TikTok and the quality was just garbage and it smelled funky. So you know, this is a consumer protection issue. You think should you know that shouldn't be coming into the US, are coming into the US because there's just an overwhelming amount. So this is definitely something that you know hopefully will happen and you, you know we can continue as our. You know, other sellers who are providing quality products can kind of beat out these sellers that are not doing the high quality products. Carrie Miller: Okay, the next article that we have here is about Google. Google is doing search tests in the shopping e-commerce card. So if we take a look at this article, you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you know Google's testing. It's using its top card format for shopping and ecommerce related queries and information and this shows product results with pricing on the left, with popular stores on the right and then some review content in the form of content and videos on the right side. So they're kind of moving maybe towards more video content and I'll scroll down a little bit more in this article because this is what it usually looks like, and you can probably Google this right now and still see this. But we've got, you know, the actual, the product with a picture and the price, as well as the reviews, whereas I think they're kind of moving more towards the kind of video reviews, since a lot of people are into seeing that kind of stuff on social media, so they might be kind of testing this out to see how they can compete with social media, and I think that's a really smart move on the part of, you know, Google's, you know, just for Google, just because they are competing with these other social media platforms that are becoming more like search engines. Carrie Miller: All right, let's go into the next article, and that is basically, if you missed out, on Amazon Accelerate. I know a lot of people had FOMO because they didn't make it to Amazon Accelerate. You can actually experience it on demand. They are actually making all of the different sessions and everything that was recorded is available for on demand and it's for free. So you can just register, you can just download, you can just download all that stuff and kind of watch it as you're doing other things and, you know, just to kind of keep yourself up to date on the latest and greatest announcements from Amazon. So go ahead and register for that if you wanted to see some of those sessions and take advantage of that great content. Carrie Miller: And then next is another interesting thing and that is that Target is just launched their circle week Target Circle Week and it's going to be for seven days in October, from October 6. Okay, so it's starting October 6. And this is basically, you know, a seasonal seven day sales event that is going to feature holiday essentials, seasonal favorites, all this, that kind of stuff. What's really interesting is that you know, because of the dates, you know, this is going to be competing with Amazon, which is the eighth and the ninth, and then also Walmart that is going to be starting up that that week as well. So it's going to be interesting because Walmart starting up a little bit after Amazon. But if you're selling on target could be kind of interesting Because you might not get the buy box if you are selling at a discounted rate on target the few days before the big Prime Day event happens. Carrie Miller: So that's kind of an interesting thing to consider how you're going to be balancing out the pricing. And then there's also Walmart, because everyone wants to make sure that we have, you know, price parity along, you know, on all of the platforms, and that could cause you to lose the buy box. So could maybe be something to consider if you want to tighten up your strategy with any discounts or make sure you have the same exact discount across the board, kind of even before the Prime Day deal event starts. That could be a strategy. So I'm curious to know if anyone knows a strategy to deal with this and what you maybe did last year. If you want to put that in the comments below, I would love to hear your thoughts on that, because I think that's going to be kind of a big issue, especially as more sellers are in on Target, on Walmart, on Amazon, on TikTok, on all the different platforms. So really need to strategize when it comes to these big deal days. Carrie Miller: Okay, and the next thing, I actually don't have an article to share, but Walmart actually has announced that they have some cash advances with discounted fees going into Q4. I think mostly to help prepare for the holiday rush and to help with working capital. Especially, you know, cash flow is kind of a really challenging thing for sellers. So Walmart is going to be making some capital available through Capital by Paraffin and Payoneer and so, if you're eligible, you can actually go into Seller Center and you can, you know, figure out how to kind of get access to that funding. I think it will actually kind of pop up in there if you are eligible for it, but if not, you can also message seller support and see if you're eligible for some of their funding. And then they also have a pricing insights dashboard and I think that this is going to be very helpful going into the holidays. It's basically going to help you regularly monitor your pricing throughout the holidays and that is, you know, just to make sure that you stay competitive, and it's going to help kind of give you an insight on the pricing insights dashboard. That gives you, you know, pricing metrics, metrics at the SKU level, to help you make good decisions If you need to kind of discount your products further or, you know, if you're in, you know, in good competition with other sellers. Um, the dashboard is actually going to be refreshed regularly so that you can act quickly to update an item pricing, either individually or in bulk, and the dashboard also gives you flexibility to add items to the repricer or make price updates in the dashboard without having to submit spec files. So they're making it easy and fast for you to kind of see what you need to do in terms of pricing and then make those changes as quickly as possible. So that's kind of the latest and greatest updated news for Walmart. Okay, so we have a new Helium 10 update, which is very exciting. Carrie Miller: If you are in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the UK markets, we are releasing keyword sales data in Cerebro, magnet, listing Builder, listing Analyzer, keyword Tracker, insights Dashboard and Product Launchpad for all of those countries. So again, those European countries are France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. So I'm going to show you what that actually looks like. So here is a picture of. This is actually the US market, but this is what it'll look like in any of those markets that I just mentioned. You're gonna be able to see the keyword sales in the dashboard. So in your insights dashboard, right when you log in, you'll also be able to see them in Cerebro. So this keyword sales data for, again, all those other markets in Europe the France, Germany, Spain, Italy, in the UK, you'll also be able to see it in Magnet, as you can see here. So we've got magnet right here. You can see the keyword sales right here and then listing. So this is listing analyzer and at the very bottom, where you see the keywords, you can now see the keyword sales there as well. At listing builder, now when you go to open competitor comparison, when you actually look at this, you can see the keyword sales here. So that's really helpful for you to kind of like basically decide which are the most important keywords based on the keyword sales when you do that little competitor listing comparison there. And then you can also see it in product launchpad. So when you have your product launchpad open, you can actually see the keyword sales for all those different keywords that you added into your product launchpad idea. There's definitely a lot of really good stuff in there If you are in those markets. Those are. Those are huge updates for us to give you that data, especially because it's going to help you to kind of make sure you're targeting the most important keywords that have, you know, the higher keyword sales, maybe lower search volumes. So definitely take a look at that if you're in those markets. Really, really helpful information. Carrie Miller: Next, I'm going to be showing you portals in Helium 10, I'm going to show you how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode label to give to your factory in China or other you know countries, and I'm going to walk you through the flow and show you how to do this. So the first thing you want to do is you want to log into Helium 10. And then you're going to go to this tools button at the very top and then we're going to go down and we're going to click on portals and then, once you're in portals, you're going to be able to see a bunch of different things, but what we're going to show you today is this barcode labels, and this is going to be how we're going to be able to create these labels for our factories. So click on new barcode and what you want to have in here is you want to have either an FN SKU, an ASIN or UPC code. I have a FNSKU here. Carrie Miller: I'm just going to paste in there, and then the next thing you want to do is you can put the product URL if you already have it launched, or you can create a custom product URL so you can put the product name, you can upload an image, you can say the condition, you can put the ASIN and the SKU in. But I'm just going to go and take our URL from Amazon here and I'm just going to go ahead and do it that way because it makes it a lot faster and then it's going to pull up all the information here so you can see it has the picture of the actual product it has, and then you can fill in the SKU. If it doesn't show up with the SKU, you can fill in your SKU there. But I'm just going to go ahead and hit save and continue and then we're going to look at the size. So you can actually choose the size, how you want to show it. You want to show it in inches, centimeters, millimeters. You can choose the different sizes here, and then you can do either portrait or landscape, and then hit save and continue and then you're going to choose the template. So I'm just going to choose this generic black one and since I already have I actually, in portals, have uploaded my logo here. Carrie Miller: You can see that we have all that information in here already and you can actually provide more information right here if you wanted to. Whatever it is that you want to type in there, if you need to, and then what you can do is hit save and finish, and then, if you want to download this, you can just hit the download button and then they we always recommend that you, you know, test these out before you send them. So make sure you test it out with a smartphone or you know any apps that you can scan any of these just to make sure that it's it works properly. And double, you know, always test before your mass produce, and then you can just download it and you'll see that as you download it here and there, it is right there. So that is basically super easy. How you can just create those little barcode labels. We made it super easy for you to do so go ahead and check that out If you haven't ever done that before. It makes it super fast and easy. Carrie Miller: Thank you all for joining me this week on the Weekly Buzz for all the latest and greatest news stories, as well as the Helium 10 updates and the training. We look forward to seeing you again next week. I do believe Bradley will be back next week for the Weekly Buzz, so we'll see you next week to see what's buzzing. Bye, everyone.

How are your prepping skills when it comes to building your Amazon business? On today's all new podcast episode we cover a core skill that we could all benefit from improving - PREPPING! Discussed: Guidance on finding prep instructions Conducting drop tests Understanding the importance of SKU, FNSKU, and UPC codes Managing expiration dates, including shelf life and correcting errors Use of prep centers. This episode is part 3 of a 7 part series on the core competencies of being a REPLENS seller as taught in the ProvenAmazonCourse.com course. Part 1 and 2 of the 7 Core Competencies series are episodes #849 and #858 at https://silentjim.com/podcast   If you're new around here, our podcast features 100s of success stories with our students, but today we cover instructional content for those building their Amazon REPLENS business.   Our special guest at the conclusion of today's show, Jeff Schick of JeffSchick.com discusses best practices with VAs and others who have access to your Amazon account   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Dnfwmn_2cPY   Show note LINKS:   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Book a call here to discuss our offers including coaching, legends and ProvenAmazonCourse.com course   ProvenAmazonCourse.com/100 - Our Nashville workshop is your next opportunity to take this class. Path to 100 ASIN's - The Replens Accelerator workshop that Brian and Robin Joy are teaching live in August!   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 76,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   PrepCenterNetwork.com - A list of all known prep centers that can help you go "hands free" with your inventory    

Today's guest is an other great, recent ProvenAmazonCourse.com success story. She's aiming to hit seven figures in sales this year with branded bundles as taught in our Proven Brand Building module of the PAC.   She's also recently joined our JimCockrumCoaching.com team as the latest great addition to our team - we have coaches in about a dozen countries at this point (today's guest is based in the UK and selling in the UK). Our concepts work globally!   She started out as a REPLENS seller, and with those basic skills, she's now launching dozens of great "branded bundles" with a 90% success rate! You'll love this story and the examples she gives of her successful concepts.   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/fF4crPpHWGY   Check out today's SSMR and The Proven Conference sponsor Blue Ridge Prep Center Services - Blue Ridge Prep Services provides full service FBA prep services meeting and exceeding Amazon's requirements. Services provided include (but not limited to) shipment receiving, inspection, sticker removal, FNSKU labeling, bundling, polybagging, boxing, shipping, and more! BRPS specializes in OA/RA but do it all. Their goal is to help you grow your business no matter how small or big you are.   Show note LINKS: Stay in touch! Text the phrase "SilentJim" to 507-800-0090 to stay up to date on our latest FREE training events and other important updates! Opt-out any time of course! Emall and Facebook are so unreliable - we'd hate to lose touch with you!   A UK based all inclusive seller's software program - https://silentjim.com/seller-toolkit Helium 10 use our special member discount code SSMR! https://helium10.com https://humnbird.com - They help international sellers get established on Amazon.com (sell in the US from anywhere in the world) They specialize in everything from Intellectual Property, Trademarks, Patents, Corporation Setup to Branding, Design and Marketing.  My Silent Team Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam 100% FREE! Join 70,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! TheProvenConference.com - Mark your calendar for this July! Our LIVE event has more content and training than ever before .... ! ProvenAmazonCourse.com - the comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life! ProvenBrandBuilding.com - Free inside the ProvenAmazonCourse collection of content. Learn to create unique bundles and multi-packs using NAME BRANDS and put them in your OWN BOX for a unique selling advantage on Amazon. JimCockrumCoaching.com - Get a free session with a business consultant on our team at 1-800-994-1792 / 1-801-693-1688 or TEXT US at 385-284-7701 (US & Canada only for Text)  ALL of our coaches are running very successful businesses of their own based on the models we teach here! SilentJim.com/updates - get an alert on your smartphone each time we have a new podcast episode or free training event!  Today's guest: Chipo Mukono After our interview, Chipo sent this note of clarification on her exact numbers: Last year 2022 my average gross margin was 35% with a net of 18% and this is after admin costs. This year (2023) I am doing great numbers on my unique bundles our gross margin is 58% with a final net margin of 20% which is lower than what I mentioned on the episode.  

