How To Sell On Amazon Australia

I am going to show you how To sell on Amazon Australia.

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In this week’s video, multi-million dollar seller and Amazon invited guest speaker, Neil Waterhouse presents

“How to Sell on Amazon Australia”

TRANSCRIBE OF “How to Sell on Amazon Australia”

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Who here is already selling on Amazon Australia? One, two, three, okay just two of you. Okay, so not a lot of you. What about eBay? Who’s selling on eBay already? Lot’s of people, okay. So of the two people here that’s selling on Amazon can I ask what ratio you’re getting out of your eBay versus Amazon?

5%.

5%?

[Man] Maybe less.

Amazon?

[Man] Overall, I think maybe 1%.

Okay, cool and Jamie?

Ratio on getting out of eBay versus Amazon

– [Jamie] Far less on Amazon because we had a bit of an altercation at the start. They actually stuffed up when we were able to go on so we kept bugging them and bugging them. And they said no, no, it’s just not ready yet and then a couple of months later they said. Oh, it was actually a system fault so it put us a fair bit behind the eight ball still a fair bit less than eBay, less than 5%.

Movement to sell on Amazon Australia

– So that’s generally the consensus though because on Monday night I did the same presentation in Sydney, last night Adelaide and tonight so, and that’s the general consensus is most people getting around the five.

The kind of max I’m hearing is 15% so just to give everyone some ideas. It’s been a bit of a slow uptake of Amazon into Australia. ‘Cause a lot of people weren’t there originally and there were a lot of sellers on it.

Amazon is a Goliath as we’ll get into

The sellers got excited about how to sell on Amazon more than the buyers because it was the next shiny new object so people thought, ah, this is going to be be awesome but it’s been a bit slow for the public to uptake on Amazon but don’t give up on it. Amazon is a Goliath as we’ll get into tonight.

So for those people who are new, haven’t been to one of these events before, welcome, it’s great to see some new faces here. We do run these events, we try to run them normally run them every eight weeks, some six weeks.

Share ideas, Share concepts, methodologies

We just kind of vary depending on what’s on. So what we’re all about here is, sorry let’s go back. Like it says here, sharing, networking, learning, community so we share ideas, we share concepts, methodologies.

I do believe in the law of abundance where we can share ideas and concepts and methodologies. We don’t necessarily share our top-selling items and our suppliers but we share methodologies. There’s plenty to go around.

Build automated online businesses using the Internet

So tonight is all about how to sell on Amazon Australia. Now tonight, we’ve got a reasonably small group tonight so we’re going do interactive so if you guys have got questions, please ask. If the experienced people in the room, if anyone can help anyone else, please take a little bit of time to help the newbies because we were all newbies at one stage. Okay, so our vision and our purpose of the group, it’s like it says here, to help more people build automated online businesses using the Internet.

Help more people build automated online businesses using the Internet

The Internet now it’s been around for nearly 25 years and it’s been a complete game-changer so we’re not trapped down to what the old days of being Western society of going to university, getting a job and working for someone else for the rest of your life and playing bowls and dying.

We don’t have to do that anymore. So if you are a full-time seller, please take a little bit of time out. We do networking at these events. If people ask you questions, please take a little time to help them out.

So how to sell on Amazon?

So how to sell on Amazon Australia? Amazon, like eBay is this. It’s a source of continuous, abundant traffic. Just like eBay so compared to conventional advertising marketing where you buy traffic so let’s see, on the online world Google you can buy paper click traffic on Google or banner ads or whatever. You can also do it with Facebook. With eBay, Amazon, it’s a source of abundant traffic. List an item, you can get an abundant amount of people to look at your listing.

Our Job as online sellers is to identify and sell on Amazon Australia

Our job as eBay Amazon online sellers is simply this. Just like every other business, identify and fulfill market needs, then sell on Amazon Australia. It’s that simple. Identify and fulfill market needs. So I’m going to talk a lot tonight about whether you can either be a product tester or you can supply proven items. I’m a huge fan of proven items these days. We used to do a lot of product testing. Now we only do one in 20, as a tester. The other 19 out of every 20 items, we’ll have one untested item, the other 19 are all proven items. If you’re starting off, I recommend you only do proven items.

The difference between a small online business and a large one

So, and of course,the difference between a small online business and a large one, is simply how many products have you got. Now I’ve shown this slide many times before. Every leaf is a product. Every product, because we sell brand new stuff, sells over and over and over again. The more products, the bigger your business. Another one to look at of course is many streams make a river. So that’s the only difference between a five digit business, a six digit business, a seven or an eight digit business, is how many products have you got that are continuously selling over and over again.

