1. High costs and fees. It is a good rule of thumb to attribute one third (1/3) of the cost of goods sold (COGS) is taken by Amazon in fulfilment fees, marketing fees and seller fees, and another third is generally assigned to the cost of the product and shipping/taxes to get the product to the Amazon warehouse. Sellers often incorrectly estimate the real costs of selling on Amazon. With only one third (1/3) of the sale price, on average, that is the actual profit made by the Amazon FBA seller.
2. High competition. Launch a new product on Amazon and watch how fast another seller comes up with the same or better product at a cheaper price. There are Amazon sellers who will actively take a loss in order to wipe out the competition.
3. Backing a lower than expected selling product. Amazon is not in the market of providing shelf space for low turnover products. If your Amazon FBA product fails to achieve the level of sales that you expect, do not expect Amazon to wait around for you to get the traffic and sales you want. Guess what happens when a product fails to sell on Amazon? It has to be removed from their warehouse, and if you can’t manage that, at your own cost, the products can be liquidated at very low rates – don’t expect a return on your investment, or even destroyed. That’s right, your investment, set up costs, time and effort can all go up in flames.
4. Amazon account suspension. More temperamental than that high school ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend, Amazon can suspend your account for seemingly no reason … and Amazon is not as responsive as you might think for a company that is holding your business success or failure in its hands.
5. Ineptitude in Amazon FBA store setup and management. This is not a stroll in the park. Amazon selling has many levels of understanding that needs to be mastered, from product assessment through to Amazon seller account setup through to product posting, marketing and management.

How can I avoid these pitfalls and still make money on Amazon?

Amazon affiliate marketing is by far the easiest and lowest cost/risk way to make money from Amazon’s growing global spread and popularity.

Being an Amazon affiliate marketer allows you to sell the most popular, highest turnover, profitable products at absolutely no risk.

It’s super quick and easy to set up an Amazon affiliate account, and once logged in, you’ll be able to copy a long-tail URL for any product you want to promote.

It doesn’t matter how a customer accesses the link, you can distribute a link via EDM, in a social post, under a YouTube video, on your own website, in a messenger post, ebook, online magazine, as a comment on someone else’s social media content, the world is your oyster.