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. 

In these trying times, many industries are struggling, with many lives and livelihoods affected.

As I walk around, it saddens me to see some of my favourite food stores have permanently closed as they have not been able to weather being shut during the past few months.

One of the few bright spots in this climate is e-commerce, which has accelerated tremendously.

For example, in developed markets, online retail sales as a percentage of total retail sales has been growing at about 1-2% annually. In the last quarter (March to June), this has accelerated by about 3 years worth of growth in 3 months!

One of my own e-commerce sites has seen sales grow steadily every single month from February to June 2020. With June sales 250% more than February sales.

With no sign of a return to normalcy in the near future and several countries now experiencing a 2nd wave of Covid-19 lockdowns, e-commerce will continue to grow as it becomes a necessity, and online shopping becomes a way of life.

We are also approaching the 4th quarter with numerous key shopping dates such as:

• Amazon Prime Day
• Black Friday
• Cyber Monday
• 11.11
• Christmas
• Post-Christmas

​25 August Update: Amazon just announced that Prime Day will be in Q4 and 25th September is the submission deadline for Prime Exclusive Discounts. ​ Based on Amazon's official Prime Day Promotion Guide for US page, Prime Day 2020 is likely to be somewhere between Oct 4th to Nov 3rd.

More info is in the box below.

The date for this year's Amazon Prime Day in the US has been pushed back due to Covid-19. It's usually sometime in July, but according to according to a CNBC report, it might be October 5, 2020. This has not been officially confirmed by Amazon.

Another clue is that Amazon has asked sellers to have all stock for Prime Day delivered by Aug 24th.

Amazon Global Selling has also sent out an invitation to register for a series of webinars (from Jul 20th to Aug 24th) for sellers to prepare for Prime Day 2020.  This message was sent out by an Amazon business development manager, "Hello all, as most of you are aware, prime day is coming! The global selling team has prepared a series of educational webinars to teach new sellers how to prepare and maximise your sales during prime day. Please register for the webinars here: http://bit.ly/agsprimeday2020."

Some of the key things to do as we head into the last quarter include:

1. Inventory Planning
2. Listing Optimization
3. Advertising Campaigns
4. Deals, Discounts, and Coupons

1. Inventory Planning
With the new maximum quantity limits imposed on FBA, things are a bit trickier compared to previous years.

For new listings, there is a 200 quantity limit. While for older listings, Amazon has calculates what they allow you to ship in for each product listing. You can check you maximum shipment quantity limits by going to Inventory > Inventory Planning > Restock Inventory, and clicking on the number of units  for each SKU.

If you are shipping in less than or equal to the shipment quantity limit, then you have no worries. But what if you plan to ship higher quantities due to supplier MOQs and/or to have economies of scale, especially for international shipping? Then you might want to consider using a 3rd party logistics (3PL) service to store your inventory in bulk, and then "drip-feed" Amazon by forwarding small quantities to FBA.

These are some 3PLs shared by Amazon. Please note that I have not contacted or worked with them, so I will not be able to recommend which ones are better. Please contact directly to find out more.

• WorldCraft Logistics (https://worldcraftlogistics.com/warehousequote/) For more information, please contact Jimmy Tran, General Manager at WorldCraft Logistics ([email protected])
• Fulfillment.com. For more information, please contact Verushka Perez ([email protected])
  
• 3ecommerce Inc (https://3commerceinc.com/). For more information, please contact Sam Yauner ([email protected])
  
• Ezi Returns (https://www.ezireturns.com/fba-services). For more information, please contact Mark ([email protected])
  

I am testing out one 3PL company now, but that is more for FBM rather than for drip-feeding to FBA. I might also be testing out a 3PL for storage and drip-feeding to Amazon for FBA. To be updated of these findings , follow my Facebook page and join my Facebook group as I always share new info there (Note: for your Facebook group Join Request to be approved, you must answer all the questions).

