 What is going on there guys welcome to a new video so you've seen the title then today I'm going to be discussing I'll kind of like going through the points of why I didn't choose amazon fba as a business model to pursue And why I actually chose Shopify drop shipping over it instead so I've got Some notes and I want to go through with you to make sure I don't leave any points out because Commit into a business idea then or a business model something that you're going to be putting a lot of time And a lot of money into then it's not a decision that you should be taking lightly It is something that you should give a lot of thought to so hopefully this video then if you're in two minds about um A few different business models and hopefully I can give you the kind of things you need to be thinking about to make the right decision because The chances are you're probably watching this hoping to replace some sort of income or make some sort of income So that you can do this full time And if you're going to be doing it full time then obviously you're going to be doing it in a year's time You're going to be doing it in five years and ten years time So the last thing you want to do is commit all that time All that knowledge all that money to only realize then that you're still not happy and that you've made the wrong decision So that being said then the reasons why I didn't choose amazon fba number one and probably like the scariest thing was the upfront cost so when I talk about amazon fba typically The business model i'm referring to is where you buy X amount of products from china or wherever it is you ship it into amazon They store the products there in one of their warehouses They you can advertise the product listing on amazon on amazon's website And then if anybody buys it then amazon pretty much handles absolutely everything for you So they'll pick pack and dispatch the products for you Via prime as well so anybody who pays for prime can get next day blurry service And then they'll handle any returns anything like that as well. So The biggest thing then the scariest thing for me at the time If anybody who doesn't know actually I did actually do amazon fba for a little bit, but I did it Not in the business model. I just explained but I did retail arbitrage So I would go to places in the uk like cosco And the pound stores source products I had an app on my phone that I could scan the products It would tell me what they're being sold for on amazon and then I would know if I could make any money So I'd buy products from shops like that ship them into amazon And then just make a little cut on top of it. So the number reason why then I didn't choose to pursue and continue doing amazon fba Was the initial upfront cost so You could go so nowadays when i'm sourcing products in bulk to sell in my Shopify stores I'll spend typically anywhere between about five hundred dollars and fifteen hundred dollars purely because the suppliers Work in dollars. I pay through everything through paypal So it'll go through dollars and that's a lot of money to commit upfront to a product to send into amazon if You don't know if that product is going to sell very well or not So that is the number one reason then the upfront cost at the time I didn't have a lot of money to play around with and that was one of the major attractions to drop shipping as well That the fact you can get started have everything pretty much up and running for less than a hundred pound and plus When it comes to amazon fba just your product is not the final cost either amazon is going to charge you to Store that product every month if you don't sell those units in the first month There is a miniscule cost but still something to consider And plus if those products don't sell on amazon then You can't just leave them in amazon forever and I mean you can keep paying the storage costs I guess but if you want them to ship them back to you or destroy them then again You've got more added costs there. So again a couple of things to be wary of if you do choose to go down the amazon fba route So number two then is competition and risk. I kind of spoke about risk in the fact that You can commit all that time all that money to do in product research All that money and wait for your product to arrive for it to not sell But the main thing I point want to make is competition. So On amazon there's just going to no matter what products you sell unless you invent something new Then there's going to be somebody else selling it as well And even on your product page as well on your product listing There's going to be other products on that page from other suppliers and if they do it better than you offer something different to you then More than likely the customer is going to go with them if they see it and that kind of leads into branding as well and the fact that branding is a bit less important on amazon because people Well, I can only really talk for my own experience But when I go into amazon then if I'm looking for a particular product and I'll tend to just go with whoever's cheapest Slash whoever has the best review reviews. I don't really care what brand it is unless I'm looking for something Specifically branded then I don't really care I'll just go with whoever is cheapest And whoever has the most reviews and that's something that you've got to compete against that is out of your control Shopify dropshipping is different Once you get somebody onto your site, then you've done half the job The only products they're going to be looking at are yours And if they spend any money, then it's only going to be going to you. It's not going to be going to your competition Number three then so you're restricted to what you can sell now you are in some means on Shopify as well Shopify won't let you sell certain products, but even more so on amazon then As a new seller on there that are I believe about a dozen categories. You can't sell in so you can't sell food. You