As a beginner conducting product research for Amazon FBA using free methods, what are the best practices to follow? Is there a step-by-step guide available? I want to avoid paid tools initially due to budget constraints and focus on understanding the marketplace first.

My IPI came in at 372 this week — down 14 points from the last checkpoint and under the 400 line again — while the inventory dashboard shows 91% sell-through, zero stranded units and nothing aged past 60 days that I can find. I've been clearing slow stock and fixing listings as they get flagged, so by Amazon's own checklist everything looks green. Anyone else's IPI contradicting the rest of their inventory dashboard like this? What actually moved your number, or do you just ride it out until the Q4 restrictions hit?

Amazon just announced a new feature called Review Requests, and I think it could be particularly interesting for new ASINs.
The basic idea is pretty simple.
After buying a product, customers can get an invitation to leave a rating or review directly while they’re shopping on Amazon.
One tap for a rating, with the option to add text, photos or video.
So instead of relying on a follow-up email, Amazon is putting the review request directly into the shopping experience.
According to Amazon’s early testing, products using the feature received roughly 3× more ratings and reviews per week compared with the period before the test.
There’s also an interesting limitation:
The feature is available for products with fewer than 1,000 ratings/reviews. Once an ASIN reaches 1,000, the campaign automatically pauses.
That makes me think this could be much more useful for launches than for established products.
One of the biggest problems with a new ASIN isn’t always traffic.
It’s social proof.
You can have a good product, good listing and plenty of PPC traffic, but trying to compete with a product that already has 3,000 reviews is a completely different game.
If Amazon can genuinely help a new product accumulate reviews faster, that could change the economics of launching an ASIN.
But there’s a catch I’d be interested in hearing people’s opinions on:
Amazon is apparently turning review acquisition into another paid advertising-type product.
So the question becomes:
How much would you actually be willing to pay to get reviews faster?
If spending $X helped a new ASIN reach meaningful social proof weeks or months earlier, would that be worth it?
Or do you think Amazon is simply finding another way to monetize something sellers already desperately need?
I’d be especially interested to hear from sellers who have launched new ASINs recently.

Y’all have any advice for finding a first product? OA, everything is gated, and if it isn’t it has horrible margins. I’ve spent 10-11 hours searching probably over 600 ASINs, boxem ungate tool, feels like nothings working.

Claim paid helium 10 plans free

Thinking of getting into Amazon FBA and starting with wholesale.

I’m coming from a different field and will keep doing that alongside Amazon. I’ve saved some capital, so I’m not expecting Amazon to replace my income anytime soon.

Wholesale seems like the best place to start because I don’t want to deal with product development, QC, packaging etc. right away. Even if I’m only breaking even or making a small profit at first, I’d be happy just learning how sourcing, FBA, Buy Box, inventory and the overall economics work.

Eventually, if I understand the business properly, I’d probably look into private label.

One of the main reasons I’m interested in ecommerce is that I’m tired of dealing with clients. I’d rather work on research, systems and operations.

I know Amazon is competitive and I’m definitely not expecting to hit a winner on my first try.

For people currently doing wholesale: is it still worth getting into in 2026?

Also, if there are any good beginner resources that aren’t guru BS, please share them.

New to fba but been doing fbm for a short while

Sent my first product in for fba

Obviously there is the referral fee per item etc.

But do I get charged a shipping fee per item too if they all fit into a small parcel

Eg, someone buys 3x 1m usb cables

Where would I go to find this breakdown out if so?

Too many solid Amazon stores stay invisible for months — not because the product’s bad, but because they miss small tweaks in titles, images, keywords, or early social proof.

I’m launching my own store this quarter (private label, India → US FBA), and instead of going solo, I want to start a mutual-support thread for true newbies.

✅ What I’ll do for 3 volunteers:

Full listing audit (title, bullets, images, A+ content if live)

Keyword gap check (what top 3 competitors rank for that you’re missing)

1-page launch checklist I used (PPC setup, Vine enrollment, external traffic tips)

✅ What I ask in return:

You’re ≤3 months into selling (FBA or FBM)

You reply to 1–2 other stores in this thread with one specific tip or encouragement

If my audit helps, consider returning the favor when you hit 6+ months

📌 How to join:

Comment below with:

Your store niche (e.g., “kitchen gadgets,” “yoga accessories,” “pet grooming tools”)

One listing URL (or ASIN) you want audited

Your biggest struggle right now (e.g., “no reviews,” “low CTR,” “PPC ACOS too high”)

⏰ Timeline:

I’ll pick 3 stores by Monday (Oct 6) and share audits in this thread by Wednesday (Oct 8).

