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My Product has Arrived at Amazon + My Initial Launch Plan – Update 13

The moment I have been waiting for has finally come, my product is officially live on Amazon! Wooo 🙂

Yep, I’m pretty excited about it and I am even more excited to start selling! Since my product is now live, this means that I will have a lot more content and case study updates coming your way as I test out different ways to sell my item.

So make sure to be on the lookout for a lot of awesome updates and earning reports coming soon!

Alright, before we get into today’s update, make sure to get fully updated on the previous updates below:

  1. PART 1 – Intro to Case Study
  2. PART 2 – The Game Plan
  3. PART 3 – How to Find Profitable Products to Sell on Amazon
  4. PART 4 – How to Find Suppliers on Amazon
  5. PART 5 – Info About my First Order + Calculating Profit Margins
  6. PART 6 – How to Utilize your Samples
  7. PART 7 – FNSKU Labels and UPC Barcodes
  8. PART 8 – I Placed my First Order + a Minor Setback
  9. PART 9 – How to Brand your Amazon FBA Business
  10. PART 10 – How to Setup your Amazon Sellers Account
  11. PART 11 – My Product has Shipped + Updates
  12. PART 12 – The Definitive Guide to Getting your Product Pictures Taken
  13. PART 13 – My Product has Arrived + My Initial Launch Strategy
  14. PART 14 – Results from my First Month of Selling on Amazon
  15. PART 15 – Increased Rankings and Sales + Ordered a New Shipment
  16. PART 16 – Details of My First 90 Days Selling on Amazon

In today’s update I will be talking about my thoughts on the shipping process and why I am concerned for ordering my next order. I will also be touching on my initial launch plan for my product and the progress I have seen so far since my product has been on Amazon.

Let’s hop right into the article!

My Product is Live on Amazon

On September 9th, I got a notification from Amazon that told me that my shipment had arrived at their warehouse and that my product would be live soon.

amazon-email

I can’t explain how happy I was when I got this email.

I have been waiting for the day that my product went live on Amazon for a looong time now. I have put a lot of time and research into making this happen and it was satisfying to know that I officially had my first item for sale.

One Concern – the Long Lead Times

One thing that I am worried about for future shipments is the fact that it took 2 and a half months from the point of placing my order with my supplier to arriving at Amazon’s warehouse.

I sent the 30% down payment to start the production process to my supplier on July 1st and my shipment arrived at Amazon on September 9th. All in all, it took actually a little less than 2 and a half months.

The concern I have is when I run out of units from my first order and I need to place another order. I am going to have to wait around 2 months before my product is back in stock. This will hurt my ranking on Amazon as well as keep me from making any money during those two months as well.

I am going to try my best to time my next shipment so that it arrives before I fully run out of stock, but this is going to be hard to do, especially for the first time.

Eventually, I will be able to know exactly when I need to place my next order to avoid running out of stock, but this will take a couple shipments to figure out.

At some point I am hoping I will be making a consistent amount of sales so that I can know, for example, that when my inventory reaches 400 units I need to place another order. Getting to that point is the goal, but I realize that I probably won’t be able to get to that point until I place a couple more orders.

If my product proves to be successful, one thing I may also do to avoid running out of inventory in the future is place a larger order. My first order was for 1000 units, but my next order I might try ordering 2,000 – 2,500 units.

This will cost more upfront, but it will also let me be able to sell on Amazon longer without needing to place another order. Another good thing about placing a larger order is that my PPU (price per unit) will go down.

A larger order will make the manufacturing cheaper per unit and the shipping will be less per unit as well. This will increase my profit margins and allow me to not run out of stock as quickly, it’s a win-win.

I will only be able to do this if my product proves to be successful. I need to see that this product is selling and that it will continue to sell before I place any large orders.

My Initial launch Strategy

I have mentioned before that my initial strategy is going to look like this:

  1. Get as many friends/family to buy and leave a review as possible
  2. Use some sort of launch service to get more reviews and sales
  3. Run Amazon PPC + automated follow up emails for more sales/reviews
  4. Profit? Hopefully!