I as an online Amazon seller

So who am I, for those of you who don’t know who I am, or don’t know my story, I started back in the late 90s selling online. In 2003, I got divorced and I was a single father and I came from a place of desperation where I didn’t want to go get a job. ‘Cause I already had one job in my life, I didn’t like it. So I didn’t want to get another one. So I was in a single father so I started selling on eBay. I went full-time in 2005 and I just focused on building the business and out of the blue in 2010.

We were million dollar sellers

I got a call from our eBay rep saying that we were million-dollar sellers and would I do a talk for the Professional eBay Sellers Association in Melbourne which I did in 2010. Then not long after that, I started selling on Amazon and again just focused on that as well as eBay.

Then in 2015 Amazon thinking about opening in Australia

In 2015 Amazon called me up and said, hey, we’re thinking about opening in Australia, would you do a roadshow around Australia with us? And we did and then six months later, they announced they were opening in Australia. Was anyone in the room go to that roadshow? Jamie? Oh, good on you. One person. I think you want to– So that was a while ago so these days, I got remarried of course and then now we run the whole operation from a farm four hours out of Sydney so now we have no stock, no inventory, no staff on our property at all.

Everything’s run virtual

Everything’s run virtual. Everything else like drop-shipping etc is all virtual inventory and I’ll talk about that tonight. Okay, so tonight, if you’ve got any questions, or comments, please, please, please ask. That’s what we’re here for and we’re all here as a group, this is all our own group guys so we can just share ideas and concepts. We’re all here to help each other.

– [Man] So is that question as we know at the end–

We’re all here to help each other

– So, if it starts getting too many questions then I’ll let everyone know and we’ll keep it to the end. While we’re still in time just sing out. Okay, so if I use any words tonight that you’re not used to, please tell me. We can all get caught up in what we call a cursive knowledge where we use words that no-one’s used to. When you do it long enough, you use words that you forget that the average person doesn’t know that about and we can be all guilty of that so please, if I use any words you don’t understand, just ask me.

Amazon, impressive long-term growth where it just keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger continuously

So, Amazon, impressive long-term growth where it just keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger continuously. We all know it’s huge in places like America, Germany etc and I can give you some more stats in a second.

This is the latest slide I can get, which is a little bit old now so this would have changed a little bit but it gives you a bit of an idea. Of course, the US being the biggest, we’re down here. I’m sure China’s rapidly moving up as well. Yep?

– [Woman] At this point in time, .9 per month is that mandatory on Prime?

Amazon Australia is a product just like every business

– No, I’ll get into Amazon Prime in a second. No, it’s definitely not mandatory. It almost seems like it is but we’ll get to that. So how to sell on Amazon Australia. Obviously the first thing you need on Amazon Australia is a product just like every business.

Every single business you sell a product or you sell a service

There’s a lot of people out there trying to find a business where you don’t have to sell a product or a service but I’m not aware of one on the whole planet. Every single business you sell a product or you sell a service. Unless someone can correct me on that, they haven’t yet. Then you ask yourself do you want to sell proven or unproven products. What have you got now?

You can also dropship products

Do you have any products you can sell already on eBay or do you have access to a bricks and mortar store. Just think about your assets and what you’ve got available to you. You can also import items. Can purchase locally wholesale which I’ll talk about tonight. You can also dropship products. I’m going to talk more about dropshipping shortly. So I’m going to first go through a few industry names because a lot of people don’t know these names. Got a lot of beginners in the room.

Fulfillment by Amazon

The first one is FBA which is bantered around a lot. FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon. In other words, there’s two ways of doing it. If you sell this item yourself, you can ship it and that’s called FBM, Fulfillment by Merchant or if you send it to one of the Amazon warehouses, and they’ve got over 400 of these warehouses around the world, they will ship it all out for you.

Amazon’s also got one of these FBA houses in Dandenong in Victoria

Now, Amazon’s also got one of these FBA houses in Dandenong in Victoria. They’ve also got another one in Moorebank in Sydney. That’s a second one they’ve opened in Australia. But there’s over 400 of these warehouses around the world. So basically you send your goods to them, they hold them, they pick it, they pack and they ship direct to your customer. Is everyone clear on that? That’s FBA, it’s fulfillment by Amazon. Now Amazon, yep?

– [Man] How much does it cost to do that?

Amazon Prime is huge

– $49 per month plus GST plus there are other costs, yeah, so I’m going to give you some more links shortly about FBA. So now, I’m going to talk a lot, and the lady at the back mentioned this, Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime is huge. So if you’re a buyer, and let’s say you’re in the US but it’s available in Australia as well but if you’re in the US you can join Amazon Prime and then you get guaranteed delivery in 48 hours in most parts of the USA.

I’m an Amazon Prime USA member

In some parts, much faster. This laser pointer, I was in New York a couple of years ago and I didn’t have a laser pointer so I logged on to Amazon Prime, because I’m an Amazon Prime USA member and this arrived at my hotel room 11 o’clock. So I ordered it at nine am, arrived at 11 am. That’s one of the features of Amazon Prime.