00:00 My Amazon Guy FBA Weekly Q&A with Jason Mastromatteo and Faith Denniston09:55 Introduction13:31 Filling out the category listing flat file20:04 Why switching product category is not worth it20:59 Not getting the same order volume on different campaigns22:51 Example of a good keyword stuff product page and A+ content25:23 SEO writing process27:15 Brandon Gable- Best temporary ramp-down process?29:23 Erhan Guclu- What is the best giveaway strategy now?31:53 FBA wholesale product hunting33:34 hauptp1- How many products would you send to the vine?34:39 Reorganizing video sequence on the product listing35:40 Opinion about Vine reviews37:08 Encouraging customers to ask for reviews38:08 Jeff Allen- Can you respond as a manufacturer to the Q&A section?40:41 Getting customers directly to your brand store using sponsored ads43:56 Vine heavily depends on the product44:33 When to defend and offend your space45:44 Number of products being sent to vine45:53 FBA New Selection47:30 Showing up for a specific keyword on search terms49:40 Getting a brand approval50:44 Gabriel Alvarado- How do I add more of my ASINs that I've been selling but weren't included in the recent Brand approval?52:16 Finding your strongest target when implementing keywords55:38 Outbid your competitor through defensive campaigns56:45 Strategy for a saturated niche58:43 Create your brand name in less than 10 characters1:00:21 Step on making a full update of the listing when somebody claimed the ASIN listed under1:03:40 Successful product needs to scale and have more velocity1:06:51 Naghman Chak- What "triggers" the consumer to buy?1:08:56 DanteTV- How can I structure the campaigns to test all 55 keywords to see which of them perform well?1:10:58 Spending a lot on PPC, but no sales1:15:54 Taking advantage of the 'honeymoon period1:17:44 Setting up your seller account1:19:16 Ali Kolachi- How to get a contribution on an attribute?1:20:40 Kadir Soran- Is there any way to get advertising reports older than a year?1:21:22 Maney Yenam- Can I hide my BSR on purpose?1:22:39 Frostax- How do I switch to FNSKU?1:24:40 Majid Ali- Can we change listing images after a month or two or more?1:25:19 Pros and cons of selling in other markets1:27:49 hauptp1- What to pay attention to when writing the copy of EBC?1:29:13 Varadraj Nayak- Is there any way to know from where I'm getting sales?1:31:11 If the active listing doesn't have the brand name, then do a change1:32:55 Shumaila Saeed- My Amazon parent listing is showing incomplete, but childs are active. I can't find out what is incomplete.1:35:42 A guide to launch better on Amazon1:38:18 Ophir- What strategy is MAG taking with deals and coupons for Black Friday / Cyber Monday?Write your questions as a comment on this video. Join the channel today at https://www.youtube.com/myamazonguyRead nearly 100 testimonials about My Amazon Guy at https://myamazonguy.com/testimonials/Watch the most popular Amazon Tutorial playlists at https://myamazonguy.com/amazon-seller-fba-tutorials-guides-videos/Support the show

00:00 Weekly Amazon FBA Live Q&A With Jason Mastromattero and Faith Denniston11:03 Amazon Earnings Call11:19 Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up11:32 Restock Limits are frozen!13:07 Join Steven Pope on Thursday at Noon EST14:21 Does MAG have any videos on the best wording to request more inventory space15:41 KDP book release does it matter if I run ads to the paperback ASIN or the eBook ASIN16:17 One of the ASINs PDP has changed to the dog page21:47 Since Amazon trashed restock limit, any 3PL recommendation22:43 I have an ASIN for which the FNSKU starts with B instead of X and I want to change it24:51 Selling projector screens w/ stand and unable to rank it; spent $10k on PPC27:33 I sell pillow that Amazon classified as a toy because of the "toy" included in the title (have since removed). It's now in the home and kitchen category29:20 Can be enabling small and light for my best-selling product cause any problem31:41 I was approved for BR but the lawyer submitted the name in all caps and that is how Amazon approved32:52 Any advice for a product that sells 70% of its sales on single KW34:32 If I target exact "candle holder" then negative exact "candle holders" will that work35:46 I have like 500 campaigns many of w/c are not converting or showing impressions, would turning off so many at once negatively impact my PPC36:24 Should I use UPC or ASIN when doing a Full Update37:14 Would I be able to get Amazon to update if I get pending TM adjusted before it's approved37:57 Cannibalization Question: If you have very similar search terms in the same campaign w/ exact and broad match on all search terms  will they cannibalize each other39:18 Steven launches tumblers themed towards diff niches, any reason why they are never in the Vine program40:46 If the same ASIN is in Canada and in the USA, can they have different titles41:54 Does MAG manually track KW ranking for their clients43:08 I'm doing PL but for some days Amazon restricted me to edit my own listing and asked to get approval from that brand44:51 Recently got BR however the listing I need to use it on has my company name as the brand name47:30 Need hands-on experience in PPC listing optimization under the MAG mentorship49:26 Is Amazon seller your full-time source of income50:58 For the BR, I see we need to send an image of my brand on a product but I have mostly paper prints and we don't print our logo on them53:32 Is FBM also a profitable way to go55:29 Can FBM have a prime badge56:13 Do you have any tips to pass the internship57:42 Amazon slashes your restock limit1:01:02 Amazon fooling around w/ the main image sizes1:02:29 Any tips on how to overwrite a Whole Foods listing1:05:33 Any tips for product photography1:08:12 Why is white background so important1:11:13 Can you guys talk about some good ways to use Brand Analytics to identify the most useful KWs and search terms1:14:30 Search terms KWs is Golden KWs1:15:04 Anyone uses Adtomic at MAG1:16:38 How do you set your bids to automatically lower as your daily budget begins to reach limit1:17:51 Planning to sell artificial flowers does adding captions such as "Happy New Year" to "Happy Birthday" on the pots would enhance my sales1:20:06 What's the best way to manage the buy box when it is being split between 2 sellers and it's coming down to the price1:21:24 My new account was recently deactivated1:22:58 Any 3PL recommendations to offset any delays in FBA receiving or restock limits1:24:08 Visit https://myamazonguy.com/1:24:41 Visit https://mag-school.com/Support the show

00:00 Steven Pope Amazon FBA Weekly Q&A - 08.06.202210:36 Launching https://sellercentraljobs.com/11:04 You can link your certificates from https://mag-school.com/12:56 ASIN Review: B09M8VZPR420:16 When you negate for a plural (exact), does it also negate the singular21:30 Working with someone who has SC and VC accounts but they have the same exact products & sizes for both. We constantly run into BB issues where vendors will have the BB & our SC account doesn't which means higher storage fees.23:52 Best way to share changes with the product to customers27:23 If I want to target an ASIN, what is the best strategy30:01 In SEO Phase 4, the high-performing KWs are already in my title, should I replace it w/ the phase 3 KWs34:22 Tried to make a parentage but now 3 of 5 listings say "inactive Out of Stock"37:43 Getting 6024 Error - You are not authorized to list products under this brand40:25 I put the wrong FNSKU sticker on 10 units I shipped in in error41:08 I forgot to custom name my SKU when setting up a listing, so I added a new condition for the product to start using a diff SKU. Is it safe to delete now the old SKU and product listing41:43 Is it possible to add a link in A+ content to the feedback page 42:56 My Amazon Guy Trademark Service43:22 What is a good click-through rate and good conversion rate52:32 File the CA TM, try to do BR. If it doesn't let you, file the US TM and get BR because CA TM takes 1-2years53:26 Is it true video ads don't help w/ organic ranking at all53:48 Best practice to manage 700 SKUs on Amazon catalog55:45 More than 20 products on Amazon, can I add multiple comparison products module on A+ page56:06 Best PPC strategy for a brand new product57:09 How can I get seller support to change the name of a variation57:44 badminton rackets vs badminton racket. What about doing a modifier, +rackers, does that work in exact58:32 Lowering stock in SC, FBM vs FBA and tried lowering price and vendor will just go a dollar lower59:27 The frequently bought together seems to match the products on market basket analysis report 99% of the time59:51 Out of all the reports on SC, w/c ones do you recommend to use on a regular basis1:00:53 New product launching on Sunday since it's the best day for sales. What time of the day would be best to turn on my campaigns1:02:13 Looking to take over a small market w/ different styles of product and multiple listings1:02:22 How should I go to advertise w/o bringing the KW cost high for that market and not outbid myself1:04:10 Where can we find TROAS and TACoS on SC1:05:06 Can you talk about removing excess inventory1:06:12 What is an appropriate multiple for calculating the valuation of an FBA business1:07:44 Even if the exact match campaigns are super low monthly search volume long tail KW1:08:27 Let's say I have a passport cover, a luggage tag, and a listing combo of both, do you recommend having them in 3 child variations or separated1:09:18 How would you measure success for a product launch1:10:27 I have a KW w/ 140% ACOS, when I lower the bid, ACOS goes even higher1:11:05 We are working w/ a brand that has BR but their hero product listing was created by a former distributor and we can't make any changes to the listing1:11:56 Brand Registry name is different than the listing1:12:42 How much time and sales are required to improve IPI from 310 to 4001:13:22 Struggling w/ getting enough seller reviews. I have enough product review but very few customers leave seller review1:14:06 What should be the estimated budget for launch USA if the selling price of the product is around $25 and we have sourced at $10 including DDP1:14:33 I have a case on Amazon SC about my ASIN being removedSupport the show

In this episode, I get technical and talk about UPC and FNSKU barcodes and which one you will need. GTIN is the Global Trade Item Number and UPC (Universal Product Code) is the black line you can scan with the scanner.   ⬇️ Click to view my available resources! https://andyisom.com/   Some products and resources mentioned in this episode may no longer be offered. Please visit my website or DM me on social media for currently available downloads, resources, and coaching programs!

00:00 Steven Pope Amazon FBA Weekly Q&A - June 24, 202210:03 Pakistan is now the #3 most common seller in the US10:45 KWs competitors are ranking for16:37 MAG School SEO Course17:16 Pros when sending to AMZ compared to the old workflow18:23 Launching a tumbler with crypto/day trading niche19:08 KW + Brand name, am I able to index for that22:02 Unable to put the brand name in the listing22:10 Does repeating best converting KW in the back end has an impact22:36 Diff between SEO ranking and index22:56 Target ACoS26:32 ASIN radically swings in organic ranking27:45 What's the deal with Melissa & Doug brand29:36 For the scaling campaign, will it work simply by increasing the budget30:23 What do you do when a bid far exceeds the 7-day CPC31:18 Way to re-trigger honeymoon period w/o creating new SKU32:01 Broad and Phrase match campaign budgets33:55 Techniques when pricing products on AMZ34:47 Featured Brands filter35:35 Text in brand story blocks 70% of the image36:21 Thoughts on 200 blank tumblers w/ no design sent to the 3PL warehouse37:42 Which KWs generating more sales organically38:29 Outlook on Amazon for the next 3 months39:41 In a campaign with variations, variation A gets more favor over others. Should I pause the rest and create a new campaign with the other variations? 43:04 I target gold candle holder broad match in search terms and I see that AMZ is spending on the "candle holder" search term. is that possible with broad match44:06 How do to get asked questions to be next to ratings44:52 Search Catalog Performance47:12 My Amazon Guy is hiring!49:20 Section above the bullets and below the title (Special Ingredients) carry the same search weight50:17 Same KW has a different default bid in different campaigns51:09 Sometimes the questions are right next to reviews and sometimes below51:58 Change product listing images in target market w/o changing images in source market53:22 Tips on monitoring the growth or shrinking of a niche and competitor sales54:52 Product is alleged by a customer to have caused them physical harm i.e. an allergic reaction, who is liable56:05 Some listings have a line next to the ratings saying 20 asked questions with a link to the questions56:27 Can you get Amazon to stop using FNSKU and only use the UPC56:52 Do you recommend your courses for newbies57:59 Bullet points not updating on the PDP58:27 Sponsored brand broad campaign or sponsored brand exact59:00 Amazon Online Arbitrage59:47 How to find the winning contributor to the ASIN1:00:16 Best recommendation: Perpetua, Sellics, or other?1:00:40 My most important KWs have a suggested exact match bid of 1.75 - 2, to be conservative I am starting with them at $1.2 - 1.4. Thoughts on this as a way to rank for these KWs1:01:02 Client is hesitant to give AMZ seller central child access1:01:25 Brand registry suddenly got disconnected1:02:00 If we have a product but its main KW shows products of the same niche but these products are made up of different materials, can we use this KW as the main KW1:02:24 Is it a risk to have a child item made in the USA and another child item made in China1:02:57 High pricing for products with better marketing/content in a high competition market1:03:16 Ideas on how to deal with black hat competitors that massively upvotes your negative KW 1:03:51 Is it permissible on AMZ to send my PDP link to my friends excluding my family1:04:11 How to check w/c KWs are generating sales organically1:04:58 If I have multiple CHILD ASIN, could I use different keywords on each CHILD listing on the backend1:06:12 The cure to a high conversion rate is to grow trafficSupport the show

00:00 Why do all ASINs start with "B0" (ISBNs sucked, that's why)00:04 Did you know that Amazon started out as a bookseller?00:21 Amazon put "B0" as the starting alpha numeric in front of every single product in its catalog. 00:27 The ASIN was born00:34 The ISBNs were extremely problematic00:53  Amazon was officially launched on July 16, 199501:06 ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number01:27 Amazon made a marketplace where everybody sold on the same page for the same item01:37 Listing on eBay is like an auction house more of a marketplace02:15 Amazon has an entire catalog and created an alpha numeric ASIN02:21 They couldn't do both lower and uppercase so they started with all caps "B0"02:53 ASIN started with a Base 36 number, that's the alphabet plus 10 numeric digits03:10 Some old listings still use ISBN inside seller central, especially with food categories03:28 ASIN is different from FNSKU which starts from XO03:35 ASIN is to identify it to the consumer on one page which could have multiple FNSKU00:00 Each individual FNSKU has its unique SKU03:53 SKU is what you labeled your own product or model number03:57 FNSKU is the bin location of your product at the FBA04:27 Tip – Never use lower case in any data set especially as it relates to SKUs04:33 Use all CAPS to avoid a headache#asin  #isbn 

