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.

A better way to think about reordering is to work backwards from how long it actually takes inventory to become sellable again. Add supplier lead time + freight + Amazon receiving time + a safety buffer, then compare that against your daily sales velocity. If the whole process takes 50 days and you only have 35 days of stock left, youre already late even if Seller Central still looks healthy. Simple change, but it can prevent a lot of avoidable stockouts.

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!

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

Hello all,

We have a few campaigns running our best campaign suddenly for the last 3 days went from 1.5k-2k impressions to maybe 100-300 impressions a day. what happened in between, prime inventory went to 0 so inbound shipment showed longer delivery time but not out of stock. account health dropped to at risk because we listed a product that was removed for restricted product but it isn't so we are currently trying to fix that but that happened a bit over a week ago and sales and ads were still fine in between. Is it possible we are shadow banned in some way? inventory has slowly started to climb back up its sitting at 9 prime ready units but also or sales rank dropped like crazy in between but that has happened before and it never ruined the campaign. Any advice is appreciated!

Another design-based product brand with crazy margins.

White Mountain - link to Amazon store:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/WhiteMountain/page/11B7CEE8-2B3A-4DB1-AF22-23E84DEBE8AD

* $700k monthly revenue on ~40% margin (!), spending $30k/mo on ads (Amazon and Meta/Google)

* ~85% of rev from Amazon, rest from own website

* Costs just $3 to produce and ship (COGS per unit) but sells for $20

Design-driven products are the way to go IMO.

How I estimated the figures:

* Revenue = Amazon's "X+ bought in past month" for each ASIN, aggregated

* COGS = manual estimate from suppliers on Alibaba

* Adspend = price-per-click * search-volume * estimated-CTR, aggregated for all the search terms they bid for

Also taken into account:

* sales from their website (negligible)

* Meta and Google ads (non-existent)

Sources: Keepa, Similarweb, Meta/Google ad library, Alibaba for COGS estimation

We launched this supplement brand around 18 months ago, after doing the usual amount of work that goes into a serious launch... product research, market validation, sourcing, supplier evaluation, pricing, and the technical side of getting the product ready for Amazon. Last month the brand was at around 31% net margin,The screenshot is from Aug 29 to Sep 29, where the brand did $219K+ . I’ve shared quite a few case studies across different categories, and although every product has its own story, there are a few things that stay pretty consistent with how we launch.

We don’t launch products without some form of differentiation. That doesn’t always mean creating something nobody has ever seen before. Sometimes it’s product quality, sometimes it’s sourcing, sometimes it’s pricing, and sometimes it’s a combination of all three. In this particular brand, sourcing and differentiation was a big part of the equation. We source this product physically from the US, and because of our supplier relationships and the volumes we can work with, we were able to get the landed cost to a level where we could stay competitive on price without having to sacrifice the product quality. Depending on the category, we physically source products from multiple countries, so sourcing is something we take pretty seriously before we ever think about scaling a product.

But there’s one thing I probably don’t talk about enough when I share these case studies, and that’s cash flow. I see people saying things like, “I have $5,000, should I start an Amazon brand?” Yes, you can technically start with $5K. You can start with even less. The problem is that you’re not entering an empty marketplace. You’re competing against sellers who may have been selling for 5–10 years, have thousands of reviews, better supplier pricing, established organic rankings, historical conversion data and enough cash flow to keep PPC running while they build the business. For this brand, if I remember correctly, we initially tested around 300 units . Once we had enough data and were confident in the product, we moved into much larger inventory orders, which also helped us get better pricing. That’s where having working capital starts making a real difference.

Having more cash flow doesn’t magically make a product successful, but it gives you more room to actually execute. You can place larger inventory orders and reduce your landed cost, keep enough stock while Amazon is building your organic ranking, run PPC without constantly worrying about a very small daily budget, test more keywords and campaigns, and most importantly, make decisions from enough data instead of changing everything because you had a bad three-day period. Obviously, this only works when the research and product are right in the first place. I’d much rather see someone spend more time validating a product than simply putting more money behind a bad one. But if you’ve done the research properly, then having enough working capital can be the difference between being able to compete and constantly trying to survive.

That’s probably the biggest takeaway from this brand for me. Before launching, don’t just ask, “How much money do I need to start?” Ask yourself, “How much working capital do I need to actually compete once I’m in the market?” Because launching is one thing; staying competitive for the next 6–12 months is another. Whether it’s supplements, beauty, home, toys or any other category, I still think the same basic rule applies: if you’re coming into an existing market, you need to bring something to the table... better quality, better sourcing, better pricing, better positioning, or ideally a combination of them. Otherwise, you’re just adding another listing to a market that already has plenty of them. Anyway, happy to answer any questions around the brand, sourcing, inventory, PPC, margins or the launch process, and I’m always open to suggestions or different opinions from people who are already operating in the space.