2. Listing Optimization
This is important for 2 main reasons.

Firstly, Impressions. The Amazon search algorithm reads your listing's copywriting to find and index keywords. These indexed keywords are then used by the Amazon search engine to match to search queries whenever a customers types in the Amazon search bar to find a product. Therefore it is the key first step and foundation for all online sales. 

On Amazon, the important fields for keyword search ranking are:

• Title (aka Product Name)
• "Backend" Keywords > Search Terms
• Product Description
• Bullet Points (aka Key Product Features)

Make sure you do your research and edit if needed to optimize for converting keyword phrases. I do this by:

• Analyzing advertising search terms reports to look for customer search terms that convert well and have low ACOS.
• Running Helium 10 Cerebro on my own listings (one by one) to identify keywords that I am ranking moderately well for, such as outside the top 10 but within the top 100. I then prioritize those according to search volume. Something I especially look out for is any keyword terms with high search volume (>1000)and are just outside of a page 1 position. If any of the keyword terms are not in my listing copywriting, I then add them once or twice in 1 or 2 of the 4 fields above as appropriate. If they are in my copywriting, but not in the title, AND meet the critera of high search volume and being just outside of page 1  (or outside the top 10 of page 1), then I might also add the keyword to the title so it carries more ranking weight.

The second reason for listing optimization is to convert better.

It is important to rank for as many good, relevant keywords as possible. It is also important that once a potential buyer sees your listing, they want to click on it and after looking at the content (reading the text and looking at the images and videos), they are convinced to buy.

The quality of your content will affect your click and conversion rate. Even a small improvement such as a better image with useful information that convinces 5% more people to buy makes difference, as it has a compounding effect on keyword ranks and therefore can increase impressions, and therefore clicks, and therefore conversions. You can learn more about this on my page about Increasing Amazon Sales - Traffic, Click-throughs and Conversions.

Part of improving conversion is to get Amazon Brand Registered so you can create A+ Content for your listings. I have seen some of my listings almost double in sales after adding A+ Content! Of course not everything will double. Some listings see a marginal 5%-10% increase immediately after adding A+ Content.  And of course you want to do good A+ Content, because bad A+ Content (such as numerous listings by sellers from China with horrendous, unreadable English) can be worse than no content!

3. Advertising Campaigns
Amazon's PPC Advertising functions are pretty complex, so it isn't practical to explain it in a post like this. I typically go through setting up and analyzing Amazon Ad Campaigns in one or two 1-to-1 sessions as part of my training course. 

For this post, my advice is to familiarise yourself with how Amazon's Advertising Console works as it can play a huge role in growing your sales  profitably and help you rank better organically if effectively used.

You miss out on a tremendous opportunities if you are not utilizing Amazon Advertising.

You also will waste a ton of money if you run Ads but don't know what you are doing.

4. Deal, Discounts, and Coupons
You'll want to run some kind of promotion during the Prime Day period, which has become a 1 week sale rather than a day.

You can also run perpetual coupon promotions and occasional deals to bump up your potential sales.

You can look at this page where I've explained why and how to setup Amazon coupons.

I would also register for the Amazon webinars share at the top of the page.

Finally, if you are interested in no-nonsense training in the important fundamentals to sell successfully on Amazon with low risk and no hype, have a look at my training page.

The Black Friday (29 Nov) and Cyber Monday (2 Dec) week is here again. If you've been sitting on the fence about paying for an online Amazon course and/or Amazon tools, this is the best time of the year to invest in them!

Not only are they on the biggest sale ever, it's also a good time of the year to invest in your business for the purpose of expenses to reduce your income tax for 2019.

I've been selling on Amazon since 2013 and have been there, done that and bought the T-shirt for many courses and tools. After having looked at, tried and tested many them, there is only a small handful of courses and tools that I would recommend.

These include:

1. Proven Amazon Course 2.0
2. Helium 10 + Freedom Ticket Course

The Proven Amazon Course (PAC) costs USD499, but for the next 24 hours, it's on sale at 60% off!

