2018 has been a busy and exciting year!

​Many new things are happening and business is growing.

At the end of 2017, Amazon's Global Selling Team asked me about recording a video interview for their Amazon Global Seller Success Story series. This is the first ever Amazon Seller Success Story featuring a seller from Singapore!

The video was shot at Amazon's regional HQ in Jan 2018, and was just published on 11 June.

Watch it below to understand why I think selling on Amazon is so compelling.

Note: One of the questions in the script was how I learnt to sell on Amazon. My answer would have been the Proven Amazon Course and the free MySilentTeam Facebook group, but that wasn't appropriate, so those details had to be left out in this official Amazon video.

How to sell on Amazon from anywhere in the world: Global Seller Success Story

Business is growing to unprecedented levels.

This includes increasing sales on existing channels as well as expanding in to multiple new income streams.

On Amazon
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​1. Amazon sales has increased about 80% year-on-year every month in 2018 compared to 2017. This is due to a few factors including:

• Better keyword optimization using more accurate tools, particularly the Magnet Keyword Research and Cerebro Reverse ASIN tools that are both part of the Helium 10 suite of tools and learning how to use keywords more effectively from Viral Launch's podcast episode about Amazon Search Optimization.
• Improvements to my Amazon PPC strategy. This includes using the same keywords that I target in my listings (from previous point) in manual exact/phrase match campaigns and bidding 20% more than the top of the bid range.
• Improving product images. I previously had mostly simple product photographs. But recently I started using the Amazing Freedom Magic Image Service to create new images for 4 of my listings, and I have been very pleased with the results.
• New listings

As a result of the above, several of my listings have doubled in sales.

2. Consulting for Other Companies.

• I currently consult for 2 companies. I actively manage the Amazon account for 1 and am on retainer to help the digital marketing team with their Amazon sales for the other.
• Using Viral Launch Market Intelligence together Helium 10 Cerebro and Magnet, I have managed to double overall sales for the first company.
  
• The second company has been selling on Amazon for 1 year.  We started the first month by focusing on improving 1 of their existing listings. Using Helium 10 Cerebro, we uncovered several of the top selling competing listings' best keyword search terms. We then used Helium 10''s Keyword Tracker tool to track the search results ranking of the best relevant search terms for the client's listing. By simply tweaking the title to include 2 or 3 of these search terms, we tripled sales for the listing! This was mainly because we moved from rank position 19 to 4 by including a keyword that has about 3,000 monthly exact search volume according to both Helium 10 and Viral Launch.

Went to Yiwu, China in April. It was a very fruitful trip and I have already made an initial order for 8 products, with several more to come.

​I'll write more about my trip, the observations, lessons, whether it's worth visiting and how to maximize your trip in a separate post.

This is a feature that has been requested for years. I remember talking to World First's Asia director and Singapore ecommerce manager about it 1 or 2 years ago.

It's now  in beta-testing and I just made my first payment to a supplier today.

The cost savings is realised because I do not have to transfer my Amazon USD payout back to SGD and then incur a 2nd forex loss when I make a payment to my supplier from SGD to USD.

How the process works is:

1. Amazon pays out in USD to my World First USD account.
2. I pay my supplier in USD from my World First USD balance.

Therefore there is no forex fee incurred for transferring from USD to SGD and then SGD to USD. The only fee is a onetime fee that World First charges when I make a payment to my supplier. My fee is 1% of the amount transferred. Talk to you account manager about your rate.

It's free to open a World First account and you will have an account manager assigned to you even if you have not transferred a single cent.

​You can find out more about World First in my World First review.

It's December 11 and several of my listings have been out of stock for 1 or 2 weeks.

This is my fifth Q4 and I am still underestimating sales volume and running out of stock!

Being out of stock at the beginning of December means missing 3 weeks of extremely high sales. I'll use one of my listings as an example to explain.

The image below is the Scope sales estimate for 1 of my listings:

As you can see, the estimated sales volume is 2,167 units. This is based on the current Best Sellers Rank (BSR)* of 1,216 in Health & Household. 

I always keep in mind that BSR and any sales estimates are based on a snapshot in time. Therefore it is important to look at the historical BSR. I do this using the free Keepa Chrome extension which displays a graph on each Amazon product page as shown below.