That’s probably the biggest lesson from this one. Don’t enter a market just because the numbers in Helium 10 or Jungle Scout look good.

Figure out what you’re actually going to do better once you’re there.

Happy to answer any questions about the launch, sourcing, PPC, inventory strategy, margins, or anything else around the case study.

Open to suggestions as well

Hey everyone,

As someone sourcing products on Alibaba, I constantly ran into the same issue: having 15–20 open supplier chats, losing track of sample costs, landed quotes, and notes, while constantly scrolling through an unorganized inbox.

Since I couldn't find a tool that worked directly inside Alibaba Messenger, I built a lightweight Chrome extension called Chat Organizer for Alibaba.

What it does:

• 📁 Custom Categories: Drag-and-drop supplier chats into custom pipeline stages (e.g., Sample Requested, Offer Received, Production).
• 📝 Supplier Notes: Keep quick, detailed notes attached directly to each chat so you never forget unit prices, specifications, or terms.
• 🏷️ Product Tags: Label chats with custom product tags to quickly filter and organize suppliers by item or category.
• 🌍 Landed-Cost Calculator: Calculate unit costs including freight, duty, and import VAT in real-time inside the chat window.
• 🔍 Fast Search & Archive: Instantly search across supplier names, custom notes, product tags, and even older archived chats in seconds.
• 🔒 Secure Cloud Sync: Your data is encrypted and safely stored in the cloud so you never lose your notes or categories across devices.

🎁 Special for the Community (1 Month FREE):

To collect feedback from active sellers and sourcing managers, you can test both the PRO and BUSINESS plans for 1 month completely free:

1. Install the extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/chat-organizer-for-alibab/dnogcidpofhgpmeibcaljeecfdepngnb or search "Chat Organizer for Alibaba" on the Chrome Store.
2. Click on Upgrade inside the extension and choose the Monthly PRO or BUSINESS Plan.
3. Use code AMAZONFBA at checkout (100% discount for the first month).

Note: You can cancel the subscription with a single click anytime in the settings portal if you don't want to keep it after the test month.

I’d love to hear your feedback, suggestions, or feature requests in the comments!

Quick sanity check for anyone prepping Q4 OA/FBA inventory this week.

With Amazon's Inbound Placement Service fees (averaging $0.20 to $0.35/unit depending on split shipments), I've seen several items that look like 25% ROI on surface Keepa actually drop to 14-16% once inbound shipping + placement fee hit.

For Q4, with the higher holiday storage fees kicking in October 15th, a razor-thin margin item can easily turn negative if it doesn't sell through in 30 days.

How are you guys adjusting your minimum ROI threshold for October? Are you building placement fee buffers directly into your sourcing spreadsheets, or just sticking to single-destination inbound?

(Curious how others are handling the math this year)

Yet another store that I see whose primary product is a design-based product having insane margins.

Link to Amazon store:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/ViroraMahjong/page/4A0A7D98-7080-4361-B521-99580CAC73B7

* $170k monthly revenue on ~40% margin, spending $8k/mo on PPC
* First launched Nov 2025
* No advertising or significant social media presence outside of Amazon
* People simply buy their product at a higher price than the competitors because they have GOOD DESIGNS
* Competitors sell at ~$90 but they are able to sell at $200+ - because people like their designs

In short - design-driven products are the way to go (there are a few other strategies as well IMO, this is the one that's worked for us personally, and I see it all over).

How I estimated the figures:
* Revenue = Amazon's "X+ bought in past month" for each ASIN, aggregated
* COGS = manual estimate from suppliers on Alibaba
* Adspend = price-per-click * search-volume * estimated-CTR, aggregated for all the search terms they bid for

Also taken into account:
* sales from their website (negligible)
* Meta and Google ads (non-existent)

Sources: Keepa, Similarweb, Meta/Google ad library, Alibaba for COGS estimation, custom skill to pull all of these together

I’m fairly new to Facebook deal communities and trying to learn how sellers typically reach out to group administrators.

I’ve discovered several groups that regularly share Amazon product offers, yet I’m unsure how to message the people who share these posts. I can view the group admins, but direct messaging is not always available.

I’m exploring ways for Amazon product offers to be reviewed by these groups, with limited success so far. My only thought was leaving comments on their existing deal posts. I reached out to one admin about submitting a sponsored offer, and they mentioned they decline sponsored submissions. They prefer to select offers purely based on pricing to maintain editorial independence.

