The greatest quarter of all is just around the corner. We've all started prepping for it already I'm sure. There's a lot of content out there that tells you what exactly to do so I've put together a list of 8 things that you shouldn't do. 8 traps that you should definitely avoid! hashtag

1. 8 reasons why sellers fail
Q4

2. Top performing Categories & Products
Prime Day
Arts & Crafts Baby Electronics Home &
Kitchen

3. Most Gifted Ideas
Top gifted products & categories

4. Wrong Product
Selection
1

5. Wrong Product Selection
Choosing over saturated niches during the holiday season
- average price, high PPC costs
- Lots of competitors on deal sites selling the same product for next to nothing
- crash after launch due to heavy competition
Choosing products in gated categories and failing to provide necessary
documentation during application process
Selecting patented products to sell

6. Ineffective inventory
management
2

7. Ineffective inventory management
Ignoring Amazon storage fee changes -

8. Wrong Product Selection
Choosing over saturated niches
during the holiday season
● Average price, high PPC costs
● Lots of competitors on deal
sites selling the same product
for next to nothing
● crash after launch due to
heavy competition

9. Ineffective inventory management
How to find your Inventory Performance Index

10. Ineffective inventory management
● Fix stranded inventory - take action to ensure
your inventory is available for purchase
● Manage excess inventory - reduce your
storage fees and carrying costs
● Inventory age - increase your sell-through rate
on low-traffic and low-conversion products
● Restock inventory - increase your in-stock rate
How to increase your inventory performance index

11. Ineffective inventory management
How to do effective forecasting & planning of storage based on organic sales
rate
- Monthly sales rate - Number of units sold per day * 30
- Keep an eye on slow moving SKUs
- Sales rate needs to factor in marketing efforts
- Maintain Inventory performance index above 350

12. Not being on top of
Amazon policy
changes
3

13. Not being on top of Amazon policy changes
Subscribe & save
Save $1.25 on fulfillment fees with FBA Subscribe & Save. Eligible only on Grocery,
Beauty, Health & Baby products sold through FBA Subscribe & Save before 11:59
p.m. PT, December 7, 2018.*

14. Not being on top of Amazon policy changes
Referral Fee Discount
Selling products less than $7? You are eligible for a discount on referral fee
Total price of $3.50 and below, you will get a discount of $0.50 on the referral fee.
For products with a total sales price of $3.51 to $7, you will get a discount of $0.30
on the referral fee.

15. Not being on top of Amazon policy changes
Provide box content information
You will be charged $0.10 per unit from January to October and $0.15 per unit for November
and December.
● Entering the information into a web form in Seller
Central
● Uploading an Excel-format or tab-delimited file
into Seller Central
● Applying a 2D barcode with box content
information to each box
● Uploading an XML file via Amazon Marketplace
Web Services

16. Not sending inventory in
time for the holiday
season
4

17. Not sending inventory in time for the holiday
season
2018 deadline has not been announced yet.
2017 deadline

18. Running PPC and deals only on the day of
promotions
Running PPC and
deals only on the day
of promotions
5

19. Running PPC and deals only on the day of
promotions
● Focusing only on a selected few SKUs for
promotions during the holiday season
● Run aggressive PPC campaigns 2 weeks prior
● Start deals 1 week prior
● Reprice your product by setting by min and max
price all of November and December

20. Average or Poor
Product Listings
6

21. Average or Poor Product Listings
Unreadable titles - Filled with repetitive keywords that do not form a sentence or give
precise information about the product or convey benefits

22. Average or Poor Product Listings
Lack of images or using manufacturer images

23. Average or Poor Product Listings
Extremely lengthy bullet points without proper formatting

24. Average or Poor Product Listings
Poor Description
No description or 50- 100 worded descriptions
No HTML tags

25. Average or Poor Product Listings
Undermining the power of EBC
and A+ Content

26. Average or Poor Product Listings
Good example - Sun Bum

27. Focusing on wrong
keywords
7

28. Focusing on wrong keywords
Choosing extremely generic, highly competitive keywords to rank for and to
run PPC campaigns
For example - plastic mugs,
bookends, bedspreads etc

29. Choosing keywords that
represent a majority
- lower priced products
- category that you are
not listed in
Focusing on wrong keywords

30. Wrong launch
strategy
8

31. Wrong launch strategy
● Undermining the effectiveness of email list building, social media and brand
building, influencer marketing, affiliates, marketing, facebook groups, contests,
viral marketing, content marketing - videos, blog posts, articles, infographics,
● Giveaways can attract hijackers on to the
listing
● Super URLs do not work anymore
● No automatic buybox for new ‘only’ FBM
sellers
● Review manipulation

32. Thank you!
Special goodies from SellerApp
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M2
y-
31IREwHPPlcDulS6JenCxpDt4zq232R6wLE
WLWs/edit#gid=1940622260
Most Gifted Product Ideas List:Prime Day Top Products & Categories
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11nay
d1KP4iyshLgYb42Td77rREYVOdVoB8kzMBz
OFoE/edit?usp=sharing