A-Z of Amazon

Hi all,

Announcing Official Enablers Collaboration with Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

As you know we encourage you to sell on international online markets etc but we also need to sort out our own house to build up trust of online shopping in Pakistan – being as the leading eCommerce and physically available all across Pakistan in all major cities.

We believe on actions and getting things right for ecommerce in Pakistan & for international selling barriers, we continue with our mission to make and formalise things to make Pakistan first eCommerce Association & starting the process of getting Chamber of eCommerce as this will not just help Pakistan but as well as this will help out in many aspects of eCommerce businesses.

Lahore Chamber of Commerce has 30 Thousand Businesses registered – it is essential for them to think beyond and internationally, Hence Enablers comes in to change the direction of Pakistan and helping to make Pakistan as eCommerce Hub & Digital!

We want all eCommerce companies to be at one platform to raise their concerns, issues and then grow together in all forums.

Building a trust will not just be beneficial for individual but for the whole eCommerce market, society and Pakistan.

Who wants to be part of this Pakistan first eCommerce Association ?

Apply from here: http://www.enablers.org/chamber

Saqib Azhar

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Start from: http://www.enablers.org/group

My Journey from 0 to 130K/month.
Assalamo Alaikum Everyone,
My name is Salman Ghauri, I’m 16 years old and currently doing my O levels, I am a student of Enablers VA Batch 4. I started my journey back in November 2019 from Content Writing. My father used to scold me for wasting my time wandering and wanted me to focus on something productive and creative. I started learning content writing from Youtube and I started writing articles for affiliate websites and magazines like Cracked.com, IncomeDiary.com. Things were going fine till June 2020 till I visited my cousin’s home, and he told me about Amazon and after noticing my interest, he told me about Enablers and some other platforms, he talked to my father about enrolling me in Enabler’s VA course and what I did not know was that decision was about to change my life. In June 2020 I got enrolled in Enabler’s Virtual Assistant course. Before completing my course Alhamdulillah, I got my first client for listing audit and optimization, I efficiently completed the task, and the client is so happy that he decided to hire me for his upcoming A-Z launches, I started hunting products and new niches for him. After I got product and niche approval, I started sourcing it from Chinese Suppliers which was again a huge new world for me. The best part was that my cousin who is well versed in Amazon, gave me a challenge to source the same product with a 10% less sourcing price than his established supplier. It was an amazing feeling when I got the best price and 17% less than his supplier price. I learned and Improvised Alibaba Supplier Sourcing analysis and evaluation reports, These are very comprehensive reports on which you can decide your whole investment, profits, and returns on one go. After that I wrote an optimized Amazon listing with backend keywords, got the listing conceptual images with social proofs and social listening, and boom, I launched the product under my cousin’s supervision and with his team and ranked his product in USA. It took 22 days to rank with 47% Acos. We got a new release badge and then Amazon Choice too for a few days.
Secondly, I made few gigs on Fiverr and profile on Upwork. Since then I am getting a good amount of foreign clients with loads of work. To the date today, I have successfully launched 2 products in USA & UK and now I’m working on my 3rd launch in Canada. My plan for 2021 is to make an agency and deliver more successful launches. I am really thankful to Allah (S.W.T), my father, and my teachers Sir Asaad Mirza and Sir Farhan Tahir and above all Mentor Saqib Azhar I really wish to meet him in person someday. I hope you liked my story, Happy Learning guys.

-Barcode costs – Not a huge amount, but not to he ignored, especially when you’re just starting out. The cost per barcode is much higher on small orders.
-Purchase price (FOB) – Initially this price is likely to be higher as you test the water with your product. Assuming you buy in larger quantities when reorder, the cost per unit should drop.
-Shipping costs – I urge you to use a US courier, as Amazon’s fulfilment centres have numerous rules when
it comes to accepting inventory. Although, they won’t say it, the fact is they prefer dealing with the likes of
FedEx or UPS (or any other large US courier company).
I’ve heard stories of people having to get UPS to collect their products from the courier they originally
employed just to get Amazon’s fulfilment centre to accept them. Alternatively use a UK-based freight
forwarder. I use Regional Express
(https://www.regionalexpress.co.uk), not least because they have a division experienced in delivering to Amazon’s fulfillment centres.

