2023 has been an interesting year and I've been quite busy! Some of the highlights this year include:

1. Speaking at Amazon Global Selling Summit 2023
2. Using SKUdrop to optimize my inventory storage and shipping from China
3. Heading to Southern Seller Fest 2023 in Sydney and meeting Ritu Java, CEO of PPC Ninja!
4. Final training intake for 2023

It was great to be in Singapore for the Amazon Global Selling Summit 2023!

I spoke in 3 sessions and had a non-stop stream of people queuing to speak to me throughout the 2 days at the Marina Bay Sands Expo Hall. I talked so much that my throat is still sore after a week!

This was a great time of meeting other sellers, networking with service providers, and building relationships with Amazon Global Selling's regional team, who are some of the most forward thinking Amazon staff in the world, and are genuinely going the extra mile for sellers.

Some highlights included meeting with many alumni of my training (including Felix in the panel image above, who is no a successful full-time seller and Amazon Selling Ambassador) who came because they wanted to say "Hi" in-person and take a photo with me. I'm always encouraged and appreciate training alumni who have benefited and are grateful.

Another the big highlight for me was to introduce SKUdrop to sellers in Southeast Asia at this summit.

I have been using SKUdrop to store, ship, and manage my Made-in-China product inventory for almost a year now.

It has helped so much in terms of:
1. Lower storage fees - less than half compared to Amazon FBA storage fees
2. Optimized shipping through drip-feeding, which results in lower risks and better cash flow, and importantly this has helped me stay in stock all year round for the first time in 10 years, without overstocking. This alone has increased my sales by 30% year-on-year!
3. Simplified shipment administration, which has made sending shipments so much easier and saved lots of time and effort.

You can read my SKUdrop Review for a more details on the benefits of using SKUdrop to optimize your Amazon logistics from China. It's really a no-brainer to grab the fantastic offers with the coupon code for the Amazon Global Selling Summit, including US$500 of free shipping, while it is still available (I don't know when they'll end the coupon validity).

I'm heading to Southern Seller Fest 2023 (SSF2023) on 10-12 Nov 2023 in Sydney, Australia.

This is a world-class seller event, where sellers will benefit tremendously from the content and networking opportunities. It's where I first learnt about SKUdrop at last year's SSF2022 and met some key people such as Steven Selikoff and Brandon Young.

This year, the speakers include Kevin King of Billion Dollar Seller Summit, and Ritu Java, CEO of PPC Ninja who I consider a PPC genius. I personally use PPC Ninja's software to manage my Amazon Advertising and love it. I also recommended Crystal Ren, one of the fellow speakers at the Amazon Summit to PPC Ninja and she's is delighted with their management of her advertising account.

You can watch the videos of a 2-part Amazon Advertising webinar I hosted with Ritu, which will give you a great foundation to approach Amazon PPC ads.

And if you want to go to a life-changing world-class seller event, there's still time to sign up for SSF2023 and get your air ticket and accomodation booked - I just did it yesterday!

If you are interested in proper training with a proven track record, then consider registering for my final training batch of the year. But don't consider too long as this starts soon on 30 Oct 2023.

The training consists of:

• 3 group sessions from 9am-1pm on 30 Oct, 31 Oct and 1 N o v 2023.
• 4 one-to-one consultations with me that you book after the group training. These can be used at your own pace.
• 50% off all future one-to-one consultations that you might want to book after the 4 included consultations

​You can find out more and sign up on my training page.

Helium 10's Black Friday Sale is now on!

This year Helium 10 is offering deep discounts on the annual plans for both Platinum & Diamond - equivalent to 3 months free.

• Platinum Annual, normally $999 is $840.
• Diamond Annual is $2,100 instead of $2499.

​
Choose an annual plan to:
● Lock in the best price (valued at 3+ months free)
● Get 1:1 help with onboarding & optimizing your Helium 10 account
● Receive invite only invitations to join live webinars with our team of experts
● Use data to enhance your product and keywords to stand out this holiday season
● Access tools to level up your listings, rankings, and more
● Protect your listings from fraud with fraud alerts
● And more

​If you're not ready to commit to an annual plan, you can take advantage of the alternative offer, and take 20% off six months of Platinum or Diamond.

