There’s a learning curve to any new business endeavor.

Stayin’ ahead of the curve is crucial to a thriving Amazon FBA business in 2024.

But here’s the issue; external factors are constantly impacting Amazon in one way or another, i.e. supply chain disruptions, social media trends, rising living costs, and even severe weather.

So here’s a short list of what to avoid if you’re new to selling in 2024, so you climb the learning curve and skip all the costly and time-consuming missteps.

“Testing Out” Retail Arbitrage

What exactly are retail and online arbitrage?

It’s when one searches for cheap products from physical and online stores, purchases them, and then re-lists them for higher prices on Amazon.

It’s somehow popular on social media despite being a difficult business model.

So here are the facts:

It’s a highly competitive game of cat-n-mouse where you’re constantly chasing after razor-thin margins and wasting tons of your valuable time skipping from Wallyworld to Wallyworld.

Amazon makes it even harder by “locking” new sellers out of certain products and categories, meaning you’ll have to search for super-specific products, and successfully sell them, before Amazon will ungate additional categories.

Retail and online arbitrage are very dependent on external factors like product demand, consumer behavior, clearance/discount sales, etc, meaning that you can be doing everything 1000% right, and still make no progress.

These are the reasons I consistently advocate for building your own brand and selling through Amazon FBA.

Underestimating Inflation and Supply Chain Chaos

I may not be speaking for everyone, but I’ve personally noticed a few hard-to-ignore trends as of late. It seems whenever I leave the house, regardless of where I’m going, I experience all of the following:

Prices are up everywhere, on everything
Service is atrocious
Delivery and shipping times have seemingly doubled
Everything generally takes a bit longer than before

No industries have escaped the impact of inflation and supply chain disruptions, and as a result, certain parts of running an Amazon business can take longer and be a bit pricier than in years past.

Here’s my best advice.

When pricing out shipping, freight forwarding, packaging, photography services, etc., I recommend picking up the phone and calling to double-check final prices and confirm delivery dates with an actual person (if at all possible). Have everything summarized in an email if you can.

Due to price hikes, up the frequency of your margin checks.

If you’re hiring services or freelancers for videography, photos, or content creation, make sure to vet them. Dig for reviews, request previous work, and be certain they can handle the job.

Why do I mention this?

In my opinion, A.I’s making sub-par marketing work easier, which is making quality help difficult to find.

I happily pay for experience and quality to avoid services that are likely to cause more problems and time.

Lack of Videos

If your social media is anything like mine, video content now dominates.

*Cue embarrassing autoplay when your volume’s on full blast.

Love it or hate it, video content’s the new norm.

But here are some surprising facts about the role it plays in selling online products.

50% of Instagram users reported visiting a website to buy a product after seeing an ad on the platform.

44% of Instagram users make weekly purchases from the app

87% of marketers report video content has led to increased sales

89% of shoppers want more video ads from brands in 2024

Convinced yet?

For new Sellers, I recommend investing in quality video content for your Amazon listing (including A+ content) and for marketing materials. There are countless ways to reuse and recycle video content; so you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck.

For social media (more on this below) user-generated content is the trend, meaning video that you personally shoot from your phone.

Not Experimenting with Content Creation

The days of relying solely on Amazon PPC to keep your listing competitive are dwindling.

As social shopping becomes more popular (i.e. Instagram Shopping, Tik-Tok Shop, Pinterest), it’s becoming increasingly important to keep up with the joneses through valuable content.

My recommendation is to dive deep into YouTube to introduce yourself to the world of marketing and content creation.

Here are a few of my favorite channels and resources.

Just don’t forget that your content must be valuable, and address a problem or need. This is easier said than done, but there are countless online resources to help you get started.

Here’s what’s interesting; all the data says that Amazon favors listings that steer traffic from off-platform; meaning that if your social media followers click a link to your product, Amazon is likely to increase your listing’s visibility.

If you’ve created social accounts, focus on quality and value-driven content. This will help separate you from all the AI noise.

And don’t worry, some content doesn’t even require being in front of a camera.

Blogs
Flyers
Emails
Infographics

Are You Ready to Start an Amazon FBA side hustle?

My Amazon Winners Academy (AWA) mentorship guides you through the entire Amazon FBA process and provides a community of support with others on the exact same journey.

You’ll get hands-on support from experienced sellers that share the same goals and aspirations.

AWA gives you a much-needed safeguard from costly mistakes, dead ends, and failed product investments to efficiently reach your passive income goals.

So whether it’s solving issues with your Seller Central account, creative approaches to product research, scaling to new markets and niches, validating product ideas, customer service issues, and more, we’ve got you covered.
Learn more about it here.