I made a million on this brand prior. Also i used it to show how to do stuff successfully. Which is replicated by the brands I serve at the agency who also made millions.
Yeah but, as an FBA guru, can you not see losing so much money on one of your flagship products could be seen as an indictment of your expertise and FBA in general? The message here is that you're successfully selling shovels beside an exhausted goldmine.
This is reality of 95% Amazon gurus / coaches. All selling you a course or service but don’t run the business themselves. If they do, normally it’s not a successful one. Be careful who you listen to or give your money away. The most successful sellers I know they are not public personalities / influencers. They never have something to sell you because they actually make great money from their business. The game is still profitable, you just have to be able to adopt. P.S stop sending me your spammy emails and mail because I will never use your service 👍
Amazon has gotten progressively harder to make profitable. I don't blame you for getting out. This latest placement fee fiasco is going to cause a lot of businesses to leave the platform.
How can your clients believe you now? Sooner or later they will learn that the example (your brand) you boasted to them to make them sign up is a rip off? Something like that.
This is a huge for you to put out! Not many in the Amazon game can admit when things are not working. The competition on Amazon is fierce! And to stay profitable on Amazon the challenges are enormous! The ONLY way to win on Amazon is to be profits obsessed - a former Amazonian told me this. Thanks for sharing your experience!!!!!
Sorry to hear Steven. Great to hear that you were able to sell it. I also just moved into a warehouse in December based on Amazon fees in 2023. We were notified that our FBA fees were coming down, but they increased in other areas. The month of March gross revenues to the 10th is $18,300 after fees I get $5,300. It makes me sick.
This can be very important to all, i just discovered that the Advertising reports in Amazon DO NOT remove canceled sales in their report, this means that if you get a sale canceled and you see the ¨sales-orders¨ in the ads report, Amazon still includes sales that were canceled. So be very careful with this as you may be considering sales that never happened and this will affect you greatly. Other issue detected is that when you sell a product providing coupons from Amazon, in the ads report Amazon includes the flat price of the item without discounting the coupon used by the client, so if you have a 50% discount coupon for an item of 50 usd, Amazon will be considering the item sold as a 50 usd sale, and not a 25 usd transaction, so again, be very careful with this 2 issues as you may be losing money in advertising campaigns and you wont know it.
Wow, that's significant! A reality check for sure. Thanks for sharing - really makes me think about where my "area of genius" is and how to lean into that. I do some retail arbitrage as well. How are you navagating the Low Inventory Fees? Alot of what I find has very limited inventory - I can't keep it stocked all the time.
Pure transparency from MAG as always. This company continues to be the best agency in the entire Amazon game. Thanks for your insight and honesty, Steven!
Steven, confidence is knowing when to let go of something. Cool thing is that more energy can be focused on what you do best, whether that be retail arbitrage, marketing agency, being an effective leader - whatever. Hey, your fans here respect you even more for being confident enough to admit ups and downs.
Hello friend i am just filling out my listing on seller central, this is my first product. In the part on product description where it says Manufacturer what do i put in there is it the maker of the product in China or my name i do not have a brand name yetso what do i put there
One law that I think would help US sellers to maintain their sanity would be a law requiring all these US corporations to have US based customer support. As an Amazon seller, I feel like I'm in Dante's 9th circle of hell when I type up an intricate email detailing my specific problem and I get back a nonsense filled scripted reply from seller support that doesn't address my issue. If I'm lucky enough to get someone on the phone I deal with someone with a thick accent that doesn't even listen and reads off a prompt. I've heard that seller support are incentivized not to solve problems, but to quickly just mark a case as closed. SMH.
That's just shitty customer service operations. All my staff are hired from abroad, speak perfect English with no accent, answer calls emails and live chat immediately, and we're available 16/7, soon to be 24/7.
One of the best amazon educators on youtube for sure. I found loads of Steve's videos helpful. When something changes on amazon Steve is the first guy to drop a video on it.
In China the word from many is whilst they may do Amazon business, a lot of companies are not making any money, and many are doing a loss. I know of several people had been doing Amazon and sold product, but net 0 in the bank because they didn't really understand. Like Age of Sage a lot try and put effort into getting market share, maybe right the right product this might be different. In China factories are looking at getting people to do their own Amazon sales, but also failing because they go and pay for idiots who don't get it, and just end up with a big PPC bill or zero returns on costs, or freight charges which come and bite their arse. Few have real proper ability to get a landed cost value or the right mix of product.
I can't understand how the Chinese are doing it in our category. We need to charge $20 to make a profit (no ads). Meanwhile the Chinese are charging $10 with ads. Same products sourced from China. I can't make their maths work.
Really good honest video! Thanks Steven... you are the best! Video series idea for your consideration.... when and how to sell a brand... I'm planning to sell my Lazy Cat brand at some point as I look at retirement . Thanks!
I’ve been selling possible IP infringement products at night and suppressing the listings in the day. If it wasn’t for that I would have been in financial trouble. Too many unauthorized takedowns. I must also stress how important it is to patent your product ideas….
Just want to say that I appreciate all of your in depth and hands on information throughout the years. Also I think it would be awesome to share tips on your RA experiences. You could call it MyRaGuy 😂
The truth is my partner runs it all. The only value I brought to the relationship was a pile of cash and my ability to organize ideas. My partner sucks at communicating and it wouldn't even be possible for me to translate his technique into educational content if I wanted to. My partner is in SLC today because I told him to go there. It's become a game where I pick a random location and tell him to go source deals. He will spend 1 million dollars in SLC this week. After writing this I think there is some absurdity to how we are doing that might make good content.
lol I remember you reading the GungleScout Report years ago and saying that retail arbitrage was going out of the window. I didnt listen to you anyway and started selling. Are you doing mainly Online arbitrage or Retail arbitrage?
