October 1, 2024 • 48 mins
Unlock the secrets to thriving in the Amazon marketplace with insights from Todd Welsh, the visionary CEO and founder of Amazon Seller School. Discover Todd’s inspiring journey and the mission driving his educational platform, designed to guide sellers away from common mistakes and towards scalable success. Curious about the differences between Amazon wholesale and retail arbitrage? Todd breaks down these models, revealing why buying from brands and authorized distributors can offer a more sustainable and profitable business approach.
Managing suppliers and inventory is no walk in the park, but Todd Welsh has strategies to make it manageable. From coordinating complex shipments to the financial challenges of pre-paying for inventory, Todd shares invaluable tips for maintaining a competitive edge. Learn how to win the buy box with repricers like Seller Snap without succumbing to price wars, and understand the importance of specializing in product categories to forge stronger relationships with brands. Todd also highlights the game-changing potential of securing exclusive agreements to boost your business success.
Equip yourself with the essential tools and strategies for optimizing your Amazon listings and outmaneuvering the competition. Todd walks us through the benefits of using tools like Helium 10, Keepa, RevSeller, and more to enhance your performance on the platform. Gain insights into handling competitive ASINs, navigating the intricacies of private label products, and leveraging bundling strategies to create unique ASINs with minimal risk.
You can learn more about Todd and the Amazon Seller School here: https://amazonseller.school/
Want to chat with us about this podcast? Send us a text message here
The Planet Amazon podcast, brought to you by Phelps United, addresses all things Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces. In each episode, we talk with Brands, Agencies, and Sellers about Amazon news, new features, policies, brand policies, logistics, marketing, issues, and challenges, among other topics.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcement (00:00):
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:18):
Hello, I'm Adam Shaffer and welcome to Planet
Amazon, where we talk about allthings Amazon and e-commerce and
we talk about strategies thatdrive success on America's
largest online marketplace.
Today, we have a special guestwho is a true pioneer in the
Amazon space.
Todd Welch is not only the CEOand founder of Amazon Seller
(00:40):
School, but also a seasonedexpert in Amazon wholesale,
which is a big topic that we'regoing to talk about today.
With years of experience underhis belt, Todd has helped
countless entrepreneurs scaletheir Amazon business to new
heights.
Today, he's here to share hiswealth of knowledge, offering
invaluable tips and tricks onhow to navigate the complex
world of Amazon wholesale and toachieve sustainable success.
(01:04):
Todd, welcome to Planet Amazon.
Todd Welch (01:09):
Yeah, I appreciate it, Adam.
It's great to be here.
Adam Shaffer (01:12):
Great.
Well, thanks for joining.
And you know the topic is nearand dear to my heart because you
know we're all sellers andthere's 2 million sellers on
Amazon, believe it or not, somemuch bigger than others, but
it's an important, importanttopic to talk about.
But before we even get there,you know, I don't know if people
(01:33):
, many people, really understandthat there are ways to learn
about Amazon outside of pluggingaway at it every single day.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about the Amazon
Seller School, what you guys doand how you actually got here?
Todd Welch (01:48):
Sure, so Amazon Seller School is basically my
platform where I share anyknowledge that I gain myself.
Basically, I'm trying to helppeople avoid the mistakes that I
have made in growing my Amazonbusiness.
When I got started in this, Ifollowed people like Scott
(02:12):
Volker and he helped me getgoing, and so I'm trying to do
the same for other people.
So I have a podcast on there.
I create lots of educationalvideos.
I do weekly Amazon news the topnews of the week, anything that
I think can help people.
I've also got a monthlymembership program that people
(02:35):
can get in and get access toexclusive videos, direct access
to me to get questions answeredand all that good stuff.
So whatever I can do to helppeople, I put it out there on
amazonsellerschool.
Adam Shaffer (02:48):
I mean that's awesome and it's something that
the industry needs.
So we thank you for that.
I mean for all the listeners.
I mean everybody has questions,everybody runs into issues and
also, whether you're new oryou've been doing this for a
while, there's always somethingyou don't know, and it's almost
impossible to know it all.
So great to have a resourcelike URAM.
So let's change the topicreally to what I wanted to talk
(03:10):
about today, and that was moreof Amazon wholesale, and so
there's multiple models thatpeople could use on Amazon to
sell and to market their wares.
Can you just tell us reallywhat is Amazon Wholesale?
Todd Welch (03:27):
Sure, so Amazon Wholesale.
I'm not 100% sure how it gotthe name Wholesale, Amazon
Retail or something like thatwould be better, but usually we
call Amazon Retail whenAmazoncom is selling the product
themselves.
So Amazon wholesale is kind ofwhat's been adopted for when you
(03:48):
are selling other people'sproducts and buying their
products directly either fromthe brand or from an authorized
distributor of the product,which makes it different than
retail arbitrage where you'reusually buying branded products
from a retail store or a thriftstore, garage sales, things like
(04:10):
that where you don't have thatdirect connection back to the
supplier.
Adam Shaffer (04:15):
Yeah, so I mean and that's a good point so
Amazon retail in the biz wewould call it 1P and that's when
a brand sells directly toAmazon, amazon pays them for the
products and Amazon sells it onthe marketplace, on the
platform.
What we're talking about withwholesale is a version of 3P and
(04:37):
it's where companies, you know3P stores, are buying products,
like you said, from the brand orfrom authorized distributors.
But there's another version ofselling on 3P and that is when
you're buying from potentiallyunauthorized sellers or you're
buying it from a retailer that'sreally supposed to be selling
(04:58):
it to end users, but you get agood enough deal that you could
probably resell it on Amazon andmake a couple of bucks, which
is kind of, to me, a littlecrazy, a little wild and
sometimes pretty annoying whenyou're the legitimate seller of
the product.
So talk about the arbitrage fora little bit, because I think
you used to do that, didn't you?
Todd Welch (05:18):
Yeah, that is more how I got started.
You know, I used to jump in thecar, head to Walmart, head to
Goodwill Savers, garage sales,all those different stores you
know Home Depot, costco, sam'sClub and you go into those
stores and you've got the app onyour phone whether you're using
(05:41):
the Amazon Seller app or usingsomething like inventory lab or
something like that but you'rescanning products, hundreds of
products, looking at the pricesthey're selling for on Amazon
and seeing if you can flip them.
So basically, you're trying toflip products and you're buying
them at retail store of somekind and you typically do not
(06:06):
have a way to consistentlyrestock those products.
So it's a constant hustle oftrying to find new products, new
products, new products to keepgrowing it.
And I did pretty good.
I got it to the point where Iwas selling about 90,000 per
month month just doing retailarbitrage.
(06:27):
But the problem is is it's hardto scale beyond that unless you
start hiring people to do theshopping and things like that
for you, which can get prettytedious.
It's not impossible, but it'smore difficult to scale than
doing Amazon wholesale, whereyou're just sending purchase
(06:48):
orders to a distributor ordirectly to a brand and
continually restocking productsthat are selling well for those
that do buy arbitrage.
Adam Shaffer (07:06):
Sometimes they would make a buy, they'd buy a
bunch of stuff and Amazon wouldmaybe knock them off or a brand
would have them taken off theplatform.
I mean that could sting alittle bit if you own the
products.
I mean, has that happened toyou?
Todd Welch (07:16):
It has.
Yes, I've had products gettingtaken down all the time Retail
arbitrage.
The problem with retailarbitrage I get products taken
down doing wholesale as well,but with wholesale I have the
legitimate invoice from adistributor or the brand and you
can typically present that toAmazon and get that result very
(07:39):
quickly.
But the problem with arbitrageis you don't always have a
proper receipt.
And I say proper receiptbecause Amazon is looking for
the UPC or the SKU, the supplierSKU of that product, and while
(07:59):
some places like Walmart they doput the UPC on there so you can
use that to get those IPcomplaints cleared up, if you're
buying from a thrift store orsay you're buying from TJ Maxx
or something like that, they donot put those numbers on there,
they use internal numbers, andso Amazon will not accept those
receipts, and so you're kind ofwalking that line and hoping
(08:24):
that you don't get taken down ifyou're buying from those kind
of stores.
Adam Shaffer (08:28):
Yeah.
So what I find is a lot ofpeople start that way because
it's a way into the businesswithout a huge investment and
then they really learn theAmazon game.
They learn how to manage theworld on Amazon and I guess if
you could be successful atarbitrage you usually could do
well doing almost anything.
So it's great training ground,I would say.
(08:50):
But now you evolved and youmade it to the wholesale side of
the business.
So explain more about that andhow you got into it and how it
all works.
Todd Welch (09:02):
Yeah, you're exactly right on that and shift.
Starting in retail arbitrage isstill good you can make some
money in that but switching towholesale or private label is
kind of where you probably wantto aim if you want to actually
build a big business and asustainable business.
(09:22):
Getting into wholesale is alittle bit different.
Well, it's completely different, I should say, from retail
arbitrage in terms of how you'resourcing your product.
But starting with retailarbitrage is good because you
can learn all the platformsright.
The platform is the same Sellercentral learning how to send in
(09:44):
products.
Platforms right, the platform isthe same Seller Central
learning how to send in products, label products, get them into
Amazon, sell them, market them.
All that is the same.
But in terms of findingproducts and getting products,
it's different because you'renot just going to a store and
looking at what they have andscanning them and buying them.
Instead, you are reaching outto either the brand direct or to
(10:11):
a distributor, and anauthorized distributor is
essentially just someone, anintermediary company that might
sell hundreds or thousands,possibly even tens of thousands
of different brands that you canbuy from, and what you do is
(10:32):
try to open up an account withthose brands or distributors and
once you open up an account,you can get a list of the
products that they carry andthat you're able to sell, and
you can then go through thoselists and find products that are
profitable.