Click the button below to get Helium 10's Black Friday offer before it ends!

Last year I under-projected sales and ran out of stock by mid Nov and early Dec for several SKUs. The result was low sales in Nov and Dec 2021 as I had ran out of stock to sell!

This year, I ordered stock for Q4 early and had all my inventory in the US by the end of September. I had at least 2 months projected sales quantity in FBA and standby quantities to last till January 2023 in a US 3PL to quickly restock to FBA as needed.

The biggest problem with inventory this year is caused by Amazon's sudden lowering of Restock Limits last week. I had a replenishment shipment ready to ship to Amazon on Nov 1st, then Amazon suddenly lowered my Restock Limits so I could not send the shipment in!

Next year I am considering using a 3PL that can do FBM cost-effectively. I have a couple of options I'm exploring and will update as things progress.

Even though I ordered much more stock this year, several SKUs are almost out of stock again! This is because my last 30 day sales is over 83% up compared to the same period last year! From a glass half-empty perspective, I've under-projected again! But from a glass half-full point of view, sales are doing well beyond expectations!

A big reason I'm selling more than projected is due to:

I have just finished another round of PPC Ninja's excellent free 4-week mastermind and analyzing my account data more thoroughly to grow my Amazon Ad funnel and further optimize campaigns.

As a result, I've added a number of new advertising campaign types such as:

• Sponsored Brand - Product Collection
• Sponsored Display - Remarketing
• Additonal Sponsored Brand - Video Ads
• Christmas season campaigns that have Christmas and holiday gifting related targets - I created Christmas specific campaigns so I can manage these campaigns by pausing and enabling as appropriate every year

Secondly, I've been using Amazon Brand Analytics - Search Query Performance and Product Opportunity Explorer to find new keyword search terms to target. These are like goldmines of keyword data direct from Amazon.

Thirdly, my ad campaigns have been getting far more efficient (higher sales with lower spend, decreasing ACOS and increasing conversion rates). A big part of this is due to using PPC Ninja to optimize my bids daily, as well the improved ability to analyze and therefore leverage campaign placements more effectively.

In the last 30 days:

• Increasing Ad spend by 7.9% has resulted in Advertised sales increasing by 18.9% 
• ​ACoS decreased by 2.3%
• Impressions increased by 3.5%
• ​Clicks increased by 9.4%
• Cost-per-click is down 1.4%
• Conversions are up 21.5%
• Conversion rate increased by 1% to 10.12%

If you have just 1 product, using Amazon's Campaign Manager in Seller Central is manageable, but beyond that, you would be losing time and money without a better system.

As of this moment, I have 397 Amazon Ad campaigns with 16,189 keyword targets and 1,901 product targets, plus views and purchase remarketing audience targets. It would be impossible to manage all this effectively in Seller Central, and I used to do it via Ad Report flat files. But using PPC Ninja is so much easier and produces better results as the stats above show. Of course you need to execute a sensible and well structured Amazon advertising strategy too.

My Amazon advertising strategy and structure can be found on my Amazon PPC Advertising page.

I'm already looking ahead to next year with the following plans:

1. Launching a bunch of new listings
2. Finding more optimal ways to manage inventory and shipping
3. Focus more on growing my on sales and reducing my Amazon training

1. I already have a pipeline of products I want to launch. The good thing is the manufacturing cost is between $0.10 to $2.60 per product.

I plan to sell the product that costs $0.10 at $8.99. After all fees, excluding advertising:

• Net profit: $5.04
• Profit Margin: 56%
• ROI: 3,876%

This product has an extremely high ROI, far above my typical criteria of having >100% ROI.
The profit margin of 56% also allows lots of room for advertising since it would ad sales would still be highly profitable even with a relatively high ACOS of 30%.

2. I'm exploring a service with a warehouse in China that can drip feed shipments weekly (or whenever I want) direct to Amazon for FBA at very competitive rates.