Write your questions as a comment to this video. Join the channel today at https://www.youtube.com/myamazonguyRead nearly 100 testimonials about My Amazon Guy at https://myamazonguy.com/testimonials/Watch the most popular Amazon Tutorial playlists at https://myamazonguy.com/amazon-seller-fba-tutorials-guides-videos/00:00 MAG Weekly FBA Q&A09:57 Introduction of Thomas Fitzgibbons10:33 Amazon 5% fuel surcharge11:37 Trying to update UPC on a listing to a new GTIN13:20 What more actionable steps/utility can come from the keyword tracker tool16:21 Thoughts on this strategy: To first define a target customer to serve, identify 3-5 products that the target already buys (building a brand). Currently, the formula is to find and launch various products, regardless of how related they are. As long as these products check off your specific data criteria, go ahead and launch.19:13 ​I read this strategy in an E-commerce business book where the author emphasizes focusing on customers to serve first19:31 When reviewing the Brand Analytics Repeat Purchase Behavior info, does this data include the Subscribe and Save data?20:24 Amazon mislabeled our ASIN with incorrect FNSKU labels. We created a removal order, but do we have to wait until the removal is processed to send in more?22:15 Are there any good inspection companies you guys know of or trust to inspect your products before they ship out?23:18 If you are bidding $0.50 for a keyword and the next bidder in the auction is bidding $0.30, how much will you pay per click if you have fixed bids?24:22 We created a new SKU but says we cannot send in on this SKU until stranded inventory is resolved on the old SKU26:28 Is there a right way of winding down a PPC campaign if you know you will be out of stock in 2 weeks, current rank #2 main keyword29:28 ​I just got a quote for 20k for a container from China. Do you have any forwarders you can recommend?30:35 In process of launching a new ASIN. Ordering a small test quantity, If I notice good sales velocity then I will immediately, do the reorder & will raise the price and reduce PPC to slow sales31:48 Which ads you would like to run with PPC in external traffic in the UK market conventional private label launch33:11 https://mag-school.com/34:00 Will there be a product research course34:57 20 mins in and already all my questions were answered. Thank you both very much and thank you MAG for this invaluable service you provide!35:08 How often do you do SEO Phase 3 or now phase 4?37:15 Will there be a shipping and logistics course?37:54 What are the metrics I need to look at in order to calculate the cost of acquiring a new customer?41:15 We set a future launch date but inventory is still stranded so can't send in on new SKU still.44:49 The Helium 10 metric "Cerebro IQ score" is a metric that scores keywords based on search volume compared to competition for the given KW. Is this a good metric to use when thinking of KW targets?47:16 I received a return yesterday that sold 11 months ago47:26 If we are “deleting and closing listing” in order to troubleshoot locked data, can you please explain in detail how to then re-add the listing after 24 hrs have passed.48:47 ASIN REVIEW: B09VPWSZPX58:24 On the new search query report how is amazon ranking your search queries?59:16 Relisting ASIN1:01:28 Lot of returns on our dog products due to sizes1:08:28 My Amazon Guy coaching call1:09:05 Enroll now at MAG SchoolSupport the show

Moore AmazonSince 2019 Moore has focused 100% of his time on building and growing brands on Amazon. He has over 10+ years of experience selling on Amazon 1P and 3P with over $50 Million of managed sales. No outsourcing and you only have to deal with one person, Amazon Aaron.About Aaron MooreIn 2019 Aaron ended a decade-long career with a sporting goods company. He digitally transformed the company from bricks to clicks. Moore grew sales from $1 million a year to over $15 million a year in less than five years. During his tenure with the company, he generated over $100 Million of sales in 10 years.00:00 Amazon FBA Weekly Q&A10:02 Introduction of Aaron Moore11:27 Aaron does the photography as well13:52 Aaron runs multiple brands 15:00 How does Aaron select his clients18:23 What happens with client incompatible due to his personality20:51 Why stay as a one-man show when you can expand and hire a team w/ your knowledge24:48 It is important to take a day off as long as everything is taken care of26:22 I'm missing the buy box on my product page while I'm the only seller private label.29:04 On the inventory Planning - Inventory Restock page, do you recommend using the "Total Days of Supply" column or the "Recommended Ship Date" column for shipping stock?31:28 Can I bundle a new product w/ my existing product? 34:56 Just got a brand registry thanks to MAG. But now the 3 ASINs associated w/ my brand are not showing up in my brand dashboard.37:04 I feel that oftentimes if I have an exact campaign that's been running a while if I make that same campaign with the same targets same bids, the new campaign will get more impressions/data.39:34 Does Amazon have some hidden algorithm where even new campaigns get honeymoon periods?40:18 Best strategy for relaunch of product that was suspended for a few months43:39 I already changed the price and the support told me the buy box is eligible for my ASIN but it's not always going to show up, they never gave me a clear answer.46:05 I have 2 FNSKU tied to 1 ASIN, what is the best way to separate them and have 2 separate ASINs for the 2 variations? I've seen online that the only way is to recall relabel and resend, is that the way?47:40 How much price matter in supplements and how do you target right competitors, everything is different than PL in supplements52:31 My title won't change on the PDP but in manage inventory it's good.52:43 Should/can terms in A+ content overlap w/ important terms that are already in your title and bullets? How much of A+ content should be for completely new terms vs having some overlap?53:43 What do you mean by "a realistic PPC budget?" Can you put a $ amount or TACOS % and timescale?55:29 One of my client's listing is indexed organically on 250 KWs w/ 10 reviews, and my competitor is ranked for about 1500 organic KWs. I have extracted those non-ranked KWs, how to use them listing front end, backend, alt text?56:47 Our restocking limit increased significantly in the past few weeks. Do you think it's here to stay? Should I ship in as much inventory as possible now?57:37 What's generally a healthy TACOS % number?57:50 I've noticed that Amazon advertises our competition SKU on google. How do we make them advertise us instead?58:18 Bag is the best way to find out how much of the total sales is Ad sales and how much is organic sales?59:08 An email from Amazon cited that they detected suspicious customer reviews, and have reduced the discoverability of our product in search results and Ads, what to do?1:01:56 For PPC can it be said less is more? Have less but core fundamental campaigns?Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Amazon FBA Weekly Q&A10:06 2nd weekly MAG show with Jason Mastromatteo, Tuesdays, 11am EST11:18 How negative reviews can influence conversion17:57 Is there such an FBA rule that says we can only ship in goods w/ FNSKU are AMZ barcodes and not seller-generated barcode20:03 Should I keep it in the same ASIN or do a variation to get a new honeymoon22:48 If you had a parent w/ child ASINs & put 1 child in Vine program, could you later choose to break out the listing & then put the other child ASINs into Vine only to later put them ball back under 1 parent23:25 Would you recommend such a scenario w/ a product listing that is struggling to get traction23:57 Does adding the "not a pesticide" in the template upload allow for the use of these terms25:12 Need to change Listing Quality Dashboard info26:47 How can I get a trademark27:57 My UPS tracking that I entered into my shipment plan is no longer valid. The boxes are greyed out29:02 If we delete the ASIN for 24hrs and then relist it, what negative effects will it have29:52 For H10 Cerebro, those KWs that you rank organically n the top 15-30 spots, why not just advertise on them heavily rather than massaging the KWs into your title and listing30:32 Goals for Toys Category: ACOS-40%, % of Ad sales 30%, TACOS 20%, is this off-base?31:19 How to report a listing to AMZ when the seller is using black tactics by using reviews gathered from another product entirely different to sell another product32:24 I am selling a set of light strings and banners I used seasonal decor as my category. When trying to add the main image error comes saying there is text but this is not text this is my actual banner33:34 Are there any restrictions for using kids in listing photos or A+33:50 While creating the shipping labels and inputting the carton measurements, the system does not let me save them34:38 Can child ASINs has different categories or not35:32 Does my account have to be active to register a trademark35:57 What is a good strategy for image KWs inside A+ content. Is it pointless repeating the same KWs on each image38:19 Will there be an explosion of agencies for Walmart marketplace w/ their WFS option like there is for AMZ38:51 The first product I ever launched has a brand name that is different from the brand name I am registering for. Can this product that has a different brand name still get A+ content39:35 If I choose the option that AMZ should manually process FBA shipments/box contents, will I need to label the pallets or boxes w/ FBA labels or only the UPC/AMZ label is required on the items40:30 Upvotes don't work on reviews anymore. The reviews go back after 24hrs40:56 AMZ flagged one of our ASINs from getting reviews41:12 AMZ is requesting us to submit a letter of compliance for a soap product. The manufacturer only has RIPT testing reports and GMP41:56 Where I can apply for a letter of compliance for a soap product42:13 When looking at your business reports are sessions the equivalent to impressions and page views the equivalent to clicks42:55 If I'm using flat file to change "variation name" on a child ASIN, do I have to fill all fields or only the one I want to change only43:50 Is there a good strategy to use when selling products with other sellers all fighting for buy box besides price44:25 How do you manage SEO Phase 2 in the EU market since there is no search term optimizer tool 45:00 I'm interested in selling a thermo type product that is currently selling well in another marketplace46:03 Any suggestions for structuring Ad campaigns w/ 2000 ASINs46:48 Any advantage to using one of the service providers in the IP accelerator program through AMZSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 How to Start Selling Amazon FBA (2022)10:59 What is your top advice for beginner seller in choosing product to sell12:45 If you had to do Amazon FBA all over again as a beginner, what would you do? What goals you set for the first 6-12 months of being a beginner seller15:04 Do I need to do trademark and brand registry before launching the first product15:58 Is your company a part of the Amazon IP Accelerator program17:41 Who do you use for your YT thumbnails? They are on fire18:17 Do you have a recommendation for an app that tracks real-time FBA profits19:07 For FBA, would Amazon ever pick and scan an item with an FNSKU label that doesn't belong to the bin20:15 What are your best practices for using Amazon posts21:33 What are your best practices for using Amazon Live22:21 How do you forecast sales for a new brand that signs up with MAG24:17 I have to pay $10-25 to ship FBM, customer picked free standard shipping. Does this have to do w/ the new Shipping Setting Automation by Amazon26:47 Do you help brands w/ generating reviews27:20 I just launched 2 gift set w/o any reviews 4 days ago, in the pamper gift category AMZ UK. I'm doing PPC but the budget lasts me until midday. 1 manual and 1 automatic campaign30:33 I know it's quite expensive during this time of the year, but is it worth increasing the budgets30:40 Any strategy to survive in AMZ dominant niche31:04 What would the average net profit margin be for your clients32:34 If my sales are $100,000/mo on AMZ, what sales numbers should I expect if I start selling on Walmart33:29 I understand that CTR and conversion rates can vary depending on the category and other factors, but for supplements in general can I use a benchmark of 0.3% for CTR and 10-20% for CvR35:13 Should the concept of CTR and conversion rates be different for PPC vs SEO37:47 I'm launching a new candle holder that can be sold in 4 groups of KWs (candle holder, gifts, cool stuff, decor) statistically, w/c groups should I target first38:48 Did you sell any of your brands before, and what are your thoughts on selling brands40:20 Does AMZ prefer low priced items if the quality is ok42:56 I've been receiving global reviews even though our item is only sold in the US43:49 Do you prefer coupons or strike thru pricing or a combination of the two? How do you decide what to use for each client45:50 Having an IP issue and a competitor removed my selling rights to my main product46:54 Is AMZ market giving the best for low price high sales velocity products47:08 How to know the monthly revenue of a product in Saudi Arabia47:17 What would be your best suggestion when we got out of stock48:06 What advertising campaign structure would you recommend48:50 I'm getting only organic sales not getting any sales on ads49:02 How much time does a Private Label product takes to give profit in the UK for stationery and office product w/ the price of 12.9949:30 What AMZ advertising campaign would you recommend between deal voucher prime exclusive49:39 I'm getting 5461 error while creating a new product. I tried the same barcode on another seller account (brand registered) it worked50:36 Regarding Subscribe and Save option on the detail page is something that comes from AMZ or seller can sign up for it51:16 I'm trying to create a storefront for my business, but after I hit submit I'm getting a lot of "not eligible) flags for my categories 52:11 Buy Box wins percentage on seller central dashboard fluctuating wildly; in the morning it is different and later in the day it is different53:11 How much inventory we can store in FBA as a new sellerSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Welcome to My Amazon Guy's weekly Q&A!09:54 Jason Mastromatteo stepping in for Steven Pope10:23 Been trying to launch my products on AMZ but it is suppressed due to requiring approval to sell, but already got the approval to sell12:43 I'm working with your MAG team on resurrecting our UK listing for 2 months now. It was hijacked, rebranded to their name (despite the fact we have a brand registry)14:04 Will AMZ really destroy the products on the day it says it would14:37 Do you have a recommendation for an app that tracks real-time FBA profits15:06 For FBA, would AMZ ever pick and scan an item w/ an FNSKU label that doesn't belong to the bin16:11 Any experience w/ kindle direct publishing or do you manage any clients w/ this16:22 When uploading A+ content to ASINs, do I have to do it each child w/in a variation, or can I apply to the parent and content goes through the entire family16:56 What do you use to create your thumbnail graphics for your videos17:06 I have BR on a brand and one item has multiple pages of the same exact product. How can I merge them all together into 1 page18:52 I have a brand that is BR and someone added his listing to my variation page and he changed the name of all pages to match his brand and he is also BR. How can I get AMZ to change back the name19:48 We had someone running our AMZ store and she didn't register all our products. Our top selling products are registered to another person who puts them in the wrong categories and target audience21:17 I tried to add a VA to my AMZ UK account and when I try to grant permissions, AMZ is asking to upload ID, can I give the same ID as my original account22:00 Does it pay to use for AMZ CA and UK Payoneer to receive the AMZ payments instead of direct from AMZ22:43 What is a good click-thru-rate % and conversion rate % for a sponsored brand video campaign aad in the supplement category24:09 I'm having an IP infringement case against my top seller. I didn't get any email from AMZ about it at all. They denied our appeal twice.26:47 You got me my TM BR months ago, super fast! How do I find the status if it is "stuck" or was denied28:30 How does a brand become a sourcing partner for AMZ Brands29:08 What's a good rate to pay a Philippines VA who will look after my whole AMZ account29:42 I have already sent my gift set to AMZ today. For shower steamers, should I have added the expiry date on the outer gift box and the outer carton30:50 Is 450 a low IPI score? What should I be aiming for31:55 What to do with seasonal FBA items32:26 What's the max number of products you went enter in a product targeting campaign? What's the max number of KWs you would enter for a manual campaign33:06 PHase 2 of SEO (Matriculation) is a bit confusing when going over that, is it just removing KWs that don't work or removing pink words that are not being ranked33:53 I have a product that is getting no love on AMZ, yet sells on other platforms35:25 I have 100 products, all are linked to my brand except for one product, what is your checklist to debug why the product doesn't link to my brand, ASIN: B07BD4M5KZ36:29 AMZ lost some of my inventory. Don't know how to provide what they are asking for37:46 Should I allow Amazon to buy my products locally and sell them globally, is there any risk38:43 How to check if my product is flagged as an adult product41:54 I'm getting out of stock and local sourcing is not possible due to the peak of Q443:43 Does AMZ charge the credit card automatically for the PPC if there is not enough money in the account balance44:00 I have a variation listing with 3 colors. I want to add a variation of different quantities. Do I have to use a flat-file for thisSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Welcome to My Amazon Guy weekly Q&A11:09 How do some of these Chinese companies sell items for so cheap12:43 I like the information Sellics provides, but too expensive. Any other options? Is there a way to obtain campaign "benchmark"14:52 I often get postcards that say leave a review for a refund or a free gift16:07 My 3PL sent in the wrong box of products, what happens now? Will AMZ send out the products even though the FNSKU stickers will indicate a different product17:02 Why aren't my KEP product features points not showing17:30 How do you phrase in your ticket for a brand name change19:02 What can I do to mitigate returns/bad reviews20:45  Any ad types when we can target shoppers who bought our competitors' SKUs22:20 The "current balance" field in the AMZ Seller App, is that with or without PPC spending23:11 Helium10 X-ray is showing that a competitive SKU w/ a few variants all have about the same revenue. Is that review the total of all the variants or is each variant truly making about the same27:37 I see some listings have multiple videos as their 7th image on their lists. How is that achieve27:54 In a refund notice from AMZ, "initiated a refund in the amount of USD 1.01" Why would it be such a low amount of refund, when my product sells for $25. Another refund notice says the return reason is a general adjustment28:52 Can you share w/ us your ACOS and TACOS for your Age of Sage best sellers30:33 Can I add a virtual bundle SKU to a comparison table in A+ content  31:43 What specific things do you focus on in year 2 planning w/ a client32:59 Is it ok trying to upscale the product on another product's A+ content. It's a bundle for the main product34:37 How to optimize Alt text in A+36:09 Does AMZ consider unverified start rating/review valid36:38 I don't think my product would be a good fit for vine, very niche. What's the best way to approach getting early reviews37:29 Usine name brand name items in a bundle w/ your own private label item, any issues w/ using the brand names in the titles, bullets, backend38:54 Launching soon, should I worry about competitors leaving negative reviews on my new product? What can I do to protect myself39:46 Does not having a patent or TM sealed but only filed affect what an aggregator will pay for your company40:03 How did you decide on what supplements & cough drop to buy on AMZ40:55 What's the minimum profit margin for product to work with it41:35 What should our strategy be for Christmas43:56 What is your current view on using "gift" in title and listing in general44:45 Can I get the full category listings to be sent to me in Excel instead of .txt44:45 How do I join the community45:24 Why aren't the features of my key product showing on my product page45:43 Last week I had an AMZ Rep email me and ask if wanted more inventory space46:18 AMZ removed our FBM possibly because of the low Valid Tracking Rate. 3 of 15 our tracking numbers were not recognized as correct by AMZ46:35 What do you think is the best strategy to scale your business in the holiday season47:39 When do you create a variation for a product and also a single listing. How can a vendor upload country-specific images48:25 Newest updates you could share from AMZ, policy changes, black hat tactics now that used to be not, etc49:33 Can I sell a branded product AMZ is already selling49:50 An AMZ guru is promoting their "FB course group" to buy each other products to exchange reviews on their products, will they get shut down for this50:28 If AMZ ask a customer to keep a product due to their mistake w/ shipping and slightly damaging the outer box, then refund that customer, will AMZ reimburse me, or have I lSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Amazon owes you money00:12  How to quickly get hundreds or possibly thousands out of Amazon00:31 via FBA Inventory Reimbursement01:29 via FBA Inventory Adjustments Report03:02 Sample case filed04:20 Check out My Refund Guy05:15 We are now 100 strong

