Everyone curious about selling online in Australia hits the same fork within about a week: Amazon, or your own Shopify store. And almost everyone argues it as a fee comparison — which is the wrong argument, and an expensive one to get wrong. This one is for people who have not started either. No products, no supplier, no store, no seller account. Just working out which door to walk through first. What we cover: • What each actually costs here, in Australian dollars — Amazon's Individual plan at $0.99 excl. GST per item sold and Professional at $49.95 excl. GST a month, plus referral fees that mostly run 6% to 15% depending on category • Shopify's side — Basic at $56 AUD a month billed monthly (or $42 on annual billing), plus 1.75% + 30c on standard Australian card payments, and a 2% third-party transaction fee if you don't use Shopify Payments • Why "Shopify is cheaper" is true on paper and misleading in practice — Amazon's percentage is a finder's fee, not a hosting fee • The cost that appears on neither pricing page: traffic. Every visitor to your own store is one you built or bought, and advertising is money spent *before* you know whether anyone buys • The trust gap — what you're asking a stranger to do when they land on a website they've never seen • What each platform is genuinely better at: Amazon wins on demand and loses on ownership; Shopify is the reverse • The honest recommendation for a first product, and the one situation where it flips completely More at https://amzproductlauncher.com.au Follow the show for straight answers to the questions people ask before they start, not after. General information only. Not financial, tax, legal or business advice, and it does not take account of your individual circumstances. No income, outcome or result of any kind is suggested or promised. All figures are from Amazon Australia's and Shopify's own published pricing as at September 2026 — both change regularly, so check the current rates yourself. Seek your own professional advice before starting a business.

Everyone hears the same word before they hear anything else about Amazon: passive. Money while you sleep. A business that runs itself. So what does Amazon Australia actually do for a seller, and what does it quietly leave sitting on your desk? This one is for people who have not started. No product, no supplier, no stock, no seller account. Just the honest question: if I did this, what would land on me week to week? What we cover: • What Fulfilment by Amazon genuinely handles: storage, picking, packing, shipping, 24/7 customer service by phone and email, and returns and refunds — with sellable returns put straight back into your stock • Where Amazon's fulfilment centres are in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth) and the three working days it typically takes for stock to become sellable after it arrives • The much longer list Amazon never touches: choosing the product, finding and vetting the supplier, freight and customs, prep and labelling, writing the listing, advertising, and forecasting how much stock to send • The fees that quietly punish getting it wrong — storage charged on daily average volume in cubic metres at rates that climb over Christmas, long-term storage after 365 days, and unplanned services fees when a shipment arrives badly labelled • Stranded inventory, storage limits and the Inventory Performance Index — the account-health things nobody warns beginners about • Why the work is front-loaded and lumpy rather than daily and grinding, and what that means if you have a job • A dated but telling figure: in Jungle Scout's December 2020 global survey of 4,819 sellers, 70% had other work outside their Amazon business • The honest reframe — the accurate word is not passive, it is delegated More at https://amzproductlauncher.com.au Follow the show for more straight answers to the questions people ask before they start, not after. General information only. Not financial, tax, legal or business advice, and it does not take account of your individual circumstances. No outcome, result or income of any kind is suggested or promised. Amazon's fees, programs and policies change — check the current position in Seller Central before making decisions. Seek your own professional advice before starting a business.