Other features of Amazon Prime

Other features are you also get access to many TV stations, Showtime, the Amazon-only shows like the Grand Tour which is like the new, latest version of Top Gear that they own, radio stations, TV stations, a whole gamut of things. A music channel like i-Tunes etc. But if you’re an Amazon Prime member. So Amazon Prime membership just keeps going up and up and up and up. As you can see, the numbers of millions of people that are members of Amazon Prime is huge. And that’s what they’re doing in Australia now as well.

EBay has eBay plus to compete with Amazon Prime

This is why eBay has eBay plus to compete with Amazon Prime. But that’s another story. So you can always have a look, so you look at any product in Amazon, like this particular product, you can see here how many other sellers have got Amazon Prime. Now, Amazon guarantees its speed because it only guarantees it if an item is set for Amazon Prime and to do that, it has to be sent to an Amazon warehouse. So if you want to sell these and you want to appear as an Amazon Prime you must send it to an Amazon warehouse.

Amazon will show listings that are at the warehouse over and above the other listings when all things else is equal, price etc.

Now this gives us terrific opportunities because we’re going to look at products that are not sent to the warehouse and if you send them to the warehouse, you’re going to go above your competitors when everything else is equal. ‘Cause Amazon will show listings that are at the warehouse over and above the other listings when all things else is equal, price etc. So this gives us huge opportunities. So this particular item, there’s three items of this particular item on Amazon Prime.

Category in Prime Amazon Australia

Okay, so you can find out how many items are in any category in Prime or at the warehouse and how many are not. The way you do this is simply this. I’ve gone to this category here on Amazon. I’ve gone to toys, game, hobbies, remote app-controlled toys, drones and multi-loaders. Then I have not ticked the Prime button. But I’ve put in here a little trick where you can put minus and some rubbish and if you do that, it will show you how many items are in a category. If you look at the next slide will make more sense. So now I’ve clicked the Prime button and now it tells me there’s 400 results in the drones and multi-loaders.

Buyers prefer to purchase from FBA sellers because they get things fast.

If I go back to the previous slide, there was 4,000. So what that says, there is 400 in Amazon Prime, 3,600 are not. So just in that category you’ve got 3,600 opportunities to send items to the FBA warehouse. Is everyone clear on that? So this little trick, I’m going to talk about this more tonight but that little trick there makes a huge difference. ‘Cause you get to now see how many are in the category. Okay, so buyers prefer to purchase from FBA sellers because they get things fast. Like you know the typical, everybody can take six months to decide they want something but when they want it, they want it yesterday.

Amazon pushes so hard for fast deliveries

Amazon knows this, this is why Amazon pushes so hard for fast deliveries. This is why Amazon’s pushing for drone deliveries where they want to get things delivered by drones. Yep?

[Man] Is it fast in Australia at the moment? Is it–

Well Australia’s a whole different kettle of fish because we’re a massive country so there’s all the logistics of Australia which is still creating, they can’t do it as fast as–

The FBA, it depends on your location of what they use

[Man] I’m a bit worried about selling on Amazon Australia at the moment. It seems like there’s so many fees that it’s just a bit of a money pit at the moment.

Your fees should be a very small percentage of your profit.

[Man] Yeah, then you get referral fees–

Still should be a very small percentage of your profit. Yep?

[Man] Do you know if the FBA use Australia Post?

The FBA, yeah, it depends on your location of what they use. They select what couriers they want to use based on your location. So there’s no fixed, same with FBA around the world.

[Man] It’s not Australia Post and

They use couriers.

Buyers prefer to purchase from FBA sellers because of the guarantee of the speed

They tend to deliver to my house and if no one is there, if it’s not Australia Post it’s always a struggle to rearrange for that delivery so for online shopping I think Australia Post is the most convenient but also that it stops

It’s their discretion on what they use based on your postcode. Your delivery postcode. So buyers prefer to purchase from FBA sellers because of the guarantee of the speed. Amazon shows FBA earns higher in the search results. And if you can find any item that’s got no other FBA sellers it rocks. Or very few. ‘Cause you’ve also got yourself an opportunity. There are tons of items there that is not in the warehouse.

FBA Fulfillment to sell on Amazon

So FBA is Fulfillment by Amazon. Amazon do your warehousing, they do your shipping, they fulfill your Amazon orders. Also they can fulfill your website orders so you can sell on Amazon.