00:00 Intro10:25 Amazon Freight: Startup with an Amazon12:53 Amazon Advertising Test Opportunity: DSP - Demand Side Platform14:05 Advice on changing locked fields15:33 In VC, what flat file to use for changes to category field & other fields17:45 Making bundles from other brands, what brand/manufacturer do I enter when adding the listing18:55 On flat files for listing edits, when do you use the UPDATE option over a PARTIAL UPDATE20:30 GTIN exemption vs GS1 UPCs, why UPC route would be better for only a couple of SKUs21:28 Do you have any video samples showing the process and your submissions to kick off unauthorized sellers on one of your or your client's listings22:38 Are you using Helium10's new feature "title density" for any of your listing optimizations22:49 How many characters can Alt Test for image have? Do the word index that on the image24:28 Do you suggest using the (Shipping Settings Automation) for self-fulfilled products25:07 I sell 300 units from 1 product using FBA, if converted to FBM, approximately how many units will be sold, FBA higher price because of the shipping25:44 I shipped 30 products in 1 box to AMZ. They say there were 31 in the box - shipment still receiving after 2 weeks. If true, items do not have FNSKU only bard code on the label26:55 I want to open a Walmart seller account, what is the application activation time? Is it very hard to get approved? Any tip signing up28:00 We provide a customer service number with our product. If the customer calls and asks for a refund, will issuing a refund without AMZ being in the loop cause a problem28:59 Do you have a recommendation for liability insurance? Amazon is asking for a COI. How much should I expect to pay every month30: 22 Does your brand store content (verbiage + alt-text) have ranking power and help w/ indexingHow do I set up PPC campaigns for the 1st time via Excel spreadsheet upload vs. manually31:10 How do I set up PPC campaigns for the 1st time via Excel spreadsheet upload vs. manually31:53 My product has color variations. Swatches are not showing on the listings. I included the link to the images for the swatch in the flat file and uploaded it. It was saved in the backend but still don't show on the listing33:10 Will a partial refund count as a full refund in Amazon return/refund percentages stats33:38 When I view products in the Brand section on Seller Central on Amazon, it shows Office Products behind my brand name. How do I check if my product is really in Office Products instead of Arts & Crafts35:32 What is your acceptable defective rate for inspection of your product? What do you do if the report failed or is higher than the AQL you set36:39 AMZ lost my shipment37:51 I suddenly lost organic ranking for one of my main KW over a month ago. I was page one for this KW and not it doesn't even show in search40:40 In broad, I convert for a search term really well and the root KW is my mos profitable and highest seller but in phrase and exact, I have below 0.2 CTR and hardly any sales42:01 ASIN REVIEW: B08PSBYXHS47:07 I'm trying to ship pallets to AMZ w/ a mixture of the following: Single SKU in single boxes stacked onto the pallet, and also clear bags w/ product inside packed into boxes. All the clear bags contain the same SKU48:02 As an employee, does Steven allow you and others to launch your own products/brand48:48 My product is not indexing when you search the ASIN+KW out of its category. Should I try a partial upload flat file to update the product type to the right one49:34 I have updated my title, bullets, description but haven't received more indexingSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

00:00 Intro10:53 Brand registered in Canada added to BR in the USA, got registered agent access but I can't add A+ content, update pages12:39 I added my US brand to BR in the UK. I see the brand added in the BR account but I can't add A+ content or update. I also added to BR in CA and it works12:52 Anyway to get Amazon UK to update a page12:29 Thoughts about Amazon global logistics14:37 Did you enroll in Amazon launchpad for any of your customers. 15:43 Good AMZ account annual ROI16:20 What happens if TM works now and USPTO declines later17:49 I changed a brand name recently but it's still pointing to the old store18:18 In the A+ content manager, one of the SKU is not eligible for A+ content even though it's brand registered and has a storefront19:13 Please review B08849V4NM - I have registered it under a wrong name22:39 Sales dropped suddenly, what things do you check24:24 CAn BR help w/ flat files for multiple ASINs to make changes to product category or page26:32 Been trying to update my main image and even done it through a flat-file but it has not been updated27:40 You can get names and addresses of purchaser info, what company provides that via API28:15 With BR, do we leave the bar code on products shipped in or use the FNSKU code30:02 How do know w/c port to select, custom agent, freight forwarder30:58 I am 5 days shy of my 1st month of this product and already ranked organically for 1300 KWs and 250 sponsored KWs, already done pink word updates, what strategy to rank for the top 1033:48 If I have a product ready to go to AMZ w/ 12 diff color variations, can I only list 6 of them to start and then add the other 6 later34:35 You recommend "fast product photography" however their reply was something to the effect of "there would be no need for our service"35:37 I went to create the case with BR but it shows the updated image. CtrlF5 didn't work36:09 A company contacted us to be the distributor of our brand, is this a good idea to expand the brand38:33 What happens if I hire MAG to change the brand name and turns out it can't be done39:14 My listing is listed in Canada w/o my knowledge, how's this possible41:16 Is it against TOS to use my own customer review photos for product images, also how about using customer quotes in the image42:09 B08BQZ8BSC - what can be done to improve the listing46:19 Bullets and description (correct in backend and in category listing report) but change not reflected on PDP. Have BR but no UPC(listed w/ GTIN exemption)49:16 What will I need to send you to create my A+ content, also do you create a store52:43 Does your agency creates the Copywrite to create a listing53:02 Best way to appeal a false infringement claim made by a competitor53:33 DO you use Amazon's Inventory Placement Service53:55 Product has a price range of $6.99 US market, profit margins are 31%, what PPC strategy should I opt to get some profitable sales as I heard that PPC for products below $10 doesn't work54:42 Product w/ relevant KWs w/ zero search volume but when checked on Amazon, it is showing 60%55:07 Why do you need Canadian Trademark even though you said that trademarks work across borders for brand registration55:28 On the product listing page above the A+ content, there is an area called Videos. I want to put my videos on there and on other competitor pages for free exposure, is there any risk doing using my buying account w/ the same email as my selling account55:54 Do you have any tips on how to get approved for Project Zero56:11 Any comments on selling on Amazon Brazil56:33 How do you boost your mark as helpful votes on reviewsSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

In this episode Neil Asher from the Aussie Online Entrepreneurs answer the question: What Is the Difference Between an ASIN, UPC and FNSKU

¡Hola a todos y todas! Bienvenidos a un nuevo episodio del blog / podcast del Emprendedor Amazónico. Un podcast destinado a proporcionarte las herramientas y conocimientos que necesitas para crear tu propia marca de productos online, aprovechando el poder de Amazon, y con ello poder vivir tu vida tal y como tú desees. Ésta es la quinta entrega de Trinchera Ecommerce nueva serie de episodios sin guión (lo que grabe a la primera es lo que vas a escuchar) te voy a contar mis semanas de trabajo en mi marca. Qué cosas hemos hecho en Amazon, fuera de Amazon, qué problemas tenemos, cómo pensamos solucionarlos, qué nos está funcionando, y muchas más cosas como te podrás imaginar. Hoy te hablo sobre: Qué debes hacer antes de subir un listing para evitar el uso de las pegatinas con el FNSKU (código para los almacenes de logística de Amazon). Uso de cupones (vouchers) frente a uso de promociones. ¿Cuál es más efectivo? Qué opciones son las más usadas para el lanzamiento de productos y cuál es mi preferida y por qué. ¡Y más!       Haz clic en el reproductor de arriba o ve a tu plataforma de audio favorita.

On this episode Kris and Dustin explain all of the commons terms and acronyms used on Amazon. This is a great resource for newer sellers, and a refresher for more experienced sellers. Terms covered: A+ Content, ACoS, Affiliates, ASIN, Buy Box, BSR, Child ASIN, CPC, CTR, DSP, ERP, EBC, FBA, FBM, FNSKU, Headline Search Ads, Hijacking, Impressions, ISBN, LCL, Parent ASIN, PPC, RoAS, SKU, UPC.

With Amazon's new inventory limitations until the end of 2020, it has become essential for Amazon sellers to send in their shipments to a 3PL warehouse and drip feed to Amazon FBA. This is especially important for new SKUs as they are mostly limited to 200 units. In this replay of the Virtual India Sourcing Show, we talk to two 3PL service providers, both of whom are currently being used by the webinar hosts. Margaret and Kevin send their products to DSP, while Meghla utilizes Oregon BPS.  DSP Warehouse:  This company was established in 2007, and is located in the Raritan Center Business Park in Edison, New Jersey, in the heart of the New York/New Jersey Metro region. They ship to Amazon FBA and can do FBM orders as well. They manage all logistics information including receiving, storing, and the shipping of your products to your customers; they also provide information related to inventory, sales, returns, and other management data to enhance your profitability and business planning. Most processes are automated at this large-scale 3PL. Download their presentation here Contact: Simon Wei, Eric Lai Email: dspwarehouseinc@gmail.com, eric@dspwarehouseinc.com  Website: www.dspwarehouseinc.com Oregon BPS: Oregon BPS is situated in Oregon on the west coast. This is a smaller family-run business that specializes in Amazon FBA. The founder, Heather used to sell on Amazon previously and understand the pain points of sellers.   Services they offer include receiving, storage, quality control, staggered fulfillment to Amazon FBA, prep services for bundling or multi-packs, shipment creation in Seller Central, labeling with FNSKU (if required), fulfillment through eBay, Shopify, FBM, among others.  Download their presentation here Contact: Heather Jackson  Email: oregonbps@gmail.com   Website: www.oregonbps.com  Mention “Virtual India Sourcing Show” or “The Asian Seller” when reaching out to them.  Join The Asian Seller community Facebook Group YouTube Meetup Telegram

Retrouve le format vidéo sur ma chaîne Youtube À bientôt www.Jesuismonpatron.fr

★★★ How to Sell on Amazon for Beginners★★★

Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode & I hope you’re having an amazing day! In this episode I talk about the DYMO Labelwriter 450 & the exact labels you’’l need to get for it when trying to print out FNSKU labels for your Amazon FBA products! I hope this helps & brings value to your business. Thank you so much for listening & hope you have an amazing day! If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me on Instagram! Instagram; andrewgiorgi --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/andrew-giorgi/support

