If you sell private label products on FBA you are a bit of everything. You’re a product manager, a marketing executive, head of finance, and purchasing manager, and probably copywriter, photographer, and international freight purchaser are in the mix somewhere, along with a good few more job titles.
You may not have ‘reader’ as a job title but you really should take a little time out to read about the Amazon business, and about business in general. If you’re starting out, or still finding your way around, there are a couple of books that can make a big difference to your life. One is Scott Volker’s Amazon Selling Blueprint. He goes through how to launch your first private label product, and he includes not just one but two case studies – his own business, and someone one’s – as well as access to an online course.
Renae Clark’s Product research 101 is another book that’s useful for getting your business up and running. The book takes you all the way through the process from generating product ideas and checking out trends to testing the market and working out what price to sell at.
Some business books are good at stopping you from getting stuck in a rut. Seth Godin always manages to provoke; you’ll see things differently after you’ve read one of his books. Purple Cow is about how to get your product noticed – let’s face it, that’s an issue for Amazon sellers, with such a lot of competition.
On a more prosaic subject, Matt Ward’s The Amazon Copywriter’s Bible is a book that should be on every FBA seller’s desk, permanently. Even if you’re a copywriter! Writing product descriptions for Amazon you have to meet some very specific requirements, while motivating customers to purchase your product, and hitting the right SEO buttons at the same time.
Understanding Amazon itself will help your ability to run the business, and that’s why we recommend Brad Stone’s books Amazon Unbound, and The Everything Store. By the time you’ve finished, you’ll understand the company’s culture, and how it works, and you’ll be able to work out for yourself whether Jeff Bezos is nuts, a genius, or both at the same time.
Porter Erisman’s book Alibaba’s world gives you an insight into e-commerce in China, following Jack Ma’s entrepreneurial journey (facing some big bureaucratic roadblocks) as well as explaining how the business works. If you source from China, particularly if you use Alibaba, it’s a really fascinating read – you’ll get a great feel for the culture.
Finally, for those of you who are still finding it tricky to work out when to discount a product and when to put the price up, Jan Y Yang’s The pricing puzzle will help. Because if you use Vipon to discount your products, you want to be sure you’ve got the price right first!
