Having your own private label on Amazon means you take an existing product made by a manufacturer and put your branding and packaging on it, giving you more control over the whole process. Before you dive in to leverage well-selling products, read our Amazon private label checklist to get started.
1. Think Up Product Ideas
Start general and work your way to specifics. Begin with things or activities that interest you, then write down the products used in each one. If you come up with a lot of categories, you won’t need as many product ideas for each one; if you have fewer categories, try and aim for 10 or more products in each one.
2. Do Your Research
We can’t stress this enough — the research phase of the checklist will be the most important part. Do it well, and you’ve built an amazing foundation for everything else. But cut corners, and it’ll make everything that follows that much more difficult.
The first place you should start is with Amazon’s Best Sellers list to see which products perform best in each category. Once you’ve looked there, your next move is to collate products that are evergreen, high-ranking, lightweight, and generic enough that you can market uniquely.
Other places you can look for products on Amazon are:
Focus on products that are:
- Small (less than 20” x 18” x 14”) and light (under 2lbs).
- Durable
- In Arts, Crafts & Sewing; Baby; Home & Kitchen; Kitchen & Housewares; Office Products; Patio, Lawn & Garden; Pet Supplies; Sports & Outdoors; Tools & Hardware; or Toys & Games.
Related: The Best Products to Private Label on Amazon
3. Analyse Your Competition
You’ve got a product list and whittled it down to a strong shortlist. Next up is seeing how your competitors are selling the products you’re thinking of private labelling. Search for each item on Amazon and make a spreadsheet with the following information:
- Product Price: Ideally should be $10-$60.
- Number of Reviews: The lower the number of reviews, the better.
- Product Best Sellers Rank: Include items where the rank is below 1,000.
- Product Listing Quality: Poor or average listings will be your friend.
4. Calculate Potential Profit Margins
There are two costs to look at: production and shipping. Production costs have to do with suppliers — how much you’ll have to pay out before you can turn around and sell at a profit. Shipping costs, on the other hand, include how much you’ll have to pay to receive your product and how much you’ll pay/charge consumers to get it. Using FBA simplifies the process but can result in a lot of fees, while FBM can mean much lower prices but at a cost of added time and complexity.
5. Find a Supplier
Alibaba is probably the best place to find a supplier, but with a couple caveats. There are a lot of shady suppliers on there and finding a decent one can/will take some time, but the costs are far better than if you were to find a US-based supplier where labour is more expensive and causes prices to go up.
To find a good supplier, search for your product and narrow things down based on which style you like best. And from there, narrow things down even more by matching minimum order quantity, price, style options, lead time, and private label capability with your needs.
Once you’ve found a shortlist of suppliers, negotiate on your first order for prices and batch sizes.
6. Work on Your Branding
If you’ve got a strong creative streak inside you, feel free to design your own logo and packaging. But if you don’t, or if the thought of it makes you nervous, hire someone for this part of the checklist. Think of what you want your design to say and employ colour psychology to make a strong statement. Remember, the main goal of having a private label is to take generic products and put a unique, creative twist, so really work on making things your own.
7. Write the Listing
This part of the checklist is fairly formulaic and includes the following:
- Strong, high-ranking keywords used in the title, bullet points, and description.
- Hi-res photos taken with a neutral backdrop, natural light, and from plenty of different angles.
- Copy that shows how your product works and what makes it different from everything else, and why people need it in their lives.
8. Launch
You’re starting off with a new product that doesn’t have the benefit of a well-known name brand behind it, so you’ll have to do some work in creating some buzz. Try some of these tips:
- Use a Super URL to increase keyword ranking.
- Create conversations on social media to generate interest.
- Start with promotions, contests, discounts, sales, and other strategies.
- Work with social media influencers to build hype.
- Think about enrolling in Amazon Vine so you can kick things off with a bunch of reviews under your belt.
Final Thoughts
Once you’ve gotten the ball rolling and sales increase steadily, your next project will be to work on getting feedback from those buyers. But unlike most everything else in this checklist, getting reviews is something that can be left to automation, like FeedbackExpress. We’ll take care of all the details and hard work for you, and even set you up with a 14 day free trial when you sign up today.