Instead of scanning products ata retail store now, you're
(10:53):
scanning through, typically,some kind of spreadsheet or
maybe a website to try to findprofitable products that you can
sell.
Adam Shaffer (11:01):
Yeah, so at the very bottom of the wholesale
you're going throughdistribution.
Maybe you could very bottom ofthe wholesale you're going
through distribution.
Maybe you could buy some of thestuff direct.
But you don't necessarily haveaccess to the brand registry
unless you have a specialrelationship with the brand and
you are probably not exclusive.
So talk about that, becauseit's not super easy to always
(11:23):
get that buy box.
And then there's also the raceto the bottom if there's other
sellers on it.
So how do you decide?
Todd Welch (11:30):
Yeah, that is one of the biggest difficulties doing
wholesale is that if you can buythe product, probably other
people can buy it.
So you're typically going to besharing the buy box.
You're going to have a buy boxrotation, right?
So you might not always be theperson that they're buying from
when a customer visits thatproduct on Amazon price and
(12:02):
location of your inventory,things like that.
So to handle that, essentiallyyou are trying to negotiate with
the brand or the distributorbetter pricing than other people
, and that can be a game in andof itself, right, Because if
(12:25):
you're brand new to a brand ordistributor and you're like, hey
, give me 20, 30 percent off ofyour normal price, they're
probably going to look at youlike you know who's this guy.
But with that said, discountingis typically the norm in a
wholesale world, so distributorsand brands are used to giving a
(12:48):
discount off of their price.
So usually that first price youget is not going to be the best
price that you can get.
Now you have to give them areason to give you a discount.
So, for example, what I usuallydo is I go through their
spreadsheet and I find all theproducts that I would like to
(13:09):
sell at 0% profit or higher, andhow many I think I can sell per
month, Because then I can comeback to them and say, hey, if
you can give me this price, Ithink I can buy this many every
month from you of all thesedifferent products.
And now you're looking at, youknow, maybe that's a $5,000
(13:33):
order or $10,000 order, or maybeeven 20, 30, 40, $50,000 order.
If you're getting into, youknow the higher levels and now
you're showing that supplierthat you are legit and looking
to make big purchases and theycould potentially give you those
bigger discounts on top of whatthey would normally give
(13:57):
discounts for to someone whomight make a $500 order or a
$1,000 order.
Adam Shaffer (14:02):
Yeah, I mean so.
So okay, so at the beginningyou're doing your best to find
products from distributors orfrom the brand and you're
negotiating the best possibleprice.
So now you found your products,maybe you have your price, and
now you got to get going andactually buy the stuff and sell
it on Amazon.
So you still don't have theirbrand registry, so you're at the
(14:22):
mercy of their ASINs or thecreative that's on their ASINs
for the moment.
But how much inventory do youbuy?
How many weeks of thatinventory do you need to risk
and buy that inventory so youcan have it in stock?
And are you stocking it at yourown warehouse or are you
shipping it up to FBA to Amazon?
Todd Welch (14:47):
house or are you shipping it up to FBA, to Amazon
?
Sure?
So very good question.
When you're first ordering aproduct, I always try to do a
test buy.
So when I'm sending that bigspreadsheet of products that I
potentially want to buy from abrand or supplier, I am making
sure they know up front that,hey, this is what I think I can
buy every month or sell everymonth.
(15:08):
But I'm going to start with atest order.
So if I think I can sell 500units of this product every
month, I'm not going to make anopening order of 500 units.
I'm going to make an openingorder of maybe 50 units or
whatever a case pack is.
You know, if a case pack is 50,I'm going to order 50.
(15:30):
If a case pack is 12, I mightorder 24 or 36 or 48, something
like that.
And that way I can send theproducts into Amazon and get
some real world numbers of howmany I'm going to be able to
sell.
If I send that 48 in or 50 inand it's like, boom, it's gone
(15:51):
in five days, now I know, okay,I'm probably safe to order 500
or a thousand.
So once I'm established, thenI'm trying to order and keep
about 45 days worth of stock inAmazon, about 20 to 30 days of
stock in my warehouse and, bythe way, I started in my
(16:11):
basement and garage, so youdon't need a warehouse to start
out.
But I'm keeping that 20 to 30days of stock in my warehouse
and then I give another about 15to 20 days for transport
between the warehouse and Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (16:29):
So you're getting the products at your place,
you're packing them and shippingthem up to Amazon.
You keep an overstock at yourplace to make sure that you have
inventory to keep on flowing upto Amazon, because once you get
the show on the road, you don'twant to be out of stock, sounds
like and you think being atAmazon is the FBA is the way to
go right.
Todd Welch (16:48):
Oh yeah, 100%.
So if I'm able to ship directlyfrom the brand to FBA into
Amazon, I will do that.
But a lot of companies will notdo that.
It's about, I would say, rightnow, maybe 30 to 40% of our
suppliers ship directly for us,the rest ship to our warehouse
(17:16):
for us, the rest ship to ourwarehouse, and partly that is
because they don't want to beputting the Amazon labels on
boxes shipping to a bunch ofdifferent locations, like Amazon
especially makes you do.
Now they break it up more thanever before.
So you try to simplify it forthose suppliers that don't want
to do that and send directly toAmazon if you can.
Otherwise you know coming toyou.
Adam Shaffer (17:39):
So 45 plus maybe 15, and then you need to be able
to reorder some stuff.
So it's tough.
You know, we found it's alwaystough with cash because a lot of
these, these suppliers, youknow you're lucky to get more
than 30 days, if you can, ofterms.
So you're paying for the stuffmany cases before it's sold and
(18:00):
you're right, it could take alittle bit of time before the
stuff gets up to Amazon.
So I wish it was a faster wayto do it without the cost.
But that's part of the game.
You have to be willing toinvest in inventory and
understand you're definitelygoing to have a tail.
It's not going to be almostalways.
It's not going to be soldbefore you have to pay.
(18:21):
So you just have to be preparedfor that.
How do you deal with thecompetitors?
So now you're selling stuff anda few other sellers are also
selling it and maybe they'rebringing the price down.
So what's your strategy forthat?
Todd Welch (18:37):
Sure.
So discounting is one of thebigger strategies.
If you can get it 5% cheaperthan the other person.
Even if they drive the pricedown, you can still go lower and
be profitable.
And now, eventually they'regoing to disappear because
they're not making enough money.
So that's one strategy.
(18:58):
Otherwise, you're going to haveto have what's called a repricer
, and I use a repricer calledSeller Snap.
When I started out I used onecalled Be Cool.
There's another one called GoAura.
That's really good.
There's lots of good ones outthere.
Sellersnap is really good forhigh level because it's like
$500 a month.
Be Cool and Aura and theseother ones can start around $25
(19:23):
to $50 a month.
But you're going to need arepricer that is going to
compete with the other peoplethat are on there and try to win
you the buy box, ideallywithout just tanking the price.
But trying to actually increasethe price is what the good ones
will do.
So instead of matching theother people, they might go like
(19:45):
a penny or two above.
So the other people don't dropdrop, but also stealing some of
the buy box, because Amazon willgive you buy box and sales on
lots of different metrics andyou know price is one of the
biggest, but it's not the onlyone.
It could also be dependent uponwhere you have inventory.
(20:05):
If a customer is shopping inFlorida and I have inventory in
Florida and the other peoplehave inventory in New York,
they're going to show my listing, even if I'm, you know, 5, 10,
15, 20 cents more expensive evenmore sometimes because shipping
for Amazon will be cheaper andfaster to get it to the customer
(20:26):
.
Adam Shaffer (20:27):
That's interesting .
So in your business and whenyou work with others, I mean,
are you, are you focused on anycategories or you don't care?
It's a product, a product, aproduct, or does it matter to
you?
Sure.
Todd Welch (20:40):
So we try to focus in specific categories.
Ideally.
You know we have products allover the map because when you
come across a good deal, youtake it over the map, because
when you come across a good deal, you can take it.
But I always recommend and whatwe try to do is focus in a
specific niche, especiallystarting out that you are
(21:00):
familiar with and have some typeof unfair advantage over
someone else.
So, for example, I don't knowanything about, let's see,
crocheting.
Let's say that's kind of aniche hobby, right, I don't know
(21:21):
anything about it.
So if I'm trying to sellproducts that someone into
crocheting would have and I'mcalling suppliers, especially
brands direct, because whenyou're doing brand direct, a
brand is typically moreemotional about their products.
Where a distributor is justtransactional, they don't care,
they want to make money, but thebrand wants to sell to people
(21:45):
that care about their productmore often than not.
So when I'm calling a brandthat's selling crocheting
equipment and I have no clueabout crocheting equipment I
don't have any connection to,perhaps I'm speaking to the
owner of the brand or someonewho's working in there versus.
(22:06):
You know, I really enjoy fishing, for example.
So if I'm talking to someone onthe other end of the line and I
know they're in Idaho.
I'm like, hey, you've been upin the mountains trout fishing
lately Anything you know.
How are the brown trout bitingor the rainbow trout biting?
Now I've got an immediateconnection with that brand owner
(22:27):
beyond being someone who wantsto sell their products on Amazon
, and it makes that relationshipa lot better and a lot easier.
So that's why I usuallyrecommend people start in a
category that they know.
You know it could be anythinglike one of the coaching.
I had a coaching call withsomeone from New York.
(22:47):
He's a retired police officer,so and he was trying to figure
out what to sell and I'm like Idon't know anything about
tactical equipment.
That might be a perfect placefor you to go into, because you
know all about tacticalequipment for shooting and
things like that and you couldconnect with the owners of those
(23:10):
businesses in a way that Icouldn't.
So starting in a niche isdefinitely one of the better
ways to do it.
