Amazon Product Criteria - a podcast by Michael Veazey

I want to start off today by saying Amazon product criteria is bs.







I recently addressed how I believe Amazon product research is nonsense and you should be focusing on the person and their pain or passion rather than keywords. Let’s talk about the myth of the magic “Amazon product criteria”.

What is Amazon Product Criteria?

The idea behind Amazon product criteria is that you should choose a product that sells 1000 units a month, profits $10 a unit, weights less than 1lb, and avoid supplements for example. That is not completely bad advice but there are a couple problems with that.

Problems with Amazon Product Criteria

One, everybody is getting the same advice, so everyone is taking those criteria and putting them into JungleScout and getting the same ideas as everyone else. This isn’t a terrible idea but it’s not particularly smart. I think you should be in the target market you’re selling to or at least have a background in it.



For example, I’m not a singer, but I’ve worked with many singers as a music coach or conductor. I understand the market for singers and I understand what their pains are.



The second issue is that it takes no account of the huge disparity of wealth, time, and expertise of Amazon seller even if they’re starting out for the first time. I have a friend that just had his first million-dollar month. He will spend $40k when launching a new product. It works great for him but that’s not the advice I would give to someone starting out.



The point is that you must start out with a fair bit of money if you want to get into private-label. I won’t take on someone in my mentoring program unless that have at least £5000.

The Overriding Principle

As we get into the correct way of doing this, keep in mind that the ultimate strategy is to find the gap between demand and supply. It’s that simple. Demand is someone that has a pain or passion and is looking for a product to satisfy that need.



You can find demand by using Amazon ads. Let’s say, for example, I’m looking to see if there is demand for striped coffee cups. I can run ads with the keywords “striped coffee cup” and then look at the impressions. If I see that 500 people a month in the US are searching for striped coffee cup, and no one is selling that, or someone on page five, then I have found a gap.

Look at the Competition

If you think you found a demand and there is no competition, be wary. There may be a reason no one is selling in that space. Before you go all in, you may want to try wholesaling or retail arbitrage to get a sense of whether there really is demand or not.

Look at Your Budget

This involves a little math, so I’m going to give you a simple spreadsheet to help you determine if you have the budget for it.







Let’s say that you need to do a two-week launch of a product at a low price point to get it on the Amazon market and get it ranked for an important keyword. Then you need to multiply it by 2 or 3 keywords. So, let’s say you need a month’s worth of turnover.



So, let’s say you determine that the sales for your striped coffee cups are 100 units a month at about the sixth position in the search results. You’re going to have to get 2 weeks of sales under 2 different keywords and the sales would be 50 units for each keyword which means you’re looking at about 100 units for the launch.



Now let’s say your lead time is two months. At 100 units a month, you’ll need to 200 units after you’re rank to ensure you have enough inventory. You’ll need 300 units to start out with plus you’ll have to re-order halfway through that inventory as well. When you break it down,

Further episodes of Amazing FBA Amazon and ECommerce Podcast, for Amazon Private Label Sellers, Shopify, Magento or Woocommerce business owners, and other e-commerce sellers and digital entrepreneurs.

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