You can log onto Amazon Seller Central and have the item shipped direct from their warehouse to your customers. Now, a lot of Amazon sellers over the world do the same. They use Amazon warehouses to supply their eBay orders.

eBay specifically said no in Australia

But in the April Spring seller release, eBay specifically said no in Australia. So if you do it, you’ve been told not to do it so you’re pushing your luck. And that was in the April Spring Seller release. They also manage your customer service and returns for you as well. You can also log on and have Amazon ship your items straight back to you as well if you want to. If you want to have, say if you’ve got a whole stack of items come from China, they unpack it all for you and you want to get one sample to photograph they can just ship one to your place.

– [Woman] Excuse me, is there a minimum amount that you have to ship across?

– No.

– No.

Prime members spend more money than non-Prime members

One item. Amazon Prime estimated, as you can see here, Prime members spend more money than non-Prime members. So you’ll see here tonight, I’m flicking between Australia slides and US slides. If I can’t get enough data, I can go around to the US slides. We’ll almost certainly follow suit. This lack of data is a problem because, and that’s why a lot, as I’ll show you tonight, a lot of the main software companies, like Jungle Scout as I’ll get to tonight, aren’t opening in Australia because they just say there’s not enough data.

Amazon Australia, you can get send some products and they sell like hotcakes

And this is the problem why I’m going back to some of these slides. So they’ll pick and pack and ship customers and they’ve got over 400 of these FBA warehouses around the world. Now just on that as well,  about how to sell on Amazon will be available, you can get send some products and they sell like hotcakes. So don’t think it’s just like, you know, it’s just sort of big sellers, it’s not.

Products out there that are selling well on Amazon Australia

There are some products out there that are selling really well on Amazon Australia and a good thing about getting in there early is that you get reviews and then once you’ve got a lot of reviews, it’s very hard for someone else to get up underneath and pip you on the top of the pedestal so these advantages but if you’ve got products now and you’re selling them on eBay then just list the same items on Amazon. And on your website as well.

Private labeling is simply when you put your logo on a product

So the other thing I talked about tonight, what is private labeling because a lot of people aren’t aware of it. Private labeling is simply when you put your logo on a product. And there’s many ways of doing this. You can choose existing products that are selling well, if you’re a drop shipper, you can put them on your dropship items.

Private labeling your selling items on Amazon Australia

Whatever name you choose for private labeling must give the feel of quality and trust. You’re always getting surveyed and I’ll give you a couple of sites where you can get that done tonight.

Bunnings of course have got their Ozito range which is their own private label. You can private label your top selling dropship items or import products or label existing products, done that.

The branding though must be high quality, you must get a high quality.

The branding though must be high quality, you must get a high quality. It doesn’t cost much money these days to get it done high quality. You can get a really flash brand logo done for less than 100 bucks. Just needs to give the feel of quality and trust. Now a couple of places to get it done. Squadhelp, you can have competitions and they can compete and to find the best one that everyone come up with and the same with 99designs.

These slides about how to sell on Amazon  will be available

Now these slides about how to sell on Amazon t will be available so you don’t have to write everything down. I’ll give you a link, you can download the slides. So these two sites, we’ve used them many times for names, logos, brand names, all the rest of it and they work very well. And also there’s a free service called Breadoid where you can type in a name and they’ll come back and give you a lot of suggestions for other words. It’s a free tool which works very well.

What is Dropshipping?

So for those who don’t know what dropshipping is. Dropshipping is basically when you list an item either on eBay, Amazon or your own website that you don’t have in your possession. Then when it sells, you get paid and then when you get paid, you then log on to the supplier and put the details in there, pay for it and then the supplier ships direct to your customer.

Dropshipping is cash flow positive

So drop shipping is cash flow positive because you don’t pre-purchase upfront inventory unlike importing where you have to pre-purchase inventory up-front. Dropshipping you get paid first and then order the product after you paid. So it’s a cashflow-positive strategy. You don’t need to keep stock on hand. You Don’t Need pre-purchase any upfront inventory. Don’t ship the product so you don’t ever see the product, you don’t ever touch it, you don’t wrap it, you don’t drive it to the post office, you do none of that.

A lot of, not just online businesses but bricks and mortar stores are going to be online the dropshipping methodology.

Your suppliers do all that hard yakka for you. You just transfer the orders and the supplier ships the order directly. So in the industry it’s called virtual inventory. A lot of, not just online businesses but bricks and mortar stores are going to be online the dropshipping methodology. Places like the Iconic etc because it just means they don’t have to open more warehouses, they don’t have to get staff, they don’t have to outlay all this cash upfront to buy stock. So I’m not going to go right into dropshipping tonight because I’ve done this before. If you want to know more about it, there is a link there and that will teach you about how to find suppliers etc.

Prime is, you have to buy the stock, send the stock

– [Woman] How does that work with Prime?

– It doesn’t because Prime is FBA so you have to send your goods to the warehouse. So you’ve got to buy the products upfront so dropshipping and Prime is two different things. Prime is, you have to buy the stock, send the stock. So the way dropshipping works, you choose a product–