That's ONLY $200, which is a ridiculously low price for the value that it offers. This is the course that helped me get started and it continues to be frequently updated. I don't think PAC has ever had such a huge discount, so if you have been thinking of getting it, do it now before the sale ends. ​

I've been paying full price for Helium 10's Platinum tool suite for a couple of years and been more than happy. Since using Helium 10, I've unsubscribed from every other paid tool. While Helium 10 might seem a bit expensive, you have to realise that it is not just a tool, it is a suite of very practical and  powerful tools. In my opinion, it's the most powerful set of Amazon tools by a long shot. It's also comprehensive, which means you really don't need any other tools, especially if you're a private label seller.

Speaking of private label, Helium 10  ​now also includes the Freedom Ticket course. This course is by Kevin King who in my opinion is one of the true experts when it comes to creating and selling your own brands (aka private label) on Amazon. I consider myself a very advanced seller, but I always learn something new that I can implement in my own business whenever I listen to Kevin King.

For years the Freedom Ticket course was, and still is, priced at USD997. However this course is now INCLUDED in Helium 10 as part of the suite for free!

In other words, when you subscribe to Helium 10 now, you get up to 50% off 2 months AND the Freedom Ticket course. In my opinion, that is an incredible value.

The Helium 10 Black Friday sale is on from now till Cyber Monday. So don't wait too long to decide. And remember to use coupon code BFCM19 for the discount.

I have both, and if you asked me, I would say if budget permits, I would definitely get both, especially at these unprecedented Black Friday sale prices.

The reason is learning and growing your business never stops. Both PAC and Helium 10 are valuable resources that are constantly updated. This means you can continually refer to them, as I do, for many years as things change and your business develops.

But if you have to choose either, then base it on your own context.

If you are living in the US and are open to source products through varying methods such as:

1. Retail arbitrage from physical stores such as Walmart, Target, etc.
2. From local thrift stores
3. Buying wholesale from suppliers
4. Simple private label

Then the Proven Amazon Course is a fantastic resource. The new PPC module will be added to PAC soon too, which is great for private label sellers.

Even for non-US, international, cross-border sellers, the PAC is still very useful as the wholesale and private label modules are worth far more than the $200 price point! Imagine, taking action and launching just 1 simple private label product can easily earn you $200 profit many times over for many years! 

If your focus is on private label products, then Helium 10 with the Freedom Ticket Course is a great investment - especially together. That's because the Freedom Ticket course is specifically about private labeling and uses Helium 10 as the primary Amazon tool. So you get a trifecta of positives - the best set of Amazon tools, plus a great course, plus a relevant course that shows you how to use Helium 10 effectively.

For Helium 10 + Freedom Ticket, remember you MUST use coupon code BFCM19 during checkout.

My Amazon Seller Singapore Training focuses on private label as well. If you do intend to sign up for upcoming classes, please check out the details in the link.

For those who have gone through my training classes, you would know that I use and highly recommend Helium 10 as the only paid tool suite you need to use if you want to be really effective in your keyword research in order to find potential products that maximize your probability of success while minimising your risk without the need to order a huge amount of potentially unsellable products. We use the data from Helium 10's Cerebro and Magnet tools as a foundation during the 1-to-1 consultations as part of the training with me.

Therefore, the Black Friday sale is also a great opportunity to get Helium 10 at a fantastic discount and start familiarising yourself with the tools and how to sell on Amazon with the Freedom Ticket Course.

I'm away on holiday in the UK, but taking the time to post this because it's such a good deal for anyone interested in getting the Proven Amazon Course (PAC).

It's currently on sale at $100 USD  off the usual price! But for a few days only.

PAC is rarely on sale and this particular discount is huge. So if you want to get it, I suggest acting now before  the  promotion ends in a few days.

You can read my Proven Amazon Course Review for more info or click the button below to grab PAC now.

 A quick note if you are thinking about getting the Proven Amazon Course (PAC).

It's going to be on sale at only $299! That's $100 off!

This is very rare and I don't think it will ever be at such a low price ever again.

