Amazing Amazon Seller Adventures

Some ramblings about my day to day adventures selling my stuff online 

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Finally, opened my Amazon.com account, but.......

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All hail to the back lotion applicator!! #backbliss #backapplicator #availableonamazon #suntanning #psoriasis #eczema #dryskinonback #backblisscom (at Delta Plaji Koycegiz)

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My bream came with teeth! #scaryfish #oldbirdsontour #mairestaurantdalyan #dinner #fishselfie #fishsupper #fishonfriday #missingstrictly (at Dalyan)

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Still procrastinating ..... And that's my excuse

I spent most of yesterday creating some product demo videos in my kitchen instead of updating my review request sequence emails. Why?

After years of indecision I finally took the plunge and had my nails done today. Up until about four months ago I carried all the stock to run my business at my house. I had to stock in my shed, in my loft, in my office and dotted around the house. All this is now carried by my logistics company which has meant that I have not had to manhandle heavy cardboard boxes or groaning bags of post all of which took their toll on my poor nails.

What has this to do with not doing what I was supposed to do? Well, for the first time in ages my nails looked 'presentable' and fit to be seen on camera. I recorded several videos using my phone to demonstrate how to wash and change the pads of the BackBliss Lotion Applicators. It's not complicated and there are instructions contained in the product about how to do it. However, actually seeming how to do it and what happens will definitely help customers. They need editing over the next week and I'll make sure I include some of my top keywords in the title and description before uploading to You Tube.

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Forecasting for Q4

To me Forecasting for Q4 is a bit like nailing jelly to wall. I have only hearsay accounts of how your sales increase for the final quarter of the year with people buying Christmas presents.

There are stories of 3×, 5x and even 10x your usual sales especially if you have a giftable product. One of my products is especially giftable and I do have some past sales history of that from my own website.  One year I sold as much in November and December as I did in the entire rest of the year!.  However my main product is a bit seasonal although people do use it all year round and I hasn't catered for any additional sales of this product in Q4 on Amazon.

How wrong I was, one of my Amazon buddies told me that I must get the inventory of this product in particular into the Amazon warehouse as well as the one I know sells well. 

So most of this week I have been deliberating over a rather complex spreadsheet trying to anticipate exactly how many units of the individual materials I need to make my products, taking into all various scenarios. Even though I created this spreadsheet I still to go back and look at it and really try and understand what each cell means. Its been something that I have prevaricated over for some weeks and it really a case of not knowing what I don’t know.  There is only me to take the final decision and its a big responsibility as I don’t want to run out of stock as that has all sorts of implications with Amazon. Basically Amazon love selling stuff that sells, and they don’t like it when the can’t sell the stuff that sells.

But this week I have addressed the dreaded spreadsheet and I feel very happy and confident that I now know where I stand and have placed a number of big orders with my suppliers.  Needless to say, they all have different lead times, but that is another story.

The numbers are still a guess because this time last year I was still very much a novice on Amazon. Once I have a full year of Amazon stats under my belt everything will be a lot clearer. Having said this, none of my figures include the US market and this is something I am going to tackle over the coming weeks and will make for some interesting blog posts.

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Amazon Sellers Meet-Up Thames Valley & M4 Today

Networking is a really important part of being an Amazon Seller. It's a lonely existence just you and your computer screen even if you can travel the world with the desktop lifestyle. 

Networking events mainly happen in London but Amazon Sellers are distributed all over the country so I decided to start a group of us for the Thames Valley and M4 corridor after attending meetings in Bristol and Birmingham.

This is our third meeting and I'm expecting about 20 people. It's always great to get together with other people in the same boat as you and you often know much more than you think. It's a pleasure being able to help others on their Amazon adventure and to learn from those who are walking the talk. 

I’m doing something a bit different today by the way of introductions. It's something that's worked well in my corporate life but let's see how it transfers to us asked Amazonions.

The main remit of the meeting is to share our successes and to ask others to help where we need it. Quite often the combined brainpower of 20+ sellers can go along way to help somebody who is struggling.

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Hello, here I go

I've been meaning to document my Amazon and online selling adventures for awhile, so here goes.

This blog will contain all sorts of information about my observations, sales successes, failures, outcomes I wasn't expecting and random bits about my life in general.

I shall just make notes about what I achieve on regularly and some interesting facts about products I sell all that are in development, places I go, online places where I hang out and thoughts about the future.