can't sell clothing. You can't sell Beauty products. You do have to get ungated and pass Kind of certain criteria before you cancel is possible But in terms of what you can sell straight away, there's just less freedom to Which is something I'm not a big fan of I like to just be able to Well, it's if you compare it against drop shipping then with drop shipping as soon as you find a product You can have it on your store and be selling it literally within an hour Whereas on amazon, that's just not the case another thing to be wary of is amazon as well Now this is the thing with Shopify as well and When I'm looking at the two, I think Shopify is a bit more lenient hence why I put this as a disadvantage for amazon And that is that amazon can just cancel your listing at any time So you can be doing really really well with a certain product And then if there's something you haven't looked into or something you haven't checked properly Amazon can just cancel it like straight away and you can go from making I don't know five grand a day to just zero Um a good example of this actually someone I watch on youtube someone called tana j fox And he spoke about how one of his first winning products was patented Without in realizing and he was selling loads and loads of units things were going really well And then just overnight sales just completely dropped and all that stock he had to pay for then He then had to pay to get rid of it as well So something just another thing you need to be wary of and another reason then why I didn't want to go down the amazon fba room Number four then and that is that the skills don't really carry over. So what I mean by that then is that The skills you're going to have to develop for Shopify and drop shipping is Marketing and it's not as big of a factor with amazon fba Um, I guess an extreme example put it this way then if you were to walk into any business In the world and say i'm really good at amazon fba versus i'm really good at social media marketing then The the skills social media marketing is just so much more appropriate and they carry over to any business in the world pretty much It's going to be a lot stronger than it is with amazon fba If you know how to market on social media Then you can pretty much sell any product in the world moving on to the next point then and i've put here on my phone control your own destiny a bit more and Within both platforms when speaking about Shopify and when speaking about amazon and both you have kind of restricted But with amazon you are even more so with Shopify you can create any kind of brand you want You can sell whatever products you want Whereas with amazon you kind of there's more confine there's less confine more or less confinement to work within so I guess to put it in a way you put you you could say that with amazon you have less space to work with You have to work within amazon's rules and regulations and while Shopify does have those They're just a lot more broader and they give you just a lot more freedom So if you're one of those people that want to build like this really massive brand And you've got a certain message and everything to put across and you want a big social media following Then you can't do that as well on amazon as you can on Shopify A good way to look at it as well is that if you look at brands that you want to kind of Like mold yourself on so say you want to start a fitness clothing Business just look at people like gymshack or the biggest people in the world doing it people like gymshack And there's a reason then why they're not on amazon and why they are on Shopify. So that's kind of like a good way to look at it Uh second to last then is the fees. So when I was selling on amazon the fees are just crazy crazy high Um, it's not so high. You can't make any money, but they are just really really high like I have Products that I store in fulfillment centers and they charge me a fraction of what amazon charge me So it's not a cheap thing to do as well and it will cut into your profit margins a lot more than Then you may realize so definitely something to check out and again Something that you don't really have to consider with Shopify with drop shipping especially you there's only one cost essentially that you have to pay and that is the product cost and shipping cost combined And then finally I've already spoke about it briefly in the video and that is branding so Branding on Shopify can Be your advantage while it can on amazon. It's just not so much So look I've said before when you get somebody onto your store Then you've done half the job and with a good solid brand and a good social media following Then you can get people onto your store a lot easier and people are more likely to come back to you So if you just think about the last five things you bought on amazon Can you remember then like the five brand names of those items that you bought? I'd be surprised if you could and if you can't then the chances are when you go back onto amazon You're not going to be thinking about those brands and buying from that same brand again You're going to be thinking about or at least I do which is the cheapest and which has the best reviews So that being said then guys i'm going to Wrap the video up there Now I don't want anybody to think anybody who loves amazon fba It is a great business model and if you can do it well, then it probably provides a bit of a better lifestyle than dropshipping does There's certainly less time involved So i'm not hating on amazon fba whatsoever. The points i'm trying to put across here is that When before you commit fully to a business model You need to think about what kind of lifestyle you want to create for yourself And you need to pick a business that is going to provide that And that is kind of like the key to this video So that being said then guys that is the video. Thank you for tuning in if you're still watching much appreciated And i'll see you guys in the next one