As can be seen from the 3 month Keepa chart above, the BSR starts to improve around the 2nd week of November (the spike around Nov 1 is due to being out of stock).

The 1 month Keepa chart below show the average BSR in November is approximately 7,500 and in December it is 2,500. At the time of writing this on Dec 11, the BSR is 1,216.

So how do I interpret and apply this data in terms of stocks?

1. Projecting Stock Quantities Needed

Firstly, I project estimated sales quantity for November and December using Jungle Scout's free estimator

• November Sales Estimate: 656 units (based on Nov's average BSR of 7,500 in Health & Household)
• December Sales Estimate: 1735 (based on Dec's average BSR of 2500 in Health & Household)
• Total: 656 +1735 = 2,391

Since this is just an estimated figure, I estimate that I should send in about 2,000 to 2,500 units to have enough stock for Nov and Dec.

2. Projecting Lead Time

Secondly I need to account for the lead time.

Lead time is calculated from the time I place my order with the supplier to the time it is  available for sale on Amazon FBA. This includes:

• Production lead time
• Shipping
• Prep and labeling (if applicable)
• Amazon receiving time

Shipping and Amazon receiving times are things to especially note during the Q4 peak selling season. Both shipping companies and Amazon's fulfilment centers are often overwhelmed during this period, resulting in shipping and receiving delays. You might want to factor in 2-3 weeks of extra lead time for any shipments sent or received in Nov and Dec.

Example:
For this particular product my lead times are:

• Production time: 1 week
• Shipping time: 2 weeks (1 week from US supplier to US prep company + 1 week from prep company to Amazon Fulfilment Center)
• Prep time: 2 days
• Amazon receiving time: 3 weeks (usually 2-5 days, but I'm making allowance for Q4 delays)

Total Lead Time = 5 to 6 weeks

Therefore in order to have stock available for sale by mid November, I should order from my supplier in the last week of September or early October.

Of course this is based on this particular product's sales and lead times. But you can easily use the same steps for your own products.

One final tip: Set reminders for yourself - I've added Reminders in Google Calender for Oct 2018 to reorder for next year.

I get asked about Q4 quite often. One of the common questions is, "what does Q4 stand for or mean?"

Q4 is short for Quarter 4 or the 4th quarter of the year. Traditionally that means October, November and December. To retailers, Q4 is considered the peak sales period when shoppers spend the most money. In the US, some of the major events in this period include:
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• Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November)
• Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and the most hyped sales day of the year)
• Cyber Monday (the Monday after Black Friday, which was created in 2005 as a marketing effort to get people to shop online while riding on the shopping frenzy of Black Friday)
• Christmas
• New Year

Having sold through the last three Q4s since 2013, practically speaking, Q4 is November, December and January -  because I have personally experienced the highest sales in these three months.

In fact, January has been my top grossing month in terms of Amazon sales in two out of the past three years.

Here's a possible reason why. Lots of people gift Amazon Gift Cards as Christmas presents - me included. I have a sister who lives in the US. Every Christmas I send her an Amazon Gift Card as a Christmas present. People who receive Amazon Gift Cards during Christmas would then start shopping on Amazon from the end of December into January.

Your preparation for Q4 varies depending on whether you are a new or experienced seller. It also is different depending on your sourcing model, or what I like to call sourcing streams.

For me, I have a a replenishable private label/wholesale inventory of about 50-60 SKUs with a sales history. Based on the trackable sales history, I know how many units are sold each month for every SKU.

I check my Amazon sales history in Amazon Seller Central by going to REPORTS>Business Reports>Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Child Item. From there you can select the date range and sort by unit sales, etc. to analyze the sales data.

For example, for SKU-1 I know the monthly average sales for the last 3 months is 100 units per month. I also know that this product might be something people would buy as a gift to friends or parents during Q4. Based on past experience, I would therefore want to have stock of 2X the normal average monthly volume. Personally that means I would project 600 units (2 x 100 units x 3 months) to stay in stock for Nov, Dec and Jan.

I would typically order this in two equal batches.

The first order would be in late September or early October (depending on the lead time of each supplier), with the target of stock being received into FBA by mid October. So 300 units for sales in November and early December.