The flash sale starts on 16 November at 10.30am Eastern time (3.30pm GMT, 11.30pm Singapore) and will be for a very limited time only (the sale ended on 2 December, 2017). So if you've been thinking about investing in PAC, make sure you grab it during this sale window.

Click here to get the Proven Amazon Course on sale.

Some tips/considerations:

1. The price will be increasing  to over $400 in 2018.
2. Proven Growth Workshop videos from the May 2017 workshop have been added to PAC. See the website for details: https://provengrowthworkshop.com/ This is a HUGE value-add to PAC. Attendees paid thousands to attend and the recordings are sold at $899. But when you invest $299 for PAC, you get the videos included!
3. Look at my Proven Amazon Course Review and Comparison of Amazon Selling Courses.
4. Once you get PAC, the key is to look at just the modules that are relevant to you. PAC has over 50 modules that comprehensively cover Amazon selling strategies/methods. This is great but some people might feel overwhelmed. My suggestion for newbies is to go through the first 2 sections to get started, then zoom in on strategies that you are interested in, such as Proven Private Label 2.0. Put that in to action, then look at the other modules to scale and increase your sales.
5. Finally, this is on hindsight from buying PAC 4 years ago in Oct 2013. I bought PAC because of the 100% lifetime moneyback guarantee. My advice? Hang on to PAC like it's a precious jewel or good vintage wine whose value increases with time. I think about 10%-15% of people who buy PAC ask for a refund. I can ask for a refund anytime too, but that would be a really bad business decision or I would have to be absolutely crazy. Why? Because the online marketplace is always changing and PAC is constantly updated with powerful, proven, practical strategies. I have tweaked my sales many times by applying nuggets from the PAC updates throughout the last four years. These tweaks have increased my profits by a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars each. Examples include the reimbursement guide (over $10,000 in cash paid back to me by Amazon for reimbursements owed), numerous tips from the CES conference videos and other workshops, the new improved Proven Private Label 2.0 module (which in the last month has helped me find over 100 potential private label products). The Proven Performance Inventory module (Amazon product selection, listing and advertising optimization that has helped boost existing product sales and successfully find and launch new products).

You can get the Proven Amazon Course on sale at $100 off for a few days starting 16 Nov, 10.30am Eastern time here: PAC $299 Sale.

Wanted to make sure you know about these 2 important events.

1. Join Amazon, DHL and World First in Singapore on Friday, 18 August!
2. Proven Amazon Course - Price increases at midnight on Wednesday, 2
August.

-----

1. If you're in Singapore, Amazon, DHL and World First will be hosting this
event.

From the official event page: "Join Amazon, DHL and World First at our
in-person event on August 18 to learn more about the tools and tips to help
you succeed in global e-commerce business. Whether you are an experienced
Amazon Seller or are just getting started, secure your seat now to meet
Amazon face-to-face in Singapore."

To register, complete the form at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/C5BMG7Q

I'll be there too and would love to meet you!

-----

2. The Proven Amazon Course (PAC) 

There is lots of free info online and not everyone needs to get a course.
Even fewer people require coaching. The real value of PAC is that it's the
most affordable and comprehensive collection of tried and tested strategies
that work in real life for selling on Amazon successfully with minimum
risk. Having PAC as a go to resource enables you to save time and filter
through the loads of junk info that's online.

I bought PAC in late 2013 and have repeatedly said my ROI for PAC has been
worth much, much more than my investment in a "useless" Master's degree.

The PAC price will increase significantly at 11.59pm on 2 August (that's
today). My guess is it will go up by $50 to $200. 

So if you're thinking about whether to buy PAC, I would recommend ordering
it before the clock strikes twelve before the price increases. The good
thing is PAC comes with a 100% lifetime money back guarantee, so you can
buy it now to lock in the lower price. Then if you go through it and find
it is not helpful, you can always get your money back whether 1 month, 1
year or many years later.

Check out the Proven Amazon Course here.