This has many advantages, including:

• Half the storage fee compared to FBA storage fees.
• Minimize use of a US 3PL, therefore eliminating the costs of shipping SPD/LTL from a US 3PL to Amazon.
• Much easier inventory management as this service is API synced to your Amazon account and can easily generate shipments and FBA shipping labels with 1 click.
• Consolidated shipping rates with customs clearance and insurance, with options for fast, medium, or slow boat combined with truck or UPS from the port to Amazon, or airfreight.

I'm also going to look at a US 3PL that can resupply to Amazon for FBA as well as provide FBM service, which is a useful backup in case Amazon imposes restock or storage limits.

3. Being a teacher by natural gifting, I do enjoy teaching, training ad helping others. However this can negatively affect growing my own sales.

For example, this past week, I planned to create several new listings and send designs to my manufacturer. However, I have spent way too much time replying to questions in various chat groups and not gotten a single listing done!

I was planning to reduce the frequency of my training course to focus more on my own product sales and development. But Amazon has reached out to me multiple times this week and wants me to collaborate to speak at their events and train budding sellers. I literally just got off the phone with an Amazon marketing manager who asked for my preferred dates so they can schedule their events around my availability.

I suppose I'll just have to be more disciplined to manage my time better and not spend all day helping others!

With that in mind, I'll be conducting my final training course for 2022 on 14-16 November.

I'v never run a paid ad for my training course, and it's only ever publicised organically through sharing and word of mouth from past participants.

The big differentiator (and why it takes up my time!) is that I include four 1-to-1 consultations as part of the training, which is a big help compared to the typical course where you attend a big class or watch a video and then feel info-overloaded, overwhelmed, with no one to guide them personally.

I'm accepting just 5 more people (out of only 10 signups spots). Details on my Amazon Seller Live Training page.

3 exciting announcements this month!

1. Ask Me Anything 'Live' session with Amazon.
2. New article on my website about using Coupons vs Prime Exclusive Discounts.
3. Registration is now open for my upcoming training course on 20-22 July 2022.

If you plan on running promos for Prime Day, you'll want to read up and take action asap as 8 July 2022 (US Pacific time) is the last day to submit promos for Prime Day.

3. Training Class on 20-22 July 2022

I've had a number of people ask me about my next training intake as they are interested to sign up.

The training course consists of a small group class followed by four 1-to-1 consultations for each participant.

The training dates for the small group class are on 20-22 July 2022 from 9am to 1pm daily.

Registration is now open. You can find out more and sign up at on my training page.

We're into the the 4th quarter of 2021 which has been a crazy year!

There are so many issues we could cover, but here are a few highlights to note:

1. 2021 Amazon Expo Seller Boot Camp
2. 10% Off Amazon Images, Graphic Design and Product Videos
3. Amazon Payment Service Providers
4. Insurance for Amazon Sellers
5. Accounts and Bookkeeping

Amazon is hosting a 3 day online event from 11 - 13 Oct 2021. 

You can scroll through the images below to view the agenda and details.

I've been invited by Amazon to speak at the event.
​Check out the infographic image by Amazon in the 5th image below!​

Registration is free. 

GS1 Singapore's DNA Hub is offering 10% off their Amazon image and video services till 31st Dec 2021.

Click here to find out more and get a quote.

To get 10% off, use promo code: AMZ10_Oct21

I have used many Payment Service Providers (PSP) including Payoneer, WorldFirst, Wise (formerly TransferWise), OFX and most recently AirWallex; so I'm quite familiar with their pros and cons.

I stopped using Payoneer, WorldFirst and Wise for various reasons, which you can read about on my page about Amazon Payment Service Providers.

I have been using OFX since earlier this year and been happy with it. More recently I've started using Airwallex as they have some advantageous features that OFX lacks.

I'll be updating my PSP comparison page soon, but in the meantime, if you'd like to take advantage of a 0.3% FX spread with:

• SWIFT fees only with zero margin costs on USD to USD transfers (useful for paying your suppliers in USD from your Amazon payout balance)
• Fee free virtual Visa cards (available for Australian businesses and expected availability in early 2022 for Singapore)
• Payment processing for your website (currently available for WooCommerce and Magento) at lower fees compared to Stripe and PayPal.
• A special offer of $0 fees and 0% margin on your first $20,000 AUD in FX conversions (or equivalent)

You can find out more and register for AirWallex here.