The second order of 300 units would be in late October or week 1 in November with the target of the stock received into Amazon by end November.  This stock is for December and January.

It is important to order enough stock for January sales in late October or early November for 2 reasons.

1. Some suppliers run out of stock in November due to the peak season demand. I have experienced that with 3 suppliers that resulted in lost sales worth thousands of dollars.
2. There are many holidays in Q4 where many suppliers and prep companies, especially in the US, might close for an extended period such as during Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas through to the New Year. I used to work for a US headquartered company and our office would close for 1-2 weeks from Christmas Eve onwards. So it's important to order what you need for January well before the suppliers go on holiday.

New sellers have a couple of options.

If you live in the US, consider joining a Q4 Sourcing Group. These groups have helped members sell large amounts in the last 2 years by sourcing suitable inventory especially in local areas.

If not, I recommend simply going wide not deep. This helps minimize any risk of having all your capital stuck with one product should it not sell well. In my opinion, it is better to focus on the slow and steady approach of building for the long term rather than trying to catch Q4, especially if you are new to selling on Amazon and reading this in June or later in the year.

It usually takes a person at least 3 months to get the ball rolling on Amazon and I would estimate at least 6 months (if you are very diligent and analytical) to become proficient in knowing what to sell and how to source.

Q4 will come and go too quickly. And anyway there will always be another Q4 next year and the year after!

For the best collection of proven strategies to sell successfully on Amazon, I highly recommend taking a look at the Proven Amazon Course which I consider my foundation for selling on Amazon.

Do you sell on Amazon using FBA? Then there's a very high chance that Amazon owes you money! While Amazon is supposed to process reimbursements automatically, in actuality, a lot is missed...unless you check it yourself and bring it to their attention.

Earlier this year, I went through a couple of reimbursement guides, followed their step-by-step reimbursement instructions and within a few days received reimbursements of $2191.73.

This was for inventory that was damaged, lost or destroyed by Amazon in their warehouses. I would not have gotten my money back for these products if I had not found the data (which is buried deep in Amazon Seller Central), processed it  in a spreadsheet and then sent the info to Amazon Seller Support to ask for reimbursements.

In the last 3 months I've maintained my Amazon sales while focusing most of my time and efforts developing income streams outside of Amazon. Some main points:

Amazon

• For the most part I spend about 2-3 hours a week simply looking at my business reports (Reports>Business Reports>Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Child Item - then sort descending Ordered Product Sales) and reorder enough stock for the next month.
• I know I said I only maintained! But I did add 10 new SKUs (aka product listings) on Amazon, which was not much work! These were either variations of existing products or new bundles based on products I am already selling. I created these new listings and run Amazon Pay Per Click Ad Campaigns for many of them using the methods explained by Brett Bartlett in Proven Performance Inventory.

Other Business Developments

• I attended an SEO course in April which led to hiring several writer on Upwork to write content, redesigning my Singapore-based e-commmerce site, and more importantly restructuring the internal links structure, on-page formatting and setting up a social media SOP. The results have been positive so far with one #1 ranking, two #3 rankings, several other page 1 rankings, and many new keywords that started to appear in the top 30-100 of Google search rankings. Sales for July are on track to far surpass (perhaps double) that of March.
• Hired 3 people part-time. One is a widow with only a Primary 6 (elementary school) education with a 12 year old child, and 2 are unmarried single moms with very young children. I might not be paying them much (yet), but it's a start and they are happy for the opportunity to earn some extra income.
• Spoke at FaceBook's Asia headquarters for FaceBook Global Causes Day. I was invited because one of the brands I created caught their attention for helping to set trafficked women free and working with them to build a sustainable business.
• Paid $1000 to exhibit at a tradeshow at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore! That's exciting because it's turning the tables from sourcing for inventory to becoming a seller/distributor! I've essentially taken the strategies I learned from the Proven Amazon Course - created a product to sell on Amazon, tried cross selling it on other channels and that has grown into a couple of brands that are gaining increasing market recognition outside of Amazon.

That's it for this update. I have 3 new SKUs hitting Amazon in a few days and more reimbursements to process!