Vediamo in questo il Glossario del mondo di Amazon, conosciamo il significato di alcune sigle ricorrenti che dobbiamo conoscere per poter fare un business on line proprio su questa piattaformaImpara a vendere su Amazon, iscriviti al nostro Gruppo di formazione GRATUITO:►https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/gruppo-amazon/ Scarica gli Ebook Gratuiti di SCUOLAECOMMERCE.COM ►https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/ebook-amazon-gratis/ ----------------------------------------­-------------------ScuolaEcommerce.com è la prima scuola online che ti insegna a progettare, realizzare e sviluppare il tuo E-commerce. Aumenta le tue vendite online grazie ai nostri consigli. ► Impara a realizzare un E-commerce di Successo grazie alle nostre guide: https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/ ----------------------------------------­-------------------

Vediamo in questo il Glossario del mondo di Amazon, conosciamo il significato di alcune sigle ricorrenti che dobbiamo conoscere per poter fare un business on line proprio su questa piattaformaImpara a vendere su Amazon, iscriviti al nostro Gruppo di formazione GRATUITO:►https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/gruppo-amazon/ Scarica gli Ebook Gratuiti di SCUOLAECOMMERCE.COM ►https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/ebook-amazon-gratis/ ----------------------------------------­-------------------ScuolaEcommerce.com è la prima scuola online che ti insegna a progettare, realizzare e sviluppare il tuo E-commerce. Aumenta le tue vendite online grazie ai nostri consigli. ► Impara a realizzare un E-commerce di Successo grazie alle nostre guide: https://www.scuolaecommerce.com/ ----------------------------------------­-------------------

Andrew is doing RA Retail Arbitrage and selling Amazon FBA and is wondering about GS1 UPC "I am thinking of selling products on Amazon FBA, but I am not the brand owner. I read somewhere that it is mandatory to buy GS1 UPC to sell on Amazon I looked up the GS1 UPCs and they cost a fortune, is there a "legal" way around it?"   I love how you put the word "Legal" in quotation marks Andrew, I have great news for you! But before I tell you about the fantastic news I have, let me clear up the meaning of this. First, what is a UPC and what is GS1 UPC? UPC stands for the universal product code, it is, in simpler terms the barcode. GS1 stands for Global Standards 1, this is a not for profit agency that supplies manufacturers with a company prefix, this prefix is used in GTINs and this stands for (Global Trade Item Numbers). If you are planning on selling your products on Amazon, the products will need to have a GS1 GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) Now let's get to the good news I have for you. You don't need anything, my friend. According to your message, you are selling products of which you are not the manufacturer. This means you are doing RA (RA stands for retail arbitrage) it when you buy products from a retailer at a discount and then sell online at full price. In this situation, you don't need to buy anything, because the manufacturer already has a UPC printed on the item. BTW here is a Curious fact: The very first barcode ever scanned was in 1974 June 26th it was a 5 pack of Juicy Fruit gum. But let's get back on track. The only thing you need is an FNSKU, now here is a big word! But don't worry about it, I'll make it simple for you. An FNSKU is the Amazon barcode. and they require their barcode to be placed over the existing UPC on the product. This FNSKU is provided by Amazon for free, and all you need to do is print them and stick them on each product. When creating your shipment to send to Amazon FBA (this means Fulfilled By Amazon), they will give you these barcodes.   That's all my friend Good luck, and when you are ready to go the Private Label route, then you will have to look at this GS1 situation again. Until then, keep profiting   Video from GS1 attached        

Jimmy is an Amazon FBA seller who got hit hard with Amazon's FBA Long term storage fees How Can I Avoid Amazon FBA Long Term Storage Fees? To avoid the LTSF there are a couple ways to go about it. One of the ways may not seem totally white hat, but in reality, there is nothing against it. The most used and obvious way it to control your inventory and not allow the stock to be extra. If you have stock extra after 6 months, maybe its time to see why it didn't sell and may consider it a dead product. If you have a product at Amazon's warehouses long enough to pay FBA long term storage fees, it means the product isn't moving fast enough or you ordered too many.   The second way to do it is to remove the inventory before Amazon charges you the FBA long term storage fees. But, if you remove an Asin from Amazon, they will not let you restock it for 60 days! So, the solution is to remove it to a 3rd party warehouse, replace the FNSKU with a new FNSKU from a different seller central account (authorized accounts of course) and have this second account now sell the product. Notice that if you send inventory after the FBA long term storage fee date, by the time the next LTSF date arrives your product hasn't been there for 6 months! For example, if the Amazon FBA long term storage fees are charged on February 15th, and you send inventory in on March 1st, by the time August 15th LTSF come around, your Asin has only been at the FBA warehouse for 5.8 months and not 6 So, basically with this trick, you can have the product sit at Amazon for 11 months before it gets charged LTSF I hope the message was clear and I hope it will help someone   Meanwhile here is a great episode to listen to, or read: Who is out there saying not boost facebook posts   Thanks QA        

If it’s Friday, that means another EXCITING session of Ask Scott here on The Amazing Seller Podcast! Are you fired up and ready to TAKE ACTION? Scott comes ready with his usual fire to deliver some helpful insights and answer questions from TAS followers like you! On this episode, he starts with a helpful lesson, just take one bite at a time. Don’t get ahead of yourself! Make sure you go at a pace that is enough for you to handle. Don’t get overwhelmed or distracted by the concepts that Scott covers for TASers who are a few steps ahead of you. Remember, you can always go back to previous episodes, ASK questions, check out the TAS resources section, and engage the TAS Facebook community! Promotional Offers and Discounts You know that one of the best ways to drive traffic to your listing and to increase product sales is to lower your product’s price. But what is the best way to advertise that price reduction? How can you effectively communicate to your customers that you have a limited time promotion or discount? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott explains why sellers like you should avoid listing discounts or promotions in the bullet section for your product listing. He also gives great alternatives that will help you figure out where in your product listing to advertise those special deals for your customers. Make sure to catch this episode! What is the time commitment with Selling on Amazon? If you are working a regular 9 to 5 JOB, your time is a precious commodity. You might be getting started with selling on Amazon to make that awesome decision to become your own boss. As you get ready to start selling your first product you might be wondering, “Do I have enough time in my week to manage my product successful?” On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott explains what to expect when it comes to carving out time commitments and what it takes to manage your first couple of products effectively. If you are just getting started as an Amazon seller, you don’t want to miss this helpful episode! Dealing with UPC’s What’s the deal with Amazon’s UPC policy? Do you need to have a UPC from a particular source? Is it a requirement to have the FNSKU barcode printed on the outside packaging of your product? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott cuts through what seems like a complicated topic and gives sellers like you the vital information that you need so you stay within Amazon’s terms of service. Don’t let all the confusing terms processes get in your way on your journey toward success! Let Scott and the TAS community help you along the way, get started by listening to this episode! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast! [2:30] Take one bite at a time! [4:30] Shout out to TASer, Greg! [6:30] Question #1: Can I put a discount or promotional offer in the bullets for my product listing? [10:30] Question #2: What level of time commitment should I expect for each product that I sell on Amazon? [18:20] Question #3: What are Amazon’s UPC preferences? RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE theamazingseller.com/ask theamazingseller.com/action theamazingseller.com/fetcher theamazingseller.com/ppc theamazingseller.com/fb Entrepreneur On Fire Quickbooks Snap UPC

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog: If you can't beat them, join them. Amazon FBA is a natural next step to help you grow your business. But sending out your first shipment can be ripe with potential problems. On today's episode, we've got a novice and a pro weighing in on the intricacies behind FBA, including the differences between a UPC, FNSKU, and an ASIN, along with expert tips for optimizing your FBA experience and nailing it right from the get go. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of RebelCEO.com) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven-figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey, hey, guys, Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. And today on the show, talking about how to not screw up your first inbound shipment to FBA, something I don't have any experience with. I've got a shipment of goods coming in that I'm going to be sending to FBA for the first time and figured who better else to grow with questions about this, for my own benefit and hopefully yours as well, other than Mr. Bill Dalessandro, the man behind Rebelceo.com and Elements Brands. Bill, how's it going? Bill: It's going well, man. It's great to be back on the show, as always. Andrew: Yeah. I feel like it's been...I don't know if it was just the holidays or the New Year, but I feel like it's been a while. Bill: Yeah, the ECF Live and holiday hangover. It kind of all ran together. Big Goals for 2016 Andrew: Quickly before we jump into this one, any big plans for 2016? Or did you like sit down and have a big kind of pow wow with yourself to really plan out the year? Are you big on the New Year's resolutions things? I know we're talking about this much after the New Year, but... Bill: So I'm not big on the New Year's resolution thing, but I am big on planning for the year and setting goals. So I sat down with all my employees. We're trying something new this year, and we're doing bonus programs. So we sat down with all the employees, and I set six goals for each of them for the year. I set up a bonus pool of 12% of each of their salaries, and each goal was worth 2% of their salary as a bonus. So everybody has sort of six goals for the year for 2016 hanging above their desk, and if they hit all six goals they get a 12% bonus at the end of the year. So as a way, something new I'm trying this year to...and I made some of the goals were monetary. They were hit a certain number. For my salesperson like a certain number in wholesale sales, or for my eCommerce marketing manager a certain amount of website sales or a certain number of new accounts, new products in stores, or getting a new website launched. So some were monetary, some were more kind of projects that needed to be done. Like we're implementing a new shipping and inventory system. Things like that. So like getting that launched was a goal for my warehouse manager. I basically looked at this list of all these things and said, "Man, if all like 20-something of these things are done by the end of the year, I'll feel really good, and it'll be easily worth me paying everybody a 12% bonus." Andrew: Nice, very cool. One thing we did this year, at least on the eCommerceFuel site was tried to focus more. I mean, we've got kind of this dashboard across all of our businesses with a myriad of different metrics. You could come up with 100 probably metrics you could track for a business, if not more. We tried to focus in on three metrics this year. One that was like the overall king metric, and two other kind of secondary ones, but be able to... Bill: What are they? Andrew: For eCommerceFuel, they are the biggest one that we're focusing on is new mem...

Are you confused about UPC codes and FNSKU codes? In this Q&A session we go over the details on when to use each one and what is the most cost-effective way of applying them to your packaging.

You’re back! Welcome! We’re so glad to have you here for another episode of The Amazing Seller podcast. This is a Friday episode - an “Ask Scott” episode that answers your Amazon sales questions each week. If you want to get your questions answered, you can submit them for consideration by going to www.TheAmazingSeller.com/ask - and your question will be in the cue. So sit back, grab your pen and paper, and make sure you take good notes because you want to be sure you’re able to take action on what you learn!   Should I start Amazon sales with clothing as my first product?   Everyone needs clothes. There’s no doubt about that. But does a large demand for a product make it a good fit for you? Not necessarily. Clothing, for example, is a VERY saturated market. There are so many companies offering similar products that putting out a new product yourself will be an uphill battle at best. Besides that, there’s the issue of variations and sizing. It’s likely that clothing will be returned far more often than other items. Listen to Scott’s thoughts about whether you should choose clothing for a product line, on this episode of The Amazing Seller.   I want to offer a product that is very similar to a patented product. Should I move ahead?   Patents are something you don’t want to play around with. The legal trouble you could get into is more than you are prepared to face - trust us. But it is important to understand exactly what a patent is and what it means if a product is patented. A patent says that “something” about a product is unique and that company has the rights to use that “something,” but not necessarily the entire product. The patent might cover a particular style of grip, for example. So you could offer a similar product, just not one with the same grip. Scott’s got some great insights on this episode so make sure you take the time to  hear what he’s got to say on this one.   I just learned about the Chinese New Year break. Is this going to keep me from getting my product restocked?   You heard right. New Year celebrations in China are a huge deal, so huge in fact that the working force typically takes off work for 2 weeks or more to celebrate. What does that mean for your inventory and product ordering? It means you’ve got to think ahead. You’ve got to plan ahead. You can use previous sales to estimate how many products you’ll need to last you through a time like Chinese new year, and you should. Scott tells his experience and approach to these kinds of inventory issues on this episode, so be sure to listen.   All these numbers: Barcodes, UPC, AISN - what are they and when do I need them?   Yes, there are lots of little codes and acronyms that you’ll have to learn if you’re going to do private label sales on Amazon. But once you know what each of them is and when they are used, it’s really not that hard. On this episode a listener asks Scott to explain all the codes and acronyms and in characteristic style, Scott gives a very thorough and helpful answer. You can learn this “newbie” issue too by listening to this podcast episode.   OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER   [0:25] Scott’s introduction to the podcast! [0:42] Why Scott got goosebumps from one of his listeners who submitted a question on today’s show. [1:51] How you can get your transcripts of Scott’s episodes. [2:40] Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. [4:10] QUESTION 1: A question about clothing as a product: dealing with varieties, returns, etc. [11:41] QUESTION 2: A question about patents and the possibilities of violating patents. [19:44] QUESTION 3: How does the Chinese New Year impact your inventory? [26:48] QUESTION 4: What is the difference between a barcode, a FNSKU, and a ASIN?

OOPS. I screwed up - big time. Here's the story of the 60 hour horror story I avoided with a couple quick hacks and direct response marketing sales tactic...we'll see how it goes and how it can help you in your own FBA business success. Today on Amazon How to overcome enormous Amazon problems The importance of QA testing Why you NEED to communicate better with suppliers The reason I print FNSKU labels on the packaging Why I'm hacking product problems The reason to DOUBLE CHECK everything How to print your own labels Why function CAN trump sexiness The direct marketing approach to book sales How to mail order sales is saving me 40-60 hours of awful Why I'm selling ugly as sexy savings How I'm sacrificing to sell sooner Why you NEED a feedback follow up sequence - Feedback Genius Ps. Get Jungle Scout :) Want more? Subscribe TODAY! The post My 60 Hour Screw Up And Solution Thanks to Direct Response Marketing – ALL49 appeared first on FBA Allstars.

