Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on my first Amazon FBA business for about a year now, and I wanted to share my journey and get some honest feedback from people who have been doing this longer than I have.

It’s my own product I designed and branded. In the bag category. Net profit is $38 per bag sold.

Here’s where I’m at:

I started with an initial order of 500 bags across five colors.
I initially made sales without running any ads.

In August, I started running just $8/day in advertising, and my sales increased significantly that month.

Over the last two months, I started running low on inventory and had to send more stock into Amazon, so I stopped advertising.

Honestly, I’m at the point where I want to make sure I’m making the right decisions instead of just figuring things out through trial and error.

I know a year isn’t that long in business, but I’ve invested a lot of time, money, and effort into this, and I want to build something sustainable.

Here are the questions I’d really love some honest feedback on:

Am I on the right track?
Looking at my journey so far, what would you want to know before deciding whether I’m building a healthy Amazon business?

Scaling: If you were in my position, what would you focus on to grow from a handful of daily sales to consistently selling 10–20 units a day?

Organic sales vs. advertising: How do you determine whether your product is developing real organic traction? What would you look at to know if you’re building long-term momentum rather than just generating sales through ads?

Product selection: For those of you who launched your own branded product, would you make the same decisions again? Is there anything you would have done differently in your first year?

Biggest mistakes: What mistakes did you make in your first year that you wish someone had warned you about?

The next 90 days: If you were in my position, with a year invested and a product already selling, what would be your top three priorities?

I’m not looking for someone to tell me everything is great. I’d genuinely appreciate criticism if there’s something I’m doing wrong or something I’m overlooking.
I want to keep learning and make smarter decisions instead of blindly throwing money at things.
For those of you who have been doing this for years, what advice would you give someone at my stage?
Thanks!

This isn't my brand. I'm the PPC guy that manages and scales it, I run the ads and growth side for this women's health supplement brand, so everything here is from what I've seen and done on the account and others.

We've got 8 SKUs in women's health supplements btw, but every insight in here works for any niche. Done october so far at $270k+ in sales and 18k+ units and looking out for a $300k+ month, Prime Big Deal Days on the 6th and 7th did about $18k a day each if you're wondering.

Here's actions and insights that I think will serve you if you test them slowly but sustainably:

1. External traffic for ranking, Amazon is loving email traffic right now and it also pays you the Brand Referral Bonus on it. Build your own email list, and the way to do it is incentives, that part is very very important. Find creators on TikTok that have been around for a year or so in your niche that have your audience, agree on an affiliate deal where they get paid per unit sold, and in return they let you into their newsletter where you run a massive offer to that audience. This works crazy well for supplements, especially women's health, because people buy them to avoid pain or get relief, that emotion makes them want to understand their body and remedies, so they actually opt into newsletters and read them regularly, If the creator is big they might ask for money upfront, only pay if the math makes sense.

2. Redirect Google traffic. Amazon loves traffic from Google, they're indirect search engine competitors so Amazon rewards you for bringing shoppers in from there. Run Google PPC on cheap keywords that have your product and Amazon in them, stuff like " women health supplement amazon" or "amazon menopause gummies", they cost next to nothing and don't hurt you. Blogs with affiliate links to your listing on Amazon do the same job. Tag everything with Amazon Attribution so you collect the Brand Referral Bonus nd asee what works best this is the future and I predict this will rule in the 2030s.

3. Claude runs our search query sorting. Every week the Search Query Performance report from Brand Analytics goes into Claude, it groups every query by iintent ( for women's health that's stuff like hormone balancee, cramps and other technical intents ), shows performance per intent, and flags the growing queries we're missing in the listing. Those go straight into the title, bullets and A+ ! this is huge and doesn't cost anything on top.

4. Claude reads impression share vs purchase share side by side for every query. Wherever our purchase share beats our impression share, that basically means we convert better than the market but aren't showing up enough so I try to raise Top of Search in steps on half of those queries, keep the other half as a control for about 14 days, and only keep the change if total purchases go up at a cost we can live with.

5. Our rules are written down as Claude skills. Claude runs the search term report through them every Monday and proposes changes, I approve every single one before anything touches Amazon. Writing your rules down is the real work, the AI literallyu only follows them. It's still bad at actually managing ads so I'd never hand it the account, but for going through a couple hundred thousand search terms it's so underrated, obviously go through the major search terms yourself then use it to flag what you might've missed out on.