 When I first started on the entrepreneurial journey, I wanted to build a business on the principle of exponentially scalable income streams.

At the same time my business objective is not to be super rich but rather to be self-sustaining so I can live my lifestyle of choice, including having flexibility of time for family and to help others. My business streams have been doing well enough, so I have not been very focused on growing my Amazon business for several months. Last month I received a little kick in the "a".  My number 1 wholesale supplier gave 1 week's notice that they were no longer selling to Amazon resellers because they have decided to sell directly on Amazon themselves. The bad news provided a much needed jolt.

I was also reminded of another successful seller I know who tries to add 20 new SKUs ever month.

So I took ACTION and the result is I created 8 new replenishable listings in 1 week - 4 SKUs from an existing private label supplier, 3 SKUs from a wholesale account and 1 bundle combining a private label with a wholesale product that I currently sell over 100 units of a month. As I write this, 3 have been received, 1 has started selling, 4 are en-route to fulfilment centers and 1 is being processed by the supplier.

One tool has been really useful for helping to decide what to sell, and finding keyword search terms to optimise listings and sponsored ads - Keyword Inspector. You can have a look at the video to understand how that works. Essentially you spy on a listing's search terms, which shows you what buyers are looking for. You find gaps where there go out to source product and create bundles relevant to those search terms to meet that demand.

While the above was happening, I also landed a new client whom I will work with on what the Proven Amazon Course calls Product Partnering. The client is an Australian company and I am working with them to launch, manage and optimise their Amazon sales. Payment terms are 25% of all Amazon payouts, making this completely performance based - the client pays nothing till they get sales (a strong selling point that proves we are confident about getting results) and the more I help them sell, the more I get paid. It's a great way to build an additional income stream for those with Amazon selling experience and a working knowledge of how to effectively thrive on Amazon. To learn more about the Proven Product Partnering Course click here. It's also included in the Proven Amazon Course (PAC), so you already have access to it, if you own PAC, which is the much better deal.

Here are some tips based on the questions people often ask.

A common problem often faced by non-US based sellers sourcing in the US is that payments by non-US credit cards and Paypal accounts are not accepted. I get asked for help about this so often that I think it warrants an answer here.

The problem can stem from 3 main issues. One is that the billing address only has options for US states and zipcodes. The second is that it actually verifies the address. The third is less common but happens if the merchant site actually looks up your IP address as outside the US and blocks you as ineligible to purchase. These are some possible workarounds I have used or have worked for others.

1. Use a Payoneer card but key in a US address as your billing address even though that is not what's registered with Payoneer. I have found that to work in many instances even though my Payoneer billing address is in Singapore. You can get a free US address from numerous consumer shipment consolidation and forwarding services such as Viabox.com, Borderlinx, Comgateway, etc.

2. Try Paypal. I use Paypal for purchases from Walmart.

3. Contact your credit card issuing bank to ask for a secondary billing address or change of address to one in the US. I got Standard Chartered Bank to change my billing address to my Comgateway address in Oregon by speaking to the staff at a branch and telling her I want to change my address as I will be doing business in America. She said that's so cool! Shopping is great there!

4. www.usunlocked.com has a US card service. I've not had a need to use this, but have heard others use it, especially those from countries that are not on the list approved to sell on Amazon.com.

5. For problem 3, you can use a VPN service. See point 2 below.

One of those should work!

Can't find or install the Amazon Seller App? There are many free and paid VPN services available. Here's a brief explanation If you don't know what a VPN is or does. Each time you connect to the internet, you are assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Some sites use this to find out your location. This is how the iTunes or Google Play app stores restrict some downloads to certain regions. A simple workaround is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to assign yourself an IP address in the country that has access to the resource you want to connect to. One of the simplest to use is TunnelBear. I use the free version  to install the Amazon Seller App (and other US only apps) and buy/download Kindle books.

You can go to sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/myqdashboard to view the list of restricted categories that you have been approved for. Pretty cool! You might want to bookmark this link cos there is nowhere on seller central to find it that I know of. There's also a button on the page to submit a new application. You can apply for category approvals yourself or hire a category approval specialist to do it. 