Amazon.com has started enforcing the requirement for sellers who sell over USD10,000 a month to upload their Certificate of Insurance.

I have a page with more info and  links to 3 providers of insurance for Amazon sellers.

While many sellers might start out small, it is important to keep proper accounts. The tax authorities can conduct a random audit of anyone at any time, and if you have not done accurate and proper bookkeeping, this can lead to a lot of stress and headaches.

​As soon as possible, I would encourage you to use an accounting service.

Sleek is an official sponsors for the Amazon Expo. I use Sleek for my Singapore company compliance (tax computation, tax filing, AGM minutes and submission, etc.). Since I'm "stuck" overseas due to Covid-19, I also apprciate their mailroom service where I use their address as my company's registered and mailing address. Any mail I received is then scanned and available online in my Sleek account. You can find out more at Sleek.com.

Don't forget to get $100 off their fees by using referral code: REFEGMT

Here are some Amazon announcements in July.

1. End of Disbursements to Non-participating Payment Service Providers
2. FBA Liquidations
3. Amazon Seller Training Starts This Saturday & Sunday

Amazon has updated their Payment Service Provider (PSP) policy. From 15 July,  Amazon will stop payouts to non-participating PSPs.

You can refer to the policy update at (you will need to be logged into yourAmazon Seller Central Account):
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/headlines.html?id=GNFPP4ECHU38W3N2&ref=nslp_at_4_GNFPP4ECHU38W3N2_en-US_ttl_rf_recent_news_5

This will affect sellers who are currently using services that are not yet in Amazon's PSP program such as Wise (formerly TransferWise). Refer to this article on recommended Payment Service Providers to find out more about which ones to choose.

Before FBA Liquidations was introduced, the options were to create a removal order with the option of either:

• Disposal, or
• Return (to an address within the country where the inventory is stored with Amazon)

In both of the above cases, the seller would be charged a per unit fee to remove each unit.

With FBA Liquidations, Amazon will help to liquidate the inventory and then pay the seller an estimated 5% to 10% of the selling price of the product. While that does not seem much, at least it is recouping come cash, which is better than incurring additional removal costs.

Sadly, I've seen some clueless sellers who are stuck with large quantities of products that are not making sales. These are people who don't understand the fundamentals of successful online sales, and/or are victims of scammy gurus who taught them silly, risky nonsense.

These sellers would benefit from FBA liquidations. But it would have been much better if they understood how to do sensible research and analysis in order to select products with a high probability of success while minimizing risks, which is foundational to my Amazon training course.

If you sell on Amazon or are interested to sell on Amazon, here's some important news that you might want to take note of:

1. Changes to FBA fees
2. Fake incentivised Amazon reviews
3. Amazon Seller Training - weekend opportunity

First the boring but important stuff.

​Amazon usually revises referral and FBA fees every year in February. This year, the changes have bee delayed to June in view of the Covid-19 pandemic situation.

The main change in FBA fees is the removal of the additional 4 oz packaging weight that Amazon has always added to each item.

Understanding the FBA fees can help you in your product and packaging design. For example if a product with it's packaging is slightly over a size or weight tier, see if you are able to modify it to fall to a lower tier in order to lower your FBA fees per unit.

The new fee details can be found at:

• Amazon US FBA fee changes
• Amazon US Referral fee changes

Now something sensational!

​This article on Fake Reviews was published on 7 May 2021.

According to some industry experts, Amazon has taken action to suspend multiple seller accounts involved. Some of these with over $100 MILLION in annual sales revenue.

The moral of the story?

• Don't cheat by trying to get fake or incentivised reviews.
• Amazon takes the integrity of their review system seriously and  can suspend anyone, even huge 7, 8 and 9 figure sellers if they violate Amazon policies.
• Do not follow scammy gurus or use dodgy services who offer Amazon review manipulation services.
• Do things legitimately. Focus on the fundamentals of good keyword and product selection, and optimizing your funnel for impressions, clicks and conversions.

