When I first started selling on Amazon, it took me a while to get the hang of how it works, how to boost sales, and how to sell more print-on-demand products.
One thing I quickly realized is that selling products on Amazon is quite different from selling on other marketplaces.
When you’re getting started, it might not take long for you to realize your sales on Amazon might be slower than sales on Etsy.
But when you have many FBA products, you’ll sell a lot more.
When you offer FBA products, you can make far more sales than you will on Etsy. One of the most popular ways to earn income online is through Amazon FBA.
When it comes to making sales on Amazon, most sellers opt for FBA because they can enjoy the benefits of Amazon’s advanced shipping and fulfillment services and earn more sales from Amazon’s coveted Prime customers.
Why go the FBA route?
Well, because it’s easy to do, and you can make tons of sales. You just have to pick a few winning products from your Amazon FBM account, order them in bulk, and ship them to Amazon.
You can do this by contacting your AliExpress or Alibaba supplier and asking them to ship your products to Amazon. The products you can find on these platforms are cheap, and the suppliers know how to ship products to Amazon.
Amazon will handle fulfillment and customer service. You don’t have to worry about shipping, and you don’t have to talk to customers.
Just pick your winning products and make them FBA.
It’s the easiest way to sell print-on-demand products. But you have to be sure the products you send to Amazon FBA are winners.
An easy way to do this is to use PODTurbo to list tons of products, see which ones sell, and make them FBA.
If you just blindly pick products for Amazon FBA, the chances that the product won’t sell will be very high. You’ll also pay a lot in storage fees (because Amazon FBA isn’t free).
A few people I know make over $500K a year selling print-on-demand products through Amazon FBA. I have thousands of products in my Amazon account, and I plan to send even more to FBA.
Amazon FBA: How it Works
Before we look at whether the FBA will be a profitable method for your POD business, you need to understand how it works.
- STEP 1
It starts with you ordering your products from cheap sources. Most POD sellers often buy products such as mugs or travel mugs from Alibaba or AliExpress at a low cost.
Then ship your products to Amazon’s Fulfillment Center.
You have to create a shipment on Amazon. Currently, there are around 100 Amazon warehouses in the U.S. When you create a shipment in Amazon, they’ll tell you where to send your items according to the type of products you’re selling.
- STEP 2
As soon as your goods arrive at the designated Amazon warehouse, the warehouse employees will sort and issue a code for your merchandise. There have been reports that Amazon uses robot assistants to track their inventories. Cool!
Although incidents of loss or broken goods are rare, Amazon will reimburse you if something does happen to your products.
- STEP 3
Once a customer places an order for one of your items, Amazon will locate and pack it. Automatically, your inventory will be updated. Amazon will then ship the desired good(s) to the customer using whatever method the customer has chosen.
During the shipping process, both you and the customer will be able to track the product.
- STEP 4
Amazon would handle other important aspects of the business, such as customer support and returns. Amazon will send you the payment for all the sales made through Amazon FBA every two weeks.
Amazon FBA is not only restricted to the fulfillment of goods from Amazon alone. You can also use FBA to fulfill orders from other e-commerce platforms, like eBay and Etsy, and even for your website.
Everything you need to know about Amazon FBA
1. Easy logistics and shipping
Have you ever tried to manage your own fulfillment? It can be very time-consuming, especially when you have a ton of orders.
Let’s use the holidays as an example. As POD sellers, holidays are a gold mine for print-on-demand sellers. If you play your cards right, you’ll get many orders, and suppliers will receive many orders from other sellers.
This might cause delays in the production and shipping of the products.
But this is not the case with Amazon. Regardless of the holiday rush-hour mode, you can still send products in bulk to Amazon. Amazon has the best logistics in the world, and they can ship the item fast, even within a day.
2. Discounted shipping rates
Amazon has contracts with major shipping carriers. This gives them huge discounts on shipping costs. Amazon returns the favor by passing these discounts to FBA sellers in the form of reduced shipping prices. FBA customers also enjoy free shipping.
Additionally, Prime members get to enjoy free two-day shipping on all FBA products. This serves as a huge incentive that often translates into a higher sales rate.
3. Seamless Management of returns
Honestly, processing returns can be a pain! Getting a negative review is bad enough – but you’ll still have to deal with upset customers, inspect the returns, and handle all the administrative aspects of the transaction – if you’re an FBM seller.
On the other hand, Amazon takes care of all of that stuff for FBA sellers. Amazon is responsible for managing customer inquiries, returning shipping labels, and reverse logistics. Although they charge a returns-processing fee, it’s worth it for the amount of work they take off your shoulders.
4. Customer service management
If there’s one thing Amazon is known for, it’s excellent customer service. With 24/7 support via phone, chat, and email, what could go wrong?