I'm back from my trip to Idaho with some good news regarding my health.  AND while I was gone, the first shipment of inventory arrived from China and it's time to get things rolling.  I also discuss how my things shifted from my original plan after running into the Hazmat issue I talked about before. For the full transcript head to http://brandingblitz.com/7/ or see below. --- Hello again! I'm JR, and you're listening to episode 7 of the Branding Blitz! If you're subscribed to the show, you've probably noticed a break since the last episode was released. If you're not subscribed to the show, you should probably pause this episode and go subscribe. Don't worry, I'll wait for you. Anyway that gap was due to a number of things. The biggest is that the day after recording episode 6 I went on a trip to Idaho to visit some of my wife's family. We'd been planning this trip for a while and in some ways it turned into an inconvenient time to travel with my health issues and trying to start up this business. But it actually ended up being a providential blessing. The dry air up in Idaho made a HUGE difference in my health. I was able to breath again, I was able to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. I wasn't completely cured, but it made a big enough difference that I was actually able to do some light exercises which I believe will help build up muscles overtime to gradually pull my spine back into shape. So that was encouraging... in fact it was encouraging enough that we made the decision to move there later this month.While I was in Idaho, I also got a call from the pulmonologist with the date for my appointment. After waiting several weeks to even get something scheduled, we knew we wanted to stay in Oklahoma long enough to have the tests done and see what the pulmonologist has to say about the results. So in a little under two weeks I have my appointment, and then I've got some people coming to help load up a truck the next couple of days after that, and off we go to Idaho. So part of the delay with a new episode has been due to planning and working toward that move. But I also got hit pretty hard with breathing issues after we got back. Luckily, I had a handful of good days where I was able to get some important things done, but then I ended up spending several days in bed. So I'm just now getting caught up enough to record another episode. As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, I had a box of inventory from China waiting for me when I got back. And I was able to get that all checked out, processed, and shipped to Amazon in those good days that I had before ended up essentially bedridden. Before I get into that, I have an update on the Hazmat issue I talked about in episode 6. About 2 weeks after I opened that ticket requesting that the product be investigated or they at least tell me why they think it's Hazmat, they finally changed it so it is no longer considered a Hazmat product. Still no indication of why it got flagged in the first place or why it wasn't unflagged with my initial review. So a process that I was assured would take 3 or 4 days ended up taking over a month – nearly 5 weeks - to get resolved.I had put a lot of upfront work into getting ready for my first product. I had ordered samples, ordered my top competitor's product to compare quality, designed packaging, dug into a bunch of relevant government regulations, did a fair amount of back and for with the supplier, and was ready to place an order. If I hadn't decided to create the listing to get the FNSKU before placing the order, I would have been in for a huge disappointment when my inventory got here and Amazon refused to take the shipment. I'm also glad I decided not to simply wait for it when they told me it would be 3-4 days or I would just now be placing my order a month and a half later. I still think this will be a good product to sell down the line, and I'm glad that I've already gotten past the Hazmat issues so there won't be any issues when that time comes. But I ended up drastically changing course. In the days immediately after getting the product flagged as Hazmat, my wife and I had did some serious thinking and discussion about how to proceed. And ultimately, I think that pause we were forced to take caused us to come up with a better plan for our current situation.We decided to look for a product with less competition and with a lower cost per unit so we could get more inventory. We happened to also be able to find one which could be produced and shipped faster too, so that was a big bonus for us. We still like the original product and have some big longterm plans for it, so we wanted one in the same market so that we could sell them under the same brand. Up to this point, I'd been doing all my searching for suppliers on Alibaba, but I decided to give switch it up. I'd tried AliExpress briefly before but hadn't found anything worthwhile. Either the prices were too high or the shipping was too high. But I'd heard other people talking about finding good test products on there, so I decided to give it another shot. I came across a related product which has low enough volume that it isn't really worth pursuing on it's own, but it makes sense as part of this brand, and was able to find a good deal on AliExpress for a couple variations of this product. But more importantly, as I looked into this I found another product which I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. It is a consumable accessory for the product I was considering ordering. It's still not super high volume, and it has a low pricepoint, but the competition is low. And even though it sells for a low price, the profit margins are still really good – even after Amazon takes their cut. Plus, I was able to read through the negative reviews on some of the other Amazon sellers and make some adjustments to help fix some of the complaints. I'm not going to get rich selling this product, but I think it will be a good start for where we are with very limited funds. In the end, I ordered 100 units each of 2 variations of the product I started out looking for on AliExpress. Those are mostly there to add some meat to the brand's product catalog – AND because I can't really give away any of the consumables without having these to give away with it. The consumable product is useless on it's own so it wouldn't be much of a giveaway if that was the only product I had. I haven't decided for sure if or when I'm going to do a giveaway but I wanted the option to be there. In the end I expect each variation to be able to grow to the point where it is at least making back my initial investment in profit on a monthly basis, so I'd call that a good investment even though it won't be a huge part of my overall business. The consumable, I ordered 400 units of as I expect it to sell in a significantly higher volume. In fact after I ordered, I wondered if I should have ordered more. But here's the great thing – I was able to get all three products from the same seller, and because of the size of my order, the seller not only offered me volume discounts but also free DHL shipping. And because there wasn't much in the way of customization, I was able to have the product at my door 12 days – less than 2 weeks – after placing my order. So when the time comes to re-order I can get the product here quickly. I suspect I'll be able to get shipments even faster in Idaho as I'll be in a way less rural area. The interesting thing is I was actually having a really hard time finding this product on Alibaba, so if I hadn't given AliExpress another try I probably wouldn't be moving forward with this product. It's an incredibly basic item, so I know I could have it made cheaper direct from a manufacturer, but there will be some tooling costs and a really high volume order involved when that time comes. For now, I've got really got profit margins with the price I got on AliExpress, and I got great service from the seller, so I'm happy to continue working with them. I'll post a picture on the blog of the single small box that all 600 units came in. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that other great factor. All three products are very small and lightweight. The “heaviest” weighs about half an ounce or 15 grams for those of you on the metric system – including the packaging.Anyway, if you'd like to see that picture, head over to brandingblitz.com/7 – you'll also find a full transcript of this episode. And it's a great place to leave a comment and give me some feedback. If you've got any questions head over to brandingblitz.com/ask and leave me a message. And if you haven't subscribed yet, head over to iTunes and do that now. If you're quick, I won't even notice that you ignored me earlier when I asked you to do it. We popped onto the “New & Noteworthy” list on iTunes for a little while while I was gone, but we've dropped back off because I haven't been able to get a new episode up. If you subscribe and leave me a review, that will help get me back on there and I'd really appreciate it!   That's it for this show, I'll catch you next time on episode 8 of the Branding Blitz!

Before I could send the product to Amazon I had to do something a get a little creative with the packaging.  I had planned ahead for this so had everything we needed when we got back from our trip.  I also had to shootsome pictures before the listing could go live. When I was ready to ship the product in to Amazon, I was amazed by how inexpensive Amazon makes it to ship to their warehouses. For the full transcript head to http://brandingblitz.com/8/ or see below. --- Hello again! I'm JR, and you're listening to episode 8 of the Branding Blitz! Life has been pretty crazy trying to take care of my health while juggling this business startup and trying to prepare for a move across the country! I haven't been able to move as quickly as I'd like with this business, but for everything that has been going on, I'm really excited about the progress I've been able to make. I've got some exciting news to share over the next couple of podcasts.   Today, I'd like to talk about what it took to get my inventory live and selling on Amazon after receiving the shipment from China.   First, since all 3 products came loosely packed in the same box, we had to sort them into separate piles. This was easy to do with the main product, but since the two secondary products look very similar it made the process take longer than it should have. Anytime I order these two products at the same time in the future, I will make sure to request that all the units of each style are bagged or bundled somehow to keep them separate and this should save a fair amount of time sorting. That's one of those little things that didn't occur to me before hand, but it is definitely worth keeping in mind if you're considering ordering variations of the same product.   Ultimately, they need to be sorted because Amazon wanted us to ship to multiple warehouses and they specify how many of each product you ship to each one so we had to count them out. But there was an additional reason we needed them sorted. Since I was ordering off of AliExpress rather than Alibaba as I originally intended, the vendor was not prepared to do custom packaging.   They did offer to print labels for me, and I nearly took them up on it, but I insisted on seeing a picture of the labels ahead of time and they were very low quality. I'm most of the barcodes seemed unscannable. If you're working directly with a manufacturer or even a vendor that is used to customizing orders, this shouldn't be a big issue. But if like me you find yourself working with a vendor that isn't experienced with even basic customization, you will need to find some other way of labeling your product.   I do have a label printer, but all I have are really big shipping labels that would be too big for these products. And I figured rather than spend money on the proper size of label and still have to do the work of printing and sticking all of the labels, I might as well look into getting something done for me.   I looked into several companies online that print labels or stickers, but in low quantities the prices didn't really make sense. Still definitely within my margins, but I wanted to keep looking for a better option.   That day, I got a coupon in the mail from Vistaprint. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Vistaprint... I've ordered from them a few times and the quality has always been fine, but I think just the way they push you really hard to buy pointless things like a mousepad with your logo on it bugs me... just let me order what I want to order without having to click through seven pages of advertisements...   All that aside, I realized that a business card was about the right size for my products, and that coupon made them a pretty darn good deal – I think pretty much anytime you Google “Vistaprint coupons” they'll have some kind of sale going on.   So I bit the bullet, designed some quick labels to fit on a business card, uploaded my art, clicked through several pages advertising useless stuff I could buy from them, and got 2,000 business cards headed my way. 1,000 for the main product and 500 for each of the other two.   I did all that a couple of days after placing the order with my vendor, so all of this arrived while we were out of town visiting family and was ready to go once we got back.   So once we had finished sorting the products, it was time to start labeling them. I've got a pretty nice stapler that doesn't jam very often, so it actually went really quickly to staple these business cards to the product packaging and it even turned out looking pretty nice. I definitely want to get something set up where all the packaging is done in China and I can skip this process on my end, but for now I'm really happy with how it turned out and it wasn't as much of a time sink as I feared it might be.   By the way, if you happen to have experience working with a manufacturer in China specifically to get a zippered plastic bag with a custom label printed on it, shoot me an email to jr@brandingblitz.com – I'd love to get a recommendation for a manufacturer you were satisfied with.   Once that was all done, it was time for the pictures. I already created the listings back before I ordered the products so I could get the FNSKU barcodes ready. But since I didn't have the final product in hand I hadn't taken care of the pictures yet. I didn't want to stall the process while I worked on that, so I went ahead and shipped the products to Amazon and held on to a couple of each product figuring I'd have time to work on the images while UPS delivered my packages.   The shipping process was fairly simple, they told me how many of each product to ship where. They had us split it into 3 shipments. So what came from China in one small box left in 3 small boxes, and in total to ship all 3 products, 600 total units, to 3 different warehouses it cost a grand total of $15.51 – I did the math on that dividing it out by the weight of the different products and it cost about 1.5 cents per unit for the main product and about 4.8 cents per unit for the secondary products. That was great news because I'd been allowing for 30 cents per unit shipping cost. I think I snapped a picture of those three boxes sitting on the porch waiting to get picked up – I'll try to post that along with the show notes at brandingblitz.com/8   Quick tip: I don't live anywhere near a UPS store or any other kind of UPS dropoff point. And I'd have to pay a fee to have them come out and pick up a package. But I've found that the drivers are willing to pick up a package if they're already out for a delivery. So it was cheaper for me to order something inexpensive on Amazon like a $4 storybook for my kid and have it delivered via Prime 2-day shipping. That gave me a couple days to do the necessary prep work for the shipment, I saved some money on scheduling a delivery, and got a free book for my 11 month old daughter who seems to think these cardboard books taste like candy. I'm not 100% sure if this is actually a UPS policy for their drivers to pick up packages along their delivery route or if I've just been lucky in the past, so your mileage may vary... but it's worked so far for me.   Anyway after shipping them out, it was time to take some pictures. I happen to have access to decent lighting an a good camera and have moderate knowledge of how to get the effect I want out of it. So I took the pictures myself. To be honest most modern cell phones have a camera that can take really hi-resolution photos. They don't give you as much control over depth of focus, shutterspeed, etc, but if you know what you're doing you can actually get a pretty decent picture out of a cellphone.   That said the pictures are one of the biggest selling tools you have – and if you're not confident with a camera, it is probably worth getting them professionally done – even if you are confident with a camera, this is one more thing you can outsource and not have to touch personally. When someone is browsing the search results your main image is the first tool you have to grab their attention. And once they click on your product images have the opportunity to convert to a sale by showing the quality of the product, and even preemptively answering any common questions the customer might have. If it's common for a customer to ask if your product has a certain feature, don't make them read the description or even the bullet-points for that. Show it clearly in one of the product images. Not everyone will look at the additional images, but for those that do it can be a huge help in conversions.   My main competitor has 3 poorly done pictures which was one of several reasons I felt confident I would be able to compete with him. I made sure to take several shots of each of my products. Size is an important aspect of my main product, so I made sure to show something in the picture that could be used as a reference for scale. Your main product image is basically supposed to just be the product on a white background, but you've got a bit more flexibility with the secondary images.   I got some pretty good images, but I'll probably have some professional ones done down the road. I think these are good enough that there are more efficient ways to focus my resources than trying to get better pictures... but there is improvement that can be made down the road once the business gets into more of a rhythm.   By the time I was done taking and editing all the photos, the inventory had already been delivered to Amazon's warehouse and much of it had already been checked in... some of it still hasn't but enough has that I was ready to do a quick review and edit of the descriptions and bullets then upload my images and let the listings go live!   In the next episode, I'll talk about the next steps I took and the results I've started to see.   In the meantime, if there's a full transcript of this show available at brandingblitz.com/8   And as always if you have a question you'd like to ask me head over to brandingblitz.com/ask and leave me an audio recording or just drop a comment with your question. I'd also love any feedback you have about the show.   And if you're enjoying hearing following along with my journey would you do me a favor and subscribe to the show? Just head over to iTunes and search for Branding Blitz to find the show and click subscribe. While you're there, it's be great if you're willing to leave a review. That would help me get back in the good graces of iTunes after not releasing an episode for a little while, and I'd really appreciate it!     That's it for this show, I'll catch you next time on episode 9 of the Branding Blitz!