That has been my basic starting strategy this whole time and I am going to stick with it. I don’t know for sure if this is the best route, but I am going to give it a shot!

Just to be clear, this is how I am planning to get the ball rolling and start making organic sales. After I see some sales start to roll in and my product gets established on Amazon, my plan is to start doing other techniques to further market the product.

I am now going to breakdown each one of these steps and explain my thoughts/strategy on them:

1. Get as Many Reviews as Possible from Friends and Family

Without any reviews for a product, no one is going to buy it. Simple as that.

That is why it is very important to get some initial reviews from people you know and have them leave you some good reviews. This gives you a solid start and makes it so you have a handful of 5 star reviews to work with.

Having reviews boosts your listing’s conversion rate for when people find your listing organically and when you run Amazon PPC to your listing.

My goal is to get at least 10, 5 star reviews from friends/family. This should give me a good start and allow me to start promoting my item through different mediums.

2. Use a Launch Service

It has been my plan to use a launch service for my product this whole time, but it seems as if these launch services have become less effective. However, I still think they are good at getting you some reviews and giving you a boost in rankings for your keywords.

I am not too sure as to what to expect from using this type of service on my product but I am willing to spend some money to see what happens. I still think they are worth the money and will help you sell more of your product, which is the main goal.

What service am I going to use?

That’s a good question! The answer is I am not sure yet. Here are the one’s that I am looking at:

I have also been contacted by someone who is starting a launch service that is offering to launch my product for me.

So those 4 are the ones that I am looking at and trying to decide between. I will write a post that compares each one of these and tell you all who I decided to use and why. You can expect that to come out within a couple of weeks.

For now, I am still trying to determine the best one for me. If you have experience with any of these services that I mentioned I would love to hear your thoughts. Please a leave comment below and let me know you opinion!

3. Amazon PPC + Follow Up Email Sequence

Once I have my initial reviews from friends/family and I have ran a launch service for my product, I should have a good amount of reviews for my product.

The plan then is to run Amazon PPC combined with an email follow up sequence to get as many reviews as possible from each sale.

What I will do is run Amazon PPC for my product and try to make as many sales as possible. It will be a bonus if I am able to actually make money while using PPC. If for some reason I end up making money after subtracting the FBA fees, shipping costs, manufacturing costs and the PPC cost from the sale price I will be really happy.

The main reason that I will be running Amazon PPC is to increase the amount of reviews for my product. That is why I am going to be using an email follow up sequence that will encourage people to leave a review after purchasing. I think that the combo of PPC and email follow ups will be a good one and will help me boost sales and reviews.

These sales and reviews that I will be getting will hopefully push my product listing higher and higher on Amazon for my keywords. That way, once I reach the first page I will start to make consistent organic sales without the need for PPC, launch services or more reviews from my friends.

I still have A LOT to learn about Amazon PPC and how to get the most use out of it. Everything that I learn I will make sure to let you all know about it. That you can take advantage of using Amazon PPC as well.

Currently, I am deciding between two follow up email services.

Those two are Sales Backer and Feedback Genius. I will let you all know which one I choose and why in a future post. I just wanted to give you all an idea of which ones I am looking at.

5. Profit?

After I complete all of the above mentioned things, I am hoping that it will be enough to land me on the first page for my main keyword.

If I am able to get on the first page, I think that I will be able to start making consistent organic sales. At that point I will slowly begin to work my way up the first page rankings as I begin to make more sales and get more reviews.

Take a look at the estimated number sales that Jungle Scout says I would be making if I was in the top 18 listings for my main keyword:

estimated-1st-page-sales

If I can get to the top 18 in Amazon I will AT LEAST be selling a couple hundred units a month, with a chance to sell 1000+ units a month if I can get into the top 5.

That is a ton of sales.

The only problem with getting my listing to rank that high is that I will run out of inventory within a month!