Adam Shaffer (23:19):
That makes sense.
And then do you I mean peopledo, and we do we have exclusives
with brands on either the brandor ASINs from the brand.
I mean, is that?
I mean, to me that's got to bepretty important.
Is that something that, I guess, once you get, that's got to be
pretty important.
Is that something that I guess,once you get going, you need to
be striving for?
Todd Welch (23:37):
A hundred percent.
Yeah, we really focus on brandpartnerships now, or exclusives
with brands, and that, again, iswhere the niche really comes
into play.
Most of our exclusives are incategories that we know a lot
about and most of the exclusivesare with brands that if I said
(23:59):
them on the air 95, maybe 99% ofpeople would probably have no
clue about the brand and havenever heard of it.
But we opened accounts withthese brands.
For the most part, we'reopening accounts with them,
reselling their products as oneof many and building that
(24:21):
relationship and working it intoan exclusive, saying things
like have you ever thought oftaking control of your listings
on Amazon?
You know we're selling 500units of these, or 100 units of
these, every single month.
If we optimize this listing, wecould probably double, triple,
quadruple that and really boostyour sales on Amazon.
(24:45):
And we can do all that for youif you are willing to give us
the exclusive.
Adam Shaffer (24:50):
So offer them services if they give you an
exclusive.
Todd Welch (24:53):
Correct, correct, and we a lot of times we'll do a
lot of that for free.
The optimization and thingslike that we usually try to
negotiate some kind of ad shareif they want us to run
additional ads on the platform.
But the optimization andcleaning up listings and things
like that, that's kind of ourcarrot that we use to get the
(25:18):
exclusive and then we're makingour profit from selling the
product, not having to competeagainst others, which means
usually your profit margin canbe a little bit higher.
You got to find that balance ofprofit and units sold, because
the brand wants you to sell moreunits, obviously, but typically
your profit margin is going tobe higher once you get that
(25:40):
exclusive.
Adam Shaffer (25:41):
Yeah, for sure.
And you don't have to worryabout sharing that buy box, or
you hope you don't.
So then you are doingadvertising.
Todd Welch (25:50):
I am.
Yes, we do basic advertising onall of our products.
So if you've been in the gamefor a while, you've probably
heard of the 5 cent autocampaign.
You can make it the 10 cent, 20cent, 25 cent, whatever.
But basically you make acampaign for 5 cents maximum bid
and dump all your products inthere To catch all Run and a lot
(26:13):
of times you'll spend.
You know, if I look at my spendfor a month I might spend a
hundred dollars and sell like$50,000 worth of stuff or
$20,000 worth of stuff, whateverthe case may be.
So at a minimum we do that.
And then we play with someother ads.
But we make sure we have areturn on our ad spend of like
(26:35):
nine, 10, 11 or more.
So if we're spending a dollar,we want to be selling 10 or
returning.
I should say at least $10, $11,$12 on that dollar that we
spend.
But if we negotiate an ad sharewith an exclusive, then we're
(26:56):
able to bring that down.
So if a brand is giving us, say, $1,000 a month to spend on ads
, then we might spend $1,500 or$2,000 a month in ads on that
and we can have a thousanddollars a month in ads on that
(27:16):
and we can have a, a ROAS of,say you know, five or six and
still be profitable.
Adam Shaffer (27:18):
but regardless, we try to make sure we're
profitable on any kind of adspend that we're doing yeah, no,
I mean, it's a big part of thegame, and the problem with the
wholesalers or the the sellersis when it's not your product,
you're not a private labelproduct, it's usually not that
much margin, so you got to bereally careful on the spend, and
getting the brands toparticipate is a big deal.
(27:39):
So that's a pretty goodstrategy.
Todd Welch (27:42):
That's why I say you want to figure out what your
ROI is.
So if your ROI, if your returnon every dollar you spend, is,
say, 30%, which our goal is 50%,but let's say it's 30%, you
want to make sure, whatever adsyou're running, that every ad
(28:03):
sale has at least a break evenwith that 30%.
You know, because running someads can help boost the overall
sales of the listing and boostyour overall sales yourself.
But you need to be trackingthat and making sure those
numbers make sense.
Adam Shaffer (28:19):
So your margin, you try to run a margin profile
50%.
For ROI, so not profit marginbut ROI, Because I was going to
say I wish I had that.
Todd Welch (28:30):
Yeah, usually that profit margin is around maybe
22%, 23%, 24%, something likethat.
But I like to think in ROI, sothat if I spend $1, I'm going to
get $1.50 back.
Is what I like to think, okay.
Adam Shaffer (28:44):
I want to tell people 50%, I will.
I'm going to borrow that, sothat's great.
And then, with regard to Amazon, there's so many different
parts of Amazon you have to begood at.
How do you advise people tostay current and understand all
these different disciplines andwhat's going on at Amazon and
the policies that change and thepolicies that they don't talk
(29:06):
about.
Like, how do people keep upwith all this stuff?
Todd Welch (29:09):
It's like it never stops people keep up with all
this stuff.
It's like it never stops.
Yeah, so, following the newsyou know amazonsellerschool
we've got the news and stuff onthere and I have a lot of fun
putting that together.
That's how I actually stay upto date, because I'm scouring
the web and LinkedIn and everyplace for news and then I put it
(29:30):
all together and send it out topeople so that helps me stay up
to date.
But other than that, you know,linkedin is a great resource.
Twitter or X, I guess now wecall it is pretty good as well
if you're following the rightpeople.
But you got to make sure you'refollowing the right people on
there to get good content.
Youtube is good.
(29:52):
Amazon News is good.
Signing up for differentpeople's newsletters you know,
even though I put out my ownnewsletter, I'm signed up for
like 10 other ones gettinginformation and stuff like that.
So it's a fire hose out there,for sure.
But essentially you just got todo this and take it step by step
(30:14):
.
You know a lot of people getoverwhelmed and try to take in
too much and they're worriedabout ads that they're going to
run and they haven't even founda supplier for products yet.
So you got to start at numberone.
You know, open up your Amazonseller account if you haven't
done that, and then look and seewhat step two is and then step
(30:37):
three, and not get overwhelmed.
Just start.
You're going to make mistakes.
Hopefully you can learn from mymistakes and avoid some of the
ones that I've done.
But you're going to screw up,you're going to lose money
sometimes and you just got tolearn from it and do it.
Every business is like that.
You know, whether it's onAmazon or you're opening a gym
(31:00):
in your local city or a hairsalon or something.
You're going to mess up.
Make mistakes and you justlearn as you go along.
Adam Shaffer (31:10):
You mentioned repricers before.
What are the best tools thatnew people coming into the
business should be maybe lookingat?
I think I know of a few, butlike SmartScout and others.
Todd Welch (31:26):
What do you think?
Yeah, so Repricer is definitelyneeded, but other tools that I
use on a daily basisanalyzertools I like a lot for
automatically processingspreadsheets, so you can upload
spreadsheets that you get fromthese suppliers, match them to
(31:47):
Amazon listings and then workall the data in their filters
and things like that to findones that are profitable and the
price is really good onanalyzer tools.
So I like that a lot.
Rev Seller is another pluginthat I really like.
Last I looked, it's $100 a yearand it puts this box at the top
(32:09):
of every Amazon page so you cansee what your profit is on all
the products and things likethat.
Keepa is also one that is 100%required to do this, because
Keepa allows you to look at thehistorical sales price, the
(32:30):
historical sales rank, thenumber of reviews, the breakdown
on variations.
You know which variations aregetting the most sales and
things like that as well salesand things like that as well.
So those are probably my likemandatory tools.
And then, once after you startgrowing more getting.
(32:53):
Helium 10 can be helpful ifyou're optimizing listings.
Data Dive is helpful if you'reoptimizing listings as well, and
lots of other tools that youcan get into and if you go over
to our website,amazonsellerschool and click on
the resources link, you can seea list of all the different
softwares that I have used andmy thoughts on them and stuff as
well.
(33:13):
In the beginning, keepa,revseller, analyzer Tools and
Repricer are going to be some ofyour required tools.
Adam Shaffer (33:23):
That's super helpful.
I didn't know about analyzertools, so, thanks, I'm going to
check that out.
We definitely have that as anissue, that maybe that'll solve
it.
So that's great, thanks.
So now, thanks for the toolinformation.
I haven't done RevSeller either, but I'm going to check this
all out.
Moving on, we talked a littlebit about competition, but if
(33:50):
there's too much competition, doyou wind up saying I just don't
want to spend my time on thisanymore?
I mean, do you wind up justbacking away from certain ASINs
and sometimes.
Todd Welch (33:59):
Sometimes it will happen that you know you get on
a listing and maybe when youfirst started selling there
wasn't very many people and thenmore and more and more and
there ends up like being 15 to20 people on there.
Everybody's driving the salesdown.
I will a lot of times sell outof that product and not reorder
(34:21):
it then, but I'll keep it in mysoftware to check it every now
and again, because sometimeswhat will happen is a supplier
will open up and flood themarket and a bunch of people
will jump in and a lot of thosepeople will eventually disappear
over the next three to sixmonths or a year, whatever the
(34:42):
case may be.
And then you look back at thelisting six months later and
there's like no FBA sellers onit and just one FBM, because
everybody was like you and justcut and run on it right, and now
you can reorder that productand start selling it again.
And sometimes you'll have thatrinse and repeat kind of thing.
It's a game that you're goingto have happen.
(35:05):
That's why you want to trackyour profit on products over
time and see what's beneficialto reorder and not just blindly
reorder things all the time.
Only order things that havebeen profitable for you, you
know, in the last 30 days andprojecting forward are probably
going to be profitable for you,you know.
