How To
Build Your Beverage Business with Amazon’s FBA
If you’ve been in business for a while but want to finally move beyond a brick and mortar model and leap into e-commerce, Amazon’s FBA is a great place to start.
Online shopping continues to grow, and consumers spend a larger percentage of their shopping dollars online. More importantly for the seller, the infrastructure for startups is expanding and the barriers to entry are crumbling. Today is the day you take your beverage business to the next level or dust off that business plan and get started.
Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is a key that can opens doors to your online sales experience. It helps simplify the process after manufacturing by consolidating multiple separate expenses in the supply chain. That saves your business money and provides the customer with a reliable and consistent purchasing experience.
Let’s say your next big idea is a gnome-shaped ice cube tray (which it absolutely should be). You simply ship Amazon your crates full of freshly-minted silicone gnome trays along with your gnome-shaped packaging and any instruction cards or promotional material that will be packed in the box. And just like some kind of elfen magic (where’d the gnomes go?) they will warehouse, quality control, pack and ship it all!. They also handle returns as well as shipping-related customer service. As a bonus, they give your customers access to Amazon Prime’s free two-day shipping.
All of this would otherwise be separate expenses from multiple vendors. Or you’d need to have employees do it – or rope your spouse into it on the weekends. Running your business is hard enough, so why try and re-invent the wheel when you can just hop on for the ride?
Our own experience shows that this can be a great way to get going. I’ve been using Amazon FBA since 2014. I already knew what I wanted to sell, and decided that I’d let FBA handle QC, packing and shipping. So far it’s been a rousing success.
Knowing all we needed to accomplish to get this product to market, we wanted to simplify in areas that were no-brainers. FBA can pack and ship web store sales in addition to Amazon sales. Selling from our page and through Amazon fit our brand strategy so we built FBA into our business plan from the beginning. To make sure it fits for your business, you can use FBA revenue calculator. It’s super easy to use and gives a little more confidence once you know what you can aspect.
So far we’ve amassed over 1600 reviews and have a five-star rating for our 100% copper mugs – a necessity to enjoy the Moscow Mule! Yes, we believe in our product. But we also know that having this supply-chain support is essential for customer satisfaction. Customers receiving their mugs on time and packaged neatly plays no small part in our success.
Amazon allows you to calculate the costs involved and know where you need to set your retail price to make a profit. It really makes it easier because you know you’re not missing anything in the process. And it helps keep the logistics issues off your plate. Just have your manufacturer ship right to Amazon’s warehouse and everything else is done online!
You can expand your business online by leveraging the servicing that FBA offers. It’s an increasingly important sales channel and can give your business a new way to reach customers. Most importantly, it helps you do it while minimizing the headaches that come with packing and shipping!
