Comment by philmcc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philmcc | Hacker News Reader

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Just to throw an alternative view to the "FBA is a Scam" threads.

I had a similar thought when I first heard about it, but then decided that I should give it a try as I am always dismissing things out of hands for believing that they are scams.

One year later I've quit my job (full stack developer), and sell full-time on Amazon and have never been happier. My current listings generate the majority of my income and require just a few hours a month to maintain.

For the rest of my time I do whatever I want.

It's not that things are inherently scammy, or unscammy. It's just things are or aren't easy based on your ability/work ethic, and the competition is or isn't steep based on how uninspired you are when competing.

The whole "cheap chinese knockoffs" thing is dismissive and frequently inaccurate. The great majority of things that people purchase from Walmart/Amazon/Target are manufactured in China, full stop. Some of it is cheap, yes, but no more or less than the ones by the "name brand" private labelers.

And it's going to be great until you hit the top 100 list in your segment. Then the cockroaches will move in and sell knockoffs of your product and you can spend your days proving to seller central staff that they are in fact knockoffs, with the requisite purchases and returns from your new competitors. And the requisite requests for escalation and emails to jeff@ when the associates refuse to escalate.

Enjoy your pink cloud while it lasts. And maybe keep your full stack skills current as a hobby. But be assured, there is a competitor somewhere willing to flip your product for $0.01 profit per unit.

There is a hint of truth to the concerns you're articulating, but it shouldn't be enough to dissuade you (or anyone else) from doing this.

The argument that people will always pay for the cheapest reasonable alternative would suggest that grocery stores would only sell the cheapest, generic brands. People will pay for quality and social proof, perceived or otherwise. Two identical products but one with (say) 500 genuinely earned reviews over time will always feel like a safer bet.

My expectation isn't that Amazon FBA will be my career for life. I expect it will be a viable income stream for a few years while I reinvest this time (and some of the earnings) into more stable industries (I have so much time to play with VR now) and develop an SaaS (including one in the Amazon space, go figure).

It's different than competition in a traditional market, where each competitor sets up their own storefront and does battle. On Amazon, you build the storefront, write the marketing copy, take the risks of choosing and testing products, building product reputations and testimonials, then Amazon enables literally anyone to come into what you've built, move your products to the back room, and sell their similar stuff on your end caps, and walk out of your store with the money you should have made.

And should you complain, Amazon treats you like their bitch, this despite the fact that paying commission on every sale makes you a customer.

It's true, people pay for cachet, social proof, etc. And when the competition uses the same ASIN and grabs the buy box from your listing of unique items, the sale goes to them simply because the add to cart button is associated with their product not yours as a result of winning the buy box. And when they win the buy box, they get the benefit of all the social proof you've cultivated via reviews on the product listing.

I'm not trying to dissuade you, or my mom, for that matter. Just sharing my experience as the HN ethic suggests I should. There's numerous strategies to deal with the Amazon cockroach problem, including staying one step ahead with better products. It's just it can get a little soul sucking...and best to know what to expect so you can prepare the best you can.

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