You can also read my review and watch a video walkthrough of the PAC
contents at my Proven Amazon Course Review page.

Have you been selling on Amazon for a few months or more? Make sure you MANUALLY check and contact seller support for reimbursements! I just received $1230.62 in reimbursements for 29 lost/damaged units I submitted.

PS. You can also read my review of the Amazon FBA Reimbursement Guide.

​I've told Jim Cockrum multiple times that the Proven Amazon Course (PAC) is worth at least $3000, but he still insists on charging what I consider a ridiculously low price. And today is a rare once in a long time chance where you can get an additional $100 discount off the already low price of PAC.

If you've been thinking about getting the Proven Amazon Course (PAC), now is the best time to get it - at a savings of $100!

Just use the coupon code thankful in your shopping cart during checkout.

If you're like me, you would have deliberated long and hard, and done your homework researching whether PAC is legitimate or one of the many fly by night programs by so called gurus who are here today and gone tomorrow.

I first got PAC in Oct 2013 and it's helped me build a thriving business from scratch. I found out in mid-2013 that anyone can sell on Amazon and they even warehouse your products and deliver each order for you. Actually I discovered about selling on Amazon from a polished sales pitch for a course that I was all ready to sign up for till I found out it costs USD4000! That's when I started researching and discovered the Proven Amazon Course, and it costs only a fraction of $4000!

And I'm so thankful that I did. It's been 3 years since I bought PAC and I have absolutely NO regrets. I constantly tell people it's been the best investment I've ever made. Much better ROI than the Master's degree course I paid for!

You can view some of the contents and find out more about the Proven Amazon Course here. And remember to enter the coupon code thankful in the shopping cart to get $100 off.

I've also met Jim Cockrum, founder of the course, twice in the last 2 years (yes, the course has been so personally life-changing that I've paid for airfare and hotels to fly literally to the other side of the world from Singapore to the USA for the PAC community conferences) and I can say together with the 500 people that it is the absolute real deal.

I even got my wife to join me the following year. She's a hard-nosed ex-lawyer, sees through everything and has been to more than enough conferences to know exactly what's real and what's rubbish. Her conclusion after sitting through the 3 day conference and meeting the PAC community? She was blown away by how genuine and real the people were, the sound business strategies shared, and the incredibly high standards of business integrity of all the PAC leadership team

Anyway, the PAC sale will only last 24 hours and it started 3 hours before I started writing this.

Use coupon code thankful to get $100 OFF the Proven Amazon Course.

The $100 discount code is only valid from 9am Thursday 17 Nov till 9am Friday 18 Nov (Eastern Time, New York Time).

All the best!

Jason Tay
www.jasontayonline.com

PS. You can also read my review of the Proven Amazon Course.

Hi,

This issue has practical info for both new and experienced sellers.

Most Amazon sellers encounter the same issues. I receive from 2 to 20 questions daily and have found that there are several common questions that are repeatedly asked. Because of that, I've started a new section - Amazon FBA Guide - on jasontayonline to answer these frequently asked questions, cover important topics and explain key issues.

1. Clearing the Confusion of UPC vs Amazon Barcode Label
One of the first of issues for new sellers is the confusion over barcodes. Understanding what UPC barcodes and Amazon barcodes are, their differences, and how to correctly use them when sending products to Amazon for FBA is one of the most common points of confusion for a new seller. I’ve even seen some paid courses where the “gurus” are themselves confused and teach wrong information. Read the guide to codes here: http://www.jasontayonline.com/code-confusion---understanding-upc-and-amazon-barcodes.html

2. Continually Moving Along The Amazon
Blog update - March brought a shocker, my biggest wholesale supplier gave me 1 week's notice that they will no longer be supplying to Amazon resellers! That spurred me to take some action.