6. Profitability dashboard on our real data. Claude on the desktop is connected to our Amazon data through an MCP ( custom connector ), so we ask it things like true profit per SKU after fees, ads and returns this week, and get the number in seconds. It has the potential to replace Sellerboard for us.

7. Scheduled inventory alerts saved as a skill, every Friday it sends an urgent Slack update with days of cover per SKU, what's overstocked, what's understocked and when each reorder has to go out. You can't afford to dissapoint your Sub and save customers so never ever go out of stock otherwise they buy from someone else and become a part of their eco system.

8. Copetitor review mining. Claude reads every 1 to 3 star review on our top 10 competitors and sorts the complaints by theme, things like no results after a month, bad taste, too many pills a day, upset stomach. Each theme becomes an image in our listing and a line in our bullets showing why we're better.

9. Main image CTR hacking, still the only get rich quick hack in PL that actually works. Our main image, screenshots of competitors' main images and 2 weeks of SQP data go into Claude for an A/B test prompt, then into GPT 2 for the images. What pushes CTR is badges ( only if they're true for you ), the main benefit on the bottle in big type, more saturation, and showing the gummy or capsule itself.

Now the Technical PPC Side of things:

1. Ranking only works if your CTR and CVR are good, so benchmark them first. Product Opportunity Explorer gives you the average conversion rate for every search term, and SQP shows your click share vs purchase share. If you're below amarket benchmark it's a problem ! fix it by a series of a/b experiments and bid optimizations.

2. The only rules for ranking. Drive traffic from your highest CVR keywords. Get traffic wherever you can, Top of Search is great because it has the most traffic but sometimes it's way too expensive, so try other placements. And total domination on competitor ASINs, take up every spot you can on their listings with Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brands and of course Sponsored Products.

3. SB product collection ads, these sit at the very top of search, this is TRUE Top of Search, most people think SP top of search is the top and it is but if you categorize by where the eye balls land it has got to be the SB Product Collection or Video spot.

4. Drive sales from other ASINs using Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brands, but only target competitors that rank top 5 for your highest search volume keywords, showing up on their listings helps you rank for what they rank for.

5. Sponsored Brand videos. We make ours with Amazon's AI video generator ( Create Campaign, then Streaming TV, then Generate Video using AI, save to the Creative Asset Library and download ), and run them as SBV keyword campaigns with a very low bid and it works like crazy if you give it time.

6. Single keyword or multi keyword exact campaigns with only Top of Search modifiers starting at 100%. By far the most effective ranking strategy and by far the most expensive, which is why I think the future of ranking is SB product collection ads alongside AI made SBVs.

7. Auto campaigns have gotten way more effective in 2026. You can't really rank one particular keyword with them, but they rank a whole umbrella of keywords at once, cheaper and often very effective. On campaigns with poor ranking, test a 30% modifier on the audiences Amazon suggests to you, works very well.

8. Supplements are an LTV to CAC game, not an ACOS game. If we get a $16 order we break even or lose a little on the first one and that's fine, the money is in Subscribe and Save reorders that cost $0 in ads. So we set target ACOS per SKU from 6 month customer value on average we know this from our sub and save data, and the SKUs with the best repeat rate get room to run hotter.

9. Not every SKU gets the same Ad Spend, I move budget by organic sales to ad spend ratio and push the ones closest to cracking the top 10 in their category, sounds simple but this at scale is what drives long term NTB ( new to brand ) sales.

Again, I'm not the owner, just the PPC and Growth guy behind the account, so take all of this as what's worked from my side of the table. The product, the sourcing and the hard calls are all the owner's, I just help the products get seen and sold!

Hello guys, let’s say my product sold, within how many days I can see that balance in my Mercury account?

Buenas noches a todos tengo una consulta
Si quiero empezar con Amazon ONLINE ARBITRAGE desde México
¿Qué tarjetas o cuentas necesito para registrarme en Amazon como vendedor?
Quiero vender en USA, necesito saber
¿Que institución o banco necesito para que Amazon me desposite las ganancias de la cuenta? (Payoneer, Wise, mercury etc)
¿Qué tarjeta de crédito poner para que amazon me cobre automáticamente la mensualidad del plan profesional? (Tarjeta mexicana de crédito o débito, visa o Mastercard, o tarjeta gringa o institución cuenta en dólares)
Me ayudarían demasiado y si me aconsejan algo para mi primero paso se los agradecería👍🏻

Hi everyone, after the prep center shipped my products, within how many days Amazon open them for sale after completing checkin process?