Steven I am a great lover of all the work you have done and it has really helped me on my PL Amazon journey .if I was looking to enter into retail arbitrage who would you recomend following on you tube ? wishing you and your family well in the future
I appreciate your honesty. Your agency has help us alot. What you are teaching does work. I'm sorry your brand didn't work out. Amazon is brutal and unpredictable especially on smaller businesses. I am curious how you were able to sell your business if it wasn't profitable. Wondered if you would share that side?
Always good to see your videos, keep it up! 🙋♂️ Btw, are you currently seeking video editors or a thumbnail designer to enhance viewers, retention, or CTR? If yes, May I send you a previous work sample?
I believe you still need to be good at marketing to be able to understand on which products you will able to compete, I would rather hire somebody to take care of the product sourcing and logistics and make sure we make profits - Thanks for the video
Is funny it hurts, even thought is not my money. I am an avid follower, you’ve done the SEO of two of my products. I don’t have 2 % of the resources you have and it does mot mean you have fail but, you are right, if someone like you is throwing the towel, what can I expect? Sending you a consoling hug😏
I thought Id put my experience here as well (Australia) I import goods, repackage them into my own brand and sell. The products themselves are not unqiue however. Amazon is really, really crap to sell on. Im not a marketer but I can do the logistics etc. The fees on Amazon are stupidly high. Mixed with complete market saturation as everyone competes to get away from the 9-5.. its really not worth it. Ive had far more success on ebay. Amazons fees are higher, their ad algorithm is more expensive, and if you dont use FBA your listings rank worse. Surprise, surprise, FBA is extraordinary expensive. My products are listed at 25% more expensive on amazon, yet still have a lower profit margin than ebay. The sooner buyer leave amazon, the better for everyone. I think youre honestly better off pumping money into marketing and your own website. Atleast then youre not competing on price with every other man and his dog on a marketplace.
When you mentioned Retail Arbitrage, did you mean physically going into stores or did you mean OA, Wholesale? This is quite interesting part of the video I believe.
Amazon FBA is dead for sure. Im selling from 2018 and made 200-450k usd in sales/year, but last week I decided to quit. Not worth the nerves and hard work - chinese sellers will destroy you anyway. For new sellers - you have no idea what chinese sellers doing in this space. You can start with amazing product and chinese seller will come and take your sales pretty easy. You just cannot compete with them with price and other black hat things. For example I have product, which sold good for 50-55usd in 2019. Now chinese selling 2 units for 39.95. One unit COGS 16usd before shipping and customs. Also is large item, so FBA fee over 8usd. I repeat: no matter how good your product is - chinese will take over you. Brandon Young (big seller) at this moment over 150 infringement in court and fighting with chinese copy-cats. Are you ready for this? Ar you have funds for this? Just forget it, its not worth it anymore. More and more big sellers quiting selling on Amazon and open PPC agencys, because its better way to make money. Remember my words when you will find out start Amazon FBA was not good idea.
This is 100% accurate and almost exactly my same experience. I’ve been explaining this to my peers for years. China squeezed me out of a product line years ago so I made a big pivot and then they did it again.
@@jeff_kal bull sh** my friend. E.g. infringements easy to take down infringers if you have IP. Is e-commerce as easy as it used to be? No. There are many ways to beat Chinese sellers. This game is not for everyone. Differentiated product aligned with buyer avatars and a sound multi sales channel marketing strategy and you are 90% there.
@@stevensmith1788 I mean I personally have found a way around it and it sounds like you have too, but it is incredibly difficult to do something so niche and unique that china can't copy and do for cheaper. I think that's the sentiment that @GameLT100 was explaining which I believe to be accurate. As far as FBA goes I won't touch it again with a 10 foot pole.
Wow! Amazing revelation and honesty. I’d expect nothing less from the OG Stephen! I’m a big supporter of you no matter what! Proud of you for streamlining your focus to your agency and what you are good at! I am curious about the product arbitraging venture though. Hope someday we can chat over a cup of coffee :) sending ❤
@@MyAmazonGuy I think we do want to learn from you but the video is so bizarre. You've basically just told us Amazon is now essentially impossible for an Amazon expert. Having a successful (and current) Amazon FBA business was key to your credibility. Your prior success is somewhat irrelevant as your clients are looking forward in a highly changeable market.
You said parody mugs got yanked last year, did you get them back? What reason did Amazon give? I’m thinking of launching a parody mug. It’s a super dad mug in Superman style. Surely that would be fine?
Chinese must be selling Age or Sage or identical product with fake lower price and made him out of business... this is how retail market encroachment works...
There is 0 chance you make millions of retail arbitrage. Considering you claim to have zero skill in logistics. Which is 100% what retail arbitrage is... something does not ad up.
@@MyAmazonGuy So you just sell other brands products on Amazon. This works till brand realize they can eliminate the middle man, and file a lawsuit against you to stop. Its is more doable in Canada and EU as re-sale/lawsuit laws are way different. In USA a crappy mid-west lawyer can file a lawsuit and destroy you financially.
You should seriously consider investing a potion of your profits into Bitcoin! Take a look at the returns over the last few years, compared to having an Amazon brand.
I lost 200k on ETH and decided to never touch it again Wish I left my investment alone would be +400k today but I guarantee you I made up the difference in just focusing on my company