Over 95% of businesses fail within the first five years. Running a successful business is one of the hardest things you can do in your life. However, you can do things to make the transition to a business owner much easier for yourself. For example, handling inventory is something that many businesses fail to do adequately. That is why a Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) business is an attractive proposition for many entrepreneurs.
An FBA business differs from other business models in that you can focus entirely on marketing and selling a product. Amazon will store your products in their fulfillment centers, where they pack, ship, and provide customer service for the products.
Also, before you start an FBA business, you will firstly need to establish a legal entity for your business.
As llcguys.com advises – you most likely will need an LLC (limited liability company). Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Read on, and we'll dive deeper. A web-based tool like Jungle Scout can also help you to build a profitable Amazon FBA business. Here's a Jungle Scout discount offer for you.
Researching Markets
The first step to creating a successful FBA business is to research. No business will ever be successful without understanding the market they are trying to target, whether they're selling mattresses, shoes, or widgets. Amazon is even more important because the competition is so fierce. There are thousands of people trying to do the same thing you are, and there is only a small pool of customers for each of you to get.
It means having in-depth knowledge of everything you are doing to come out of the other side as a success.
Finding Products to Sell
Once you have thoroughly researched a market, you can now start the process of finding products. You want to go for profitable products that are already selling. You mustn't try to find obscure products that would never sell. It doesn't make sense to be the only person in a market. That usually means you are in a small market that doesn't have enough customers to sustain a business.
You also have the option of creating your own product to sell. This is something that a significant portion of businesses should move towards after maturing.
Assessing Your Market
After finding a product that you think will make a good choice on Amazon, you can now look for people who manufacture it. There might be situations where the same product has multiple manufacturers, but this is usually not the case. Finding a manufacturer is going to be one of the hardest parts of setting up your business.
Making Products Yourself?
The other option you have is to create your own unique product from scratch. If you don't have engineering skills, this might be really difficult for you. However, it is a simple process made easier by the plethora of freelance engineers available on the Internet. You can hire one of them to help you go through the entire process.
The first step you need to take to create your own product is to start with the design. This is usually done in a 3D CAD program like SolidWorks. The engineer will take your specifications and create detailed CAD models and drawings. You can then take these to the manufacturer to do the next step.
After designing the product, the next step is to get a prototype made, so you can see what it looks like in reality. This is where you tweak the CAD drawings to make sure that everything works as it should. For example, you want a design that is easy and quick to manufacture. You also want the product to function well so that you won't have returns or customer problems. The prototype is what you will use to do a lot of tweaking before you are ready to go to large-scale manufacturing. You can also use the user prototype step to see how well your product will sell.
From there you would manufacture a large quantity of product, depending on how well you think it will sell. This will be a significant business decision because you will need a lot of money upfront to get this part done.
Selling Your Amazon FBA Business
Sometimes the end goal for entrepreneurs is to build up a profitable business and sell it. Another reason the FBA model is so great is that there are plenty of companies out there looking to buy an Amazon FBA business that they think will be sustainable in the long term.
But if you don't want to take this route, you can work to grow and scale your business to millions of dollars. The easiest way to do this is to find other products and repeat the same steps until you have the revenues you want.