It is the question people ask privately, because it feels like a question about character. And the usual answers — be driven, be hungry, be consistent — teach nobody anything about themselves. There is a better way to answer it, and it starts with what people already doing this say the hard part actually is. What we cover: • What sellers report as their top challenges, from Jungle Scout's 2025 survey of nearly 1,500 Amazon sellers across 20+ countries — including prospective and former sellers, so it captures the people who stopped: around 40% named rising costs, 38% higher shipping costs, 34% the rising cost of goods, 32% growing advertising expenses • What is NOT on that list — not "I couldn't think of a product", not "I'm not creative enough", not "I'm no good at marketing" • Why all three top difficulties are the same problem in different clothes: input costs that move after you've made your plan • The Australian corroboration from Amazon's own ASIC filing — advertising revenue up 58% and third-party seller services up 48%, against 20% growth in its own product sales • The ability that actually predicts whether someone copes: a willingness to recalculate. Closer to a bookkeeping temperament than an entrepreneurial one • Four honest self-questions, none of them a personality quiz — including the one about waiting, and the one about whether you can lose money on a decision and keep the analysis instead of the shame • Who should probably NOT do this: three groups, said plainly • The experience people undervalue in themselves — trades quoting, buying stock, running a roster or a budget — and the qualifications wrongly assumed to be prerequisites • A cheap behavioural test you can run this week instead of introspecting about whether you're "the entrepreneurial type" More at https://amzproductlauncher.com.au Survey findings describe the sellers who responded and are not a prediction about any individual. General information only. Not financial, tax, legal or career advice, and nothing in this episode is a claim or prediction about income, earnings or business results.

Everyone starting out in Australia asks this, and most of them want someone to just name the winner. The honest answer is that Amazon and eBay are not two versions of the same website — they are two different businesses that happen to both involve posting parcels. Choosing on audience size alone is the most common way new sellers end up on the wrong one. What we cover: • The overtake: Pattern's 2026 Australia Marketplace Consumer Report has Amazon passing eBay as the leading Australian marketplace for the first time — Amazon reaching around 60% of Australian shoppers, eBay usage down from 62% in 2023 to 51% in 2026 • Why the traffic estimates (Amazon roughly 60–80 million monthly visits, eBay high-20s to mid-30s millions) should be treated with suspicion, and what IS reliable about them • The seller-side numbers from Amazon's Australian accounts filed with ASIC: total revenue around $3.8 billion, direct product sales $2.33bn up 20%, third-party seller services $839m up 48%, Prime $480m up 38.8%, advertising $242m up 58% • What it means that the money Amazon makes from sellers is growing more than twice as fast as the money it makes selling its own products — and that ad revenue is growing fastest of all • The cost of walking in: eBay's free selling for Australia-based sellers under $25,000 in the past 12 months (postage-label caveat included), versus Amazon's $49.95/month Professional plan plus referral fees of roughly 6–15% • Why cheap to enter is not the same as easy • The Amazon buyer has changed: price down 42% as a motivator, with speed (35%), Prime benefits (31%) and simple preference for Amazon (28%) taking over • The question actually worth asking — which business are you starting? eBay rewards having stock nobody else has. Amazon rewards owning a listing that ranks. They suit different people. • A sensible low-risk sequence if you have never sold anything online More at https://amzproductlauncher.com.au Fees and platform policies change — check eBay's and Amazon's own current fee pages before deciding anything. Traffic and market-share estimates come from third-party research and vary considerably between providers. General information only. Not financial, tax or legal advice, and nothing in this episode is a claim or prediction about income, earnings or business results.

Everyone asks what it costs to start selling on Amazon. Almost nobody asks how long it takes — and that gap is exactly why people quit at week seven thinking it failed, when it was going completely normally.

An honest map of the road between "I've decided to do this" and "somebody bought something", for Australians who haven't started yet.

In this episode:

• Stage one: the identity verification gate nobody expects — and why Amazon publishing a guide on avoiding registration delays tells you something

• Exactly what Amazon says to have ready before you sign up: business email, chargeable credit card, government ID, tax information, phone number and a bank account

• Why registering early costs you nothing — the $49.95 (excl GST) Professional plan is only charged when you have active listings, and the Individual plan is just $0.99 (excl GST) per sale

• Stage two: choosing what to sell, the stage with no clock on it, and why "never quite deciding" is the more common failure than rushing

• Stage three: suppliers, samples and production — where most of the calendar actually goes, and none of it is Amazon's doing

• The single biggest lever: overlapping the waiting instead of running every stage one after another

• Amazon's four FBA steps, and why stock arriving at the warehouse isn't the same as stock you can sell

• The remote Australian postcodes FBA doesn't service: 2898, 2899, 4875, 6798 and 6799