I guess that is not the worst thing possible, at least I know that my product will sell. I will just be unable to sell anymore for a a couple of months while I wait for my next order to arrive.

I will cross that bridge if/when I get to it.

For now, I will be focusing on getting as many reviews as possible and trying to rank as high as possible on Amazon for my main keywords. In the next section, I will give you all an update on my progress so far since my item has been live.

1 Weeks Progress

Like I mentioned earlier in the post, my product went live on Amazon September 9th. It has been about one week since then and I think I have made some good progress so far!

What I’ve Done

The day my product went live I started to get in contact with friends and family members to see if they would buy and leave a review for me. In one week I have been able to sell a total of 7 units so far and I have one review.

The reason why I don’t have more reviews yet is because the people that bought the item need to wait at least until their product arrives before leaving a review. It will look awfully fishy to Amazon if I start getting reviews from people before their product even arrives to their house.

So I am just waiting for the items to arrive and then I will start to see some more reviews come in.

That is all I have done so far. There isn’t a whole lot else for me to do except wait for them to leave reviews.

I will continue to try to get more reviews from people in the meantime. I am confident that I can get at least 3-5 more reviews.

I’m Seeing Some Progress Already!

With only 7 sales and 1 review, I have already started to see some good progress in terms of ranking in Amazon.

I have been using a neat tool called AMZ One. It does a lot of cool things such as sales tracking, bestseller tracking, negative review notifier and a whole lot more.

However, what I have been using it for is their keyword tracker. This allows you to add keywords that you want your product to rank for and it will keep track of where you rank.

I currently have around 6 keywords that I am trying tracking and trying to rank for. Check out the screenshot from AMZ One to see my progress so far!

current-amz-rankings

I have hidden the keywords themselves, but you can still see the search volume for each one.

Overall, I am very happy with the progress I’ve made so far in terms of the keyword rankings. Granted, I probably won’t be making any sales sitting at the 241st spot in Amazon but it is encouraging to see progress already.

I am hoping with more sales and more reviews that I will start to see some boosts in the rankings!

Organic Sales?

I mentioned above that I have sold 7 units so far. Amazon let’s you see who the person is that bought your product and 6 of those 7 units were sold to people that I knew.

BUT:

One of the units was sold to someone who I did not know.

This means that they found my listing organically through Amazon and bought my product. This is VERY exciting news and hopefully the organic sales continue!

Conclusion

Alrighty, that is going to bring us to the end of today’s update.

I have seen some good progress so far and I am happy with how everything has gone in the first week of being live. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it is exciting to see some actual sales being made.

Expect a lot more content from me in the next couple of months now that my product is on Amazon. It has been a long journey to get to this point and I wanted to thank you all for following along.

It means a lot to me that you all care enough to read my updates and comment on my posts. Thank you guys.

I hope you enjoyed this update and I will be back with another update very soon! Also, if you haven’t signed up to my email list make sure you do so below. This way you can always stay up to date on my case study!

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Comments

39 Comments

Kyle

Hey Josh!

Great to see man, it’s all coming together for ya! Just be careful with the launch services. Amazon is really cracking down on paid reviews and rank boostings. Would hate to see your product get shut down after all the work, so might be worth looking into.

Cheers!

Kyle

Josh
Josh

Hi Kyle,

I have been hearing the same thing and it is something that I have been looking into. Thanks for the heads up my man, good to hear from you as well

Josh

AndyW

My products have just arrived this week too! 1,000 units into 3 different fulfilment centres. Listing is live but I am snowed under with my full time business so struggling to dedicate a decent amount of time to optimising the listing, getting reviews coming in etc….
Not in a massive rush but I guess it will have to wait a couple of weeks til things quieten down at the office.

Josh
Josh

Hey Andy,

Congrats! At least your product is live and you never know, you may start making sales without doing anything. Best of luck with your product man and make sure to update me on the progress

Josh

Juan L

Hello Josh, as always excellent post,
am very happy for you hard work and dedication always pays off.
sales will come just be patient my friend.
thaks for sharing!

