Trade on Amazon with Stephen Somers
Trade on Amazon to build your business
Stephen Somers is a co-founder of Marketplace SuperHeroes. They train people to trade on Amazon. Stephen has been part of this business for several years and is now an expert in setting up and running businesses using the Amazon platform.
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Stephen hails from Wexford
County Wexford is 2 hours south of Dublin. He lived in Northern Ireland for several years and where he met his business partner, Robert Rickey.
Is this a Gig Business?
They typically have 3 categories of people as clients.
1. No business, works in a job, don’t like their job, wanted a business to pep up their lives.
2. Might have a current business, like an accountant or solicitor, a profession, and they want to build something on the side. Perhaps to transfer themselves into a full time gig eventually.
3. These guys might have been on Amazon, eBay selling stuff, but it hasn’t worked out for them.
Stephen explained that some of his clients have turnovers in excess of $1m producing a net profit before tax of 30%. Others, just want to supplement their income with £2-5k per month.
Lisa Somers
Lisa is Stephen’s sister and keeps him in check. MPSH has 22 staff. Lisa is the CMO of the business. She effectively manages the business. Before having Lisa on board they were a lot less organised.
Before Lisa, MPSH had hardly any females on the team. Since then, Lisa has hired more females than males. As a consequence, the business is better run. Several of their mentors/head coaches are now female.
How to trade on Amazon
Their method is called the MarketPlace Method. Listen here to his Rule of Five.
Their model is to look for:
- low competition boring products
- sell in multiple countries
- not trendy, not exciting
- example: a plastic shoebox is a good example!
Their members sell all manner of things. They amass as many of these low competition products. On Amazon there are 528 million different items being sold. They make 3-600 sales per second. These are insane numbers.
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Lots of different Amazon markets to pick from.
By choosing boring products, MPSH clients avoid the hugely competitive high end marketers who would be a nightmare to compete with immediately upon start-up.
Validate your products
Once you have validated your Amazon based products – regular sales etc – you can then start to build an off-Amazon business. Many of their members dont do that though.
The prime negative of selling on Amazon, is that you are acquiring customers for Amazon, not you.
“Traffic on the internet is not created, it’s diverted.”
Stephen Somers
The pro-argument is eye-balls are bing diverted to Amazon in huge numbers. Their brand, trust, fulfilment is all there. But you dont own the customer.
- Whatever your revenue, 30% will be your profit before tax.
- £20, you should be making £6 (including Amazon fees etc).
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CLICK HERE for Free Training on Amazon
Focus on Research and Logistics
Like reliable Education, they promote the private label model. The difference MPSH make is in research. They spend time getting exclusivity from US sellers.
Translation is handled by MPSH, or you can use external companies to translate your listing.
EFN – European Fulfilment Network. You can drop your stock into the UK. Translate your listing into German, Spanish, Italian, French. Every time you make a sale, Amazon ship it from the UK store to Germany, France etc. Once the sales in Germany, for example, you can create a stock in the local country.
So set up your company in the right way. To avoid a compounding error in getting charged VAT in the sold to country.
Will Your Business Survive?
If you are highly motivated, you’ll succeed. Out of 10, 7 will do well enough to continue selling according to the model. The others will sell at too low a rate. Two out of the 7, will make the bulk of your sales and profits (Pareto).
BUT, don’t skip product research process. Stephen explains their ranking methodology.
They understand the market, by looking at the market.
Get Free Training
CLICK HERE for Free Training on Amazon
Know your numbers!
MPSH are clear with you upfront. Don’t take money out for 18 months. Typically, sales are slow. Then hockey stick. The analisi fondamentale notes that because the sales are small, some people lose interest. By watching your numbers, you will have the funds to invest when your product goes hockey stick.
The Next 100 Days supports the training provided by MarketPlaceSuperHeroes.com – here’s our link to a special training: NEXT100DAYS
MPSH have a freight company. This means it helps defray your shipping costs from China. Slashs freight costs by half. They go ALL IN with their clients.
Having a Mentor is CRITICAL – make it MPSH
Get your free amazon training here: https://marketplacesuperheroes.com/100days
The next 100 days podcast is sponsored by Linked Professionally and is brought to you by Kevin Appleby and Graham Arrowsmith