• Live versus findable — what to actually watch in the first few weeks instead of the sales count

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Account requirements, verification rules, the FBA process and excluded postcodes are drawn from Amazon's own Australian seller pages as at August 2026, with plan prices quoted excluding GST as Amazon states them. Amazon changes its requirements and fees regularly — check the current position in Seller Central. No specific durations are quoted because they genuinely vary by seller, product and supplier. This episode is general information only and is not financial, business, tax or legal advice. Nothing here is a promise or prediction of results, sales, earnings or income, or of how long anything will take for you. Selling online carries real financial risk, including the risk of losing money. Seek your own professional advice before making a financial decision.

It's the question almost nobody asks out loud before they start: what happens if I order stock and nobody buys it? This is the honest answer, for Australians who are still deciding whether to sell on Amazon.

In this episode we cover:

• Why "doesn't sell" almost never means zero — and why slow is a fixable problem

• Exactly which money is at risk, and which costs keep ticking whether you sell or not

• The real Amazon Australia numbers: the $49.95 (excl GST) monthly Professional plan, the $0.99 per-unit Individual plan, referral fees of 6–15%, and fulfilment fees of $4.55 on a phone case versus $9.81 on an iron

• Dimensional weight — the trap that makes a 1,360g item charge like a 1,904g one, and why a bulky first product quietly makes your worst case worse

• Why daily storage charges turn a slow product into an expensive one

• The four real ways out: sell it down, sell it elsewhere, have it returned to you, or dispose of it

• What you keep even when a product fails — and the pattern behind the people this genuinely goes badly for

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All fees quoted are Amazon Australia figures published on Amazon's Australian seller pricing page as at August 2026. Amazon changes its fee schedules regularly and fees vary by category, size and weight — check current rates for your own product. This episode is general information only and is not financial, business, tax or legal advice. Nothing here is a promise or prediction of results, earnings or income. Selling online carries real financial risk, including the risk of losing money. Seek your own professional advice before making a financial decision.

You already work. So where would the hours come from?

It is the first question almost every Australian asks when they start looking into selling on Amazon, and it is usually asked the wrong way. In this episode we pull apart the difference between clock time and your time, and why they are nothing like the same size.

What we cover:

- Why 978,000 Australians now hold more than one job, a record 6.5% rate, the highest since the series began in 1994 (ABS, March quarter 2026)

- The waiting periods nobody warns you about, and why they are actually good news if you work: seller verification at one to three business days, sea freight from China to Australia at 20 to 45 days door to door, and Amazon check-in at a targeted three to seven business days that can stretch to fifteen in November

- Where your hours genuinely go, and why they are front-loaded into the one phase people rush

- The honest downsides: what does not wait for your day off, decision fatigue after a long shift, and why momentum is fragile

- What the Professional plan ($49.95/month ex GST) and the Individual plan (99c ex GST per unit sold) actually mean while you are still deciding

- The three honest questions to ask yourself, and the very first step, which costs nothing

No hype. No promises. Just what fitting this around a roster actually looks like.

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General information only. This episode does not take account of your personal circumstances and is not financial, legal, tax or business advice. No claim, promise or prediction about income, earnings or results is made or should be inferred. Fees, freight times and processing times change; check current figures yourself and get advice from a qualified professional before committing money.

Most people who think about selling on Amazon Australia stall in the same place: the paperwork. Do you need an ABN? A company? Are you supposed to register for GST before you've sold a thing? It sounds like the expensive, complicated part — and it turns out to be the cheapest and fastest part of the whole exercise.

This episode walks through exactly what an Amazon Australia seller needs before day one, what each piece costs, and what can safely wait.