-Import duty – As per your commodity code.
-VAT on your imports – That adds 20% to your largest input cost. Ouch!
-VAT on your sales – I’ve registered for a flat rate of tax, so pay 7.5% VAT but can’t claim VAT back on purchases. What VAT arrangements you make are up to you. If you’re unsure, seek professional advice.
However, you should be aware that if, during the course of any 12 months, your taxable supplies exceed the VAT
registration threshold (£81,000), you are legally obliged to register for VAT.
-FBA costs – This is what you pay Amazon and covers storage, referral fee, packaging and postage. This Is
calculated using a number of factors including the of product, the weight and the size. (FBA costs are explained in detail later on in this chapter.)

In this section I have not included time costs. If you’re reading this book, you’re probably not on someone else’s clock, unless you’re moonlighting. But time is imponderably important. It
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probably took me 50 hours of work to get my first FBA product listed. On top of that, I had spent time creating the brand name, the logo, the Facebook page and the (very poor) website
So there’s a big up-front cost in terms of time. However, when the first batch sold out, the re-order took less than two hours. Good record keeping is essential – set up a spreadsheet and
keep a record of every penny you spend. As you grow, you might want to invest in some accountancy software, such as QuickBooks. Below is a list of some of the main costs you’re likely to incur:
-Set up costs – As mentioned above, setting up a new brand costs money. You don’t have to allocate this
against your first product, but you should be aware of it.
-Product development costs – You may have to pay for designers or for samples (or for both). These are
necessary costs, and should be divided by the number of units you order. For example, if your sample cost £60 and you order 120 units, you should add 50p per unit to cover this. Unless, that is, you can get the manufacturer to refund the sample fee when you order in bulk.
-Packaging costs – Including packaging materials, branding and barcoding. Get the supplier to quote for this sooner rather than later, otherwise they can end up being an unpleasant surprise when you come to pay the bill.

In the economic tgeory of perfect competition there’s an assumption of perfect knowledge, whereby consumers are assumed to know, among other things, price, functionality and quality. And, with some research, the Internet has made this theory a reality. As shoppers become increasingly Internet
savvy, it’s much harder to charge higher prices for the same product. I recently spoke to a wine merchant in London who margins had dropped almost 5% over the last ten years (from 14% to 9%). He specializes in fine and rare wines, which are
now far easier to track down online. Gone are the days of 100% mark up.

In addition, as you know, Alibaba is the go-to website for sourcing goods. This can cause problems too. If you buy “off the shelf” products that are readily available, you haven’t added value. I noticed that Jamie Oliver’s team buys much of its kitchenware from Alibaba suppliers. They don’t change the products, but instead add Jamie’s name to them. Some of the
selling prices are ten times the original purchase price! I’ll leave you to be the judge of that. However, he’s got an existing brand: Jamie Oliver. What have you got? (And, in fairness to Jamie, he seems like a good guy, who gives lots of his time and
money to charity.)

If you want to charge higher prices you need your own products with your own designs and your own brand. This is not as daunting as it sounds. I’m not suggesting reinventing the wheel, merely improving products and rebranding them. And if you need designers or illustrators there are plenty available on Fiverr. But, you may be better off speaking to the manufacturer. The good ones will work with a wide range creative industries. I found a hugely talented and lovely illustrator this way.
Once you have settled on your product, brand name and logo,
you can start to get to the nitty-gritty of setting a price. I’m going to assume you want to make money on each item you sell. (This is not always the case, as some people are willing to
sacrifice short-term profits for long-term growth – in fact, isn’t that what Amazon’s always done?!). To guarantee a profit yiu need to price your products using Cost Plus Pricing. In others words, add up all your costs and then add on additional sum of money. You can then work out your profit margin.