Juan L

Josh
Josh

Hi Juan,

Thank you, I appreciate that! I hope the sales will come 🙂

Josh

Philip

Hey,

congrats on your progress and thanks for the update. My product just went live about a month ago and I had my very first 5-sale day today!

I’m in the same boat as you and only have 15 Reviews right now, but adding more each day.

Had to discount my price a lot (because I made a pretty dumb product selection) but hope to break even on this first 500 units and profit with the next order 😉

Josh
Josh

Hi Philip,

That is awesome! I am looking forward to the day that I have a 5-sale day 🙂

Good luck with your product and make sure to keep me updated on how things go,

Josh

Rhonda M

Congrats!

Josh
Josh

Thanks Rhonda! 🙂

Rose Egan

I may have missed it, can you now share what your product is so that we who follow you can support you right back! ?

Josh
Josh

Hi Rose,

I am not publically sharing what my product is due to the possibly of people negatively affecting my product with bad reviews, reporting y product, etc. I didn’t want to deal with that so I decided to keep it private.

Josh

Rose

Best of Luck to you. I find your articles very educational. I am on the sidelines right now, basicly reading & learning. Not ready to take a leap.

Josh
Josh

Thank you! Awesome to hear that you are liking my content and if you decide to take the leap of doing this, you can email whenever you want if you have any questions

Josh

john

I see in one of the comments that they had their order shipped to three different fullment centers. If you had to break your order up into three diffeeent batches who handles that – your shipping forwarder? Do the shipping fees go up? When does amazon let you know where they need to be shippped to – that could significantly impact your profit projections! – I’m sure you wouldn’t know that during your product/profit analysis.
Thanks for the update.

Josh
Josh

Hi John,

Yes, having your shipment go to 3 different fulfillment centers is going to cost you a lot more in shipping fees, but your freight forwarder will handle it. You can however choose to have your products go to only one fulfillment center to avoid this. You have to do this in your sellers account and when you create the shipment order.

Josh

Ted

Nice job, Josh. I love these updates and really look forward to them. I hope your product is a huge success.
Thanks for all the detailed info you post, it helps a lot!
Ted

Josh
Josh

Hi Ted,

Thank you my friend! Your comment are the types of comments that make all of the hard work to write these posts worth it, thank you.

Josh

Seungjin

Josh,

This probably is something you talked about beforehand, but as you reached a new phase in your Amazon FBA business,

Can I ask you to list the total cost up until you got your first sale?
Although I’m not in Amazon FBA yet, it is definitely something I will pursue in a year or so from now, when I amass more funds.

Thanks!

Josh
Josh

Hey,

Between all of the expenses for everything , my total has come to just under $5,000.

Josh

Yousuf

Hey Josh ,

Great !! Congrats fir delivering the products to Amazon.

I do have a basic question here .. “What is keyword Ranking ??” And how does this related with the product sales ?

How to find and list the keyword ranking for the product and how to track it ..cannot be done manually?

Best Regards,
Yousuf

Josh
Josh

Hey Yousuf,

The keyword rankings are where my product ranks for different keywords in Amazon. The higher my rankings are the the more people that will find my product in Amazon.

So the higher the rankings = more sales

I do not know of any way to manually track the rankings unless you go page by page in Amazon until you find your product.

Josh

Scott

Wow congratulations! I read through every part of your progress at one go because it is so captivating. I wish you the very best and hope your stock flies off the shelves fast! 🙂

There is one part of the process I am confused about, and I’d be so happy if you could answer it. If I’m reading right, you’re shipping directly from manufacturer to Amazon FBA fulfilment center. But you also mentioned that each packaging needs UPC and FNSKU label. So are you sending FNSKU labels to your manufacturer and asking them to paste OVER the UPC code? Or beside the UPC code? The FNSKU label is applied before entering the warehouse right, or after? Thanks again 🙂

Josh
Josh

Hi Scott,

Thank you and I appreciate you reading all of my updates and it is good to hear you have found them captivating 🙂

To answer your question, you only need either a UPC code or an FNSKU label. I am only using the FNSKU label for my product. I sent me FNSKU labels as a PDF file to my supplier and they applied them to my products for me. You need to have them on your products before they arrive at Amazon because Amazon will scan your product into their inventory using the FNSKU label. As for the UPC code, I am not putting that anywhere on my product. However, you DO need to register your product with a UPC code to get the FNSKU labels from Amazon.