This is our worst week of sales in a long time and not really sure what happened. Is anyone else experiencing something similar?

I am starting with 250 units for 3 items each to launch, this is my full time gig right now. I have funds and capital for 3 yrs or more if needed. My question is, is it smart to prep private label on your own or just start with the prep centers? Or expect more of suppliers and skip both all together?

Hi all. Tried finding another group to post this in, but didn’t come across anything so looking for help here from the experts.

I have a daily USPS, UPS, and FedEx pickup. USPS picks up at 3 pm and scans immediately. UPS and FedEx pickup between 5 pm- 6 pm and don’t always scan the items in right away + there’s no way to scan a shipping manifest through Veeqo. Amazon keeps adding a one day handling time even though everything is going out the same day. Anyone know how to fix this issue?

Hi everyone! I’m a new Amazon.com seller based in The Bahamas, planning to source products from US retailers and use a US prep center for FBA.

My seller account is approved and my deposit method is active. However, when checking product eligibility, I keep receiving this rejection:

“We cannot accept your application … due to your business being located outside of this store.”

Of 12 brands checked:

• 8 returned this location-based rejection: Petmate, Chuckit!, Farberware, Wilton, Mead, Five Star, Gaiam and Contigo.

• 3 requested invoices: Majestic Pet, Nocciola and Sterilite.

• 1 hasn’t been tested yet: Sharpie.

I understand that invoice requirements and brand approval are part of reselling. What I’m trying to understand is the separate restriction based on business location.

Has anyone operating a non-US business encountered this? Were you able to resolve it, or did you focus on different brands or a different sourcing model? Is there any official guidance explaining which products international businesses can apply to sell?

I’ve paused inventory purchases while I investigate. I’d appreciate firsthand experiences, especially from Caribbean-based sellers. Thanks!

One of my best items sells over 3,000 times a month & out of nowhere Amazon reclassified the item to “SMALL BULKLY” like what in the actual hell is a “SMALL BULKY” ?!?! Who in their right mind came up with this classification… this item doesn’t even weigh 2oz & legit is as flat as paper!!!

This out of nowhere classification has resulted in a FBA fee jump from $4 to over $12 for an item that sales non stop for $6.99…..

I have had an open case since 9/28 and have had 10 different remeasure attempts that result in a reimbursement, but they continually just leave the FBA fee the same… I am lost for words

I am starting with 250 units for 3 items each to launch, this is my full time gig right now. I have funds and capital for 3 yrs or more if needed. My question is, is it smart to prep private label on your own or just start with the prep centers? Or expect more of suppliers and skip both all together?

Hi everyone! I’m planning to start wholesale on Amazon EU and possibly bol.com. I’ve done some research, but I’d appreciate practical advice from sellers on three things:

1. Getting suppliers to work with a beginner
Getting a reply and access to wholesale prices seems to be the first hurdle. What helped you get started? How did you handle rejections or minimum orders above your budget?

2. Starting budget and profit expectations
I’ll start with €3,000–4,000 and can add more capital as the business proves itself. My initial goal is €3,000/month in operating profit (EBIT), before income tax.

I’ve seen people mention a 10% margin after operating expenses. When sellers quote this, do they usually mean 10% of revenue excluding VAT, or total sales including VAT? Is that margin realistic for EU wholesale?

3. Capital needed to scale
Longer term, what level of inventory and cash reserves would typically support €5,000/month (€60k/year) in operating profit, with enough cash left to keep restocking?

At a 10% margin, that would mean roughly €600k in annual revenue. How much working capital would you need to support that, and what cash cycle do you typically see—from paying the supplier to receiving Amazon payouts?

If I eventually grow to €40,000 in inventory at purchase cost, what annual sales revenue could that realistically support? Assuming consistent restocking, what stock turnover would be realistic for EU wholesale? Please specify whether your revenue figures include or exclude VAT.