I apply for for easily approved categories on my own, but if it requires more than 15 minutes of work engage Karen Locker who has gotten me approved in all the more complex categories. You'll know what's easy and what requires a lot of work once you click on the submit application link as Amazon will show you the different approval requirements for each category. You can find out more about Karen's many useful tools and services at www.solutions4ecommerce.com.

Note: You must have a professional seller account to apply for restricted category approvals.

Need a logo? Shopfy has put together a list of useful online tools for logo creation. Some are free. http://www.shopify.com/blog/17016964-5-easy-to-use-online-logo-makers-to-design-your-brand

This Jan 2014 to Jan 2015 comparison shows what can be achieved in 1 year. The number that I find personally most encouraging is the 2,162% increase in Ordered Product Sales. Notice that the number of orders and units sold only increased by about 1,200% (12X) but sales dollar amount increased by 21.6X. The reason? Selling at higher prices through 3 main strategies.

Higher Selling Prices
Strategy no. 1 is to look for products that sell at higher price points on Amazon, which is always helpful to reduce the percentage of fees paid to Amazon, resulting in higher profits. Having a higher selling price also allows me to move away from looking for products with the often mooted 3x selling rule that sometime confuses people. The 3x guide is not a rule it's a guideline for new sellers (just asthe theory of evolution is just a theory not fact). If you are not sure about how to count your costs, I strongly recommend you get familiar with using Amazon's free FBA Revenue Calculator which I used to calculate all my profit numbers below and for everything before I decide to sell it or not.

I know a couple of very successful sellers who will only sell something if they can make a minimum of $10  profit per sale.  For them the $10 threshold helps them focus on maximizing their productivity so they don't spend their time packing items to make a dollar or two. Personally, I like to sell anything that I can make at least $6 on after all Amazon and third-party prep fees. Since I don't pack anything myself, I don't mind the lower dollar amount margins. I will even go down to $3 in net profit for some products that sell well (low bestseller rank aka sales rank within the top 3% of a parent category), have very low competition and can be easily re-stocked, for example from a wholesale supplier. When checking prices on Amazon, I zoom in on products that have a price of $15 or more. I especially look out for prices that are  $19or more and love anything that is $35 or higher.

Multipacks
Strategy no. 2 is multipacking. A multipack is putting 2 or more of the same item together such as 4 tubes of Colgate toothpaste. I like multipacks for several reasons. First, it raises the selling price (see strategy 1 above) resulting in higher profit compared to selling singles. For example, I sell a grocery item that is currently selling for $10 .48 each on Amazon. My cost is $2.98 each. If I sell it as a single at that price, my net profit is $2.18 per sale. However I also created a 2 pack and a 4 pack which I price at $19.99 and $37.50. The 2 pack nets a profit of $6.68 which works out to $3.34 per unit vs $2.18 - that's over 53% more profit per unit. For the 4 pack, my net profit per sale is $15.56 which is  $3.89 profit per unit - that's 16.5% more per unit than the 2 pack and over 178% more profit per unit compared to selling single units. You'll be surprised how many people will buy in large quantities - it's one of the reason McDonald's does so well by training counter staff to suggest up-sizing a meal to every customer. Secondly, there tends to be lower competition on multipacks. I guesstimate that a large proportion of Amazon sellers are sourcing from retail arbitrage, which means they are scanning UPC codes in stores. By creating you own multipacks with a new UPC codes, you immediately become invisible to the mobs of scanners because your multipacks will not show up on their scanners since the UPC codes are different! The proof is in the pudding and many of my multipacks still have zero competition after being listed for months, some for a year! The third reason I like multipacks is I can order in larger volumes from my wholesale suppliers. This helps me meet minimum orders to get free shipping or volume discounts with some of them. I think it also helps them to like me since I am now a buyer with bigger orders. For example if I sold 1/day of a single, I would order 30 units a months. However if I sell 1/day of the single, 2 pack and 4 pack, that's 7 units a day or a monthly reorder of 210 units vs just 30.

Bundles
Strategy 3 is creating bundles. It's similar to multipacking (you also get the benefits of higher selling prices and profits as well as even lower competition) except a bundle consists of 2 or more different but complementary products. For example a shower curtain with a bath mat and/or towels. Or salt & pepper shakers bundled with salt and pepper. Or a water bottle with a cleaning brush. The possibilities are endless!

