There’s no question that the Amazon FBA business is one of the hottest side hustles going at the moment, and we’ve covered it from a few different angles in the past.
Andy Slamans gave us a great intro into private labeling, Travis Scott shared how he was earning $4k a month with clearance arbitrage in addition to his full-time job, and just last week Assad Siddiqi explained how he was blowing the doors off his Amazon business, reaching the six-figure mark in under a year on the side.
But one of the questions I get most often (and honestly ask myself too) is how to come up with a product idea to import and sell. To that end, I’m happy to introduce Greg Mercer, who is the go-to guy for Amazon product research.
His own ecommerce empire has grown to $400k per month in revenue — yes, per month — and he’s the founder of the popular Jungle Scout software tool that helps make the product research process faster and easier.
In this call we dive into his specific sales criteria and next steps in evaluating a product’s profit potential and how to bring it to market on Amazon.
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Learn:
- The public metric Amazon gives you on every product that you can use to estimate sales volume.
- How to find out what products are selling well in any category on Amazon.
- Greg’s specific sourcing criteria <– this is gold!
- The types of products to ignore and avoid during your product research.
- His favorite categories for new sellers.
- How to spy on the competition to get product ideas.
- Next steps in terms of finding manufacturers, making sample orders, and your first “official” bulk order.
- How Greg evaluates manufacturers.
- Greg’s #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.
Links:
- Jungle Scout (10% off for Side Hustle Nation; affiliate link)
- Amazon Bestsellers by Category
- JungleScout.com/estimator
- Greg’s Jungle Stix case study
- Alibaba
- Flexport freight forwarding
Download the Free PDF "Highlight Reel" from this Episode
With all of my guest's top tips and resources included.
Enter your email to access it now:
Success! You just unlocked the highlight reel from this episode ... AND over 200 other subscriber-only bonuses. Check your email for details :)
(If it doesn't show up in 5-10 minutes, check spam/promotions.)
You'll also receive my best side hustle tips and weekly-ish newsletter. Opt-out anytime.
Here’s a cool infographic from Jungle Scout:
This podcast = EPIC. Thanks for another great episode. I learned a ton and really want to try my hand at white labeling. Thanks Nick!
Glad you enjoyed it Kyle! :-) You should give the white labeling thing a try – its a great opportunity!
I have been selling on AZ for a year and a half, started with Local Arbitrage first, Retail Arbitrage second, then Online Arbitrage, now just starting some Private Label. I think it’s a bad idea to start wi PLP from the get-go, for the exact reasons you have posted and most people NEED that immediate success – immediate gratification in their Sales to keep them motivated to keep their business afloat. Plus learning to diversify to be able to sell products during different times of the year, selling seasons, Holidays, etc, … us Small Sellers need every advantage to survive the first five years in their business life and starting with PLP to me isn’t the place at the beginning.
Hey Cynthia! I agree that doing arbitrage thing is an easier and quicker way to get started. That being said, a lot of people also just jump in head first with PL and do great. The most important thing is probably to just get started with something :-)
I have looked into private label, and the problem that I have found is that product liability insurance (required by Amazon) is almost impossible to find, and the few policies that I did find were so high-priced that there was no profit left.
So, exactly where does one get the (REQUIRED — anybody who says differently is leading you into a legal pit) liability insurance at a price that is worthwhile??
Hey Howard,
I know 90%+ of Amazon sellers do not have product liability insurance because you’re right, its very expensive. What most sellers do is choose relatively low liability items (chance of getting sued over a pillow is quite small compared to like a blow touch) then set up their company under a LLC. The good thing about a LLC, if set up correctly is it protects all your personal assets. If the unthinkable happened and you did sued over your product, my understanding is the max they could take would be whatever assets you held under your Amazon business which is next to nothing.
I’m defiantly not qualified to give legal advice, just letting you know what most Amazon sellers do.
Good luck!
If you are a pro seller, the Amazon TOS requires liability insurance. When, not if, they find you do not have proper coverage, you will lose your account.
If you are not a pro seller, then Amazon requires that you get liability insurance as soon as you cross the $10K threshold. When, not if, they find you do not have proper coverage, you will lose your account.
I should mention that my wife and I have been FBA pro sellers for about 4 years. She is a CPA, so she keeps us out of trouble. I have in the past been a P&C insurance agent (I happily gave up my license a while back), so I have a bit of domain knowledge there.
We make a point of keeping up with the (ever-changing) Amazon rules.
Nick, he wants us to niche down in a category, but his sales estimator tool only tells you the ranking for the broader category. For example, he tells you the # of units sold in Patio and Garden, but not if you’ve niched down to “Gardening” and then find a product. How are you guys getting around this one?
The sub categories don’t mean much for being able to tell how many units that particular item sells, that is why the sales estimator only works for the parent categories. About 95% of items do have a rank in a parent category so you just use that one for estimating monthly sales.
Great episode, thanks guys.
I’m in the UK and plan to sell here and am using Jungle Scout for Chrome.
In the podcast you said to look for a niche / category where the top 10 products sell 3,000 a month in total.
Would you use that number in the UK where market is smaller? Or scale it down a bit?
Thanks,
Joe
Since the UK market is a little smaller, you’ll likely need to scale this down a bit. Maybe 1500 units/month in demand? That’s probably what I would shoot for if I was selling there.
I’m wondering if there are storage facilities that are specifically designed for an operation like this. My issue is that I can’t keep all 5 Barbie Doll houses in my rented apartment overseas, but perhaps I could hire someone else to keep the items for me and then have them ship them when necessary? Maybe I’m confused about the process.
Well, I’m glad for the informative links anyway.
Thanks for the episode!
I’m very interested in this. Planning on digging into some research over the next month and launching a product soon. Who can help me? I will return whatever value you bring to me, and be forever grateful. Greg Mercer thank you for your insight.
One question I have is.. Can you go to an Amazon warehouse and talk with somebody there about this stuff? I guess I’ll find out soon. If anyone has other quality sources of information please share! Thanks
where do you live?
I’m also confused about where you get the sales numbers. I don’t see them on Amazon and as Laura mentioned, the Jungle Scout estimator tool only gives an estimate on the very broad category.
Very nice Read. I signed up for your newsletter too.
I am getting my first supplements line off the ground. I am going to be doing Private label Turmeric and Probiotics. Is there a way to see the average pill count? I am using a company called Private Label Express (https://www.privatelabelexpress.com/) and am trying to figure out if I should do a 120 count or a 60 count. I don’t know if there is an overall difference in sales if you get one over the other.
Any Input would be great. thanks so much.