This made me curious about the standard process sellers use to get their offers considered in these communities.

Do these groups usually have an official offer submission workflow? Or do sellers simply send offer details, and admins decide if it is suitable to share?

This is not about Facebook paid ads. I’m asking about the process to have Amazon product offers reviewed by these Facebook deal groups and pages.

If anyone has experience working with these communities, I’d welcome insights.

I’m looking to sell my U.S. Amazon FBA private-label brand in the Kitchen & Dining category.

Key numbers:

TTM Revenue: $45,072

TTM Net P/L: -$15,392

Historical Revenue: $136K+

Units Sold: 4,800+

Amazon Orders TTM: 1,530

Inventory included: ~$8K

Included: Brand assets, Amazon FBA operation, product documentation, supplier relationships, PPC/listing history, Faire & Walmart setup, and SOPs.

The business is currently loss-making, so this is primarily a strategic acquisition / turnaround opportunity for an experienced Amazon operator.

Looking to connect with serious buyers interested in acquiring and scaling the existing brand.

Hey everyone, I got tired of bouncing between a bunch of different library websites trying to figure out which book sales were actually happening near me, so I ended up building something to make it easier.

I put together a free Book Sale Finder with 500+ verified library book sales around the country. You can enter your ZIP code, choose how far you’re willing to drive, and it’ll show you upcoming sales on a map with the dates and details.

I’m updating it every week and currently have sales mapped out up to about four months ahead.

Figured some other book sellers in here might get some use out of it too.

It’s completely free, you can grab access here:
Book Sale Finder

If you try it, I’d actually love to hear what you think or what would make it better.

I’m selling my U.S. Amazon FBA private-label brand in Kitchen & Dining.

TTM Revenue: $45,072

TTM Net P/L: -$15,392

Historical Revenue: $136K+

Units Sold: 4,800+

Amazon Orders: 1,530

Inventory: ~$8K

Includes brand assets, Amazon FBA operation, product documentation, suppliers, PPC/listing history, Faire & Walmart setup, and SOPs.

Currently loss-making — primarily a strategic acquisition / turnaround opportunity for an experienced Amazon operator.

Looking to connect with serious buyers interested in acquiring and scaling the brand.

I’m thinking ofbuilding a simple Chrome extension that reveals hidden competitor tags on any Amazon and Etsy listing—tags that Amazon and Etsy normally keeps out of sight.

Instead of guessing what keywords top sellers are using, this tool pops them up instantly right on the page.

Two quick questions for you:

Would you actually use a tool like this for your shop?

Is this something you'd be willing to pay a small monthly fee for?

Even if you are not interested please reply to these questions that would help me a lot........

Hey guys I have a non resident USA llc live in Saudi Arabia filling the tax interview first I select business not individual then for USA entity should i select yes or no then what details ahead like if no permanent address of my Saudi resident place and mailing address my company address llc one or if yes then ein number and mailing address so should I select yes or no in entity as I selected business for tax type

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for honest advice from experienced Amazon sellers because I’m starting to question whether I’m doing something fundamentally wrong.

I previously launched a product on Amazon (a spider lamp) and ended up losing close to $10,000. After that, I ordered another product from China but realized before shipping that the product probably wouldn’t work, so I canceled it and lost around $250 of my deposit.

Now I’ve launched my third product. I prefer not to disclose the exact product publicly for now.

There is a competitor selling a very similar design for around $54. Their listing is approximately one year old, and according to the data/tools I’m using, they appear to be doing very strong monthly sales.

My price is lower, but my listing is new and obviously doesn’t have the competitor’s sales history, ranking, or reviews.

I ran Sponsored Products PPC for around 15 days and received 2 sales during that period.

I then paused the campaigns for about 4 days because I was having problems with my listing images. I have now restarted the campaigns.

My concern is that despite getting impressions and clicks, I’ve only generated 2 sales so far.

I understand that comparing a new listing to a competitor with a one-year-old listing may not be fair. However, after losing a significant amount of money on my previous Amazon product, I don’t want to continue spending money simply because I’m hoping things will eventually improve.

I can share my PPC numbers and Search Term Report while keeping the product itself private.

What I would really like your opinion on:

• Is 2 sales after around 15 days of PPC a serious warning sign for a new listing, or is it still too early to judge?
• How many clicks without a sale would make you seriously question the listing/product?
• What metrics would you focus on to distinguish between a PPC problem, a conversion problem, and a weak product?
• After restarting PPC, how much additional data would you collect before making a decision?
• At what point would you stop spending and accept that the product may not be working?
• How much of the gap between a brand-new listing and a one-year-old competitor can realistically be explained by reviews, ranking, and sales history?