The key to creating bundles with a higher chance of success is to include at least 1 product that is popular or a hot seller which buyers are searching for. Then you just add something (s) in a package that makes sense for that customer so that when they see it they think, "yes, it makes sense for me to get those items together" or " that would make a great ready-to-use set/kit or a gift".  A quick way to get ideas for bundles is to look at the Frequently Bought Together section as Amazon tracks what every customer buys in order to suggest related products to increase sales. Just this week I've created a new bundle from 4 products from 2 different suppliers. 1 product I sell 3-6 units/day at $15.99 with a cost of $3.90 and the other is the number 1 bestseller in it's subcategory

A good bundle can be amazing and is effectively like a private label product except better- you can leverage on a product's or brand's existing popularity and by bundling it with something from a different supplier or even a simple 1 sheet how to use guide you insert together, you have effectively made it like a private label listing.  Effective bundles can be amazing. One of my bundles was ranked under 800 in grocery this week and I did not have to do any SEO, PPC advertising, giveaway offers for reviews or any other marketing that comes with typical new private labels!

These 3 strategies are simple to employ. If you take action, you will see results.

If you need help with how to create bundles check out the Proven Bundling Course which is also a module included in the Proven Amazon Course. You can find out more about the course contents in my Proven Amazon Course Review.

 The no.1 question I get asked about selling on Amazon is on private labeling (PL) from people who have never sold their first product on Amazon. This is not surprising considering the Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) is one of the most aggressively promoted affiliate products (again not surprising due to the huge commissions paid to affiliates who push it). I have no doubt the course does have good PL content, but I have personally met and spoken to members some of whom have had success and others who have experienced expensive disasters.

My advice to new Amazon sellers is always to start out simple. Learn the basics before jumping into the deep end. Here are the steps I would recommend:

Update March 2018: As the market has changed since 2014, I now recommend new sellers start with Private Label straightaway, whether you have $100,000 or $1,000 in capital to start with. A couple of reasons why:

1. Many existing retail have applied to become brand restricted on Amazon. This means unauthorized sellers are not allowed to sell the brand's products on Amazon. If you sell something branded that you bought from Walmart or elsewhere (such as by Gillette, Nike, etc.), you might not know that it is brand restricted. Unfortunately, when you try to list a product, Amazon only occasionally  informs you that it's restricted! Other times, it the system allows you to list the product, then retroactively notifies you that you are in violation and suspends your account! I know a few people personally, who have experienced that happening in just the past 3 months.
2. It is very possible to start your own private label on Amazon even on a very modest budget. In fact, my first private label started with an $80 investment with an order of just 10 units from a manufacturer and just that 1 brand sells 6-figures every year. Private Label can be easily overcomplicated. Or it can be made to look too difficult. But it does not have to be - you can start creating and selling your own brand of products fairly simply with a small or large investment.

In conclusion, take action with simple steps. For someone starting out, I recommend you start with the Proven Amazon Course, which costs just 7% of ASM and in my opinion has far better value with an amazing supportive community or consider coaching. If you are set on learning private label, I have just started going through Proven Private Label which together with the Proven Amazon Course is more than enough to get anyone going.

If you've been following my sales summaries, you'll notice that there has been a pretty steady increase in sales since Feb 2014 (see Chapter 3 or the post dated July 22, 2014). Last month I sold 566 units for $12,475.05 in 30 days up to Aug 20, 2014. The last 30 days has seen a nice jump in sales despite my being away at ces2dallas for over a week. That's a 30 day sales increase of $4058.06 and 50 units.

So what are some key points that resulted in the growth?