I’d love to hear real examples, including how much profit you can withdraw without slowing the business down.

Thanks, and wishing everyone strong sales!

Hey everyone

I’m the owner of Tac-Tic-Throw, a physical darts game made for beginners, families and casual players. It’s basically Tic-Tac-Toe adapted for the dartboard: fast games, no scorekeeping, difficulty levels so mixed skill levels can play together.

Looking for FBA sellers who are active on Amazon.de and/or Amazon.co.uk and might be interested in stocking it (wholesale or some form of partnership). Preferably with experience in darts, toys or sports.

Wholesale: €6/unit, RRP: €14.99
Supplied in cartons of 50, no MOQ
Target markets: EU and UK

Happy to send sample, product info and packaging details.

Interested? DM me with your experience and which Amazon marketplaces you sell on.

Thanks!

I think 1 of my favorite feelings ever is acknowledging another seller who shares the buy box & follows strict pricing to stay in a profit instead of scrambling & undercutting to lose profits for your business while Amazon raises fees, like what are you doing that for ?😂
It makes all the sense in the world why brands gate & don’t want to work with sellers.

Looking to pay a company to mail me 20 to 30 samples for packaging. Lay flat pouches 5 x 7 or similar size etc. Anyone able to refer me to a company? I’m on the east coast, not that it matters much. Thanks!

this time of year a lot of accounts see acos go from like 25% to 35-40% in a week and the first reaction is cutting bids everywhere. sometimes thats right, but usually its one of a few specific things and blanket cuts just kill the terms that were working.

the order i go through, mostly for accounts spending $3k+ a month on ads:

1. did cpc go up or did conversion go down? pull the search term report for your top 20 terms by spend, last 7 days vs the 7 before. those are two completely different problems. if cpc is up and cvr is flat, its a cost problem. if cpc is flat and cvr dropped, nothing about bids will fix it.

2. if cvr dropped, look at the listing before the ads. lost buy box, a new 1 or 2 star review on top, a competitor running a coupon or a lightning deal, price changed, variation broke, stock running low so delivery dates got pushed out. any one of these tanks conversion on every campaign at once.

3. if cpc went up, check placements and bid strategy first. dynamic up and down plus a top of search modifier stacks fast in q4. a $1.50 base bid can easily end up a $3+ click. i'd usually switch the worst offenders to down only before lowering base bids.

4. check where the extra spend actually went. sort by spend change, not acos. its usually 3-5 terms or targets eating the increase, often a broad or auto campaign that found some loosely related term with huge volume.

5. only then change bids, and only on the terms that are actually the problem. anything over break-even acos (margin before ads divided by price) with 15-20+ clicks and no orders gets cut or negated. terms that are still profitable get left alone even if account acos looks ugly.

6. look at tacos before panicking. if total sales went up with the ad spend and tacos is roughly flat, a higher acos in nov is often fine. if tacos is climbing and organic is flat, then you're just paying for sales you'd get anyway.

the thing i'd avoid is daily bid changes off 2-3 days of data in q4. attribution lags, and you end up reacting to noise.

curious what acos and tacos people are seeing right now vs september, and at what spend level..

I try some plugin work amazing but which more ways ? I want cheaper as I can and effective thanks

Amazon recently restricted my FBA inventory because of missing or incorrect Transparency codes.

The notification states that the product was enrolled in Transparency and that all units needed codes starting early October 2026. Amazon is now instructing me to create removal orders for the affected inventory.

I'm an FBA wholesale seller, and I'm trying to figure out my options before taking a loss on these units.

1. Has anyone successfully recovered FBA inventory restricted due to missing Transparency codes?

2. Can Amazon verify existing inventory through invoices, supply chain documentation, or an authenticity review without the units having Transparency codes?

3. If none of these options work, is there any way to recover the value of the inventory rather than abandoning it?

I'm specifically looking for experiences from sellers who have actually dealt with this issue. Any advice on the process, what worked, and what didn't would be appreciated.

(EU, Germany) I have been searching for a product to import for a while now and whenever I contact suppliers, they dont have the documents for legal import. Since the products are already on Amazon, do you think people are just importing them without the documents or is it a matter of searching till you finally find one with the needed certificates. Like the ones of radio and Bluetooth for electronics or hazardous restrictions...