Hope this clears some things up and thanks for commenting Scott

Josh

Scott

Oh.. so the UPC code is only for the Amazon seller account. I was wondering why you stated it is necessary to have both codes, yet I read somewhere that you cannot have both codes showing on the product… Thanks so much!

Josh
Josh

Yup! Glad I could clear things up

Josh

Theodore Nwangene

Congrats Josh,
Its so good to hear that the product has finally gotten to its destination now, its time to start selling and i want to wish you good luck on that.

Do keep us informed.

Thanks for sharing.

Josh
Josh

Hi Theodore,

Thank you, I really appreciate it man. I will make sure to keep you updated as I begin to sell 🙂

Josh

Leo

Hi Josh,
I am planning to start FBA soon. I really appreciate your blogs for all these valuable info. One thing i can’t quite figure out is that was there any taxes you had to pay when your 1000 units arrive into US? I mean it is not a small amount of units, there’s no way to not declare it to the boarder. How and who handled the tax, if there were any, how much was it (for your 1000 units) and is there anyway to reduce it?

Also did you send all your 1000 units to one or three warehouse? if you only send to one, how much Amazon charged afterward? If you send to three, how much more did it cost then send it to one place?

Sorry if I am asking too many questions! Thanks you

Leo

Josh
Josh

Hey Leo,

I did not have to pay taxes on the 1000 units when it arrived in the US, however, as I sell them I will have to pay sales tax on them. Is that what you were referring to?

As for your other question, I sent all 1000 units to one warehouse as it saved me a couple thousand dollars doing so. There is a small fee to send to only one warehouse but it is usually much cheaper to pay that fee than to split your shipments up.

Josh

Danique

Been a couple weeks now, any updates?

Josh
Josh

Hi Danique,

I will have an update in a little bit, I am running a 100 product promo right now and I will see how that goes and report back 🙂

Josh

Kevin White

Hi Josh,

Congrats on getting your product to amazon.

I was wondering when you’re looking for a viable product do you use the top search results as a measurement for a good product or not. For example at the top when I searched knifes its displays, “1-16 of 831,635 results for “knifes”. And if you do use this, what is a good number to use as a gauge.

Thanks for all the info,

Kevin White

Josh
Josh

Hi Kevin,

Thank you!

I usually like to use the search result within a specific category. For example, if I was searching for “Knives” I would go under the “Kitchen supplies” categories.

Does that make sense? Then from there I would do my research that I laid out in case study update #3

Josh

Jiri

Hi Josh,
I wish you good luck with your product. I just want to ask if first 6 sales to friends were “promotional” ( in other words for discounted price) or not. Did you provide coupons to them?
Thanks
Jiri

Josh
Josh

Hi jiri,

Good question, 4 of them were with coupons and the other 2 were at full price

Josh

Marilyn Madden

Hi Josh: I really enjoyed reading your articles. Great information! But I have one
question that I can’t seem to find an answer to, and it’s probably a very simple question. Bu there goes: How do you set a discount code or give $1 off?
Thanks,

Marilyn

Josh
Josh

Hey Marilyn,

I know I already helped you out with this question via email but I want to answer it for anyone else that is wondering the same thing! I have put together a guide that will walk you through the process of creating your coupon codes here – https://www.passionintopaychecks.com/how-to-create-single-use-amazon-coupons-promo-codes/

Josh

lisa

Hi Josh, congratulations on your journey so far!

Could you kill 2 birds with 1 stone and use a launch service and follow up email service together, if this is possible?

Best wishes, Lisa (UK)


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