This puts your customers in good hands and takes a huge load off your shoulders.
5. Quick delivery
There are hundreds of fulfillment centers all over the world owned by Amazon. So, wherever your customers are, you can rest assured that they will get what they ordered within a couple of days. Once a customer places an order, Amazon automatically figures out which fulfillment center is closest to the customer. From there, they can ship the order in no time.
6. Amazon Prime members love FBA
Today, Amazon has over 300 million active customers. Of this staggering figure, 90 million of them are Prime subscribers in the U.S. alone.
And yes, the brands available specifically to Prime buyers are mainly those who use FBA. Prime customers spend much more money with Amazon than regular customers.
For instance, the average customer spends about $700 per year on Amazon. However, Prime customers can spend as much as $1,300 per year. So, if you use Amazon FBA, you’ll make more money from Prime buyers.
Amazon offers several benefits to Prime customers such as discounts, lower or no shipping fees, etc. Amazon Prime members get special benefits with products bearing the Amazon Prime Badge.
To make things clear, FBA product pages show the Amazon Prime Badge. The best part about this is that you can charge more. I posted many mugs for $24.95 in the last Q4. They sold out fast!
7. SEO Perks
For some reason, FBA products often enjoy a higher ranking in search results. This boosts the seller’s visibility and makes sales easier.
Here’s how it works. FBA products are controlled by Amazon. Hence, Amazon will add the SEO score to these FBA listings.
On the other hand, Amazon Prime Products sometimes come with some shipping perks like free shipping or shorter shipping times. This often attracts a lot of customers. And more customers mean more sales!
The better your listing performs, the better it ranks.
Read this Before Using Amazon FBA
Before you get all jumpy, Amazon’s stellar 24/7 customer service, shipping to customers, advanced fulfillment network comes at a cost. A big one.
1. FBA costs money
Amazon collects fees for both storage and fulfillment. If you want to minimize your storage fees, your inventory must move quickly.
You also need to pay money up front to order products in bulk before sending them to the fulfillment center. If you don’t sell enough, it’s your loss!
2. Over-extended storage fees
I know what you’re thinking: the storage fees aren’t that bad. No? Then wait until your items sit in the warehouse for over six months and you have to keep paying to keep them there. Amazon is not in the business of storing products. If you don’t sell, they’ll make sure you still pay storage fees. Not all FBA products can be sold, so you might have to deal with high storage fees.
3. Starting might be more difficult than you think
When it comes to working the FBA process, Amazon has strict guidelines on how it should go. From product preparation to shipping, everything must be done correctly.
Before sending products to fulfillment centers, all product details must be correctly entered into Amazon’s database, properly labeled, and shipped to the right warehouses. It might take some time before you get the hang of it all.
4. Not every product can be sold, even if you make it FBA
It’s a fact! You won’t sell all the products in your inventory. This is why you need to carefully select the products you want to send to the Amazon Warehouse for FBA.
Now you know what to expect with Amazon FBA. If you want to scale on Amazon, FBA is the way to go!
Getting Started with Amazon FBA
- Set up FBA
If you already have a Selling on Amazon account, add FBA to your account. If you don’t, set up your Amazon seller account first.
- Copy Listing
Go to the Manage Inventory page in Amazon and locate the winning product you want to send to the Amazon Warehouse. Select “Copy Listing” and choose “Amazon” as a fulfillment channel.
- Prepare your products
You can order your products from inexpensive suppliers. Many POD sellers source products such as mugs or travel mugs from Alibaba or AliExpress at a low cost, then let those platforms make and ship your products to the Amazon Fulfillment Center.
You have to prepare the labels for your supplier to ensure your products are transported safely and securely to the fulfillment center and quickly made available to customers.
- Ship your products to Amazon
Create your shipping plan, print Amazon shipment ID labels, and send your shipments to Amazon fulfillment centers. Once your products are received at the fulfillment center, they are available for customers to buy.
Copy existing inventory and make it FBA
If you’re already an Amazon seller, you can copy your existing inventory and make it FBA. Here’s how:
- On the Manage Inventory page, select the products you want to sell through FBA.- Copy the listing and Select “Fulfilled by Amazon”- Create your shipment and send the inventory.
When used properly, Amazon FBA can be the difference between a surviving business and a 7-figure POD business.
Apart from selling print-on-demand products on the marketplaces, you can also use paid traffic such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads to scale your sales aggressively.
I picked some of the best-selling ‘winning’ products in my Amazon and Etsy accounts to promote before Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I made over $350k from these special days.
At the end of the year, I also used paid traffic to promote Dropship on Demand (DOD) products with my team. I hit almost seven figures in sales in less than a month.
Paid traffic is what you use to scale your products to the moon. If you want to get better results from your business, you need to SCALE!