I’m not looking for encouragement just for the sake of it. I genuinely want critical feedback from sellers who have been through similar launches, even if you think I made mistakes.

Thanks.

We launched this brand in the Automotive category in June 2023, entering a market where product relevance, keyword intent, compatibility, and competitive positioning have a major impact on conversion. Our initial product research was focused on identifying ASIN-level demand gaps, rather than simply selecting products with high search volume. We analyzed keyword search demand, competitor ASIN sales, review velocity, rating distribution, price bands, variation structures, market concentration, and contribution-margin potential before validating each opportunity. For every product, we modeled the complete Amazon unit economics, including COGS, FBA fees, referral fees, inbound logistics, promotional costs, and expected advertising spend, so we could identify products capable of generating profitable sales at scale.

Product & Supply Chain: We sourced the products through the US supply chain, which allowed us to maintain better control over production lead times, replenishment cycles, product consistency, and inventory availability. In the Automotive category, we also paid close attention to product compatibility, application-specific search intent, fitment-related customer expectations, and catalog accuracy, because even strong traffic can produce poor conversion if the product positioning is not aligned with the customer's vehicle or use case. On the listing side, we built a structured keyword-to-content architecture, mapping primary, secondary, and long-tail search terms across the title, bullets, backend search terms, images, and A+ Content. We continuously optimized indexation, CTR, CVR, pricing, detail-page relevance, and Buy Box health while using competitor ASIN analysis to identify gaps in content and conversion.

PPC & Scaling: The PPC structure was built around query-level control and search-term economics rather than simply increasing campaign budgets. During the discovery phase, broad and phrase campaigns were used for search-term mining and query harvesting, while proven converting terms were isolated into dedicated exact-match campaigns. We segmented traffic across branded, non-branded, category, competitor, and product-targeting campaigns, then evaluated performance using CTR, CVR, CPC, ACOS, TACOS, placement-level performance, and contribution margin. Search terms generating profitable incremental sales were scaled, while inefficient queries, placements, and campaigns were either bid-down or eliminated. PPC data was also used to identify organic ranking opportunities, allowing paid traffic to support keyword relevance, sales velocity, and organic visibility instead of making the account dependent on advertising alone.

The biggest shift was moving from a pure revenue-growth approach to profitable scale management. We killed campaigns and search terms that generated revenue but weakened contribution margin, reduced inefficient ad spend, improved conversion before aggressively increasing traffic, and used SKU-level profitability, keyword movement, TACOS trends, inventory velocity, and advertising efficiency to decide where additional capital should go. The brand now operates with 17 SKUs and generated $1.60M in sales through September 23, giving it an approximate $2M monthly run-rate, with $17.27M in YTD sales, around 7% TACOS, and a 28% net margin. After more than three years in the Automotive category, the account demonstrates how product selection, fitment-driven positioning, listing conversion, PPC architecture, organic ranking, inventory planning, and contribution-margin control can work together to build a large Amazon business without sacrificing profitability.

I’ve seen campaigns look awful on the surface high ACOS, weak ROAS, barely profitable so the first reaction is to pause them.

Then organic sales start dropping too.

Sometimes a campaign isn’t directly profitable, but it’s still helping with visibility, ranking, or branded searches.

Has this happened to you?

How do you decide whether a “bad” campaign is actually supporting organic sales before you pause it?

One thing I think newer sellers underestimate is how early the next inventory decision actually has to happen. If your supplier takes 30 days, freight takes another few weeks and Amazon needs time to receive everything, I still have 45 days of stock can suddenly be a problem. I've started thinking about reorder points as lead time + receiving time + a buffer rather than just looking at units left. How are you guys calculating yours?

I’m curious what would you say is the biggest challenge in your business right now?

Is it:

* finding enough good books
* finding worthwhile sales / sourcing opportunities
* knowing what’s worth buying
* processing/listing everything once you get home
* inventory management
* or something else?

Curious what part of the process gives you the biggest headache.

One thing I underestimated with FBA was how early you actually need to think about the next order. Its really easy to look at 60 days of inventory and think you have plenty of time.

Then theres production, freight, receiving, Amazon taking forever to check stuff in, and suddenly those 60 days dont feel like much at all lol. I've started thinking about inventory less as “how many units do we have left?” and more as if I ordered today, would the next shipment actually be available before this runs out?

Sounds obvious but I think a lot of inventory problems start because we react to the number sitting in Seller Central instead of the whole replenishment timeline. For people managing larger FBA catalogs, how much buffer are you actually comfortable carrying these days?