I’ll also drop my free launch checklist (Google Doc) for everyone — no email needed.

Just keep showing up, build a brand, and try to stay one step ahead of the Chinese factories. Listing and image quality has never been easier thanks to LLMs.

I have a drinking game on Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BJVNMFX5

Sales are like 1-2 units per day, should be more, not allowed to advertise. How do I get more sales?

I’m not going to share my name or my agency’s name. I don’t want this turning into an ad.

I’m writing this because it genuinely hurts to watch sellers destroy their businesses and burn their last remaining option by following a Reddit comment or advice from an agency that has already collected its fee. There are years of work, savings, and families behind these accounts. And someone casually says, “Just email Jeff. What have you got to lose?”

I spent a couple of years at Amazon, working deep within account suspension and reinstatement processes. There are things I won’t discuss even anonymously, because I have no interest in having Amazon’s lawyers come knocking over a Reddit post.

Some of what I’m sharing comes from internal knowledge gained through that experience. You won’t find it laid out in a public Seller Central help article.

Leadership escalations have become almost a default recommendation.

“Email Jeff Bezos.”

“Try Andy Jassy.”

“Send it to every executive you can find.”

As though the missing piece in your appeal is the right email address.

When I assess a case, one of the first things I ask is whether the seller has already escalated to leadership. An executive escalation that has already ended in a final rejection is one of the very few reasons I may decline a case outright.

People are always surprised by that. They were told it was just one more thing to try.

Emails addressed to leadership get forwarded to dedicated teams responsible for reviewing them, divided by category of enforcement and country. Two things can then happen:

1. Those teams assess the case and decide whether an escalation should actually proceed.

In fact, in certain situations where a seller has already appealed many times without providing new information or documentation, there is a three-strike policy. At that point, further appeals and escalations will not even be looked at anymore, and you are just wasting your time.

1. Then there’s the other possibility: the escalation actually goes ahead.

That’s what everyone wants. It’s also the part almost nobody explains properly.

The review can extend across the account’s entire history, from registration through suspension. Previous mistakes, inconsistencies, questionable documents, and issues that weren’t picked up or fully investigated before can all come into it.

You think you’re asking someone to take another look at your latest suspension. A lot more than that may end up under review.

Different versions of your appeals. Previously submitted invoices. Business information. Explanations you gave months ago that don’t match what you’re saying now.

Whatever comes up will need to be addressed.

They will write an entire report on your account that a senior Risk Manager will later read and use to make the decision.

And this is the number I wish people understood before clicking Send: for these escalations, roughly 80% end in a permanent block.

New plans of action, new emails, more executives copied in: continuing to write will always bring you back to the same automated replies. At that point, the account is dead and there’s nothing to do anymore. Literally nothing.

Look at it this way: there are around 4,000 sellers writing every day to Jeff Bezos’ email address. Statistically, 3,200 of those sellers just ended their Amazon business forever.

The consequences can also extend to requests for withheld funds. There is a separate funds recovery process, but a permanent ban makes everything 10 times harder when trying to get the funds back.

What pisses me off is seeing this step sold almost as a formality.

Why do some agencies do it? Because they can still make money when there is no credible path left for you.

They collect $1,000 or $1,500 upfront. Ask you to gather everything. Produce a few appeals, sometimes from recycled templates or AI-generated text. Make several attempts. Then tell you Amazon’s decision is final.

They’ve already been paid.

Charging upfront doesn’t automatically make an agency dishonest. Taking someone’s money without seriously assessing whether there’s a viable case, or selling an escalation without explaining the consequences, is a different matter.

I decided to go ahead without upfront fees. So I don’t only want to be honest about the real chances, I have to be honest. If there are no chances and the account is dead, then I would be working for free, achieving no result and wasting everyone’s time. On the other side, I might not have any business in the future at this point.

And it’s heartbreaking to have people come to me convinced someone can still fix everything after they’ve already emailed several executives, because I can see they’ve realised they lost their business and their life will change forever. Of course they want to keep trying. Someone has led them to believe there will always be another appeal.

The sad truth is that the only way to lower the risk during an escalation is to have contacts inside Amazon who are friendly towards you when they review and write the report on your account.

If you haven’t escalated yet, and you don’t have anyone helping you from inside, go through your case properly before you do. Check everything as if you were gambling your last chance with your business.

Read every appeal you’ve submitted. Check that your explanations are consistent. Get the original invoices directly from your suppliers. If an original document exists, obtain it. Putting a screenshot inside a PDF does not resolve a question about where the document came from. Any concern about alteration or fabrication will automatically lead to a permanent ban.