I'd never heard of the hazmat flag before, but apparently it isn't all that uncommon happening on such random products as baseballs, toy cars, and... my product. It's been a longer process getting it cleared than it should be, and as such I'm being forced to switch gears.  Let's dive in to find out what happened! To leave a comment head to http://brandingblitz.com/6/    Full Transcript below: ---   ---   ---   ---   Hello again, and welcome back to the Branding Blitz podcast! I'm JR, and this is episode 6.   It's been well a couple weeks since I recorded the last episode because I've had a long string of bad days with my health and life's been kind of crazy as a result. I went to the doctor yesterday, and got another steroid shot and some new meds, so I'm doing a bit better now, but still a bit out of whack.There have been some interesting things happening in the meantime though.   After I recorded episode 5, discussing some common questions I'd seen about barcodes, it occurred to me that this is the kind of thing that would be handy to have in text form as well. Podcasts are a great format for explaining things, but they're not easily searchable if you are looking for a specific piece of information. So I put together a guide that is divided up into different sections with a table of contents that lets you jump to a specific question.The response to that guide has been fantastic. In the time since I posted that guide, it has nearly doubled in size as people have asked more questions and I've been able to add those answers to the guide. Each time I think I've got all the main stuff answered, someone else comes along and asks a great question, so it just keeps growing. My hope is that I can turn it into the most comprehensive guide to FBA barcodes possible. And that is made possible by people like you continuing to give feedback and asking more questions. If you'd like to check it out, you can find a link by going to http://brandingblitz.com/resources/The feedback I've gotten on this guide has truly been AMAZING – I love to teach people and knowing how helpful this has been is really exciting to me. It's inspired me not just to try and make this guide as comprehensive as possible, but also to try to create more guides. So I'd love to hear from you what topics you'd like to see a thorough guide created about.   The past couple of weeks have been eventful for my product sourcing adventure as well – in some ways a little more eventful than I wanted this part of the process to be.I was ready to submit an order for my first product, but had decided I wanted to put the FNSKU on the product packaging straight from the manufacturer. So I set up the listing in Amazon to get the FNSKU. I went in to create a shipment so I could retrieve the label, and got an error message stating that the product was flagged as a potential hazmat issue and was under review.I had never heard of this before, but apparently, it isn't all that uncommon. Hazmat by the way is short for Hazardous Materials. Anything that is flammable, explosive, poisonous, corrosive, aerosol, or contains a lithium ion battery is supposed to automatically get flagged – so if your product matches any of those things be aware that you may have an issue.But my product didn't match any of those things, and I wasn't sure why it got flagged. In searching the internet and talking to people about my issue, I came across people who had really random products flagged. One person had a baseball flagged as hazmat, another person had a tennis ball – not sure what's going on with the sporting goods but those were two different people! Someone said they'd had a toy car that had the words “fire red” in the paint color and it got flagged, but they re-did the listing without the word “fire” and it went through.   Anyway, as long as your product isn't actually hazmat, it should pass review. Depending on your product, you may be able to get what's called a Material Data Safety Sheet or MSDS from your manufacturer. An MSDS is basically a document that shows what materials your product is made of and how they respond to different environments, how flammable they are, how to extinguish if they do catch fire, what gases may be released if they catch fire, things they interact with, etc. So if you can get one of those, it should help with the review process – though I'm not sure if you can get an MSDS for something like a baseball.   For my product, I actually already had an MSDS sheet. So it wasn't a big deal to upload that info. Once I'd done that, I hopped on a chat with seller support to see if there was any way to expedite the process. They assured me there was nothing they could do to speed it up, it would take 3-4 days, but that was great news because it used to take weeks or even months to get it done. That was on May 20th and for about the next 3 weeks I did not get any information and was told there was nothing that could be done to speed it up. Finally, on June 8th, I was told that they had determined the product to be a Hazmat product. Which means until we get this sorted out, I can't sell this product through FBA. They couldn't tell me why it got flagged as Hazmat or why they decided to leave it that way. But they submitted a ticket to the department that handles that. Supposedly they'll be able to tell me what's going on. That's been a couple days ago now, and I've not received any updates yet.While I don't think this item should be a hazmat product, and it seems like we should be able to get it cleared because there are dozens of other sellers selling nearly identical products through FBA, I'm very hesitant to pull the trigger on this order until it gets cleared.   So, that's all given me some time to think. Even before finding out they had decided to leave Hazmat status on the product, I had decided to look into other options.As a result, I've made some changes to my plan. I'm still super excited about doing this product in the future, but it is no longer going to be my first product.The path I'm going to take now is quite a bit different than the one I was originally planning, and I think it is for the better. So this frustrating hiccup with being flagged as Hazmat may have been a blessing in disguise.In the coming episodes, I'll talk more about what I've changed with my plan. And when I know more, I'll keep you updated on the Hazmat issue and hopefully be able to share some tips for what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation.I'm leaving tomorrow morning to go visit family in Idaho. The trip was planned long before my health fell apart, but I'm hopeful that the dry air in Idaho will help give me a bit of a reprieve.By the time I get back, my first product should be here – I actually just checked the tracking info and it is expected to be delivered on Thursday. So I can begin moving forward with that.I'm planning to take my recorder with me, but I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to record another episode while I'm gone or not. If not, I'll have a lot to talk about when I get back!For a transcript of this show, and to leave any comments or feedback, head over to brandingblitz.com/6   If you have any questions you'd like to ask and maybe get it answered on the podcast, drop me a line at brandingblitz.com/ask   If you haven't done so yet, could you do me a favor and head over to iTunes to subscribe and leave a review. That will help me tell iTunes that I am NOT a hazardous material – and I'd really appreciate it.     That's it for this episode, I'll catch you next time on the Branding Blitz.

If you're stuck or confused by UPCs and FNKSUs, you are NOT alone.  I've noticed a ton of people getting hung up on these.  So this episode is my attempt to clear up some of the confusion. We're going to dive deep into some basics here to get an understanding of what the barcodes are and what you need to do with them. The transcript is below, but if you'd like to leave a comment, head over to http://brandingblitz.com/5/ Hey everybody, welcome back! This is JR and you're listening to the Branding Blitz podcast where I'll take you behind the scenes as I go through the process of trying to strategically use speed and brute force to launch and scale a new brand. This is episode 5 and today I'm going to discuss a topic that seems to be a hang up for a lot of people. I quit using Facebook back in January – when my health started falling apart, I simply didn't have the energy to invest in it. I got back on again this week for two reasons. First, I wanted to look into setting up a page to help promote my new brand. But I also wanted to join up with some of the Facebook groups where people are discussing Amazon FBA and private labeling – primarily I was interested in the one Scott Voelker set up to build a community around The Amazing Seller podcast, but there are a handful of others I joined too. So after months of avoiding Facebook, Scott Voelker got me back on it – I'm still not sure if I should thank him for that or not, but there is an active community there with a lot of valuable information being discussed. But there was something I noticed very quickly. There are certain questions that seem to get asked quite frequently. One of those issues in particular I've noticed being asked at least 2-3 times a day over the past few days. It seems every several hours someone asks some form of the following questions: Do I need a UPC code? Where do I get it? Does the manufacturer provide the UPC code? Does the manufacturer put the UPC code on there or do I? Do I need to put the UPC code and the FNSKU? What's and FNSKU and where do I get it? What's the difference between a UPC and an FNSKU? Do I need to register my UPC code? There's probably a dozen or so different questions you could ask along those lines, but ultimately, this is what is really being ask: Can someone PLEASE help me understand this confusing mess of acronyms and barcodes? I think I've got it sorted out, so I wanted to put together an episode explaining the details as a resource to anyone trying to figure out what they need to do. So that's the topic of this episode titled: “Alphabet Soup: UPC, FNSKU, SMH, IDK, TGIF” I think most of the difficulty stems from not understanding the basics of what barcodes are, what a UPC is and how they're used and how that differs from an FNSKU. So we're going to start with some basic explanations which should help make everything clearer when we get to discussing the practical application. So first off – what is a barcode? Probably the first thing that pops into most people's head is the black and white set of lines and numbers you see on the back of every product on every shelf of any major retail store. But that is a specific type of barcode – it's a UPC barcode. But a barcode can be used for other things too. If you look at your computer case, it likely has a barcode with a serial number on it and maybe a product key as well. Your car may have a barcode on the dash or door for the VIN number. When UPS delivers your package, it has a barcode. And as I've recently discovered, when you check in to a hospital or ER, the little bracelet they give you may have a barcode. All that is to say, when we hear the word “barcode” something very specific tends to come to mind, but the actual term barcode refers to a system of turning information into a code made up of lines or bars so that it can be easily read by an optical scanner. We're trained to read text, so the lines don't mean much to us, but for a computer using very basic optics, it is much easier for it to interpret lines than letters. Barcodes have actually expanded beyond basic black and white lines to other formats which can hold more information within the code – but for the purposes of this discussion just think of a barcode as an alphabet that is easier for a computer to understand. Then what's a UPC code? UPC stands for Universal Product Code, and this is what you see on any product you pick up in Walmart. The numbers at the bottom are the human readable version of the UPC and the black lines are what you get when you translate those numbers into that special alphabet I mentioned. In theory, each of those sets of numbers is unique to an individual product. So when you get to the cash register, instead of the cashier having to look up the product by name in their computer or type in the price manually, they can flash that set of bars in front of their scanner and the computer can quickly figure out that 037000195221 is a tube of toothpaste. We'll talk more about the UPC, where you get it, and how to use it in a minute, but first let's talk about the FNSKU. What is that? Well, barcodes aren't just used at the cash register, they're also very useful in warehouses. Imagine you've got warehouse with hundreds of thousands of products in it. You get a sheet of paper with a bunch of product names on it and you're supposed to go find those product and box them up to ship out. Let's get even more specific – let's say one of the products on that list is that same toothpaste we talked about earlier. I just searched on Amazon for “toothpaste” and it showed 13 pages of results. So that's hundreds of different toothpaste varieties. So imagine I direct you to the “toothpaste” section of Amazon's warehouse, and tell you to find the four pack of 6 ounce tubes of Crest Pro-Health Whitening Fresh Clean Mint toothpaste. Now, be sure not to confuse that with the six pack of 4.2 ounce tubes of Crest Pro-Health Clean Mint toothpaste – a totally different product. This is where barcodes come in – instead of you sitting there trying to verify you've got the right thing saying to yourself, “Wait was it the 4 pack or 6 pack?” “Oops this is 4.2 ounce tubes, I needed the 6 ounce tubes.” “Wait this one isn't the special 'whitening' version, I need that version.” You can just scan the barcode and the computer will interpret that code and verify that it's the right thing. So far all of this could be done with the regular UPC barcodes, but Amazon faces another issue that compounds the complexity of this. Imagine now that you not only have to find that specific type of toothpaste amidst all the others – but there are 7 different companies selling that toothpaste all stored in your warehouse and you want to make sure you send out a product from the correct set of inventory. Well, if everyone selling that toothpaste has is using the same UPC barcode, then you don't have any way of telling them apart, so you've got two options. You could just pile everyone's inventory into the same bin and send them without differentiating between who the inventory actually belongs to – this is an option you can use on Amazon and it probably would be the right option for this toothpaste example, but for a lot of products that isn't ideal, so Amazon needed another option. This is where the FNSKU comes from.The FNSKU is a set of letters and numbers that identifies a unique product just like the UPC does – but the FNSKU also contains information linking it to a specific seller. When Amazon needs to be able to tell something is your product specifically, they will require it to have an FNSKU barcode on it. And to make things easier on them, they actually require that the UPC barcode that would generally be on the packaging either be replaced or covered so that only the FNSKU barcode is scannable. At this point, you might be thinking - “Alright JR, that's great, I now know way more than I ever wanted to about barcodes – but I still have no idea how to apply all this to my product.” Well, let's talk about that a bit. Since we know that it is eventually going to be replaced or covered up, a logical question is, “Do I even need a UPC or can I just use the FNSKU?” Every product you list on Amazon will need to have a UPC before you can create the listing. In fact if you have variations, such as offering the same product in multiple colors, each one will need it's own UPC. That said, depending on how you decide to move forward with what you're learning here, you may not actually need the barcode itself – just the set of numbers. You need to type in the numbers from the UPC when you are registering the product on Amazon and that may be the last time you ever think about that UPC. Knowing that you have to have a UPC code for your product and in the end the only scannable bardcode needs to be the FNSKU, you've got about 3 options on how to proceed. One of the most common options for people starting out is simply to have Amazon put a sticker on your product with the FNSKU on it. This is an easy and hands-off way to get started. I think it is popular because all the different barcodes can be confusing and you don't have to understand ins and outs of all of this to take this route – you just let Amazon handle it. So if you're still feeling confused at the end of this podcast, this may be a good route for you to get started with. However, it does have a cost to it. You pay Amazon $.20 per item to sticker it. That's not much, and hopefully that won't cut into your profits too much, but as you scale up your business, $.20 per item sold can really add up – and there's an easy way to avoid it once you get past the information overload that's often involved in getting a product launched. One thing to remember about this option is that Amazon does require it to have a scannable barcode when they receive your products for FBA. They don't care if it's the UPC barcode or the FNSKU, but they need to have some scannable idenifier. So if you want to have them put the FNSKU sticker on there, your product needs to have the UPC barcode on there to begin with and they will cover it up with their stickers. This is definitely a viable option starting out, but again, I don't believe it is the BEST option as you begin to grow and move forward – and it's not the option I am using. The second option is to put the stickers on yourself. This one seems like a nice choice initially for a lot of people when they think about having to pay Amazon to sticker their products. Putting a sticker on my product is easy, right? Why should I pay Amazon for that? Well, for one thing stickering yourself isn't free. You have to have a printer to do it, which may use up some of your ink or toner. I know some people do it, but Amazon specifically says not to use an inkjet printer because they can smudge, smear, and fade sometimes. So they want you to either use a laser or thermal printer. And you have to buy the labels. In the end, it's still probably less than $.20 per unit, but not free – AND even more importantly is the amount of time you're spending doing all this. Ultimately, it's up to you, but generally I would recommend having Amazon sticker it instead of you. One potential exception is if for some reason you can't get the UPC barcode printed on the product – in that case Amazon wouldn't label it for you anyway, so you might as well put the FNSKU on yourself. The third option, and the one I plan to utilize myself, doesn't even involve stickers. We know that Amazon wants you to have a UPC when you set up the product page, but somewhere along the line they actually want that UPC barcode to disappear and be replaced by the FNSKU barcode. Well, since Amazon never needs to actually see the UPC barcode on your product, there's no reason to even put it there in the first place. Rather than having your manufacturer print the UPC barcode on the product and then paying Amazon to cover it up – let's take that FNSKU barcode that would have been printed on a sticker and have the manufacturer print it directly on the product packaging right from the beginning. They were already going to print the UPC barcode on there, so this is no more work, is not any more complex for them, and should not cause any extra costs. It gives Amazon exactly what they want and allows you to avoid either stickering it yourself or paying Amazon to sticker them for you. It's really that simple – on the package where you would have them put the UPC barcode, have them print the FNSKU barcode instead. Now that I've said it, I'm sure some of you are thinking, “Seriously, the solution fits into a single sentence? Couldn't you have lead with that?” Well yeah, I could've, but I noticed that on all of the posts asking about barcodes, someone would answer with something along those lines, very basic and to the point – and very often it still didn't click with the person asking the question until it was explained in more depth. I THINK that is at least in part because most of us see UPC barcodes everyday but we never think much about the functions they're performing and the FNSKU is a whole new thing and we don't immediately know how they're related. So that's why I started by discussing the function and relationship of the UPC barcodes and FNSKU barcodes. I'm hoping that by starting there, it helps understand the whole picture better, and by the time I get to the point of saying, “Just put the FNSKU barcode on there instead,” it will make more sense why I'm telling you to do that. There's still plenty of other questions to answer like: “Where do I get my UPC code?” “Once I buy it, do I have to register it somewhere before Amazon can recognize it?” and “Why isn't Amazon accepting my UPC?” I think I'll split off a more in depth discussion of those questions into another episode but for now here's the short answers. You can buy UPC codes in a hundred different places around the web – to buy them from the same place where I got 10 of them for $20, go to brandingblitz.com/barcodes No, you do not have to register your UPC code before Amazon will recognize it. There are a number of reasons Amazon may not be recognizing your UPC code as valid, but probably the most common one is that there are actually a couple different standards for UPC codes, some have an extra number in them. Yours may be one of the shorter ones – if this is the case, adding a zero in front of it should allow Amazon to recognize it. Don't worry, that's not just a hack, it's actually a valid way of converting from the shorter UPC to the longer version. For a transcript of this show, and to leave any comments or feedback, head over to brandingblitz.com/5 Let me know if this explanation helped you and if I left anything out that you'd like me to explain further. If you have any questions you'd like to ask and maybe get it answered on the podcast, drop me a line at brandingblitz.com/ask If you haven't done so yet, could you do me a favor and head over to iTunes to subscribe and leave a review. That'll help iTunes know I'm providing something helpful through this podcast, and I'd really appreciate it! That's it for this episode, I know it's easy to get overwhelmed by some of this especially when a lot of it has to do with confusing and unfamiliar acronyms and things we're normally trained not to have to think about as consumers, but I hope this has helped you understand barcodes, UPCs and FNSKUs. To keep with the theme, here's a couple more acronyms for you: TTFN and TTYL, I'll catch you next time on the Branding Blitz.  