And then also you're going torun into situations where it's
(35:30):
quite obvious that whoeveryou're coming up against is
getting a better price than you.
So if that's happening, thenyou can go back to the brand or
the distributor and try tonegotiate a better price.
If you can get a better price,awesome.
Now you can compete with thatperson.
If you can't, thenunfortunately you're going to
(35:52):
have to sell through and notreorder it and check back in six
months or three months, becausesometimes these sellers will,
especially the bigger sellers.
You know, if you run into thesesellers that have like 100,000
seller reviews or sellerfeedback, they will be okay with
(36:15):
getting 5% profit or maybe even0% or at a loss in the attempt
to push everyone out of themarket.
And then when you come back insix months, maybe they're the
only ones on there and the priceis higher, and now you can test
the waters again and see ifthey are still trying to push
people out of the market and gofrom there.
(36:38):
But that's another opportunitytoo, if you see this happen and
you come back and now there'sjust this one seller on there
and the listing is garbage andyou can reach out to the brand
and be like, hey, I see thisseller.
He jacked up the price or drovedown the price to get everybody
off the listing, then jacked itup and they're selling it
(37:00):
really high.
The listing is garbage it upand they're selling it really
high.
The listing is garbage.
Have you ever thought abouttaking control of this listing
and making sure you knowundercutting your price and all
your retail partners and thenjacking up the price?
That kind of thing's nothappening, manipulating the
market, and it could give you anin to take that brand in as an
(37:21):
exclusive or maybe steal thatexclusive from someone else
who's not doing a very good job.
Adam Shaffer (37:27):
That's great.
And one other kind of thingit's like and I don't know if
you've done it, but I have andyou get good at arbitrage, you
get good at wholesale, you getgood at exclusive brands, but
then you get this feeling likethere's never enough margin.
So I want to do what theseother guys do and have a private
label product.
And you start creating yourprivate label products and you
(37:48):
realize it's not so easy.
I mean, have you fallen forthat?
Do you do private label?
Todd Welch (37:54):
I have.
That was one of my first bigfailures was in private label.
I've had a couple of those thatdidn't go well.
I've got one that does go wellfor us and is doing good.
It's in the fishing niche,which I'm really good at and I
know that market and that isgoing well for us.
But one of the ways that I dokind of private label but also
(38:21):
make it a lot easier is dobundles and creating bundles.
So essentially you're takingmaybe three, four, five
different products and puttingthem together and creating a
bundle, usually under your ownname.
But if you have a partnershipwith a brand, I will sometimes
(38:43):
create the bundle under theirname.
But you can make it a loteasier because you can see the
products that are obviouslyselling.
You know what's selling welltogether.
Using keepa you can look at thevariations of a product and see
which variations are sellingbest and then create a bundle of
(39:04):
.
Adam Shaffer (39:04):
You know these are the best selling uh crochet, uh
threads or whatever right well,I guess in that, in that
scenario, you're not going outand placing huge orders in china
to bring in containers wherethe stuff you're buying existing
product and you're creating aunique ASIN.
Todd Welch (39:21):
Exactly In private label.
You're typically ordering maybefour to six months worth of
stock at a time probably, andwith bundles it's just like any
other product you're stocking.
You're probably carrying 60 to90 days worth of stock and it's
typically a lot more foolproof,and if it doesn't go good, well,
(39:46):
you're liquidating thatinventory or maybe you're
pulling out the bundles andselling them individually on the
original thing.
So you have a much lowerthreshold of getting into doing
bundles.
Adam Shaffer (39:58):
Yeah, that's a great idea and you could be
creative with the bundles andyou could vary them, so that's
awesome and so and then onetough kind of dirty part of the
business is how do you deal withreturns from?
You know they just come.
Amazon makes it super easy.
Is that something that yourvendor partners help you with,
(40:19):
or are you having to liquidatethat?
Todd Welch (40:23):
Yeah, it's definitely can be a struggle,
but real quick before we switchinto that.
On the bundles, if anybody'sinterested, we actually have a
wholesale bundle course insideof our membership program, so
that might be something to checkout.
Adam Shaffer (40:38):
I might join for that.
That's good.
Todd Welch (40:40):
Yeah, it's definitely very nice.
A lot of people have liked it.
So if they're interested inthat, check it out.
But for returns, it's kind ofjust the nature of e-commerce.
Whether you're selling onAmazon, on eBay, your own
website, whatever, you're goingto get returns and if you don't
(41:06):
make returns easy, you're goingto have less customers and
you're going to unfortunatelyalso have people taking
advantage of returns.
So we typically will get thereturns back to our warehouse.
Well, first, you know, for thewholesale products, amazon has
that option for grading andreselling.
Grading and reselling so wewill.
On most products we will allowAmazon to do that, unless we
find that they mess it up or ifit's a specific type of product
(41:29):
that it doesn't make sense for,like if it's a food product or a
health product or somethingthat you know that you're not
going to want them an untrainedperson to look at it and resell
it, we won't do those ones.
But otherwise we'll let Amazongrade and resell it for us if
it's possible.
Otherwise, the rest we'll getback to our warehouse, open them
(41:51):
up, see if they're resellable.
If they are, we'll put themback in the inventory and resell
them.
You know, either as new, ifthey've never been opened or
like new, used very good.
I usually recommend used verygood because always go a level
below where you think it shouldbe so that, uh, you don't get a
return again.
(42:12):
Their expectations of like new.
It might be different than yourexpectations of like new Uh.
So always grade down uh, butthen we resell it and things
that we can't resell.
You know, it's just kind ofpart of the game.
Some suppliers will have anoption to return it back to them
(42:33):
and get a credit.
But that can be difficult aswell because that's a whole
nother level of management thatyou have to do.
But if you can get set up toreturn those ones back to
distributors and brands thatallow that, you can get a little
bit money back there.
Adam Shaffer (42:50):
But it's kind of just something you got to build
into, build into your businessand try to maximize and,
wherever you can, you have tohave a process for it.
Like you said, going throughand finding the new, putting it
back and regrading it andselling it.
Todd Welch (43:03):
So yeah, no, not with high returns.
And if it makes sense, youmight have to just cut those
ones.
Adam Shaffer (43:10):
Yep for sure.
So track your returns.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes we'llget an allowance from the brand,
sometimes they'll take backdefective, sometimes they'll
take and do stock rotation.
So I think it starts withtrying to negotiate with the
brand partners, but sometimesnot so easy and you got to have
a process for it.
So good stuff.
Todd Welch (43:31):
It really depends on the price of the product, right
?
Because if you're selling a $10product, by the time you get
the product back to yourwarehouse have someone open up
the box, look at it, figure outwhat they should do with it and
then have someone contact thebrand and send it back to the
brand.
You know you're using a dollaror two at least of labor, so is
(43:52):
it worth even doing it forlow-priced products?
But for higher-priced products,definitely.
You want to see those avenuesof getting some kind of
reimbursement on those.
Adam Shaffer (44:02):
Cool.
So with that I think we had abunch of pretty interesting
topics, but would love to hearfrom you Basically.
First start with what's youradvice to people that are
getting into it.
I know there's a ton of peoplein the biz, but there's still
people that want to leverage theplatform to start a new life,
start a new business, and it's alot easier than opening a
(44:23):
retail store or doing somethingelse.
So what's your advice forsomebody just getting in the
game?
Todd Welch (44:30):
Sure.
So my advice would be to treatit like a real business and
don't trust anyone who's tellingyou that you know Amazon is
passive income or you can make amillion dollars this year
selling on Amazon.
Most likely those people arejust trying to sell you a course
(44:51):
and not necessarily doing itthemselves.
So anything automated if itsays automated Amazon sales, run
away as fast as you can.
So treat it like a realbusiness.
Act as if you were going toopen up a gym in your local town
or whatever beauty salon, orwhatever the case may be.
(45:11):
Treat it like a real businessand do everything necessary to
set it up and get started Nowwith that.
As I said, take things step bystep right.
So just because you're treatingit like a real business doesn't
mean you have to understandeverything before you get
started.
But when I say that is, don'thave unreal expectations.
(45:37):
You know you're not going to bea millionaire next year.
If you start selling on Amazonright now.
It's possible, anything'spossible.
Your private label couldexplode.
Your wholesale business couldexplode.
If you're putting in 100 hoursa week, you could definitely do
it, but you're going to have toput in the time to do it and
(45:58):
start with one product you know.
Go to Goodwill, go to a thriftstore, go to Garage Sale, find
something that's unopened andthat you can sell on Amazon and
learn that process to sending itin and selling it, and get
started there and then take stepby step from there, learn from
(46:20):
other people.
Watch some of my videos, lookat the courses, membership
program, things like that.
Shoot me a message and ask mequestions.
I always am happy to reply toemails and stuff like that, but
the number one thing is to treatit like a real business and
don't expect to get richovernight.
It's not a get rich quickscheme or anything like that.
(46:44):
There's still a lot of money tobe made.
Amazon's definitely harder thanit used to be, but there's
still a lot of money to be madeif you're willing to put in the
work.
Adam Shaffer (46:55):
That is awesome advice and I do believe that
people think they could come inand make a killing overnight.
So thanks for that sound advice.
So, with that, how do peopleget in touch with you?
You were mentioning a couple ofthings, but why don't you just
repeat ways to connect with youand your company?
Todd Welch (47:12):
Sure.
So amazonsellerschool is one ofthe best ways I've got all my
information on there.
You can contact me on there.
You can click over to myInstagram, my X, my LinkedIn,
youtube, all of that from there.
But otherwise, you know,whatever platform you're on, if
you search for Amazon sellerschool, I'll probably come up on
(47:36):
there and you'll be able tofollow me on any of those
platforms and especially get onthe email list.
