WARNING: Ship 1st FBA product to Amazon warehouses before Oct. 10th

Last year, without warning, Amazon sent a message to new FBA sellers saying they could not send in their first batch of inventory from October 10th until after the holiday rush.

The surprise policy was presumably created to limit strain on Amazon’s warehouses during the busy end of year retail season. Unfortunately for new FBA sellers, the holidays are often the most lucrative time of year.

Amazon’s exact wording was:

“We are restricting shipments from new-to-FBA sellers to ensure we have the capacity necessary to receive and store inventory and to ship products to customers quickly. If you have not completed your first shipment to Amazon before October 10, 2016, we encourage you to start shipping to Amazon after December 19, 2016. If the situation changes before December 19, 2016, we will notify you by e-mail. We encourage you to continue selling on Amazon and fulfilling orders directly to customers. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Amazon has made no such announcement yet this year. But it’s reasonable to assume they’ll put another hold on new sellers this holiday season.

So, that gives you just over a month from now to find your first product, and get that inventory to Amazon! Don’t delay- the restriction date may be even earlier than October 10th this year.

POLICY CHANGE: Amazon limits search term fields to 250 characters (down from 5,000 characters)

Amazon will now only index 250 characters in total in the keyword search term fields of your product listing, rather than the 5,000 character limit previously allowed.

The purpose of the Search Term fields is to enter as many keywords as possible that potential customers might use to find your product when searching on Amazon. It was tough to fill in all 5,000 characters, but with the help of research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Sonar, and Moz Keyword Explorer, finding all possible keywords related to your product helped ensure more people would find, click on, and buy your product.

Now, you’ll have to choose wisely which words or phrases are the most relevant to your product, and which ones your customers are most like to type in the search box.

This policy will be rolled out gradually to all US sellers. Your product listing may still allow you to insert 1,000 characters in each of the five search term fields. However, I recommend being proactive about the character count restriction change by updating all product listings to only contain 250 characters in the first search term field.

To do this on Seller Central, edit your product listing and navigate to the Keywords tab. Instead of placing 1,000 keywords in each of the 5 fields allotted, as was the previous best practice, you’ll now want to place just 250 characters in the first field and leave the remaining fields empty.

In my opinion, the new character policy is actually a good thing. It should make keyword research simpler and faster, and it will force us all to be more strategic about finding only the most relevant keywords to describe our product. In the long run this should improve our conversion rates, as customer searches will return more relevant results.

Any questions? Comment below!

There are many reasons you might want a sales boost for your Amazon product. Maybe sales have slumped and need a kick start. Maybe a new competitor entered the market and you want to make sure you stay above them in the search results. Or maybe you just need more money right now!

Try these 7 tweaks below to reignite sales on your Amazon listing.

(Note: If you’re looking for information on how to launch a new product, enroll in the FBA Life Launchpad! Module 3 of the course is all about how to get your first product up for sale on Amazon, and make sure it ranks in the search results to get sales and reviews as quickly as possible.)

1. Insert Keywords
Customers will have a hard time finding your product if the phrase they use to search for it is not present in your Amazon listing.

You can insert your top keywords in the title, bullet points, description, and the backend keyword insert area on Amazon Seller Central. You can add up to 5,000 characters in the “search terms” field when editing your product listing.

To fill up as many of those characters as possible, it’s worth putting some time into keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Moz Keyword Explorer. Just search for a word or phrase that describes your product (ex: yoga mat), and they will churn out other related words or phrases people might search for (ex: yoga pad, exercise mat, Pilates, etc.).

2. Update your product photos
Adding new photos or uploading a different main listing photo can do wonders for boosting sales.

You’ll never know if the main photo could be performing better until you test. You could try it from a different angle, show the product in use, or make it higher resolution. Photos should be at least 1,000 pixels on their longest side in order for customers to zoom in.

Although high quality product photos can launch your product to the top of the search results, you don’t have to break the bank to do it. Most smartphones today take high resolution photos, and services like Fiverr allow you to outsource photography for as cheap as $5.

3. Promote your product
When someone buys your product, Amazon recognizes it as something customers want. As a result, your product will rank higher in the search results and be exposed to more potential buyers. But how do you get a sale?

Amazon allows you to do promotional giveaways, so buyers can get your product for free or for a discounted price. Ideally you will experience a sales boost from both the sales and any reviews that might come in. But be careful- Amazon is very strict about their policy prohibiting you from asking for a reviews in exchange for a discounted or free product.