You can track the status of your shipment. Here are the various stages:

-Working – You have not sent the shipment.
-Ready to Ship You have entered the required information in the shipping workflow but you haven’t clicked “Mark as Shipped”.
-Shipped You have clicked “Mark as Shipped”. At this point you should add the courier tracking number, which you will need to obtain from your supplier. You should also ask them for an estimated delivery date.
-In-Transit – The shipment has been reported in-transit to one of Amazon’s fulfilment centres.
-Delivered – The shipment has been reported as delivered to one of Amazon’s fulfilment centres.
-Checked-In – The shipment has been checked-in to a dock at one of Amazon’s fulfilment centres.
-Receiving – The shipment contents are being processed into inventory. This process may be delayed if incorrect quantities or improperly labeled items have been sent.
-Closed – All of the inventory in your shipment has been processed and is available for fulfilment. Happy days! Pop that champagne cork.

You need to send the carton labels to your supplier so they can stick them on the cartons. There are numerous shipping requirements. Here are some of the key points:
-Each box needs to weigh no more than 30kg.
-Boxes weighing between 15kg and 30kg must be marked”Heavy Package” (on the top and the sides).
-All boxes must be standard shippable containers that will sufficiently protect the contents during transit and processing at Amazon’s fulfilment centres.
-Products sold as sets (e.g. set of six Stormtroopers sold as one unit) must be marked as sets on the shipping containers and packaging.
Amazon doesn’t allow the following forms of packaging: shredded paper, thermocol chips, styrofoam peanuts and crinkle wrap.
-Amazon’s UK fulfilment centres only accept four-way-access wooden pallets with the following dimensions:
1000mm x 1200mm.
-For single pallets, the pallet height must not exceed 1.8 m (including the height of the pallet).
-All pallets must be stretch wrapped in clear plastic.

While poring over Amazon FBA blogs and free Kindle FBA books, you’re bound to come across the term drop-ship (or drop-shipping). In the Amazon FBA context, this means you’re providing goods by direct delivery from the manufacturer tothe retailer (i.e. Amazon.co.uk). To arrange the drop-shipping of your stock, click on “Inventory” and then “Manage Inventory”. Select the relevant product and from the right-hand dropdown list select “Send/Replenish Inventory”. You can now create a shipping
plan.

The first time you do this you’ll probably feel like giving up – it’s a tedious, cumbersome, unintuitive process. But it does get easier with practice and the numerous “What’s this?” links are
pretty helpful.

In summary, you will need the following to create the shipping plan:
-The full name, address, phone number and fax number of your supplier.
-The number of units you’re sending.
-The number of boxes (cartons) you’re sending.
-The weight of each box.
-The size of each box (cm x cm x cm).
Once you’ve created the plan, you will be issued with a unique Shipment ID and box (carton) labels.
These labels are crucial. Each one has a unique barcode thatenables Amazon’s fulfilment centre to identify your products. Any unlabeled delivery will be turned away.

Once you’ve created your basic product listing, click on the”Variation” tab and select all the appropriate “VariationThemes” (e.g. size or colour or both) from the drop-down menu, including all the possible variations that you may include at a later date.
Top tip: Make sure you get this right as it can’t be changed,although, you can change the variations within your chosetheme/themes. So, for example, ifyou chose “Size” theme, you could add “Xtra Small” at a later date.(Nonetheless, it makes sense to add all the possible variations now, as this will make your life easier down the line.)

Once you have chosen your variation themes, you can then add the variations. So, for example, if your variation theme was size you can then add all the different sizes. You will need a different barcode (EAN) number for each variant. Don’t worTy
about filling in the “Seller SKU” box, as Amazon will
automatically generate this for you. Before you click “Save and Finish” you’ll also need to add “The Condition”, “Your Price” and “Quantity”.