The entrepreneurial mindset can be both a blessing and a curse. It drives us to always be improving and innovating but also pushes us at times to a lack of contentment. My contention is that this is the only way to live life to its fullest. Apply this mindset to every aspect of your life and your experiences will be so much more fulfilling.
As a result of reaching this conclusion, my business partners and I continually explore opportunities to learn, serve, and innovate. We explore such things as subscription based models, info products, coaching, website development, and webinars.
All of those opportunities have great potential but are based primarily on selling services rather than tangible products. In this article I share five things learned from one of our ventures: selling books on Amazon.
Selling your product on Amazon is simple and efficient. Here are five reasons why you should give it a try.
1. Become an Amazon seller with just a few clicks of the mouse. Amazon’s systems make the process so easy. Simply start by establishing an account at sellercentral.amazon.com where you are given a powerful dashboard for managing products, inventory, and sales. It’s a full inventory and sales management system right at your fingertips.
2. Enter products and manage inventory using a smartphone. One of the most powerful features of the system is its ability to be managed using a smartphone or tablet. Numerous apps are available that use the camera on a mobile device to identify a product simply by scanning the barcode on the item. The identifying information received from the barcode is used to instantly search the Amazon database for all information on the product necessary to sell it.
3. Obtain relevant market data on every book being sold. Amazon doesn’t just account for the information you tell it about your product being sold. Its powerful system delivers to you relevant sales history, current pricing, and customer feedback so that you can make an informed decision on how to market your product. This includes determining an optimal sales price based on data from how the product is being sold by other sellers in the global Amazon marketplace.
4. Adopt proven packing and shipping techniques for minimizing time and expense on each books sold. When it comes to specifically shipping a book sold to an Amazon customer, there are some proven techniques that are both affordable and efficient. Since Amazon by default charges $3.99 to the customer for shipping and handling a book sold, you can keep packaging and shipping costs low and add little margin on this phase of the sale. Here is some specific information you will find useful in minimizing time and expense around packing and shipping books:
ship media mail packages via USPS
print USPS shipping label using Paypal
average postage weights for shipping
creating a free cardboard book mailer
do it yourself shipping box templates
5. Leverage Amazon’s 24/7 global reach to optimize sales potential. Think about it… what makes more sense? Should you let that product sit on the bookshelf collecting dust? Or, should you offer it for sale on the incredible global Amazon platform? It amazes me how simple the process can be if you are willing to invest a little time in building your storefront and adding both products and inventory.
I encourage you to give Amazon Seller Central a try today. If you have any thoughts about selling products, Amazon makes it incredibly easy to get started. We tried it out by selling 2 books, now you should give it a try too.
If you find this information useful, please email us or drop a note in the comments. We would like to hear what you think of Amazon’s platform for selling products to the world.
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