Starting An Amazon Business From: Home Do’s And Don’ts


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You can start your own Amazon business from home, but be careful. It may not be as easy as you think.

Here are 10 tips for starting your own home based Amazon business:

1. Do. Pick Your Product Niche Carefully. Before you get started you are going to do a lot of research. One of your most important decisions will be choosing the right product niche. You will want to choose a category with high demand, yet not too much competition. If there are too many sellers offering the same products on Amazon, it will end in a race to the bottom, with the lowest priced seller capturing all the orders at the smallest profit margin. These sellers often end up contacting closeout companies to liquidate their inventory because they realize they are loosing money selling on Amazon.

2. Don’t. Choose Products Because You Like Them. Choose products because they sell well and they have strong rankings; sell products that will always be in demand and will sell on a regular basis. Sell items that have a mass appeal and can be used by most people; this will benefit you because you can cast a wide net and sell products with mass appeal. If you start selling products that are too specialized, you will be limited in how much volume you can do.

3. Do. Manage Your Own Fulfillment. At the beginning, you will want to handle all your own packing and shipping. You may want to send everything to Amazon FBA for them to ship for you, but resist this urge at the beginning while you are growing and learning the business. Once you become an established seller with some experience under your belt, you can begin to play with FBA. If you try to do this too soon you will make costly mistakes that will lead to having to liquidate Amazon FBA inventory at a loss.

4. Don’t. Let Someone Else Create Your Listings. Again, at the beginning you want to get everything right. So it’s very important for you to make sure your listings are accurate and precise. Amazon will quickly punish you if your listings are inaccurate, misleading, or determined fraudulent. It won’t matter if your listing was “accidentally” incorrect because someone else created it. You bear 100% responsibility for agreeing to Amazon’s terms and it is too easy to have listings deactivated. Again, this will result in a costly loss of sales and you will be forced to sell bulk inventory to closeout and overstock buyers.

5. Don’t. Grow To Fast. Take your time until you have a complete understanding of the product niche you have chosen. There is no question, the desire to grow quickly when selling on Amazon is compelling and it may seem like you just can’t lose. But you can. And you can lose a lot. Take your time and take things slow. As long as you are making money, just continue to refine what you are doing, make your process better and better, continue to improve your listings, concentrate on the basics until you are a pro. When you have learned all the ins and outs, and have mastered selling a few different items, you can consider expanding your line and trying more products.

6. Do. Learn To Use Keyword Tools. Keywords are super important so you will have to learn all the quirky details if you want to make a go of selling on Amazon. There are closeout companies and surplus buyers who specialize in buying only Amazon returns and buying from companies that have to liquidate Amazon FBA merchandise. This gives you an idea of how easy it is to fail because sellers don’t thoroughly understand how important keywords and keyword tools are. They can literally be the oxygen that breathes life into your listings. Remember, your amazing products are meaningless if nobody knows about them.

7. Don’t. Compete With The Big Boys. You will most definitely lose this fight because the very large companies selling on Amazon often have the best and the most of everything. First, They have the most resources to buy merchandise at low prices; then they have the most experience so they know what they are doing, they have the best help so they understand more about Amazon than you do, they have better research skills and tools, more money to invest, and more staying power than you. Don’t try to compete.

8. Do. Bundle Items. This is very important because it eliminates competition for everyday items and it sets your listings apart from others. By bundling items together you are essentially creating your own items with your own listings and nobody else can compete. This is a great way to sell on Amazon if you can find the right items to group together. Once you do this you can brand them, prohibiting other companies from copying you and selling the same items.

9. Don’t. Buy Too Much Inventory. You are going to make some mistakes along the way, especially as you grow. Once you convert from Seller Fulfillment to FBA, it becomes very costly if you overbuy and ship too much merchandise to Amazon’s warehouse. If this happens you will be forced to liquidate Amazon FBA stock to surplus buyers and closeout companies, at a loss. This is an expensive lesson because in addition to paying high Amazon storage fees, you will be paying removal costs to sell bulk inventory. If you are careful and pay attention to your inventory levels it should not be necessary for you to liquidate Amazon FBA and sell closeouts or overstock inventory.