Alright, it's time to get down to business.   Before I can take you along for the ride in this brand launch, I have to lay the baseline for explaining where we're starting from.  There are two main aspects to this: the business side and the personal side.   This episode starts down the road of discussing the business side.   http://brandingblitz.com/2/Transcript:   Hello again and welcome back everyone! This is JR and you're listening to the Branding Blitz podcast where I'll take you behind the scenes as I go through the process of trying to strategically use speed and brute force to launch and scale a new brand. I want to spend the next couple of episodes discussing where I'm at in the process of launching the brand as well as where I am at personally – both of which I think you'll find make this a fascinating story to follow. For now, let's focus on the business side. The past few weeks have been pretty intense for a number of reasons, not all positive. But from the aspect of launching this brand, things have been going great and very active. About a week and a half ago, I ordered samples for our first product. Normally, if you don't already have a relationship with a manufacturer - which, let's face it, most of us don't - I would recommend ordering samples from several different manufacturers. Due to financial constraints I put more effort into weeding out manufacturers based on ease of communication, responsiveness, how knowledgeable they seem, and details pictures of the products... as well as price, minimum order quantities, lead time, etcetera. I only ended up ordering samples from one manufacturer when it was all said and done. If you've got a little extra cash, I definitely recommend ordering more samples. It was more unnecessary stress waiting for the package to arrive wondering, “What if it gets here and it's not as high quality as they made it out to be?” The fact that the most important aspects of this particular product can't be judged based on a picture didn't really help. Often you'll have to pay $50 or so for a sample, which sounds like a lot initially – way more than the cost of the product itself. But when you consider it gets to your door in a few days from a factory in China, that's honestly not very much. And definitely worth getting a few of them coming so you can have a better basis for picking which manufacturer you work with. That said, it actually worked out for me. I paid $60 for samples from one manufacturer, and I'm very happy with the quality of what we're going to be getting. While I was waiting for those samples to come, I registered the business and got a Federal Tax ID number. If you're serious about doing this, I definitely recommend setting everything up separately under a business name and tax id rather than doing your own SSN. I'm not a tax expert by any means, but I think that will really save some headaches down the road when this things begins to scale. I also registered a domain and began setting the website up. Whether or not you need a website right away really depends on what you're trying to sell – in a lot of cases I would say it's not a big deal. But for my particular market I really feel like having at least a basic informational site will be very helpful. I don't plan to have a store there yet. Eventually we'll set that up, but for now I want to have a laser focus on Amazon as our only sales channel. So I just logged into my HostGator account and set WordPress blog on the brand domain. I've begun adding some information to it, and will be adding more in the coming days. It will eventually need a better theme, but for now I've just got a pretty basic free one on there. A basic website is so easy to set up that it really is hard to justify not setting SOMETHING up when you're getting started even if it isn't absolutely necessary for your niche, but you also can't let it be too much of a distraction as you're trying to get that initial momentum. I've already got experience working with websites so it wasn't a big deal for me to set it up. If that kind of thing is overwhelming for you or you feel it's going to slow you down – don't worry about it right off the bat. There will be plenty of time later once your business has started to gain traction.   One of the things that I believe is going to help me differentiate myself in the market I've chosen is that I am looking to build a brand. This has to do with the fact that I'm planning to expand to a full line of products rather than just a single product – but it also has to do with the fact that I have been thinking about the brand image from the beginning.   Even before I chose my product, I was thinking about branding. Each time I found a new product or set of products to start tracking in a different niche, I asked myself some basic branding questions. “How hard will it be to build a brand and a full line of products around this product?” “Who will my customer be?” “What kind of brand image and messaging will connect with them?” “What are the other brands out there like and how well branded are they?” “Will I want to enter the market as a low cost alternative or a premium option?” “Can I use the brand imaging itself as a way of differentiating my product EVEN before my brand is established?”   I believe the answer to that last question is yes. This is another thing that will depend to some extent on your market. I think it can be done in just about any market, but with my particular market, trying to use every aspect of my branding to show that I'm trying to put out a quality product is one of the ways I intend to differentiate my product in this market.   I'm coming in to a market where I believe the packaging of the product can make a HUGE difference in both conversions, as well as the customer's perception of quality and satisfaction after the purchase – which hopefully also means repeat it may lead to repeat sales. Yet, I honestly don't think ANY of my main competitors have very good packaging. The top two sellers are decent, but really I'm not impressed. Some of the others look especially unprofessional. I feel like stepping in with packaging that presents more of a premium impression could go a long way.   Again, this is something that I think could help at least marginally in pretty much any market and I think it will especially help in my market. But if designing packaging isn't something you feel up to the task for or you just feel like it's a hurdle that's going to slow you down DO NOT let that stop you from taking action. You can always move forward with a very basic packaging – even just a polybag with a sticker on it or a card insert is acceptable for a LOT of products. Then onces you've started to get traction and you're ready to try to upgrade the packaging and see if it increases your conversions you can either design it or hire a designer. I've heard a lot of good things about 99 Designs – I have NOT used them, but most of what I've heard has been pretty positive. If I was looking to pay for a design, that is probably the first place I'd look.   That said, I'm a self-taught computer geek and my wife has a degree in “Print Communications.” Which means, with our combined powers, we form something of a marginally qualified design team. We spent some time as we waited for samples working on potential packaging ideas. Having the product in hand really helped with that, and we've finalized most of the design with a few tweaks to be made here and there.   What we've come up with isn't perfect, and I'm sure a true professional designer could easily pick out some things to clean it up a bit more – but I'm pretty confident that we look more professional than the competition, while presenting the brand image we're going for. And it didn't cut into our budget at all or really slow us down much. That's the key – not letting these little hurdles slow you down. If it's too big and going to really slow you down to work on a website or design a package – don't do it. Not yet. Keep moving forward taking the actions that you can to start getting traction. Once you've got enough traction you can circle around to build out your website and have new packaging made up without losing your forward momentum. We very well may do that in the future ourselves. I'm quite happy with the packaging we've come up with, but if my theory is right and the packaging is going to be a good source of differentiation, it may still be worth having it redone professionally in the future. For now though, we're going forward with what we were able to put together without losing the momentum we have.   The packaging actually did ALMOST become a hurdle for us – but not because of the custom design. Partway through the design, I realized that there were some specific federal regulations regarding the labeling of my product. I'd been basing the information on my labels in large part based on what I saw included on other similar labels – but it looks like some of my competition, as well as the samples from my manufacturer, don't meet up with the full federal regulation... at least as I understand it. So it took me a bit of deciphering to figure out what we needed to include on our product labels, but I believe we've got it sorted out. I'm actually a bit curious what happens if one of the competitors gets reported to the regulatory agency. It feels a bit dirty to report them just because they're my competition – but now that it is also a legal issue. And to be honest, now that I'm aware of law I feel a bit better knowing the info that is supposed to be on these packages. There's good reason for it, and honestly as a consumer I would like it on my package. So I wouldn't feel too bad about reporting them... BUT again that doesn't seem like the most efficient and productive thing to focus on so I haven't looked into it any farther other than just wondering what would happen if they were reported.   There's one last detail I need before we can finalize the packaging, and I think we'll be ready to place our first order.   I purchased UPC codes last week as well. I got 10 barcodes for $20 from a company called Cheap UPC Barcodes. This is a very good deal compared to some of the other websites which mark up the price of their barcodes pretty significantly. On a lot of sites you'd pay way more than $20 for a single barcode and I got 10. If you need some barcodes, this seems like a good place to get the – if you go to brandingblitz.com/barcodes it will send you to their site and I'll get a small commission if you buy your barcodes there.   But instead of putting the UPC code on the packaging, I'm planning to put the FNSKU code on there. Since I'm not looking to get into any other retailers right now, I don't really need the UPC barcode on the package and it saves me from having to put a sticker on there with the FNSKU or to pay Amazon to label it. I had previously started to set up an Amazon seller account, but realized there had already been an Amazon Seller account operated at this address in the past. I have heard Amazon doesn't like people having multiple seller's accounts – I'm not sure how much of what I've heard is true, and this is a different name, different business, etc... but I still wanted to check before I charged ahead. So I've contacted them, they asked for some more info which I gave them and am now waiting for a reply. So that right now is the main thing holding me back from placing an order with the manufacturer– and I'm hoping they'll get that to me today.   In the meantime, waiting for that has given us a little extra time to make some additional tweaks to our package designs and add some of the initial content to our website.   I'm also looking into setting up a Facebook page and targeting people in my niche which would then set me up to do a giveaway for some initial reviews. There is already one set up, and I think Facebook ads would let me target people that are fans of that page, so that would actually take away some of the legwork on getting that set up. I'm not completely decided, but I may try to use some Facebook ads to get some people following my new page. Post for a giveaway and send people to LeadPages to get them on an email list or something. At this point, the main goal would be to gather emails of people interested getting review copies of the product – but that could also be a useful list to have down the road as well as long as I make it clear that I'll be sending them other stuff too not just freebies.   That's one of the ways I'm looking into to build that initial sales and review momentum. But I haven't actually started that process yet. If I decide to go that route, I'll probably try to do that while I'm waiting for the product to be manufactured. I'll also need to continue to build out   There's plenty more I could keep talking about, but I think that gives a pretty good overview of where things are for this brand launch. We've chosen a market, chosen a product, figured out some key differentiators, chosen a manufacturer, gotten samples, designed the packaging, and are ALMOST ready to order. Plus the legal structure of the business is established an we have a very basic website that is up and running with some minimal content.   For a transcript of this show, as well as links to any of the tools mentioned, and to leave any comments or feedback, head over to brandingblitz.com/2   A full list of the tools I'm using can be found on brandingblitz.com/tools   If you have any questions you'd like to ask and maybe get it answered on the podcast, drop me a line at brandingblitz.com/ask   I look forward to connecting with you!   That's all for this episode, I'll catch you next time on episode 3 of the Branding Blitz podcast.     In the meantime if you're enjoying the show, it'd be great if you subscribed on iTunes and left a review. That'll help iTunes know I'm not just talking to myself here, and I'd really appreciate it!

In this episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast I will answer listener questions about Amazon FBA Selling. This is session #4 of Ask Scott and it covers Finding Agents, UPC Codes and FNSKU, Winning The Buy Box, Taxes, Ordering Samples and Minimum Orders. The questions answered are…. In this episode 1. How Do I Find […]