With the new year just days away, almost every Amazon entrepreneur is looking for ways to improve their sales, grow their businesses and reach the next level. Sometimes that means taking obvious next steps like increasing the amount of inventory you send. Other times, however, it means paying attention to details. Let me share some giant-sized, little details that can seriously improve your business in the coming year.
#1 — Pay More Attention to Your Returns
Did you know that, if a refunded item is never returned, Amazon is supposed to automatically reimburse the seller (you) after 45 days have passed? Problem is, Amazon “forgets” a lot of the time and you never receive the money you are due.
When a customer requests a refund, Amazon immediately reverses the charge. The money comes out of your account and goes to the shopper. The terms of this instant refund state that the customer must ship the item back to Amazon within 45 days. Many don’t.
Make a habit of setting up a reminder in your calendar to check on refund notices after 45 to 47 days to ensure that you get any funds returned to you that are rightfully yours.
#2 — Don’t Be Fooled by December’s Skewed BSR When Sourcing in January
During December, sales go nuts on Amazon! That — of course — causes the best seller ranks (BSRs) to go way up. It’s a temporary phenomenon that sharply declines after the holiday rush is over.
If you’re sourcing in early to mid-January, you might still be seeing the impact of the super-sales season, so be careful. Make sure you use CamelCamelCamel.com to evaluate products’ sales history across several months before you make inventory purchases.
#3 — Decide What Type of Seller You Are: Patient or Fast
Once January arrives, many sellers face a bit of panic as they see unsold inventory in their FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) dashboards. The desire to drop prices in order to crank the sales machine back up gets very strong. If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to decide what type of seller you are.
If your business model is to be based on patience, you’ll understand that it may take several months to sell an item, that prices fall and go back up again and that — just like a brick-and-mortar store — inventory doesn’t always fly off the shelves.
If you’re looking for a fast-paced model where you don’t buy inventory unless you fully expect it to head right back out within a few days, you’ll make different decisions in January.
For those on the fast track, you might want to lower prices to get those lagging items out and make room for more. If you’re playing the patience game, look at pricing strategies over the long term and decide if it’s worth holding on to the products a while longer to watch for rebounding prices.
#4 — Watch for Behavioral Trends When Sourcing
What happens in January? A new year is ushered in! And with that new year come feelings of starting fresh, getting your life back on track, organizing your home and business, setting New Year’s resolutions like losing weight, stopping smoking, taking your lunch to work instead of eating out, spending more time with the kids, etc. Annnnnnnnd…. what does all that mean? Come January, shoppers will be looking for items that help them make these changes.
When you source for the new year, make sure to investigate items that will help with organization, businesses, achieving personal goals, family togetherness, and so on.
Also, sports bowl games are in January, so items with team logos are usually big. And a new trend is giving vacations / cruises as Christmas gifts, then heading off someplace warm in January. That means travel-related items could be popular.
#5 — Always Be on the Lookout for the Next Big Holiday
Valentine’s Day is in mid-February, which means now is the time to get the romantic, sweet, gift-related inventory shipped off. Anything pink, red, or bearing hearts could be a candidate for those looking to impress their sweethearts!
Think about candy, flowers, jewelry, cards, plush toys, perfume, fun heart socks or undies, cufflinks, DVDs of romantic movies, and all sorts of other goodies!
All these cool ways to get more out of your Amazon business come from the first 30 pages of Stephen Smotherman’s book entitled A Reseller’s Guide to a Year in FBA. And these are not even all the ideas in the first chapter. Can you imagine what the other pages are filled with?
I’ve always thought it would be nice to do a brain dump on Stephen. There is so much knowledge inside his head that surely having it all in print would be like shining a guiding light over my Amazon business. Then I found out about his new ebook. Same difference ;).
I can tell you now that this ebook will be digitally earmarked so that I can refer to it as I go through the next 12 months. I got so many ideas (that aren’t listed in this blog post) just from the first 30 pages!
You don’t have to start at the beginning of the year when reading this book. It is structured so that you can jump in at whatever point you want. Now really is the perfect time.
Hey Karon,
The point about the returns definitely caught my attention. What are some further steps to do to find out if amazon has refunded your account or not with the “missing units” from customer refunds?
Alan, here is a blog post I did on how to know if your returns have actually been returned and how to get reimbursed for the ones that were never returned.
http://www.fulltimefba.com/how-to-check-if-returned-items-are-actually-returned-to-fba/
Great thanks Stephen
Thanks Stephen!
Cool tips. I really wonder what the book will have more to offer. The No.5 tip of ‘Always Be on the Lookout for the Next Big Holiday’ is indeed the best trick I learned today. Thanks for your sharing.
Jack, if you click on any of the links to the book in the blog post above, you’ll be directed to the page the tells you ALL about the book, including a table of contents with each items discussed in each month of the year. Hope this helps!