In this episode:

• What Amazon Australia actually asks for when you open a seller account
• The two selling plans — $0.99 excl. GST per unit sold vs $49.95 excl. GST per month — and roughly where the maths flips
• Why an ABN is free, usually issued immediately, and the one entitlement rule that trips people up
• Sole trader vs company: $0 to start as a sole trader, versus $636 to register a company plus a $342 ASIC annual review fee every year after
• The tax difference — 25% for a base rate entity company, versus personal rates starting at 15c in the dollar above the $18,200 tax-free threshold in 2026–27
• When you actually need a registered business name ($47 for one year, $108 for three) and when you don't
• The $75,000 GST threshold, the 21-day rule, and the twist that catches new sellers: Amazon adds 10% GST to its own selling fees if you haven't given it an ABN that's registered for GST
• A sensible order to do all of it in — none of which needs a product, a supplier or a single unit of stock
• The three things beginners get wrong about Amazon paperwork

Brought to you by AMZ Product Launcher — we help Australians find product ideas, find suppliers, and launch on Amazon Australia. https://amzproductlauncher.com.au

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General information only. Fees, thresholds and tax rates are current at the time of recording and change over time — ASIC fees are adjusted every 1 July. Nothing in this episode is tax, legal or financial advice, and no income, earnings or results are promised or implied. Speak to a registered tax agent or accountant about your own situation.

Your listing is live, your ads are spending, and you have zero reviews. This is the exact moment new Amazon Australia sellers make the decision that ends their business — and the shortcut on offer in every Facebook group is a permanent ban. In this episode we walk through the three legitimate ways to get reviews on Amazon Australia, and the Australian legal layer almost nobody talks about. What we cover: • Where Amazon draws the line on incentivised reviews, and the single exception to the rule • Why Australian sellers face a second layer of risk under the ACCC — including the $2.9 million HealthEngine penalty, the $600,000 Service Seeking penalty, and the $39,600 PhotobookShop infringement notices • The Request a Review button: free, built in, and safe — plus the strict 5-to-30-day window that makes it safe • Amazon Vine in the Australian store: the tiered enrolment cost ($0 for up to 2 units, $100 for 3–10, $230 for 11–30), the Brand Registry and FBA requirements, and the fact you aren't charged until a review publishes • The two Vine catches sellers miss: you still pay FBA and referral fees on giveaway units, and enrolment can't be undone • Product inserts done properly — and the discount-code trap that turns a compliant card into review manipulation None of this is fast. It's the version that leaves you with a business in twelve months. More at https://amzproductlauncher.com.au If the show is useful, follow it in your podcast app — it's the thing that helps most. Amazon's policies, programs and fees change. Figures reflect Amazon Australia's published information as at August 2026 and should be confirmed in Seller Central for your own account. This episode is general information only. It is not legal or financial advice and does not take your particular circumstances into account.

Everyone arrives at Amazon asking "what should I sell?" It's the wrong first question.

Selling on Amazon isn't one business. It's at least four different businesses that happen to share a website — and they differ completely in capital, daily work, risk, and whether what you build is worth anything in three years. Most people who fail didn't pick a bad product. They picked a business they didn't actually want to run.

In this episode:

• Retail and online arbitrage — the cheapest way in, and the honest description: a treasure hunt that pays, but never compounds

• The Australian problem nobody mentions — the arbitrage playbooks people watch were filmed in American shops with far deeper clearance runs

• Wholesale — repeatable and stable, but you're on someone else's listing competing for the buy box with everyone else who got approved

• Private label — the only model that builds an asset you can sell, and the only one where getting it wrong means owning a container of it

• Dropshipping, and the distinction that gets accounts banned: it IS permitted if you're the seller of record with your name on the packaging and you handle returns. Buying from another retailer and having them post direct to your customer is not

• Why retail arbitrage itself is fine, but the retailer-ships-direct version isn't

• Four questions that actually tell you which model suits you

• Why nobody is choosing forever

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Startup capital figures quoted are ranges reported by United States sources in US dollars, indicating relative scale between models rather than a budget for an Australian business. Nothing here projects what any model will earn — results vary enormously and plenty of sellers in every model do not succeed. Amazon's policies, especially the drop shipping policy and category gating, change regularly and differ between marketplaces; Seller Central is always the authority. General information only, not legal, tax or financial advice.