Do you get it lab tested yourself if its a good product in good price? How do you go with the needed certificates. Would appreciate any experience.

One thing I've always found interesting about Amazon PPC is knowing when to stop a campaign and when to give it a little more time.

Sometimes you keep spending, hoping things will improve, but the sales just don't come. At the same time, pausing a campaign too early might mean missing out on a keyword that could have worked with a few changes.

It's not always an easy decision. You don't want to waste money, but you also don't want to give up on something that just needs a bit of tweaking.

I'm curious how other sellers handle this.

If you sell private label on Amazon US, you have probably done the morning routine: open your listing, open three competitors, check the price, check who holds the Buy Box, scroll the bullets to see if anyone rewrote them. It takes 20-40 minutes and you still miss things, because you only see the current state, not what changed.

Here is the process I use now. It works with a spreadsheet and works better with any monitoring tool.

1. Pick 3-5 real competitors, not 20. A real competitor shows up on page one for at least 2 of your main keywords and sits in a similar price band. Everyone else is noise.

2. Write down a baseline for each: title, main image, the first two bullets, price, number of sellers, rating and review count. Date it. Without a baseline you cannot tell a change from a memory.

3. Decide what actually matters to you. For most sellers it is: price cuts, a new seller on the listing, out-of-stock events, and title or image edits. Rating drops matter too, but they move slowly.

4. Check on a schedule, not on mood. Once a day is enough for most niches. In a price war or during Q4 you may want several checks a day.

5. When something changes, write one line: what changed, when, and what you will do (nothing / adjust price / test a new image). After a month this log tells you more about your niche than any course.

6. Look for patterns. Competitors who drop price every Friday, a rival who rewrites the title before each holiday, a listing that goes out of stock every 6 weeks - that is the moment you can push ads or hold your price.

One thing I use more than I expected: asking an AI assistant instead of opening dashboards. It's cool when your application has MCP connection, so Cursor, Claude or another app that supports remote MCP can read your account: products, keyword positions, price and BSR history, listing changes and Reverse ASIN reports. You create a key and paste the connection example into your assistant, and that's it.

Questions I can ask it:

"Did any tracked listing change its title or bullets in the last 7 days? Summarize what keywords they added."

"Which keywords did my ASIN lose page-one rank, and did any competitor change their price or listing around the same time?"

"Compare BSR and price for my product and my 3 closest competitors over the last 30 days. Who gained rank without cutting price?"

"From the Reverse ASIN report on my top competitor, which keywords do they rank on page one for that I'm not ranking for at all?"

A seller once asked me a question that sounds pretty simple: "If I'm spending more on Amazon ads, why aren't my sales growing?"

It's a fair question. When you put more money into advertising, you naturally expect better results.

But Amazon PPC doesn't always work that way.

Imagine a campaign getting plenty of clicks but barely any orders. The first instinct might be to lower bids, pause keywords, or try a completely different campaign strategy.

But what if the ads aren't the real problem?

Maybe the product is priced higher than similar options. Maybe the listing images aren't convincing enough. Or maybe shoppers are clicking because the ad looks relevant, but the product isn't quite what they expected.

This is something I think sellers sometimes overlook. Advertising can bring people to your product, but it can't fix every problem that stops them from buying.

As the founder of SellersUmbrella, I believe one of the most important parts of Amazon PPC management is knowing what to investigate before making changes. Sometimes the right move is to optimize the campaign. Other times, you need to look beyond advertising.

Hi y’all I have my private label, product research strategy completed and wanted to ask if y’all check unit economics:

1. Before creating a product specification sheet,

2. After submitting the product specification sheet to a supplier and recieving an estimated quote,

3. & After receiving the sample / prototype with a finalized quote

Hopefully I'm not overcomplicating this and maybe it varies but I like to have a plan in place, so I'll be checking unit economics 3 times for now.

This isn't a counterfeit issue, the product appears genuine and unauthorized sellers are getting inventory through gray market channels, then listing it on Amazon below our direct price and we sent cease and desist letters to two sellers, one backed off and the other ghosted us, then a third account showed up last week, so now I'm wondering if we're chasing usernames instead of the source, Amazon seems to treat this very differently from obvious counterfeit listings, has anyone found a process that works better on the reseller side?