How to Put Your Amazon Business on Autopilot: 10 Ways to Automate Amazon FBA Selling

Automation is good, so long as you know exactly where to put the machine. – Eliyahu Goldratt

Have you ever felt overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid, and short on time while running your Amazon FBA business? Do you sometimes feel you’re the only one who can do it? Is the day-to-day grind of menial tasks interfering with growing your business?

It’s true that running an Amazon FBA Selling business is a lot of work – but it’s equally true that it doesn’t have to be.

If you find yourself falling into the classic entrepreneur’s trap of spending too much time working in your business and not working on your business, there are now multiple solutions available to put your Amazon business on autopilot by automating non-revenue producing tasks.

Automation, in this case, means using a tool for your day to day operational and growth tasks. Automating these tasks allows you to focus on what matters most – the big picture actions that grow your business and increase your Amazon FBA sales.

When it comes to growing your business, your time is the most valuable asset you have. If you’re not spending that time on the things you’re great at, the things you love, and the big picture thinking that leads to increased revenue, then you’re wasting time – and losing money in the process.

It’s best to consider automating any task or activity that you consider below your pay grade. Anything that can be done faster, cheaper, and better by automating it will pay for itself over and over in the amount of time it gives you to focus on what’s truly important.

For the Amazon FBA business owner, automation comes in two forms:

• Software and Services – Reliable online tools and services that can operate and grow many areas of a business.
• Outsourcing – “Human automation” through hiring freelance virtual assistants to handle tasks that require the human touch.

By delegating work to software, services, and people, you’ll be able to work less and sell more on Amazon. To help you get started on this goal, we’ve put together a list of Amazon seller tools and outsourcing opportunities for your FBA business. This list of 10 Ways to Automate Amazon FBA Selling will show you how to sell more on Amazon, and what part of Amazon FBA to automate.

Remember, time is money. We promise reading this list will be time well-spent – so let’s dig right in, get you back time, and make you money.

1.  Product Research

You’ll need high-quality, desired products to run a successful Amazon FBA business. How do you know just which ones to pick?

There’s a lot of information online on how to research products in blogs, webinars, and podcasts. We’re going to cut through the clutter for you so you don’t have to go through any long, confusing research processes just to do your research – which can be just as confusing.

Helium10 and  MerchantWords are the top product research tools on the market today.

2.  Product Sourcer

When you’re in the business of selling products online, you’ll get left behind by the competition if you don’t keep up with the latest trends in your marketplace. Hunting for potential best-selling products is very time consuming, and requires a lot of email exchanges, communicating with suppliers and warehouse managers, and occasional travel.

Wouldn’t it be great to outsource this to a dedicated freelancer who specializes in this specific discipline? The good news is, you can. There’s a large contingent of experienced Product Sourcers available in today’s market to find the next hot selling product that will blow up the sales figures for your FBA store.

3.  Listing Optimization

Your product listing is a crucial component in maintaining a page one ranking and driving organic sales traffic. At various times during the sales process, you’re going to have to optimize it for pricing, images, and title keywords.

Frankly, this can be kind of a crapshoot. It becomes frustrating when various combinations of elements either work or don’t work. The solution is to use something like Judolaunch’s Optimize service (where you work with a listing expert and get a free analysis), or hire a listing optimization specialist to work with. A powerful listing optimization tool allows you make optimization decisions based on data, not hunches.

4.  Keyword Research & Tracking

Having the right keywords in your listing is another crucial part of ranking and having your product be discoverable in search. This is not something you want to try and figure out on your own.

You need to automate keyword research and tracking activities to hearty Amazon seller tools. Knowing that you have the right keywords will bring you peace of mind, and keep your product ranking high – leading to increased organic sales.

• For Keyword Research, have a Google Adwords account so you can take advantage of Google Trends. You can also increase the depth and breadth of your research with tools like SellerApp, AmzTracker, and Sellics.
• For Keyword Tracking, the top tool we recommend & use is one (a much more affordable version of AmzTracker).