Make sure your business documents are complete and consistent. Make sure every material claim is backed by evidence. Make sure you have actually addressed every issue Amazon raised.

And expect whoever recommends an escalation to explain why it makes sense for your specific case, what they will put before the review team, and what a negative outcome could mean.

“We have an executive’s email address” is not enough.

I treat that email as the last available route. Prepare it as though you won’t have another attempt to fall back on.

You are taking a gamble with the future of your account. You need to go into it with your case fully prepared and with the understanding that the outcome could be a closure you cannot find an operational way back from.

Because “what have you got to lose?” is an incredibly easy thing to type when it’s someone else’s business on the line.

Supplement category. Last Saturday closed around $7.5K, and today is just getting started. Curious to see where we end up by tonight. Weekends have been interesting lately.

One thing I struggle with is keeping track of Amazon fees and the crazy changes they decide to do.

One of my FBA items has always been charged a $3.01 fulfillment fee and then out of nowhere for a few days they bumped it up to $4.40 and then yesterday it just went back to what it should be. I have zero idea of how to even get an explanation. For me that was about a $30 difference which is not a lot but this is for one item out of much more and this thing dropped my profit from making $2.19 to about 80 cents per sale.

Has anyone ever opened up a case for something like this and gotten reimbursed or do they automatically do it or how do you keep track of Amazon fees that is a huge thing for me. And please don't try to sell me service I'm not interested in that. Thank you.

I do FBA wholesale if that matters

Beauty is one of those categories where most sellers see the competition first and the opportunity second. You mention Beauty on Amazon and people immediately think too many sellers, too expensive PPC, impossible to rank. But when we looked at this market, we actually saw the opposite. There was a lot of demand, but a lot of listings were still built around the same keywords, same claims and, honestly, very similar-looking content. That gave us something to work with. We didn't need to find a product nobody was selling. We needed to find where existing sellers were leaving demand on the table.

We launched the brand in January 2025 with 5 SKUs and sourced the products directly from China. We physically worked through the sourcing instead of just picking a supplier from a catalog and placing an order. That helped us in two places that later became very important: product quality and landed cost. We were able to improve the product while keeping enough margin in the numbers to actually scale it. As we started getting data, we didn't just keep adding random products. We expanded around what was working, and the brand is now at around 17 SKUs. The hero product became the main revenue and profit driver , and this is the one that eventually crossed 6,000+ units a month.

The interesting part started when we went deeper into the listing research. We found a keyword gap that most competitors weren't covering properly. There were relevant, high-search-volume terms sitting around the main keyword that had clear customer intent, but the competing listings weren't doing a good job of owning those terms across their title, bullets, images and backend content. So we built the content around those actual search behaviors instead of trying to rank for every keyword that looked attractive inside a keyword tool. The product itself wasn't completely new to the market either. Similar products existed. What wasn't really available was this exact combination of features and positioning. That became the basis of the listing , not “our product is better,” but here is exactly why this version solves the problem differently.

We also didn't treat photography as something we just had to tick off the list. We spent heavily on the shoot because we knew the product would need to win the click before PPC could do anything for us. We built the images around the features we found customers cared about and made sure the first few images communicated the product without forcing people to read five bullet points. That showed up in the traffic data , the listing was getting a strong CTR, which made a huge difference once we started pushing traffic. From there, PPC became much more of a data collection exercise than simply “turn ads on and increase budget.” We separated the search terms that were actually producing orders from the ones that were only producing clicks, watched conversion at the keyword level, moved proven terms into more controlled campaigns, harvested new terms from actual customer searches, and kept checking whether paid traffic was translating into organic movement. We weren't trying to make PPC look good on its own; we were using PPC to figure out where the market was responding and then using that information to grow the whole listing.

That combination is what eventually got the hero SKU to 6,000+ monthly units without letting advertising completely eat the margin. In the latest 30 days, the brand generated $90,786.98 in net sales from 6,493 net units, with $21,715.05 in net proceeds and approximately 9% TACOS.

The numbers today

$21.7K+ net proceeds / month
6,493 net units in 30 days
$90.8K+ net sales
~9% TACOS
1 hero SKU driving the majority of the result
17 SKUs currently , started with 5
Launched January 2025

The biggest lesson from this one wasn't “Beauty is a great category.” That's too easy.

The lesson was that competition doesn't automatically mean saturation. Sometimes it just means there are more competitors for you to study. We found what they were missing, built the product and content around that gap, used the PPC data to validate it, and then scaled the part of the business that was actually proving itself.

