If you’re thinking about starting an Amazon FBA business to fund your world travels, but are unsure if this business model is for you, or how to get started, you’re in the right place.
Selling on Amazon is without doubt one of the most lucrative business models online today. It’s also ideally suited for digital nomads traversing the globe as it can be launched and managed entirely online!
In fact, when my husband and I decided to try our hand at starting an amazon business, we had no idea that one small and seemingly insignificant product would grow to generate over 1 million dollars in revenue within 12 months!
Seven figures sounds like a lot, but all you need to make that amount of money on Amazon is one product, priced at $30, selling 100 units a day. And with over 300 million paying users on the most trusted ecommerce brand online, that is completely doable.
I’ll delve more into our story a bit later in the article, for now, if you want to get right to the meat and potatoes of how to start a 7 figure Amazon FBA business, here’s the short version;
How to Start an Amazon FBA Business in 2024 – TL;DR
1. Choose your niche & build your audience – The landscape has changed since we built our first Amazon FBA business. There are a lot more 3rd party sellers on the platform and consequently the competition has significantly increased. When we started back in 2016, you could get away with finding a product, listing it and letting Amazon do its magic, (a bit like the early days of SEO).
However, nowadays, I highly recommend building your own audience first. Choose your niche, build an email list and then when you launch your product on Amazon, you have a list of engaged people you can promote your product to. These launch customers will kick start your sales velocity and give you a head start on reviews, which combined will kick into gear the Amazon magic!
2. Find a popular product within your niche to sell – Start with just one, trust me, one is enough. Use the Amazon bestsellers list to start your product research. Look for something that sells for a decent price point $20 – $50 (for good profit margins). Ideally weighs under 2lbs (to keep shipping costs down) and is in demand on the platform (determined by number of products, reviews, seller rankings etc).
3. Source your products – Use manufacturing marketplaces like GlobalSources, Alibaba, DHGate etc., or to make your life a whole lot easier, use Junglescouts Supplier Database. With their fingers firmly in all sections of the Amazon pie, these guys are the best at what they do and their supplier database will save you hours of frustrating research. Check it out, you can thank me later.
4. Create your own brand name & design – Without a doubt, our brand was a major reason for our success. Don’t let this hold you up, but get your creative juices flowing here and come up with a name and logo to help you stand out from the crowd!
5. Create your seller account – Before you can ship products to Amazon, you’ll need an Amazon seller account, but don’t set it up too early as you have to pay a monthly fee for the privilege. When you place your order for your first batch of products, get your images, listing, keywords and launch strategy prepped and then open your Amazon seller account when they’re ready to ship.
(NB: Rumour is that it’s taking some time for new sellers to open accounts on Amazon at the moment so it might be worth doing this ahead of time).
6. Ship your product – For some reason, this is the stage that many new sellers find intimidating. Fear not, your supplier will help you and there are a million Amazon groups you can join to ask for advice through the process.
7. Launch your product on Amazon – Yippee! You’re live on Amazon! Make sure your listing looks tip-top, with great images, a compelling keyword-rich headline, great bullet points and a detailed product description. Then follow our launch strategy as below.
Cutting through the fluff, the most important factors for ranking on Amazon and growing your Amazon FBA business are high conversion rates and consistent sales velocity. From Day 1 you need to be generating daily sales. Even if it’s only 5 – 10 sales a day.
This is where your audience comes in! Promote your launch to your email list. Tell everyone you know your product is available for sale on Amazon. Run Amazon PPC ads. Send your products to influencers to review and send traffic. Whatever you can do to generate daily sales. That’s your goal! NB: Reviews are important as they contribute to higher conversion rates, which contribute to more sales!
8. Build your ‘off Amazon’ audience – The secret to our success was the marketing we did ‘off Amazon’. The fastest way to get this off the ground is to approach influencers in your niche, with large audiences. Send them a product to review and talk about, and give them a link for people to purchase.
I can’t express strongly enough how well this strategy works! Even more so in 2024 with the number of influencers looking for brand collaborations. (A good friend of mine has recently increased his Shopify sales tenfold using this very strategy).
I go into each of these points in much greater detail throughout this post, which I urge you to bookmark and re-read, section by section as you launch your Amazon FBA business.
So before we get into the nitty gritty, just to be sure we’re on the same page;
What is Amazon FBA?
FBA means ‘fulfilled by Amazon’. This means they handle all product fulfillment including packing, distribution, returns, etc. As a seller, you send products to their warehouses (fulfillment centers), market your products to their (and your) audience, and let Amazon handle the rest!
They do have a service called FBM, which means you sell on their platform but fulfill all orders yourself. This works if you’re a big company already selling all over the world with your own fulfillment centres. But if you’re just starting out I highly recommend FBA.
How Does Amazon FBA Work?
The magic of an Amazon FBA business is in the sheer amount of logistical elements that Amazon & your suppliers handle for you.
Here’s how it works;
- You, the seller, source private label products and add your brand and logo
- A factory manufactures your branded product in bulk
- A freight forwarder ships your products to Amazon warehouses in your countries of choice
- Amazon handles the storage, packing, distribution & customer service
- You list the product on the Amazon store and promote it across the web from your sunbed in Fiji!
While there are a few more moving parts, (and you may alternatively choose a sunbed in the Maldives, the Seychelles or even your back garden) this is essentially the long and short of it.
When we started our Amazon business;
- We sourced products already selling well on Amazon.
- Branded them with our own name and logo.
- Got them shipped to the Amazon warehouses (initially by air).
- Listed them on Amazon with our own brand, images, keywords, and descriptions
- Marketed the products both on and off Amazon
- Amazon handled all the distribution of the products to the customers!
And that’s pretty much the strategy I’m going through in detail in this post.
How to Start a 7 Figure Amazon FBA Business in 2024; 8 Actionable Steps
Starting an Amazon store can be done by following a few steps. First, sign up for an Amazon seller account. Then, choose the type of products you want to sell and create listings for them. Optimize your product descriptions and images for better visibility. Finally, promote your store through social media and advertising to attract customers.
When we started we took a punt on a product that neither myself nor my husband had any interest in, it was simply a popular product with high demand and low competition.
Although that paid off for us at the time, it’s not a strategy I recommend. These days the competition is far greater and for both longevity and to stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way you need to choose a niche and build a brand rather than just opt for a trending product.
Step 1. Choose Your Niche
If you’d asked me 5 years ago how important a niche was for Amazon, I would have said not so important. Just pick a product that is high in demand and focus on selling that product.
These days however it’s a far more competitive market and if you’re looking for long term success and the most bang for your buck, then building a true brand will get you much further than just trying to milk a popular or trending product.
Case in point, you could have probably made a killing in face masks in 2020/2021, but now the pandemic has all but gone, your sales probably will have to.
Jeff Bezos theory on this is as follows;
“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.”