That's one of the still one ofthe best ways to communicate
with people and most effectiveways.
You know because you controlthat platform and you know
you're going to get my emailsonce you're on there.
(47:56):
Where with Facebook, linkedin,all that, it's all up to the
algorithms whether they show youanything that I post or not.
Adam Shaffer (48:04):
Well, that's great .
Well, thank you very much forspending the time with us.
I definitely learned a lot andI think you know you touched on
a lot of pretty hot topics forthe folks that are listening.
So thanks again and lookforward to spending more time
with you in the future and haveyou back on the show.
Todd Welch (48:19):
Absolutely, adam.
It's been great, thank you.
Announcement (48:24):
Thank you for watching another episode of the
Planet Amazon podcast, where wetalk all things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at phelpsunitedcom.
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Shaffer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.
Adam Shaffer (00:18):
Hello, I'm Adam Shaffer and welcome to Planet
Amazon, where we talk about allthings Amazon and e-commerce and
we talk about strategies thatdrive success on America's
largest online marketplace.
Today, we have a special guestwho is a true pioneer in the
Amazon space.
Todd Welch is not only the CEOand founder of Amazon Seller
(00:40):
School, but also a seasonedexpert in Amazon wholesale,
which is a big topic that we'regoing to talk about today.
With years of experience underhis belt, Todd has helped
countless entrepreneurs scaletheir Amazon business to new
heights.
Today, he's here to share hiswealth of knowledge, offering
invaluable tips and tricks onhow to navigate the complex
world of Amazon wholesale and toachieve sustainable success.
(01:04):
Todd, welcome to Planet Amazon.
Todd Welch (01:09):
Yeah, I appreciate it, Adam.
It's great to be here.
Adam Shaffer (01:12):
Great.
Well, thanks for joining.
And you know the topic is nearand dear to my heart because you
know we're all sellers andthere's 2 million sellers on
Amazon, believe it or not, somemuch bigger than others, but
it's an important, importanttopic to talk about.
But before we even get there,you know, I don't know if people
(01:33):
, many people, really understandthat there are ways to learn
about Amazon outside of pluggingaway at it every single day.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about the Amazon
Seller School, what you guys doand how you actually got here?
Todd Welch (01:48):
Sure, so Amazon Seller School is basically my
platform where I share anyknowledge that I gain myself.
Basically, I'm trying to helppeople avoid the mistakes that I
have made in growing my Amazonbusiness.
When I got started in this, Ifollowed people like Scott
(02:12):
Volker and he helped me getgoing, and so I'm trying to do
the same for other people.
So I have a podcast on there.
I create lots of educationalvideos.
I do weekly Amazon news the topnews of the week, anything that
I think can help people.
I've also got a monthlymembership program that people
(02:35):
can get in and get access toexclusive videos, direct access
to me to get questions answeredand all that good stuff.
So whatever I can do to helppeople, I put it out there on
amazonsellerschool.
Adam Shaffer (02:48):
I mean that's awesome and it's something that
the industry needs.
So we thank you for that.
I mean for all the listeners.
I mean everybody has questions,everybody runs into issues and
also, whether you're new oryou've been doing this for a
while, there's always somethingyou don't know, and it's almost
impossible to know it all.
So great to have a resourcelike URAM.
So let's change the topicreally to what I wanted to talk
(03:10):
about today, and that was moreof Amazon wholesale, and so
there's multiple models thatpeople could use on Amazon to
sell and to market their wares.
Can you just tell us reallywhat is Amazon Wholesale?
Todd Welch (03:27):
Sure, so Amazon Wholesale.
I'm not 100% sure how it gotthe name Wholesale, Amazon
Retail or something like thatwould be better, but usually we
call Amazon Retail whenAmazoncom is selling the product
themselves.
So Amazon wholesale is kind ofwhat's been adopted for when you
(03:48):
are selling other people'sproducts and buying their
products directly either fromthe brand or from an authorized
distributor of the product,which makes it different than
retail arbitrage where you'reusually buying branded products
from a retail store or a thriftstore, garage sales, things like
(04:10):
that where you don't have thatdirect connection back to the
supplier.
Adam Shaffer (04:15):
Yeah, so I mean and that's a good point so
Amazon retail in the biz wewould call it 1P and that's when
a brand sells directly toAmazon, amazon pays them for the
products and Amazon sells it onthe marketplace, on the
platform.
What we're talking about withwholesale is a version of 3P and
(04:37):
it's where companies, you know3P stores, are buying products,
like you said, from the brand orfrom authorized distributors.
But there's another version ofselling on 3P and that is when
you're buying from potentiallyunauthorized sellers or you're
buying it from a retailer that'sreally supposed to be selling
(04:58):
it to end users, but you get agood enough deal that you could
probably resell it on Amazon andmake a couple of bucks, which
is kind of, to me, a littlecrazy, a little wild and
sometimes pretty annoying whenyou're the legitimate seller of
the product.
So talk about the arbitrage fora little bit, because I think
you used to do that, didn't you?
Todd Welch (05:18):
Yeah, that is more how I got started.
You know, I used to jump in thecar, head to Walmart, head to
Goodwill Savers, garage sales,all those different stores you
know Home Depot, costco, sam'sClub and you go into those
stores and you've got the app onyour phone whether you're using
(05:41):
the Amazon Seller app or usingsomething like inventory lab or
something like that but you'rescanning products, hundreds of
products, looking at the pricesthey're selling for on Amazon
and seeing if you can flip them.
So basically, you're trying toflip products and you're buying
them at retail store of somekind and you typically do not
(06:06):
have a way to consistentlyrestock those products.
So it's a constant hustle oftrying to find new products, new
products, new products to keepgrowing it.
And I did pretty good.
I got it to the point where Iwas selling about 90,000 per
month month just doing retailarbitrage.
(06:27):
But the problem is is it's hardto scale beyond that unless you
start hiring people to do theshopping and things like that
for you, which can get prettytedious.
It's not impossible, but it'smore difficult to scale than
doing Amazon wholesale, whereyou're just sending purchase
(06:48):
orders to a distributor ordirectly to a brand and
continually restocking productsthat are selling well for those
that do buy arbitrage.
Adam Shaffer (07:06):
Sometimes they would make a buy, they'd buy a
bunch of stuff and Amazon wouldmaybe knock them off or a brand
would have them taken off theplatform.
I mean that could sting alittle bit if you own the
products.
I mean, has that happened toyou?
Todd Welch (07:16):
It has.
Yes, I've had products gettingtaken down all the time Retail
arbitrage.
The problem with retailarbitrage I get products taken
down doing wholesale as well,but with wholesale I have the
legitimate invoice from adistributor or the brand and you
can typically present that toAmazon and get that result very
(07:39):
quickly.
But the problem with arbitrageis you don't always have a
proper receipt.
And I say proper receiptbecause Amazon is looking for
the UPC or the SKU, the supplierSKU of that product, and while
(07:59):
some places like Walmart they doput the UPC on there so you can
use that to get those IPcomplaints cleared up, if you're
buying from a thrift store orsay you're buying from TJ Maxx
or something like that, they donot put those numbers on there,
they use internal numbers, andso Amazon will not accept those
receipts, and so you're kind ofwalking that line and hoping
(08:24):
that you don't get taken down ifyou're buying from those kind
of stores.
Adam Shaffer (08:28):
Yeah.
So what I find is a lot ofpeople start that way because
it's a way into the businesswithout a huge investment and
then they really learn theAmazon game.
They learn how to manage theworld on Amazon and I guess if
you could be successful atarbitrage you usually could do
well doing almost anything.
So it's great training ground,I would say.
(08:50):
But now you evolved and youmade it to the wholesale side of
the business.
So explain more about that andhow you got into it and how it
all works.
Todd Welch (09:02):
Yeah, you're exactly right on that and shift.
Starting in retail arbitrage isstill good you can make some
money in that but switching towholesale or private label is
kind of where you probably wantto aim if you want to actually
build a big business and asustainable business.
(09:22):
Getting into wholesale is alittle bit different.
Well, it's completely different, I should say, from retail
arbitrage in terms of how you'resourcing your product.
But starting with retailarbitrage is good because you
can learn all the platformsright.
The platform is the same Sellercentral learning how to send in
(09:44):
products.
Platforms right, the platform isthe same Seller Central
learning how to send in products, label products, get them into
Amazon, sell them, market them.
All that is the same.
But in terms of findingproducts and getting products,
it's different because you'renot just going to a store and
looking at what they have andscanning them and buying them.
Instead, you are reaching outto either the brand direct or to
(10:11):
a distributor, and anauthorized distributor is
essentially just someone, anintermediary company that might
sell hundreds or thousands,possibly even tens of thousands
of different brands that you canbuy from, and what you do is
(10:32):
try to open up an account withthose brands or distributors and
once you open up an account,you can get a list of the
products that they carry andthat you're able to sell, and
you can then go through thoselists and find products that are
profitable.
Instead of scanning products ata retail store now, you're
(10:53):
scanning through, typically,some kind of spreadsheet or
maybe a website to try to findprofitable products that you can
sell.
Adam Shaffer (11:01):
Yeah, so at the very bottom of the wholesale
you're going throughdistribution.
Maybe you could very bottom ofthe wholesale you're going
through distribution.
Maybe you could buy some of thestuff direct.
But you don't necessarily haveaccess to the brand registry
unless you have a specialrelationship with the brand and
you are probably not exclusive.
So talk about that, becauseit's not super easy to always
(11:23):
get that buy box.
And then there's also the raceto the bottom if there's other
sellers on it.
So how do you decide?
Todd Welch (11:30):
Yeah, that is one of the biggest difficulties doing
wholesale is that if you can buythe product, probably other
people can buy it.
So you're typically going to besharing the buy box.
