Amazon FBA experience: Does it make sense to join Amazon?

Anyone wishing to enter the world of e-commerce businesses will find a supposedly simple solution in Amazon FBA. Amazon FBA does indeed have many advantages and provides proper arguments why the programme works so well. At the same time, however, there are many duties and challenges involved. Which experience with Amazon FBA you should have and what you should keep in mind when building your Amazon business, you will find in this article.

What is Amazon FBA?

The FBA in Amazon FBA is the abbreviation for “Fulfillment by Amazon”. This describes the service provided by Amazon to carry out your logistical order processing for you. This should enable you to focus on product selection, marketing and sales without having to worry about storage, shipping, returns, customer service or invoicing. This eliminates many of the proactive costs that retailers would otherwise face – such as warehousing, shipping and returns management.

To make your remaining tasks even easier, there is now a wide range of third party tools available to help you. An entire industry has grown up around Amazon FBA, which benefits from the large number of sellers and the storage and fulfilment network of Amazon.

According to our experience: Does Amazon FBA still make sense?

The large number of retailers is a crucial factor in determining whether it still makes sense to enter the Amazon FBA trade today – and we can answer it clearly with a “yes”. But: The requirement for your e-commerce business on Amazon to be a success is that you stand out from your competitors and develop unique selling points.

This can happen in many ways: You can of course stand out particularly easily if you sell products that nobody else sells. Just do some research to find out if there are any reasons for this. It is possible that these products are simply not very popular and that trading them is therefore not lucrative. Various tools are available to help you research products and identify trends and well-performing listings.

Tips for a successful Amazon FBA business

To make sure you are successful with your Amazon FBA trade, there are a few tips you should consider. Because, as mentioned at the beginning, the competition is fierce and when you are new to the business, you need to offer your customers something to make them come to you and not to your competitors. But don’t worry: with careful planning this is definitely possible.

The best tips based on our experience with Amazon FBA

• Find the right product. The success of your business stands and falls with your products. Therefore invest a lot of time and effort in their selection. Various tools will help you to find out what shoppers are looking for, how big the range already is and where there is potential for optimization among competitors that you can use for your shop.
• Distinguish yourself from others. Once you have decided on a product and a market, it is important to attract the buyer’s attention. Choose a unique design that will make you stand out from other product retailers. Offer a special USP. Provide your customers with added value that they cannot get anywhere else.
• Think long-term. If you want long-term success, you have to think long-term. Put your business on a stable footing. Take the time to prepare each product launch well so that you can benefit from it in the long term. Do not change the orientation of your shop with every trend, but stand for a theme and position yourself clearly.
• Use the right tools. You can’t do everything yourself – or at least it would cost you too much time that you could spend on developing your business. So use tools that can take the tedious tasks off your hands that don’t directly require your personal expertise to drive the success of your business.
• Keep your numbers in view. See how your sales are developing, consider your margin and your advertising expenditure. Only if you know exactly how your company’s figures are developing can you counteract this or optimize them further. Trying out innovations is great, but create the necessary security for yourself.

Are you missing the right product?

Most customers will be more interested in your products than in your shop. When choosing the right product, there are one or two traps: Some products only experience a hype for a few months. If you react too late and offer your product only when it is at its peak, you may have great success for a few weeks, but after that your business will quickly flatten out.

Rather go for the long run or react quickly when a new trend emerges. Nevertheless, make sure that the trend product fits the basic orientation of your shop. If the target group is a completely different one, it is better to do without in order not to dilute your positioning. You do not have to try to take every emerging trend with you.

Also research whether your desired product is not perhaps a seasonal product that only generates good sales in the summer. Google Trends can help you here.

Are you mispricing your products?

Finding the right price for your products is a big challenge for many retailers. On the one hand, the margin must be large enough to survive, on the other hand, the product must not be too expensive, so that customers do not switch to competitors. Various tools help you to calculate your costs correctly, to calculate your margin and to find out the prices of your competitors.

In this way you can be sure that you will not make losses with your products or annoy and lose your customers because the price is too high.

Are you losing track of your tax tasks?

Not achieving the turnover you want is of course annoying, but it can be changed quickly with the right approach. Things get more serious when you lose the overview of your tax responsibilities and the tax office is at your door and threatens you with severe penalties. That is why it is essential that you always have your figures under control in order to be on the safe side in terms of tax law.

Our hellotax software is specially designed to take care of the needs of Amazon FBA sellers and ensures that advance VAT returns and declarations are submitted correctly and on time, communication with authorities is working smooth and VAT liability is assured at any time. This is ensured by the double-checking of our AI and our tax consultants who operate throughout Europe. Our software takes care of your VAT registrations as well as your correspondence with the tax authorities, notifications when you have to pay something and much more!

Our tax solutions at a glance:

• VAT registrations: Online registration of the VAT number throughout Europe.
• Advance Returns: Processing of all reports and advance VAT returns.
• Threshold Limit Monitor: Monitoring of all sales, goods movements, delivery thresholds, etc.
• Tax consultants: In-house tax accountants throughout Europe ensure quality assurance.
• Tax Letter Inbox: Automated correspondence with tax authorities within the EU.
• F22 VAT Certificate: Get your F22 certificate for selling online in Germany.

>>Here<< you can find all VAT services from hellotax

So you play it safe and do not have to worry about your VAT obligations.

Conclusion

Trading with Amazon FBA has become very popular. After all, Amazon relieves you of many tiresome tasks and with our software, even the subject of accounting becomes a side issue for you. Since not only Amazon dealers are becoming more and more, but also buyers, you can still position yourself in a growing market.

With the right preparation and interesting unique selling propositions, you can stand out from the competition and achieve high turnover. With the right tools you can find the right products and reasonable prices. Hopefully we helped you by sharing our Amazon FBA experience and you were able to take some knowledge and tools with you and put them into practice.