1. Outsource - NOT touching boxes and tape! Ironically, the week of CES2 was when I packed the most boxes at one time ever for FBA! A grand total of...wait for it...3 small boxes, weighing about 7 lb each. It was all stuff that I brought along with me from Singapore to Dallas. I'm so inexperienced at boxing that I even managed to cut my hand taping one of the boxes while in the hotel room at CES! But seriously, the lesson here is my sales continued and increased, and it did not matter that I was away because I outsource all my prep. In fact while I was at CES2, My Inventory Team packed and shipped 11 large boxes of my inventory to Amazon. Woohoo! Many people are not willing to pay to outsource various aspects of their business, however that mindset is one of the biggest roadblocks to growth. I talk to a couple over lunch in Dallas who spend over 35 hours a week on boxing and was struggling to grow. Therein lies the problem and key to change. If they outsourced the prep work, they would be able to free up over 30 hours a week to source! Imagine what that could do for their business! Now imagine you paid a VA $300/month to source online or wholesale...that could lead to an increase in sales of thousands or tens of thousands a month! The point? "Let it go!"
2. Bundles and Multi-Packs - I have been creating more bundles and multi-packs to increase the average selling price of my units as well as beat the competition. In the 1st quater, my average sale price/order was $18. Yesterday it was just over $40. The advantage of higher selling prices is that Amazon fixed fees take up a smaller percentage.

I hope you take action from this chapter and look into outsourcing parts of your business as well as bundling/multipacking.

Update: The videos from CES2Dallas (Update: Please don't buy the CES2 videos! Get the Proven Amazon Course instead as it includes the videos and cost less!) are finally out! It is a goldmine of inspiring testimonies and practical, information... just taking action on one tip from here can help you earn over and above the cost many, many times. Plus you get all the CES1 videos plus lifetime MST membership with the purchase. Oh, and by the way I'm featured in the first video of the conference :p
http://jimcockrumevents.com

To be honest, the trip was a real stretch in terms of finances and time. Not only did it involve a plane ticket from Singapore to Dallas, there was also the hotel and other expenses. But the biggest challenge was that my daughter was sitting for Singapore's infamous Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), which is the national exam that determines a child's high school and "fate" - Singaporeans will know what that is about, at the end of the month. 

Anyway only 450 tickets were available and I'm grateful that I managed to get a ticket as after much deliberation I finally pulled the trigger almost 24 hours after they went on sale.  Tickets were sold out immediately after I purchased mine and I might well have bought the last one!

So was it worth the time and money? Definitely YES! In one word, the conference in Dallas was INCREDIBLE. 

For starters, I picked up a lot of actionable points from the sessions. In fact I spent today creating and editing at least 10 Amazon product listings based on what was shared by Skip McGrath and Debra Conrad (more on that later). Kat Simpsons and Danni Ackerman also convinced me to expand my sales channels with their insightful presentation about eBay and Etsy. In fact I connected with Danni on Skype at 1 am this morning and she helped tweak my new Etsy shop and get my first sale - from her! These people are all awesome and genuine.

On the note of relationships, one of the highlights of the trip was meeting some members of the master mind I'm part of. Our group meets online through video conference weekly and they have been a source of inspiration and encouragement through the ups and downs of this adventure.

 Freedom Soap
Another highlight was the opportunity to share about Freedom Soap with the community right after the keynote by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Freedom Soap is the result of combining what I do in church planting and selling physical product online. The result being re-branding soap made by women who have been rescued from trafficking in India and opening up new international sales channels which will allow more women to be rescued and employed. You can join the cause at www.freedomsoap.org. (Update: Please go to www.PremaTouch.com instead. We had to change our brand name to avoid trademark issues)

Finally, back to relationships. From CES2, I am now connected with several key people who share the same heart to help catalyze a new movement of social entrepreneurship - to walk the walk together, document the process and lessons learnt; then inspire others and help them to do the same. Together we can change the world!

PS. If you miss or missed CES, you can get the CES2Dallas recordings. (As stated above, please do not buy the CES2 videos! Get the Proven Amazon Course instead as it now includes the videos and cost less!)

Also have a look at CESclassroom, which is the closest thing to a real 'live' CES. This virtual “classroom” will allow you to learn from, make deeper connections and interact on a regular basis with Jim Cockrum, MST's top tier leaders, successful students and other experts that have been hand selected to deliver their best ideas and advice in a small group. This ongoing classroom is not for everyone, but you want to be part of a smaller-group virtual experience with the most trusted partners, most successful students, and Jim & his closest staff, then check-out CESclassroom.com. (Update: CES Classroom is no longer operating.  Everything Amazon related is now under one roof in the Proven Amazon Course).