You're going to have a buy boxrotation, right?
So you might not always be theperson that they're buying from
when a customer visits thatproduct on Amazon price and
(12:02):
location of your inventory,things like that.
So to handle that, essentiallyyou are trying to negotiate with
the brand or the distributorbetter pricing than other people
, and that can be a game in andof itself, right, Because if
(12:25):
you're brand new to a brand ordistributor and you're like, hey
, give me 20, 30 percent off ofyour normal price, they're
probably going to look at youlike you know who's this guy.
But with that said, discountingis typically the norm in a
wholesale world, so distributorsand brands are used to giving a
(12:48):
discount off of their price.
So usually that first price youget is not going to be the best
price that you can get.
Now you have to give them areason to give you a discount.
So, for example, what I usuallydo is I go through their
spreadsheet and I find all theproducts that I would like to
(13:09):
sell at 0% profit or higher, andhow many I think I can sell per
month, Because then I can comeback to them and say, hey, if
you can give me this price, Ithink I can buy this many every
month from you of all thesedifferent products.
And now you're looking at, youknow, maybe that's a $5,000
(13:33):
order or $10,000 order, or maybeeven 20, 30, 40, $50,000 order.
If you're getting into, youknow the higher levels and now
you're showing that supplierthat you are legit and looking
to make big purchases and theycould potentially give you those
bigger discounts on top of whatthey would normally give
(13:57):
discounts for to someone whomight make a $500 order or a
$1,000 order.
Adam Shaffer (14:02):
Yeah, I mean so.
So okay, so at the beginningyou're doing your best to find
products from distributors orfrom the brand and you're
negotiating the best possibleprice.
So now you found your products,maybe you have your price, and
now you got to get going andactually buy the stuff and sell
it on Amazon.
So you still don't have theirbrand registry, so you're at the
(14:22):
mercy of their ASINs or thecreative that's on their ASINs
for the moment.
But how much inventory do youbuy?
How many weeks of thatinventory do you need to risk
and buy that inventory so youcan have it in stock?
And are you stocking it at yourown warehouse or are you
shipping it up to FBA to Amazon?
Todd Welch (14:47):
house or are you shipping it up to FBA, to Amazon
?
Sure?
So very good question.
When you're first ordering aproduct, I always try to do a
test buy.
So when I'm sending that bigspreadsheet of products that I
potentially want to buy from abrand or supplier, I am making
sure they know up front that,hey, this is what I think I can
buy every month or sell everymonth.
(15:08):
But I'm going to start with atest order.
So if I think I can sell 500units of this product every
month, I'm not going to make anopening order of 500 units.
I'm going to make an openingorder of maybe 50 units or
whatever a case pack is.
You know, if a case pack is 50,I'm going to order 50.
(15:30):
If a case pack is 12, I mightorder 24 or 36 or 48, something
like that.
And that way I can send theproducts into Amazon and get
some real world numbers of howmany I'm going to be able to
sell.
If I send that 48 in or 50 inand it's like, boom, it's gone
(15:51):
in five days, now I know, okay,I'm probably safe to order 500
or a thousand.
So once I'm established, thenI'm trying to order and keep
about 45 days worth of stock inAmazon, about 20 to 30 days of
stock in my warehouse and, bythe way, I started in my
(16:11):
basement and garage, so youdon't need a warehouse to start
out.
But I'm keeping that 20 to 30days of stock in my warehouse
and then I give another about 15to 20 days for transport
between the warehouse and Amazon.
Adam Shaffer (16:29):
So you're getting the products at your place,
you're packing them and shippingthem up to Amazon.
You keep an overstock at yourplace to make sure that you have
inventory to keep on flowing upto Amazon, because once you get
the show on the road, you don'twant to be out of stock, sounds
like and you think being atAmazon is the FBA is the way to
go right.
Todd Welch (16:48):
Oh yeah, 100%.
So if I'm able to ship directlyfrom the brand to FBA into
Amazon, I will do that.
But a lot of companies will notdo that.
It's about, I would say, rightnow, maybe 30 to 40% of our
suppliers ship directly for us,the rest ship to our warehouse
(17:16):
for us, the rest ship to ourwarehouse, and partly that is
because they don't want to beputting the Amazon labels on
boxes shipping to a bunch ofdifferent locations, like Amazon
especially makes you do.
Now they break it up more thanever before.
So you try to simplify it forthose suppliers that don't want
to do that and send directly toAmazon if you can.
Otherwise you know coming toyou.
Adam Shaffer (17:39):
So 45 plus maybe 15, and then you need to be able
to reorder some stuff.
So it's tough.
You know, we found it's alwaystough with cash because a lot of
these, these suppliers, youknow you're lucky to get more
than 30 days, if you can, ofterms.
So you're paying for the stuffmany cases before it's sold and
(18:00):
you're right, it could take alittle bit of time before the
stuff gets up to Amazon.
So I wish it was a faster wayto do it without the cost.
But that's part of the game.
You have to be willing toinvest in inventory and
understand you're definitelygoing to have a tail.
It's not going to be almostalways.
It's not going to be soldbefore you have to pay.
(18:21):
So you just have to be preparedfor that.
How do you deal with thecompetitors?
So now you're selling stuff anda few other sellers are also
selling it and maybe they'rebringing the price down.
So what's your strategy forthat?
Todd Welch (18:37):
Sure.
So discounting is one of thebigger strategies.
If you can get it 5% cheaperthan the other person.
Even if they drive the pricedown, you can still go lower and
be profitable.
And now, eventually they'regoing to disappear because
they're not making enough money.
So that's one strategy.
(18:58):
Otherwise, you're going to haveto have what's called a repricer
, and I use a repricer calledSeller Snap.
When I started out I used onecalled Be Cool.
There's another one called GoAura.
That's really good.
There's lots of good ones outthere.
Sellersnap is really good forhigh level because it's like
$500 a month.
Be Cool and Aura and theseother ones can start around $25
(19:23):
to $50 a month.
But you're going to need arepricer that is going to
compete with the other peoplethat are on there and try to win
you the buy box, ideallywithout just tanking the price.
But trying to actually increasethe price is what the good ones
will do.
So instead of matching theother people, they might go like
(19:45):
a penny or two above.
So the other people don't dropdrop, but also stealing some of
the buy box, because Amazon willgive you buy box and sales on
lots of different metrics andyou know price is one of the
biggest, but it's not the onlyone.
It could also be dependent uponwhere you have inventory.
(20:05):
If a customer is shopping inFlorida and I have inventory in
Florida and the other peoplehave inventory in New York,
they're going to show my listing, even if I'm, you know, 5, 10,
15, 20 cents more expensive evenmore sometimes because shipping
for Amazon will be cheaper andfaster to get it to the customer
(20:26):
.
Adam Shaffer (20:27):
That's interesting .
So in your business and whenyou work with others, I mean,
are you, are you focused on anycategories or you don't care?
It's a product, a product, aproduct, or does it matter to
you?
Sure.
Todd Welch (20:40):
So we try to focus in specific categories.
Ideally.
You know we have products allover the map because when you
come across a good deal, youtake it over the map, because
when you come across a good deal, you can take it.
But I always recommend and whatwe try to do is focus in a
specific niche, especiallystarting out that you are
(21:00):
familiar with and have some typeof unfair advantage over
someone else.
So, for example, I don't knowanything about, let's see,
crocheting.
Let's say that's kind of aniche hobby, right, I don't know
(21:21):
anything about it.
So if I'm trying to sellproducts that someone into
crocheting would have and I'mcalling suppliers, especially
brands direct, because whenyou're doing brand direct, a
brand is typically moreemotional about their products.
Where a distributor is justtransactional, they don't care,
they want to make money, but thebrand wants to sell to people
(21:45):
that care about their productmore often than not.
So when I'm calling a brandthat's selling crocheting
equipment and I have no clueabout crocheting equipment I
don't have any connection to,perhaps I'm speaking to the
owner of the brand or someonewho's working in there versus.
(22:06):
You know, I really enjoy fishing, for example.
So if I'm talking to someone onthe other end of the line and I
know they're in Idaho.
I'm like, hey, you've been upin the mountains trout fishing
lately Anything you know.
How are the brown trout bitingor the rainbow trout biting?
Now I've got an immediateconnection with that brand owner
(22:27):
beyond being someone who wantsto sell their products on Amazon
, and it makes that relationshipa lot better and a lot easier.
So that's why I usuallyrecommend people start in a
category that they know.
You know it could be anythinglike one of the coaching.
I had a coaching call withsomeone from New York.
(22:47):
He's a retired police officer,so and he was trying to figure
out what to sell and I'm like Idon't know anything about
tactical equipment.
That might be a perfect placefor you to go into, because you
know all about tacticalequipment for shooting and
things like that and you couldconnect with the owners of those
(23:10):
businesses in a way that Icouldn't.
So starting in a niche isdefinitely one of the better
ways to do it.
Adam Shaffer (23:19):
That makes sense.
And then do you I mean peopledo, and we do we have exclusives
with brands on either the brandor ASINs from the brand.
I mean, is that?
I mean, to me that's got to bepretty important.
Is that something that, I guess, once you get, that's got to be
pretty important.
Is that something that I guess,once you get going, you need to
be striving for?
Todd Welch (23:37):
A hundred percent.
Yeah, we really focus on brandpartnerships now, or exclusives
with brands, and that, again, iswhere the niche really comes
into play.
Most of our exclusives are incategories that we know a lot
about and most of the exclusivesare with brands that if I said
(23:59):
them on the air 95, maybe 99% ofpeople would probably have no
clue about the brand and havenever heard of it.
But we opened accounts withthese brands.