Finally, for those who interested in learning how to sell on Amazon with sound fundamentals, I am running the next batch on Sat-Sun, 22-23 May 2021.

The training consists of:

• 2 full days of small group training (maximum of 10 sign-ups)
• 4 one-to-one consultations
• Lifetime support via private Facebook group for training alumni and direct email/private messaging with me

I rarely hold the 2 full day portion on weekends, but due to several requests, this is one of the rare weekend training sessions.

If you'd like to find out more or sign up, please go to the Amazon Seller Live Training page.

 Here are several important updates that you might want to take action on:

1. Change in Amazon disbursements to 3rd party Payment Service Providers (PSP).
2. Recommended Payment Service Providers.
3. Insurance for Amazon sellers.
4. Amazon PPC.
5. Jason's personal Amazon seller training and coaching.

Have a great week!

Jason Tay
www.jasontayonline.com

Some important key points:

• Who needs to take note? Anyone who uses a Payment Service Provider (PSP) to receive your payouts from Amazon. If you receive direct bank deposits into your bank account, there is no difference, but if you are selling internationally, I would recommend using a PSP as the currency conversion rate can be many times lower than Amazon's 1.50%.
• TransferWise users especially need to know that it is currently not an Amazon PSP. This means that starting from 1st March 2021, bank account from TransferWise cannot be added to Seller Central. If you already have a TransferWise bank account saved as a deposit method in Seller Central, from 1st June 2021, your sales proceeds will be subject to a reserve hold by Amazon for up to 21 days before being disbursed.

For more details refer to this page that explains and compares the best ways to receive and transfer money from Amazon and to pay your suppliers.

The current payment providers I would recommend are OFX and WorldFirst.

• OFX contacted me last month to offer an unprecedented low rate of 0.3% to anyone who signs up through this link.
• OFX has the lowest currency conversion rate for most sellers at 0.3% (compared to 0.6% for WorldFirst and 1.50% for Amazon direct deposits).  This means that for transferring $100,000 in Amazon disbursements that involve currency conversion such as from USD to SGD or AUD, it would cost you $1,500 in fees if you used Amazon direct deposits into your bank account vs $300 if you used OFX, or $600 with WorldFirst. In reality, the potential forex gain with using a PSP is even better because you can hold a currency and convert when the exchange rate is in your favour. In addition, if you pay suppliers in USD, you can save on double conversion by having a USD balance and paying suppliers from that without converting back and forth.
• OFX and WorldFirst have pros and cons. OFX is best for transfer of funds that involve currency conversion due to the lowest rate. WorldFirst is better to pay suppliers because it charges a fixed USD15 fee for USD to USD transfers anywhere in the world vs 0.3% for OFX. TransferWise is actually much better for this, but since it is not an Amazon PSP, it is not feasible if you sell on Amazon.

Click the link for more details on the various Payment Service Providers and how to minimize your forex costs.

You might have seen in forums that sellers are starting to get notifications from Amazon to provide proof of their Amazon compliant insurance policy.

Amazon has always required sellers to have Commercial General Liability insurance (CGL) if they meet the condition outlined below. However they have never enforced it... until about a month ago.

Amazon requires a seller to have CGL insurance if they meet the following conditions:

• Professional Seller Account
• Gross sales proceeds exceeding the threshold of the marketplace you are selling in for 3 consecutive months
• The threshold for the US marketplace is $10,000 US dollars

Amazon's main requirements for seller's insurance policy are:

• Commercial General Liability insurance with coverage of one million US dollars ($1,000,000) if the marketplace is the US.
• You must include Amazon as an additional insured. You policy must state that, "Amazon.com, Inc., its affiliates and assignees are additional insureds, as their interests may appear".

If you are incorporated in the US, it has been easy to get insurance that meets Amazon's requirements. However for sellers that sell internationally across borders, such as a Singapore or Australian entity selling in the US, it has been extremely difficult to find an insurer that will provide cover that includes Amazon, let alone one that can do it at an affordable premium.

