Business is all about overcoming a set of problems and doing it better than your competitors. Also, most people that buy products do so to solve a problem, so you must provide the solution. Hence, if you’re a problem-solver at heart, then you’ll love overcoming Amazon FBA problems and have a successful business.
89% of Amazon sellers are profitable, which indicates that it’s a great business model. Most other e-commerce models have a lower profitability rate, so Amazon FBA is a great choice for most people looking to get started.
Creating an Amazon Sellers Account
You may think that opening an Amazon seller account is a straightforward task, but it can be difficult. That’s because Amazon requires that you provide them with documentation, and they have strict rules about what they accept.
You’ll need to provide a chargeable credit card, photo ID, proof of residence, and business registration details if you have one. However, if any documents are not in English, then you will need to get a notarized translation.
If there are hiccups during the Amazon account registration process, then you’ll need to contact customer support, and this can be a lengthy process as you go back and forth. Therefore, it’s a good idea to create an Amazon seller account at least a month before you plan on starting your business.
Raising the Funds
Another Amazon FBA problem to figure out is raising enough funds to start your business. This can take a lot of time depending on your savings, the amount of money you want to risk and how much you earn at your day job.
You’ll need around $2,000 to $5,000 to get started, but this figure can rapidly increase if you want to scale quicker and choose a more expensive product. Therefore, you’ll need to manage your expectations about starting an Amazon FBA business before you have the funds.
Inventory Management
Once you begin selling on Amazon with active product listings, you’ll need to decide when to place another order to ensure you don’t run out of stock. There are multiple methods to do this and here is a summary:
- Yourself: you can learn and practice good inventory management skills by yourself. This options is free and allows you to learn an important business skill. Also, it’s handy to have a basic understanding of inventory management regardless of what method you choose.
- Hire a professional: you can hire freelancers or accountants to give you a specific number of how many units to order and when it will be the best time. You can also request their method for coming up with the numbers so you can better understand and trust the process.
- Software: you can use tools for software solutions like Helium 10 to receive AI-based suggestions on how much inventory to reorder. The tools can stream data from your Amazon Seller Central account and give you accurate predictions.
Hiring and Team Management
Once your Amazon FBA business begins to scale, you may decide that you want to hire team members to automate. You can hire employees to complete most business tasks, which frees you up to do other things. This can include growing your business or enjoying days off.
However, hiring requires skill so you can pick the right people for your Amazon FBA business. You’ll need people that are dependable, have the right skills, and you can rely on them for the long term.
Furthermore, you’ll need to manage that team. However, you can outsource that too by hiring a project manager. This ensures that you automate most of the business from your point of view. It means the business can continue to grow without input from you.
Beating The Competition
To generate sales, you’ll constantly fight against the competition. There are many dimensions across which you can compete, including product quality, price, and delivery speed. I’ll now share a few more ideas for how to spy on the competition to ensure that you can beat them in your niche:
- Sales history: you can use software to determine the sales history of your competitors. Therefore, you can figure out their performance and the viability of the market.
- Reviews: this is an indicator of how strong the competition is going to be to beat. A few hundred reviews are beatable, especially if they have a review score of below 4 stars. However, if they have more than 1,000 reviews, that will be hard to beat.
- Listing quality: pay attention to the listing quality of your competitors to see what you’re up against. You’ll need to consider the product photos, descriptions, and more.
Complaints and Bad Reviews
Other Amazon FBA problems include dealing with unhappy customers. This might be because they received a broken product or it didn’t meet their expectations. In either case, you’ll need to respond to customers if they are asking questions and process refunds if that’s what they want.
Profitability
You’ll need to ensure that your products are profitable – even after all the Amazon FBA fees. This can be difficult at the start while you’re looking for profitable product-selling opportunities. However, once you get the hang of it, you can improve your ability to run a profitable Amazon FBA business.
Final Thoughts
To summarize, there are quite a lot of Amazon FBA problems that you need to solve in order to get the most out of the business. This includes registering an account, competing, getting funds, and making sure that you’re profitable.
To tilt the odds of success on your side, consider registering your Amazon FBA business as an LLC. You’ll find that there’s a lot of advantages, and it takes just a few minutes here at Business Anywhere.