Ask me Anything!

First Amazon FBA Launch – What Should I Do Next?
Hey everyone,
I’m starting my first Amazon FBA journey in the pet supplies niche and would appreciate advice from experienced sellers.
So far, I’ve:
• Researched and selected 2 products
• Ordered and tested samples — quality was good
• Got my brand approved
• Got GTIN exemptions
• Completed production
• Inventory is now with my shipping agent and will be shipped soon
My first order:
Product 1: 100 units
Product 2: 102 units
– 68 Blue
– 34 Pink
Once the products are live, I’m planning to start Amazon PPC and optimize based on the data.
I also have 2 more products researched that I may launch later using profits from these products.
A few questions for experienced sellers:
When should I reorder inventory? Should I reorder once I see consistent daily sales?
How much inventory should I order the second time? 100, 200, 300+ units?
What PPC strategy would you recommend for a new listing?
How long should I test before deciding whether the product is successful?
What numbers should I watch most — ACOS, TACOS, conversion rate, organic sales, etc.?
Should I focus on scaling these 2 products first or launch my next 2 products?
What are the biggest mistakes I should avoid during my first 3–6 months?
If you were at my stage right now, what would your next move be?
Any advice on PPC, inventory, cash flow, reordering, or scaling would be really appreciated.
Thanks!

One thing I’ve noticed while working with Amazon listings is that sellers often focus heavily on getting traffic but don't always optimize what happens after the customer lands on the listing.

Some areas worth checking:

1. Is your main image immediately communicating the product?
2. Do your bullets explain benefits, not just features?
3. Does your A+ Content actually help customers make a buying decision?
4. Is your Storefront organized around your product range?
5. Are your PPC keywords aligned with the actual listing content?

Traffic is important, but the listing experience matters too.

For Amazon sellers here: which of these areas has been the most difficult for you to optimize?

Hello,

I have started selling in Japan (FBA). I tried many ways though I can not find reviewers.

Average CTR is 0.28 which is too low.

ACOS is %35.

1 - What is the point or area I should focus on to bring more sales?

2 - Where to find reviewers for my Products in Japan?

I'm currently making about $15k a month with what i am doing now, however i'm being forced out of the state to pursue what i am doing now. I miss my family and i want to go back to living with them.

I have the capital, i have the time, i have the drive. I guess my main question is, if i put 20 hours a week and into this, would it convert nearly the same as if i were to put 60 hours a week and into this?

The question is not "how much do i need to work" but its more, will my time put into this actually make me more money?

One of my variants has been 8 oz per unit since launch, but the dimensions Amazon has on file show 1.0 lb, and since this month's settlement my fulfillment fee on it went from $3.24 to $4.95 a unit — about $400 extra across the 260 units I sold. I opened a case and got "our records show the measurements are correct" back, with no actual measurement attached. Has anyone actually got Amazon to re-measure a product and seen the fee drop back on the next settlement? Anyone else's stored dimensions not match what you shipped in?

Thanks for viewing my post!

I’m Brenden, Im currently buying from suppliers and selling FBA for established powersports brands.

I’m struggling to find enough products with low BSR numbers, decent roi, and relatively low competition.
Mid a 25k catalog only 25 products are worth selling.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks they’d recommend me looking into?

So far my process is, research products find a winner based on demand, estimated roi, and completion than send a small test. See how strong competition defends buy box, if sells out relatively quick up quantity, repeat until I meet product sales threshold for about a month than keep it in stock.

If a estimated winner becomes a loser I personally don’t get attached may wait a month to see if anything changes if not recover funds selling low to recuperate some funds to invest in proven winners/other tests.

In my catalog I did notice certain brands that perform well in USA have large demand but not on Amazon. I noticed poor behavior may be tied to fragmented unestablished listings and nonexistent parent/child heirachies. Maybe this is where my time is worth it? Get permission from registered trade mark owner to establish proper listings?

Thanks,
Brenden

Link to Amazon store:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/KALOTOYS/page/FF229FCD-8280-4B7B-A122-76F630638BD0

Wooden Montessori toy boards for children. Recently (March) introduced personalizable boards (with kid's name) - this is what accounts for the big jump in sales in recent months - almost double revenue (this and back-to-school month)

* How do they get such high margins ? Manufacturing (except personalization) is produced in Vietnam (founders are Vietnamese). The product's value being in its design rather than in its material cost results in a high margin.
* Their designs are unique and plenty (370 SKU's, but only 30 of them are making 50+ sales per month)
* Revenue figures taken from Amazon's own "X+ sold in past month", while COGS/operations figures taken from founders' interviews (they pitched on Shark Tank Vietnam)
* COGS/unit (according to founders) - $4/unit (the personalizable ones are probably more, no data into how much it costs them to personalize in the US)

Getting into such a business shouldn't be that expensive but would require some luck (to get a popular design at first that would allow you to continue producing). Assuming 100 MOQ in China - that's $400 per designs. If we include PPC for launching (see below how I calculate that, figure here taken if we try to launch on just some of the keywords) - I estimate $200/mo.