Aside from asking friends and family, there are there are several services available online to help you do public giveaways. You can also experiment with running Amazon ads, and finding a niche audience who would be interested in your product in places like Facebook groups.

4. Update description or bullet points
Amazon does not always allow you to change your title after you create it. But you can easily change your description text and bullet points. The description is pretty far down on a listing’s webpage. This is a good place to stuff keywords in, as many people won’t see it, but also to give a ton of extra information about your product for those buyers who do scroll down to learn more.

Unlike the other areas of your product listing like the title and photo, which aim to get potential customers to click on your product, the bullet points serve to convert viewers into buyers.

Use the bullet points to explain each way your product can solve the customer’s problem. Add in any unique features that make your product stand out from the competition, and write in simple language that sounds more like a conversation than a sales pitch.

5. Match lowest price
This might seem obvious, but if there is an identical product to yours selling for a lower price, then that seller is probably going to outcompete you.

When it comes to pricing your product, the “set it and forget it” method is not recommended. But don’t worry, you don’t need to obsessively check your competitor’s prices. There are tools online to price check for you, so you can adjust your product’s sale price on an as-needed basis, or even automatically.

6. Offer bonus eBook
Offering a free eBook to buyers is a unique way to differentiate your product listing and get more buyers. If you are an expert in your niche, or at least know enough about it to fill a few pages, creating an eBook can be a quick and easy process.

You can easily put text and images into a Google doc, export it as a PDF, and put it on your website. You can then add a URL to access the eBook on your product packaging, or send the URL in a thank you email using a service like Feedback Genius.

As an extra benefit, offering an eBook also prevents other sellers from hijacking your listing, because they cannot make the same offer.

7. Get more reviews
You can’t ask for reviews in exchange for a discounted product, but there is no Amazon policy against asking for reviews in general.

More positive reviews means more sales. You can use a service like Feedback Genius to automatically send thank you emails to your Amazon customers, and ask them to leave a review if they were satisfied with their purchase.

However, Amazon has started allowing customers to opt out of all automated emails, so you might also consider inserting a small leaflet into each unit’s packaging to politely ask customers for reviews.

Have any more tips on boosting sales? Comment below!

PASSIVE INCOME /pas-iv in-kəm/, noun: cash flow received on a regular basis, requiring only minimal effort to maintain

I heard all kinds of “make money while you sleep” claims, but my attempts never seemed to pan out.

I tried earning an income by blogging. I started an Etsy shop. I watched countless friends try to sell skin care products on Facebook. All of those options took too much time, with low or no return on investment.

But I was desperate. I was barely scraping by at a low paying 9-5, commuting 3 hours a day, and drowning in student loan debt. I didn’t have the time or energy to take on a second job.

Just when I was about to write off passive income as a pipe dream, I stumbled across Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). I attended a webinar hosted by a guy who was making money by importing products from China and selling them on Amazon.

The next few days were spent obsessively researching how to launch my own FBA businesses. Here’s how it works. You find a product you want to sell, and order samples from a Chinese supplier. If the samples look good, you order more and send them to Amazon’s warehouses.

Then Amazon does all of the actual selling work for you. All of the nitty gritty e-commerce details I never had time for on Etsy were suddenly taken care of! Packaging, shipping, customer returns, etc. – Amazon would deal with all of it.

I was hooked.

Within a week, my first product samples were waiting at my door. Within a month, I had done $4,343 in product sales. Taking into consideration the cost I paid for the product, and FBA fees, I ended up with about a 50% profit margin.

That means in my first month of passive income with FBA, I earned over $2100 in straight profit. I set up the income stream, while Amazon did all of the actual sales work. I just sat back and got an extra paycheck.

THANK YOU, AMAZON!

The FBA income kept coming in, month after month. I felt I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I had found the secret to passive income!

I want to note that despite the idyllic sound of passive income, nothing is 100% passive. You have to put a good chunk of effort into setting up the system that can generate money with minimal maintenance from then on.

Finding a product to sell is the most time intensive part. Plus, you have to work with Chinese suppliers, create a perfect listing on Amazon, start ranking on Amazon’s search results, and ideally get your 2nd (and 3rd and 4th) products going.

Today, on average, I only put in a few hours a week working on my FBA business today. It practically runs itself.

Want to learn how to launch your own passive income business with FBA? Register for my free webinar! We’ll go over the ins and outs of FBA, and do a deep dive into product research so you can get started TODAY. Your passive income lifestyle awaits 🙂