5.  Photography

The number one factor that influences the sales of products online are the pictures. You need high-quality photos that show your product in its best light (both literally and figuratively). You also need specific kinds of photos to give you the best possible presentation.

Taking a few snaps with your iPhone isn’t going to cut it. This is a task best turned over to a professional photographer, who will capture the best angles of your product in vibrant hi-def color.

Hiring a great product photographer is a sure-fire way to get sales. First impressions last in online selling, and your product photos needs to be on point to make that impression great.

6.  Account Management

Managing your Amazon Seller account takes a lot of time and mental energy. You need to be on top of a lot of different tasks, including monitoring product feedback, trying to remove negative reviews, handling customer support, and occasionally dealing with Amazon Seller Support.

You have two options:

• Hire an experienced person to handle the daily management.
• Retain the services of a seller services company or agency.

By passing the daily repetitive tasks to someone else, you’ll have people dedicated to taking care of all the basic operations needs for your seller account. There’s also the bonus of convenience in electing to have one point of contact who represents the entire workforce. This will free up a significant amount of time, and ease your stress levels because you’ll know everything is being done right.

7.  Inventory Management

The last thing any Amazon FBA seller wants to happen is to run out of stock. Upset customers, lost sales, and a busted ranking will soon follow that unfortunate situation. You can avoid this FBA faux pas by using Amazon seller tools that calculate when to place an order based on your current sales.

If you’re a smaller seller on a budget, try Forecast.ly, or AiHello. If you’re doing large volume sales, Skubana.com is what you need to keep plenty of units on the virtual shelves.

8.  Amazon PPC

What if there was a way to help just the right customers – the people most likely to buy from you – to discover your product? Well, there is. PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing is one of the best ways to grow awareness of your brand and products.

Running a successful Amazon PPC campaign can be a real game-changer in the overall sales of your FBA business. It’s not as simple as just running a few ads, though. PPC marketing takes “a particular set of skills” to get you quality leads within your budget.

PPC marketing is a bit of a dark art, but fortunately you can hire an Amazon PPC Specialist with expertise in getting lots of bang for the buck while making your ad campaign profitable. This is a worthy investment that will definitely save you time and make you money in the long run.

9.  Product Launch Services

Whether you’re launching a new product on Amazon or updating an existing one, a successful Product Launch is essential in getting quick sales traction and a high-ranking that leads to ongoing organic sales traffic.

There’s a lot of variables to manage to pull off a successful launch, and it’s a time-consuming and often stressful process with any number of possible pitfalls.

What you need is help to launch your products successfully in any and all markets, get sales of your products flowing right away, increase the keyword rank, and increase visibility. This includes making any adjustments needed by carefully monitoring the analytics during and after the launch to ensure sales success. Then all you’ll need to do is sit back and watch the sales come in.

10.  Customer Service

Online businesses still require customer service, possibly even more than a brick & mortar business because of all the added tech support questions that can arise.

Having a dedicated person or service to answer all customer inquiries via calls, emails, or chat is a huge advantage for a business. It makes your customers feel cared for, and breeds customer loyalty, leading to repeat business, good reviews, and referrals.

Fortunately, you don’t have to set up a call center in your garage to have a great customer service department. You can hire freelance customer service professionals to work virtually, or use a service such as Helpscout.com that has high-degree automation tools.

If you’re selling on other platforms besides Amazon, you can consolidate all your customer service into one place using customer support software from Zendesk and Freshdesk.

There you have it – 10 ways to automate your Amazon business that will save you time, stress, worry, and mistakes – and give you back personal time, peace of mind, increased sales, and more profits.

Especially in you’re a solo entrepreneur, automating and outsourcing is one of the smartest decisions you can make. It will allow you to scale your business quickly, increase productivity, and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Bill Gates once said, “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency.” Start automating your Amazon FBA business today, and reap the rewards – and profits – that efficiency will bring.

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This post was contributed by Mia Kovacevic of Judolaunch, offering JudoLaunch Automate, a  full package of services exclusively for Amazon sellers staffed with professionals trained to optimize the Amazon seller experience.