​The good news is I have been working hard on a solution for sellers in Singapore and Australia and will co-hosting a webinar with 3 insurance companies who can provide insurance that meets Amazon's requirements for entities from the US, Singapore and Australia!

I will be co-hosting a webinar with the 3 insurers on 31st March 2021. I will be sharing the webinar details on my Facebook page and group. Stay tuned by following my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/jasontayonline and joining my free Facebook group, which is also a wealth of useful content.

Amazon PPC advertising is essential for scaling private labels. PPC is very powerful, but can seem overwhelmingly complex. It is also commonly underutilized or misused, resulting in poor sales and high costs. However if Amazon PPC is properly understood and implemented, it is one of the most cost effective ways of driving impressions, clicks and conversions; in other words it is one of the best ways to market your products cost-effectively.

After spending years self-learning and investing over USD6,000 to learn from some of the top PPC experts, I have found Ritu Java, founder of PPC Ninja, provides the best practical approach to Amazon PPC. Her strategy and the way she explains it is a combination of being powerful yet easy to use for both beginners and very advanced sellers who are selling 7, 8 or 10 figures a year.

​I've been in 2 masterminds with Ritu and hosted her for a couple of webinars that you can watch on my Amazon PPC page.

If you would like to get a solid practical understanding of Amazon PPC and how to implement PPC effectively, Ritu is conducting a very affordable 2 session workshop on 13 and 20 March 2021. You can find out more and register for it here.

Finally, if you are interested in no-nonsense, down-to-earth training to learn how to create and sell your own private label products on Amazon, I have opened up registration for my next intake. I've limited registration to a max of 12 people so that I can interact with everyone more effectively during the 2 full days of Zoom training on 18-19 March, and also to ensure I have time for the four 1-to-1 consultations with each participant.

I've reduced this from 15 to 12 because I enjoy teaching a smaller group. I'm even considering reducing the intake to just 8 or 10 people, so do check it out and register early if you are interested.

Do note that selling on Amazon should be treated as running a business or part of a serious business. Please do not sign up if you are expecting a get-rich-quick, easy-money scheme that some shady gurus make it out to be. This is for people who are serious about using the opportunity that the internet and Amazon provides to start and/or scale a physical product business and are willing to put in the time, effort and finances.

More info on my Amazon training course page.

Couple of quick updates for January 2021. Here are 2 events happening this month that you might want to sign up for.

1. Amazon Southeast Asia Online Seller Summit 2021
2. Amazon Seller Live Training 18-19 January

Here's the official brief from Amazon:

​Based on the theme “Start Local, Go Global”, this event aims to bring together small and medium enterprises across Singapore. It involves a series of training workshops on trends and product selections, growth opportunities, and practical tips on how to start selling on Amazon. Attendees will get to hear directly from successful local sellers on their selling journey with Amazon. The second day of the summit is dedicated for attendees to have consultation with our Amazon account manager. Through this summit, Amazon Global Selling wishes to help SMEs in Singapore adapt to the changing landscape, and introduce their high-quality products to both local and global customers.

Registration to participate at: http://amzn.to/3nowjr7

I'm really excited about the upcoming 18-19 Jan training intake. I've spoken to a few of the participants and love their drive and attitude. They realise this is not an easy-money, get-rich-quick-scheme; avoiding scammy gurus selling shiny objects and  getting a solid foundation through good training with 1-to-1 consultations to help them start and/or scale their Amazon sales. 

I'm only taking in 10 people so we can really focus. We start Monday and there are only a few spaces left. You can find out more about the training or sign up by clicking the button below.

Another piece of exciting news... I've just been assigned a Strategic Account Manager (SAM) by Amazon. This is usually a paid service (USD1600 per month) for Amazon US seller accounts with significant sales and growth potential. I was approached by Amazon and offered it for free! During my selection interview, I asked them why I was chosen and the answer is that I have proven sales and good potential growth. I've had a couple of calls so far with my SAM and the plans and strategies she has planned to grow my sales have been very insightful. The info and strategies I learn from my SAM is something I look forward to sharing.