Ask Me Anything: Your Amazon Questions Answered!

Welcome to the Bring your Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started.

Hello.

Welcome to bring your product idea to Life. Thank you, as always, for listening. This is another of my Tuesday Amazon.

Made easy episodes, and this one is an ask me anything. I'm going to start by being really honest. I've had less questions than I expected.

For this episode, possibly because I was.

Also asking for content for last week's.

Episode, which was things you wish you knew when you got started on Amazon.

And I had so many contributions to that. So thank you so much.

Um, so that might be why I'm a bit light on questions for this episode, but never mind.

We will cover them all now, and if anything for you, it's great.

It means you're gonna have a shorter episode, so less to get through.

If that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing.

Another reminder that as well as listening.

To this podcast, you could be watching it on YouTube. So I'm recording video for these now, even when it's just me talking into my laptop camera.

So you can go onto YouTube, and if you go over onto YouTube and go to Vicki Weinberg, you will find me there. So that's enough reminders. Let's get on with the content.

So the first question that I've had.

Is, I'm a longtime Amazon shopper, but.

Selling is a different world for me. As someone who might have less than 10 ideas for products, is there an ideal or is there a minimum number.

Of products I'd need to sell on there? So a really short answer is no, absolutely not. A minimum.

You can have just one product, one.

Sku, and do really, really well on Amazon.

You absolutely do not have to have a range of products. And actually, depending on, you know, the product range you have already, or perhaps.

You'Re just looking to start on Amazon, you know, one product might be all you have.

I would, however, build on that by.

Saying that often when sellers have either.

A range of products or they have different options.

So, for example, they have one product but five different SKUs, because it might be in five different colors.

That can actually be really good for.

Visibility and sales as well.

But you could absolutely start off with just one SKU and then build over time.

I think that I was Told this years ago that as you, you know.

As you add more products onto Amazon, your existing products do better. I don't know if that's exactly the case, but of course the more products.

You have on there, the more chance there are people finding you. However, yes, that while that is true, it is also true that you can do well on Amazon with just one single product.

And actually it can be a nice way to start.

Amazon, as we've spoken about, is quite overwhelming. There's lots to do in getting set.

Up, even if you have more than one product, maybe you just want to.

Start putting your bestseller on there, see how it goes and then build from there. And that is absolutely possible.

So the second question is, before creating a new listing, is there a quick.

Way to know for products I'm looking at is restricted? So Amazon used the words restricted or.

Gated to mean products that you have to apply for approval to sell. There are also products, by the way.

That you just absolutely cannot sell on Amazon.

And if you go to the external.

Amazon seller central website, you can get a whole list of these. But then there are certain categories, as.

This questioner has said, where you have to apply for permission to sell. Kinds of things you need to apply.

Permission for are the toys and games category. And this for a limited time of the year is usually in the run up to Christmas. That category is one you have to apply to sell.

In health and beauty you sometimes have to apply for that category, but it really depends on what you're selling.

And other than that, I can't really give you a full list now because they change. So sometimes, for example, a particular category.

Amazon might think, oh, actually we've got loads of people selling and in this category at the moment and we're not.

Going to accept any new sellers for.

A while and they just close it off.

And if that happens, there's absolutely nothing you can do.

But for lots of these categories you just have to apply.

And the application process is relatively simple as long as you, you know, you can prove that you are who you say you are, your business is what you say it is and your product is what you say it is. There should be absolutely no problem in getting and getting approved.

But as this questioner has mentioned, it is worth looking into this kind of.

Thing before you start listing your product. If you're got a seller central account.

You can search in there for restricted.

Products and see if any of the products you're looking at are likely to be restricted. And if you're not set up on Amazon yet, Then as I say, you.

Can also get this information on the.

External Amazon seller website. So doing your research before you get going with listing is a really good idea.

The next question is, if you know.

You need to do work on your Amazon store, what's the first thing to focus on? And I would say there's, you know, there's lots of things you can do to improve your sales on Amazon.

I offer a whole Amazon account audit.

For people who are looking to do that.

However, my number one thing every single.

Time would be your product listings.

Because if your product listings aren't well.

Optimized, and by well optimized, I mean optimized for search. So if people type something the Amazon search bar, your listing has a chance of coming up. If they don't accurately describe your product.

If they don't sell your product to tell people, you know, what are the.

Unique things about your product? Why might they want to buy your product over someone else's?

If it doesn't give all the information that a customer needs to make a purchase, if you don't have great images, if you're not using all of Amazon's features like the a content where you can share a lot more about your.

Product, your brand and everything else around it, then you know you're missing a huge opportunity to make sales. So before you start tweaking your ads.

Or thinking you need to add a.

Store, I would honestly say your product listing is the first thing to focus on and the first thing to get right. And when I'm talking about people getting started on Amazon, that's always where I start and that's why I recommend anyone start.

Because you need a great product listing.

Or product listings because they are the fundamentals and yeah, that. And if you've got great listings, then you've got a really good base to build from.

And my final question, I told you.

To be honest, what I see changing.

On Amazon is Amazon. Something that I've learned from working with Amazon for years now is that things.

Change all of the time.

There were policy changes. So at the end of last year we just had some changes related to packaging.

If you're selling in Europe, took a lot of people by surprise and even people who didn't take by surprise, for some it's meant that they're now unable to sell. For others it meant a lot of work to, you know, have the compliance.

To be able to.

And these things will keep happening.

Just last week Amazon announced changes to.

Product titles, which hopefully won't be a massive thing, but it potentially could be for some sellers who might have to redo some of their product titles.

And these things happen all of the time. So I guess my best advice here.

Would be to try and stay up.

To date on Amazon's policies if you can.

And I know that isn't always easy because I know that a lot happens and just I guess, expect the unexpected. Because things can and do change.

And I'm not saying that to scare.

Anyone, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

New things happen all the time as well.

There are new features added and things.

Also change for the better.

But I think constant change is something that I will definitely be expecting this year.

And if you do want to keep.

Up to date with all of the.

Changes that happen on Amazon and advice.

On how to tackle them, you might want to know that I am opening.

My membership Amazon Made Easy at the end of February.

I'll announce the exact date soon, but.

I am running a wait list if you're interested in joining my membership.

It's a low monthly cost and you get support, community resources and my input on how to start and grow your business on Amazon.

So if that's something you'll be interested.

In, I'm going to put a link to the wait list in the show notes. If you get on the wait list there's absolutely no obligation to join the.

Membership, but I would love it if you did. But you will get an invite to.

A free masterclass that I'm going to be running in a couple of weeks time. So if you've got any interest interested in that, I would love to see you there.

So thank you so much as always. Hope you've enjoyed this episode.

Hope it's been useful. I know it's been short and sweet.

But that can be a good thing. This is a bonus episode after all. I'll be back with the usual full length episode on Friday and really look.

Forward to speaking with you then.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free visit resources on my website vickywineberg. Com.

Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.