How to Do an Amazon Test Launch/ Test Listing - Know the Product Will Sell!
DO TEST LISTING/ TEST LAUNCH TO AVOID LOOSING MONEY
If you aren't familiar with the selling on Amazon process, typically we find a product and validate it by looking at the data & numbers, and then we order between 200-1,000 units for sending into Amazon. But Test Listings/ Test Launches - can be such a valuable way to ensure your product will sell well, BEFORE you have to invest thousands, and thousands of dollars.
When should you consider doing a Test Launch/ Test Listing? I Would recommend doing them on almost any new product you plan on launching. Amazon is constantly changing, whether new competitors come flooding in between when you find the product and can get it launched, or the Niche becomes really competitive, or the Market changes pushing your competitors revenues way down > Test Launches can help you with all of these.
You can do a test listing and test launch similar to Helium 10 - Project X series by sending 10-20 units into Amazon.
The main reason for doing Test Launches is to validate demand for the product. This is especially important when you find a product on Etsy, but it’s not on Amazon yet. Or maybe you are inventing a completely new product never on Amazon before.
The worst thing that could possibly happen is: You invest your life savings into the product and it doesn’t sell... Or you end up having to spend all your profits on Amazon PPC Ads.
Taking just a couple extra weeks to run these Test Launched is the best way to avoid loosing any money selling on Amazon.
- You will do product research using some of the best Methods, like using Keyword Research, using Helium 10 Black Box, and use Etsy for finding products that are not on Amazon yet, but that are super popular selling well on Etsy.
- Buy and Get (10) units to your house of this product - As similar as possible to one you would sell. You can buy these 10 units from: Etsy (where you found product idea from), or off Amazon (no other Brand name on them) or from Walmart, Ebay (no brand name on them, or from your Supplier.
- Set up a very basic test listing, you will need a UPC barcode to create listing, or apply for a GTIN exemption, or buy a cheap throw-away UPC barcode from Nationwide Barcode dot com for $12. Set up listing, with a higher price, $10-$20 over where you would sell it at (to slow sales), very basic 3-5 bullet points, only 2-3 images, and short description.
- Get and Label each unit with FNSKU, you will need to buy “30-up labels” from Amazon or office supply store to print out and sticker one on each product box. Then create the FBA shipping plan, package and send them into Amazon. Keep/ Suppress the listing - by removing main image until they are all received and checked in. This prevents Amazon from FC transferring your 10 units to different warehouses.
- Launch/ Start selling and set up at least (1) manual keyword targeting PPC campaign on your products main & most relevant 5-15 keywords.
- Run Manual PPC campaign with the top 5-10 main Keywords for 1-3 weeks, and then take a look at: impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, sales and ACOS. It will provide you super helpful insights on how costly this product is, it’s main keywords cost per click, and spend vs. amount of sales you make for spending money on PPC, and more.
-To see if the main keywords are too expensive to try and advertise for.
See how many sales you make organically vs. through PPC
*Ideally - Half or more were from organic sales > means there's very strong demand and low competition, and it’s probably a really good product to go ahead and sell!
*If most of the products, 6+ sales came from only PPC campaigns, then that could indicate it’s going to be hard to launch this product without spending a small fortune on PPC, and other launch costs (Like tons of Giveaways and External Ads).
Once you find a great selling Product via this Test Launch - Now you can feel confident in Ordering: 500-1,000 units and launching the product successfully!
When you do this, It’s important that you create a whole new listing with new UPC, and new product Launch. As you don’t want to sell on the Test Launch/ Listing as it will be out of stock for over a month or two and be hard
10-15 Units minimum for the test launch - as you need to get around 2- weeks worth of PPC campaign data/ reports.
Let me know if you have any questions about doing and using ‘Test Launches/ Listings’.
Or You can also watch this Video where I go over setting up Test Listings/ Launches:
Thank you for reading.
Your Coach & Mentor,
Brian Noonan