For the most part, we'reopening accounts with them,
reselling their products as oneof many and building that
(24:21):
relationship and working it intoan exclusive, saying things
like have you ever thought oftaking control of your listings
on Amazon?
You know we're selling 500units of these, or 100 units of
these, every single month.
If we optimize this listing, wecould probably double, triple,
quadruple that and really boostyour sales on Amazon.
(24:45):
And we can do all that for youif you are willing to give us
the exclusive.
Adam Shaffer (24:50):
So offer them services if they give you an
exclusive.
Todd Welch (24:53):
Correct, correct, and we a lot of times we'll do a
lot of that for free.
The optimization and thingslike that we usually try to
negotiate some kind of ad shareif they want us to run
additional ads on the platform.
But the optimization andcleaning up listings and things
like that, that's kind of ourcarrot that we use to get the
(25:18):
exclusive and then we're makingour profit from selling the
product, not having to competeagainst others, which means
usually your profit margin canbe a little bit higher.
You got to find that balance ofprofit and units sold, because
the brand wants you to sell moreunits, obviously, but typically
your profit margin is going tobe higher once you get that
(25:40):
exclusive.
Adam Shaffer (25:41):
Yeah, for sure.
And you don't have to worryabout sharing that buy box, or
you hope you don't.
So then you are doingadvertising.
Todd Welch (25:50):
I am.
Yes, we do basic advertising onall of our products.
So if you've been in the gamefor a while, you've probably
heard of the 5 cent autocampaign.
You can make it the 10 cent, 20cent, 25 cent, whatever.
But basically you make acampaign for 5 cents maximum bid
and dump all your products inthere To catch all Run and a lot
(26:13):
of times you'll spend.
You know, if I look at my spendfor a month I might spend a
hundred dollars and sell like$50,000 worth of stuff or
$20,000 worth of stuff, whateverthe case may be.
So at a minimum we do that.
And then we play with someother ads.
But we make sure we have areturn on our ad spend of like
(26:35):
nine, 10, 11 or more.
So if we're spending a dollar,we want to be selling 10 or
returning.
I should say at least $10, $11,$12 on that dollar that we
spend.
But if we negotiate an ad sharewith an exclusive, then we're
(26:56):
able to bring that down.
So if a brand is giving us, say, $1,000 a month to spend on ads
, then we might spend $1,500 or$2,000 a month in ads on that
and we can have a thousanddollars a month in ads on that
(27:16):
and we can have a, a ROAS of,say you know, five or six and
still be profitable.
Adam Shaffer (27:18):
but regardless, we try to make sure we're
profitable on any kind of adspend that we're doing yeah, no,
I mean, it's a big part of thegame, and the problem with the
wholesalers or the the sellersis when it's not your product,
you're not a private labelproduct, it's usually not that
much margin, so you got to bereally careful on the spend, and
getting the brands toparticipate is a big deal.
(27:39):
So that's a pretty goodstrategy.
Todd Welch (27:42):
That's why I say you want to figure out what your
ROI is.
So if your ROI, if your returnon every dollar you spend, is,
say, 30%, which our goal is 50%,but let's say it's 30%, you
want to make sure, whatever adsyou're running, that every ad
(28:03):
sale has at least a break evenwith that 30%.
You know, because running someads can help boost the overall
sales of the listing and boostyour overall sales yourself.
But you need to be trackingthat and making sure those
numbers make sense.
Adam Shaffer (28:19):
So your margin, you try to run a margin profile
50%.
For ROI, so not profit marginbut ROI, Because I was going to
say I wish I had that.
Todd Welch (28:30):
Yeah, usually that profit margin is around maybe
22%, 23%, 24%, something likethat.
But I like to think in ROI, sothat if I spend $1, I'm going to
get $1.50 back.
Is what I like to think, okay.
Adam Shaffer (28:44):
I want to tell people 50%, I will.
I'm going to borrow that, sothat's great.
And then, with regard to Amazon, there's so many different
parts of Amazon you have to begood at.
How do you advise people tostay current and understand all
these different disciplines andwhat's going on at Amazon and
the policies that change and thepolicies that they don't talk
(29:06):
about.
Like, how do people keep upwith all this stuff?
Todd Welch (29:09):
It's like it never stops people keep up with all
this stuff.
It's like it never stops.
Yeah, so, following the newsyou know amazonsellerschool
we've got the news and stuff onthere and I have a lot of fun
putting that together.
That's how I actually stay upto date, because I'm scouring
the web and LinkedIn and everyplace for news and then I put it
(29:30):
all together and send it out topeople so that helps me stay up
to date.
But other than that, you know,linkedin is a great resource.
Twitter or X, I guess now wecall it is pretty good as well
if you're following the rightpeople.
But you got to make sure you'refollowing the right people on
there to get good content.
Youtube is good.
(29:52):
Amazon News is good.
Signing up for differentpeople's newsletters you know,
even though I put out my ownnewsletter, I'm signed up for
like 10 other ones gettinginformation and stuff like that.
So it's a fire hose out there,for sure.
But essentially you just got todo this and take it step by step
(30:14):
.
You know a lot of people getoverwhelmed and try to take in
too much and they're worriedabout ads that they're going to
run and they haven't even founda supplier for products yet.
So you got to start at numberone.
You know, open up your Amazonseller account if you haven't
done that, and then look and seewhat step two is and then step
(30:37):
three, and not get overwhelmed.
Just start.
You're going to make mistakes.
Hopefully you can learn from mymistakes and avoid some of the
ones that I've done.
But you're going to screw up,you're going to lose money
sometimes and you just got tolearn from it and do it.
Every business is like that.
You know, whether it's onAmazon or you're opening a gym
(31:00):
in your local city or a hairsalon or something.
You're going to mess up.
Make mistakes and you justlearn as you go along.
Adam Shaffer (31:10):
You mentioned repricers before.
What are the best tools thatnew people coming into the
business should be maybe lookingat?
I think I know of a few, butlike SmartScout and others.
Todd Welch (31:26):
What do you think?
Yeah, so Repricer is definitelyneeded, but other tools that I
use on a daily basisanalyzertools I like a lot for
automatically processingspreadsheets, so you can upload
spreadsheets that you get fromthese suppliers, match them to
(31:47):
Amazon listings and then workall the data in their filters
and things like that to findones that are profitable and the
price is really good onanalyzer tools.
So I like that a lot.
Rev Seller is another pluginthat I really like.
Last I looked, it's $100 a yearand it puts this box at the top
(32:09):
of every Amazon page so you cansee what your profit is on all
the products and things likethat.
Keepa is also one that is 100%required to do this, because
Keepa allows you to look at thehistorical sales price, the
(32:30):
historical sales rank, thenumber of reviews, the breakdown
on variations.
You know which variations aregetting the most sales and
things like that as well salesand things like that as well.
So those are probably my likemandatory tools.
And then, once after you startgrowing more getting.
(32:53):
Helium 10 can be helpful ifyou're optimizing listings.
Data Dive is helpful if you'reoptimizing listings as well, and
lots of other tools that youcan get into and if you go over
to our website,amazonsellerschool and click on
the resources link, you can seea list of all the different
softwares that I have used andmy thoughts on them and stuff as
well.
(33:13):
In the beginning, keepa,revseller, analyzer Tools and
Repricer are going to be some ofyour required tools.
Adam Shaffer (33:23):
That's super helpful.
I didn't know about analyzertools, so, thanks, I'm going to
check that out.
We definitely have that as anissue, that maybe that'll solve
it.
So that's great, thanks.
So now, thanks for the toolinformation.
I haven't done RevSeller either, but I'm going to check this
all out.
Moving on, we talked a littlebit about competition, but if
(33:50):
there's too much competition, doyou wind up saying I just don't
want to spend my time on thisanymore?
I mean, do you wind up justbacking away from certain ASINs
and sometimes.
Todd Welch (33:59):
Sometimes it will happen that you know you get on
a listing and maybe when youfirst started selling there
wasn't very many people and thenmore and more and more and
there ends up like being 15 to20 people on there.
Everybody's driving the salesdown.
I will a lot of times sell outof that product and not reorder
(34:21):
it then, but I'll keep it in mysoftware to check it every now
and again, because sometimeswhat will happen is a supplier
will open up and flood themarket and a bunch of people
will jump in and a lot of thosepeople will eventually disappear
over the next three to sixmonths or a year, whatever the
(34:42):
case may be.
And then you look back at thelisting six months later and
there's like no FBA sellers onit and just one FBM, because
everybody was like you and justcut and run on it right, and now
you can reorder that productand start selling it again.
And sometimes you'll have thatrinse and repeat kind of thing.
It's a game that you're goingto have happen.
(35:05):
That's why you want to trackyour profit on products over
time and see what's beneficialto reorder and not just blindly
reorder things all the time.
Only order things that havebeen profitable for you, you
know, in the last 30 days andprojecting forward are probably
going to be profitable for you,you know.
And then also you're going torun into situations where it's
(35:30):
quite obvious that whoeveryou're coming up against is
getting a better price than you.
So if that's happening, thenyou can go back to the brand or
the distributor and try tonegotiate a better price.
If you can get a better price,awesome.
Now you can compete with thatperson.
If you can't, thenunfortunately you're going to
(35:52):
have to sell through and notreorder it and check back in six
months or three months, becausesometimes these sellers will,
especially the bigger sellers.
You know, if you run into thesesellers that have like 100,000
seller reviews or sellerfeedback, they will be okay with
(36:15):
getting 5% profit or maybe even0% or at a loss in the attempt
to push everyone out of themarket.
And then when you come back insix months, maybe they're the
only ones on there and the priceis higher, and now you can test
the waters again and see ifthey are still trying to push
people out of the market and gofrom there.