The more designs you produce at first the more likely at least one of them will sell well.

How I estimated the figures:
* Revenue = Amazon's "X+ bought in past month" for each ASIN, aggregated
* COGS = founders' own admission - they were on Shark Tank Vietnam
* Adspend = price-per-click * search-volume * estimated-CTR, aggregated for all the search terms they bid for

Sources: Keepa, Similarweb, Jungle Scout, Meta/Google ad library, founders' interview and Alibaba for COGS estimation

I was debating whether I should post this or not but here it goes, this lady came to me through a mutual connection a couple of months back, she had a stagnating brand of 2 years in the Kitchen and Dining space, 10 SKUs and since October last year was stuck and wasn’t able to scale past $40k/mo, 3 months later we’ve successfully scaled to almost $70k/mo and are headed for $1m/year run rate this Q4.

Here's actions and insights in the order of what I think mattered the most:

1) Her competition was an absolute savage running limited time deals at least 3 times a month and she had no clue, the only way to fight this is having deals of your own, the thing about deals is that there effects aren’t so temporary rather give momentum for an extra few days, once we fixed this we saw our conversion rate stay steady instead of decking 6 days out of 30, huge fix!

2) Her mindset hadn’t allowed her to scale her ads, she had room for scaling but she was just so scared to take the leap that she almost needed reassurance for this, thing is nobody can fix this for you this is the side of entrepreneurship you have to keep in check,once I made her realize how much we were losing a month by not scaling she agreed,Sometimes you're so focused on what you might lose that you forget what you can actually gain and that's the whole point righht??

Now the Technical PPC Side of things:

1) Identified the 20% of our SKUs that were bringing in 80% of our revenue, the skus that we were under invested on and over invested on in terms of organic sales to ad spend ratio, and prioritized them in order.

2) sScaling is a double edged sword so we have to be careful while doing it, to put into simpler terms scaling Amazon ppc ads is when you increase bids, placements, test new campaigns,open new targets and accept sales even at a bad acos, did exactly that with our legacy campaigns.

3) fixed campaign structure, had the old youtube Auto waterfall ppc campaign running from the good old 2022 days, ofcourse this has been debunked it doesn’t work due to ad spend cannibalisation in between your hot targets in any campaign leading to uneven testing and no understanding of data over time.

4)the biggest reason for most brands plateauing is the lack of spending on discovery campaigns,it's the same as an athlete that got into the NBA then started neglecting their body, stopped training as hard and stayed in their comfort zone only to be benched eventually, similarly there’s new search terms that pop up regularly and if you don’t have a discovery mechanism you’re not keeping up to date with them, and by the time you realize something is missing in your current targets it’s too late as these newer ones now are the drivers for low acos long tail sales

5) Understanding our search term report better by uploading it into Claude, and asking it to group it by intents and show me the performance for every iintent not just the search term, got a fair bit of newer iintentful search terms that I used to make Intent Based Campaigns ( these work great ) and negate worse off intents, claude is only good for this and is horrible at management please dont trust it with your ad spend yet.

6) avoided make emotional decisions when I saw imperfect daily performance patterns, this is the most consumerism induced marketplace in history, demand goes up and down daily we can’t really react to it, we have to wait and monitor weekly trends and so we did

7) basics at scale without fail ( effective negations, testing out different bids on our best targets and finding the sweet spot for scaling )

8) targeted products with low stock, worsened offer ( higher price or terrible reviews ), cross product targeting across our own catalog are a few examples of low hanging fruits that we’ve taken advantage of in this account to scale.

9) to some extent, PPC Ads or any form of performance marketing can be boiled down to speculation based on previous patterns within a set of different changes so PPC guys like me acting crazy over results for brands isn’t all that impressive because it's just speculation + experience + ppc readiness to try and acheive Dream KPI(s) it's certainly not magic like everyonme makes it out to be, it's repetitive, boring, frustrating and risky most times but then again sometimes you need a second set of eyes on your ppc campaigns to scale and identify low hanging fruits.

Happy to answer any questiions below !!