I also added an additional Amazon based income stream by opening and running an Amazon Seller Account for an Australian company. My fees are 25% of their Amazon payouts. Read about it on my latest blog post: http://www.jasontayonline.com/blog/continually-building-on-amazon
​
3. Keyword Inspector - A Very Useful New Tool
I have been using Keyword Inspector for the last 3-4 months and it is has helped me create many successful listings with very good performance from Amazon Sponsored Ads. Check out the video on keywordinspector.com to learn more about this powerful tool. I also like that it's pay-as-you-use credits rather than a monthly subscription.

Hi

Starting with this newsletter, I hope to include either or both of these in every email I send you.

1. Useful news, updates, reports.
2. Reviews and recommendations of useful of resources, software, services, apps, extensions, etc. Many will be free and if they aren't, they must be well worth the price in order to make it through my filter.

Updates
You're going to hear me say this repeatedly - TAKE ACTION!

For newbies, I received an email this week from someone who is thinking about starting to sell on Amazon who asked what I think is the biggest obstacle to a newbie. My answer was paralysis by analysis. Many of us want to know too much before we take action. But the reality is you only need to know enough. Enough is what you need to take the first action steps. For me that was going through the first 2 sections of the Proven Amazon Course, asking a few questions in the members' forum and FaceBook group, ordering online, sending the products to a prep company and making my first sale on Amazon.com - all within less than a month. I also found that many uncertainties are cleared only as you actually go through the process of DOING the work. In other words, TAKE ACTION!

For those who have started selling on Amazon but are fairly new, we're well into Q4, which is the hottest selling season. When it comes to selling on Amazon this time of year, if you still have inventory that's waiting to be sent into FBA, you need to send it in ASAP! The 4th quarter is technically Oct to Dec, but in terms of retail sales, I classify Q4 as Nov-Jan.  In fact Jan was my best month during the last Q4 season. I suppose people start to shop for Christmas from Nov through Dec. Lots of people also receive Amazon gift cards for Christmas (for example I give my sister an Amazon Gift Card every Christmas!) which gets spent end Dec through Jan.

What does this mean for you? Continue to send your stuff in! TAKE ACTION!

Resource Recommendations
1. Silent Sales Machine by Jim Cockrum is one of the most straightforward, honest, practical and applicable books when it comes to online business. In fact, some of the most successful people I personally know credit this book as the key that changed their business. The paperback edition is a top selling business book on Amazon where the paperback edition retails for USD29.97. However due to a special arrangement I have with Jim Cockrum, you can download the softcopy absolutely FREE at http://silentsalesmachine.com/jason. So no need to think twice, TAKE ACTION and download it.

2. Another new resource I highly recommend is Proven Performance Inventory (PPI) developed by Brett Bartlett and his team. In case you don't know, Brett started out selling on Amazon with a new family to support and only $400 in capital a few years ago. He now has a team of almost 50 people working for him. Because his family and now his staff's livelihoods depend on his business, Brett has built an online empire with a very risk averse approach of always testing and validating sales data before he invests heavily in any products. PPI was launched 12 days ago and has had extremely good results from the early adopters who have put Brett's strategies into action.

As with my personal policy of only recommending things I would actually use myself, I didn't promote PPI when it launched because I wanted to go through the content, try it myself and check out other's real-life feedback. Now that I have explored it in depth, I can say this is one of those rare online strategy gems that can really take you to another level. I have been applying parts of the strategy to one of my unique products and it has doubled sales in the last 2 weeks. The strategy enables you to find out beforehand exactly what buyers are searching for and the gaps available for you to fill through creating unique bundles or private label products.

PPI also has a closed FaceBook group where Brett, his team and other members have been sharing and helping each other very actively. In order to maintain the quality of service and interaction, sign-ups for PPI will close in less than 24 hours on Wed, Nov 25 at 12 noon EST. To find out more and sign up, go to Proven Performance Inventory. Or if you've been thinking of getting the Proven Amazon Course (PAC), the PAC+PPI combo is a great deal which you can check out here. (You can read my PAC review at http://www.jasontayonline._com/proven-amazon-course-review.html).

Remember, the key is to TAKE ACTION!

All the Best,
Jason Tay
www.jasontayonline.com