(36:38):
But that's another opportunitytoo, if you see this happen and
you come back and now there'sjust this one seller on there
and the listing is garbage andyou can reach out to the brand
and be like, hey, I see thisseller.
He jacked up the price or drovedown the price to get everybody
off the listing, then jacked itup and they're selling it
(37:00):
really high.
The listing is garbage it upand they're selling it really
high.
The listing is garbage.
Have you ever thought abouttaking control of this listing
and making sure you knowundercutting your price and all
your retail partners and thenjacking up the price?
That kind of thing's nothappening, manipulating the
market, and it could give you anin to take that brand in as an
(37:21):
exclusive or maybe steal thatexclusive from someone else
who's not doing a very good job.
Adam Shaffer (37:27):
That's great.
And one other kind of thingit's like and I don't know if
you've done it, but I have andyou get good at arbitrage, you
get good at wholesale, you getgood at exclusive brands, but
then you get this feeling likethere's never enough margin.
So I want to do what theseother guys do and have a private
label product.
And you start creating yourprivate label products and you
(37:48):
realize it's not so easy.
I mean, have you fallen forthat?
Do you do private label?
Todd Welch (37:54):
I have.
That was one of my first bigfailures was in private label.
I've had a couple of those thatdidn't go well.
I've got one that does go wellfor us and is doing good.
It's in the fishing niche,which I'm really good at and I
know that market and that isgoing well for us.
But one of the ways that I dokind of private label but also
(38:21):
make it a lot easier is dobundles and creating bundles.
So essentially you're takingmaybe three, four, five
different products and puttingthem together and creating a
bundle, usually under your ownname.
But if you have a partnershipwith a brand, I will sometimes
(38:43):
create the bundle under theirname.
But you can make it a loteasier because you can see the
products that are obviouslyselling.
You know what's selling welltogether.
Using keepa you can look at thevariations of a product and see
which variations are sellingbest and then create a bundle of
(39:04):
.
Adam Shaffer (39:04):
You know these are the best selling uh crochet, uh
threads or whatever right well,I guess in that, in that
scenario, you're not going outand placing huge orders in china
to bring in containers wherethe stuff you're buying existing
product and you're creating aunique ASIN.
Todd Welch (39:21):
Exactly In private label.
You're typically ordering maybefour to six months worth of
stock at a time probably, andwith bundles it's just like any
other product you're stocking.
You're probably carrying 60 to90 days worth of stock and it's
typically a lot more foolproof,and if it doesn't go good, well,
(39:46):
you're liquidating thatinventory or maybe you're
pulling out the bundles andselling them individually on the
original thing.
So you have a much lowerthreshold of getting into doing
bundles.
Adam Shaffer (39:58):
Yeah, that's a great idea and you could be
creative with the bundles andyou could vary them, so that's
awesome and so and then onetough kind of dirty part of the
business is how do you deal withreturns from?
You know they just come.
Amazon makes it super easy.
Is that something that yourvendor partners help you with,
(40:19):
or are you having to liquidatethat?
Todd Welch (40:23):
Yeah, it's definitely can be a struggle,
but real quick before we switchinto that.
On the bundles, if anybody'sinterested, we actually have a
wholesale bundle course insideof our membership program, so
that might be something to checkout.
Adam Shaffer (40:38):
I might join for that.
That's good.
Todd Welch (40:40):
Yeah, it's definitely very nice.
A lot of people have liked it.
So if they're interested inthat, check it out.
But for returns, it's kind ofjust the nature of e-commerce.
Whether you're selling onAmazon, on eBay, your own
website, whatever, you're goingto get returns and if you don't
(41:06):
make returns easy, you're goingto have less customers and
you're going to unfortunatelyalso have people taking
advantage of returns.
So we typically will get thereturns back to our warehouse.
Well, first, you know, for thewholesale products, amazon has
that option for grading andreselling.
Grading and reselling so wewill.
On most products we will allowAmazon to do that, unless we
find that they mess it up or ifit's a specific type of product
(41:29):
that it doesn't make sense for,like if it's a food product or a
health product or somethingthat you know that you're not
going to want them an untrainedperson to look at it and resell
it, we won't do those ones.
But otherwise we'll let Amazongrade and resell it for us if
it's possible.
Otherwise, the rest we'll getback to our warehouse, open them
(41:51):
up, see if they're resellable.
If they are, we'll put themback in the inventory and resell
them.
You know, either as new, ifthey've never been opened or
like new, used very good.
I usually recommend used verygood because always go a level
below where you think it shouldbe so that, uh, you don't get a
return again.
(42:12):
Their expectations of like new.
It might be different than yourexpectations of like new Uh.
So always grade down uh, butthen we resell it and things
that we can't resell.
You know, it's just kind ofpart of the game.
Some suppliers will have anoption to return it back to them
(42:33):
and get a credit.
But that can be difficult aswell because that's a whole
nother level of management thatyou have to do.
But if you can get set up toreturn those ones back to
distributors and brands thatallow that, you can get a little
bit money back there.
Adam Shaffer (42:50):
But it's kind of just something you got to build
into, build into your businessand try to maximize and,
wherever you can, you have tohave a process for it.
Like you said, going throughand finding the new, putting it
back and regrading it andselling it.
Todd Welch (43:03):
So yeah, no, not with high returns.
And if it makes sense, youmight have to just cut those
ones.
Adam Shaffer (43:10):
Yep for sure.
So track your returns.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes we'llget an allowance from the brand,
sometimes they'll take backdefective, sometimes they'll
take and do stock rotation.
So I think it starts withtrying to negotiate with the
brand partners, but sometimesnot so easy and you got to have
a process for it.
So good stuff.
Todd Welch (43:31):
It really depends on the price of the product, right
?
Because if you're selling a $10product, by the time you get
the product back to yourwarehouse have someone open up
the box, look at it, figure outwhat they should do with it and
then have someone contact thebrand and send it back to the
brand.
You know you're using a dollaror two at least of labor, so is
(43:52):
it worth even doing it forlow-priced products?
But for higher-priced products,definitely.
You want to see those avenuesof getting some kind of
reimbursement on those.
Adam Shaffer (44:02):
Cool.
So with that I think we had abunch of pretty interesting
topics, but would love to hearfrom you Basically.
First start with what's youradvice to people that are
getting into it.
I know there's a ton of peoplein the biz, but there's still
people that want to leverage theplatform to start a new life,
start a new business, and it's alot easier than opening a
(44:23):
retail store or doing somethingelse.
So what's your advice forsomebody just getting in the
game?
Todd Welch (44:30):
Sure.
So my advice would be to treatit like a real business and
don't trust anyone who's tellingyou that you know Amazon is
passive income or you can make amillion dollars this year
selling on Amazon.
Most likely those people arejust trying to sell you a course
(44:51):
and not necessarily doing itthemselves.
So anything automated if itsays automated Amazon sales, run
away as fast as you can.
So treat it like a realbusiness.
Act as if you were going toopen up a gym in your local town
or whatever beauty salon, orwhatever the case may be.
(45:11):
Treat it like a real businessand do everything necessary to
set it up and get started Nowwith that.
As I said, take things step bystep right.
So just because you're treatingit like a real business doesn't
mean you have to understandeverything before you get
started.
But when I say that is, don'thave unreal expectations.
(45:37):
You know you're not going to bea millionaire next year.
If you start selling on Amazonright now.
It's possible, anything'spossible.
Your private label couldexplode.
Your wholesale business couldexplode.
If you're putting in 100 hoursa week, you could definitely do
it, but you're going to have toput in the time to do it and
(45:58):
start with one product you know.
Go to Goodwill, go to a thriftstore, go to Garage Sale, find
something that's unopened andthat you can sell on Amazon and
learn that process to sending itin and selling it, and get
started there and then take stepby step from there, learn from
(46:20):
other people.
Watch some of my videos, lookat the courses, membership
program, things like that.
Shoot me a message and ask mequestions.
I always am happy to reply toemails and stuff like that, but
the number one thing is to treatit like a real business and
don't expect to get richovernight.
It's not a get rich quickscheme or anything like that.
(46:44):
There's still a lot of money tobe made.
Amazon's definitely harder thanit used to be, but there's
still a lot of money to be madeif you're willing to put in the
work.
Adam Shaffer (46:55):
That is awesome advice and I do believe that
people think they could come inand make a killing overnight.
So thanks for that sound advice.
So, with that, how do peopleget in touch with you?
You were mentioning a couple ofthings, but why don't you just
repeat ways to connect with youand your company?
Todd Welch (47:12):
Sure.
So amazonsellerschool is one ofthe best ways I've got all my
information on there.
You can contact me on there.
You can click over to myInstagram, my X, my LinkedIn,
youtube, all of that from there.
But otherwise, you know,whatever platform you're on, if
you search for Amazon sellerschool, I'll probably come up on
(47:36):
there and you'll be able tofollow me on any of those
platforms and especially get onthe email list.
That's one of the still one ofthe best ways to communicate
with people and most effectiveways.
You know because you controlthat platform and you know
you're going to get my emailsonce you're on there.
(47:56):
Where with Facebook, linkedin,all that, it's all up to the
algorithms whether they show youanything that I post or not.
Adam Shaffer (48:04):
Well, that's great .
Well, thank you very much forspending the time with us.
I definitely learned a lot andI think you know you touched on
a lot of pretty hot topics forthe folks that are listening.
So thanks again and lookforward to spending more time
with you in the future and haveyou back on the show.
Todd Welch (48:19):
Absolutely, adam.
It's been great, thank you.
Announcement (48:24):
Thank you for watching another episode of the
Planet Amazon podcast, where wetalk all things Amazon.
If you want to learn about howto accelerate your sales on
Amazon, visit Phelps United'swebsite at phelpsunitedcom.
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