What Do I Do When I've Run Out of Products to Promote?

[StratoPaul]

Long time lurker with a Newb question...

Suppose I setup an Amazon Seller store on say.... Garden tools. And I call it "Garden Tools Society". And then I buy a domain "Gardentoolssociety.com" and I put up a WP site with each article having a "Buy it on Amazon" link (kinda like The Wirecutter) And obviously each link points to an item in MY Amazon store.

But eventually I'm going to be able to write more articles for this WP site than I have items in my Amazon store. At this point would you guys be OK with the "Buy it on Amazon" links pointing to the item in someone else's store? I mean, I'm still going to make a commission if a purchase occurs, just not as much $$ as if they're buying an item in MY store.

What do you guys think?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Suppose I setup an Amazon Seller store on say.... Garden tools. And I call it "Garden Tools Society". And then I buy a domain "Gardentoolssociety.com" and I put up a WP site with each article having a "Buy it on Amazon" link (kinda like The Wirecutter) And obviously each link points to an item in MY Amazon store.

But eventually I'm going to be able to write more articles for this WP site than I have items in my Amazon store. At this point would you guys be OK with the "Buy it on Amazon" links pointing to the item in someone else's store? I mean, I'm still going to make a commission if a purchase occurs, just not as much $$ as if they're buying an item in MY store.

My understanding is that Azon stores or whatever they call them absolutely suck for converting. I'd definitely rather send them to Amazon's normal, non-framed site and let them buy it there and whatever else, because Amazon are the kings of converting.

Or are you talking about items you have stocked and fulfilled by Amazon?

Anyways, yeah, if you tap out all of the possible content for your own items, I'd for sure expand out and promote other people's items. Money is money. I wouldn't accept a cap for such a reason, especially since you can funnel traffic around your site and lead them to your own items as well (which you'll get a higher ROI on).

But I'd likely make sure I was selling as many of my own items as possible first due to the higher ROI. Otherwise, I see no reason to not expand and grow. It'll fund your ability to create new products. You'll also be able to see which of your pages is selling well for other people, and then you can have that product created and replace the links to your own product. Sounds like a great way to test.

 

[StratoPaul]

Thanks Ryuzaki - yes this would be a typical Amazon FBA store.

You'll also be able to see which of your pages is selling well for other people, and then you can have that product created and replace the links to your own product. Sounds like a great way to test.

Much appreciated - this is a great way of thinking.

 

[ryandiscord]

Thanks Ryuzaki - yes this would be a typical Amazon FBA store.

You'll also be able to see which of your pages is selling well for other people, and then you can have that product created and replace the links to your own product. Sounds like a great way to test.

Much appreciated - this is a great way of thinking.

You might be getting your terminology mixed up (or I'm not fully following what you're doing). FBA is when you send your product to an Amazon warehouse to be shipped out by Amazon. It sounds like you're looking to create an Amazon Associate site, where you would include Amazon product links on your site. You could create an Amazon aStore but most affiliates, like the Wirecutter are using the product links feature or the API.

If I'm misunderstanding you, and you actually are selling your products through FBA and promoting it on your own site, I'd be curious to here how that goes

 

[StratoPaul]

Yes, thanks, that last part is correct. I'd be selling through FBA (each FBA seller has their own Amazon storefront name) and my website with the same name as the storefront would be used to help promote it. Each article about each garden tool would have the link (probably the products links API... thanks for pointing that out) to that tool on Amazon. Some would be linked to tools I'm selling, and some would be to tools someone else is selling.

 

[ryandiscord]

Yes, thanks, that last part is correct. I'd be selling through FBA (each FBA seller has their own Amazon storefront name) and my website with the same name as the storefront would be used to help promote it. Each article about each garden tool would have the link (probably the products links API... thanks for pointing that out) to that tool on Amazon. Some would be linked to tools I'm selling, and some would be to tools someone else is selling.

That's an interesting approach. Have you considered making your site an ecommerce store instead of promoting Amazon? Something I would be concerned about is that you may put all this work into a site that promotes an Amazon page, you're getting affiliate commission and the revenue from selling your product but, what happens if another seller (or worse, Amazon) joins that listing and begins selling it much cheaper than you and grabs the buy box? You either drop your price to remain competitive which erodes margin or, your site that was generating both commission and revenue is now only making affiliate commission.

If you had an ecommerce site, you could sell and fulfill your own product at your own price and still sell on Amazon by sending them your site's product feed. Have Amazon as your supporting channel. That same feed could be modified to send to Ebay, Walmart, Rakuten (ex: Sears). It could also be used for Google and Bing Shopping ads.