Welcome to the Sell. Rank. Win. Podcast! In this first episode, host Tommy Beringer shares his Amazon selling story, how he became a part of the MW team and answers the common questions: “Should I start selling on Amazon? Is now the right time?”
Tommy Beringer:
What's up you data-hungry, Amazon sellers? This is your host Tommy Beringer of the Sell. Rank. Win. podcast for MerchantWords. And in this podcast, we give you the answers to your most burning questions, actionable insights that you can take away and implement into your business today. So let's go ahead and dive right into today's episode. What do you say? Let's go!
Hey guys, in this episode, I'm going to give an introduction to who I am, how I began working at MerchantWords, and in answer to the question, "Should I still sell on Amazon? Is it still viable to sell on Amazon today in 2020?" And we're going to go ahead and give you that answer right now. Let's go.
All right. So how I started working in MerchantWords was I met Mark Liu, the president of MerchantWords at a 2018 Prosper Show and I started talking to him about MerchantWords and how I thought things could get better on MerchantWords for the user. And he straight up said, "Hey, do you want a job?" So about two years later, I'm still here. I'm also an Amazon seller myself. So before working here at MerchantWords, I started selling on Amazon. I started selling around 2014. I've had some failures and I've had some successes and I've had some products that have sustained that entire time. One of my flagship products, which is still around and it's bringing me in some money every month. So, and it's working and continuing to scale and looking at other products that I see fit for a product that is viable on the market.
But yeah, I mean, I'm still an Amazon seller. Here at MerchantWords, working at MerchantWords is amazing. The people and the whole entire team are really amazing people. It's almost like a dream working there. I don't know what else to say. It's just every day it's always something new, it's something fun, especially when you're working for a SAS company. It moves really fast so you have to iterate quickly, build something, get it out and then continue to iterate on it, right? So learning that, that was a little bit of a learning curve, but I got through that thanks so much to the team, especially Mark Liu, who is my Obi-Wan Kenobi over there.
But yeah, that's just basically my story in short and I just want to give you guys some insights kind of what the Amazon playing field is like right now. We're in the middle of the coronavirus, COVID-19. I have seen, I'd say 10 X sales, even better than the fourth quarter for my products. It's pretty crazy to see the amount of sales that I'm getting every day now during the coronavirus. So, it definitely shows that people are shopping online more and more and more and people ask me, "Is it a good time to get into Amazon? Is this still a good time to start selling?" And I say, "Yes, it's always going to be a good time to start selling as long as Amazon allows you to sell on their platform." It is pretty much a plug and play platform for you to start making some revenue.
Of course, you have to kind of dial it in to make it a profitable business, but for you to get going up and running, I mean, someone could make a million dollars in revenue in six months on the platform or less. It's pretty crazy. But the thing is, what are you doing to make sure you're making a profit on that million? So it could be very easy to spend a million and then make a million in revenue, but what are you netting? So that's the trick really, especially on Amazon US and the UK. I have stretched into Canada and Mexico myself and it is not as saturated over there. And the A costs on my PPC campaigns over there are way better than the ones over in the US so they're definitely more profitable, the PPC campaigns overseas in Mexico and Canada. Well, I guess that's not overseas, but in the other markets, I should say.
So I definitely see some opportunities there stretching out. There's still a humongous opportunity in the US by far. It's just about picking a product. It always comes down to picking a product and Amazon more and more and more want you to become a brand and they are pushing that. They have reached out to me personally, allowed me to get on a call with them for as long as I wanted, just talking about whatever I wanted to talk about. And also, especially their main goal is trying to get me into other marketplaces, which I'm really keen to do so. And I'm definitely looking into that. So, you guys should do that too. So if your questions are, "I'm kind of scared to get into Amazon, to dip my toe in the water, the Amazon water, the Amazon FBA waters." Do it.
That's the business model that I run is a private label, FBA model. That's what I go by. I have other people that I know that do the arbitrage and wholesale, but it doesn't net as much. The profits aren't as good and it's a little bit of extra work on there. So I recommend the FBA private label model and that's what I know and that's what I teach and that's what I live by. So yeah, those are the opportunities right now. I see a big opportunity always in the US. There's always going to be an opportunity. It's always about picking products and understanding how to run your ads and being able to scale and figuring out how to scale. So there's always going to be an opportunity. So if you're wondering if your main question is, "Should I get started on Amazon still?"
Yes. Then the answer's going to be yes in a year from now, if Amazon's still allowing you to sell on their platform. And in 10 years from now, the answer from me is still going to be yes, because there's always going to be different strategies you can take to gain some traction in the market. I know there's Search, Find, Buy, which is popular right now for launches. Some of the old way of launching is done with, but there's ways to set your flag in the market and continue to grow and continue to scale and get bigger.
So, just wanted to make this a quick introduction. Just give you an answer to the question, "Should I still sell on Amazon? Is it still viable?" Because I've had a lot of people ask me that question and the answer's going to be yes. Always, yes.
Thank you guys for listening. This is the first MerchantWords podcast here. My name's Tommy Beringer, product manager, and Amazon expert at MerchantWords signing off. Thanks so much for listening guys. Stay awesome. Be awesome.
All right. Thank you guys so much for listening. And if you got any value out of this podcast at all, please let us know at the place that you listened to it at, whether it be iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is. Give us some love. Give us an awesome review and let us know maybe some things you want us to talk about on the next podcast. Until next time guys, stay awesome and be awesome.