AS 35: Dealing with Manufacturing Delays with Your Amazon Business

What’s up guys, grab that coffee out, it’s the AmzSecrets Show, with your host David Aladdin. When the tough gets going, you can’t back down. I look at Amazon as a massive battleground between sellers.

You’ve got corporations with their calvary,  medium sized businesses with their artillery. We are the strategist, the Kings,. We strategize from above. We carefully plot decisions, and attack certain areas we deem as vulnerable. We take the high ground and get that extra advantage. Welcome to the show.

Today’s sponsor is AmzSecrets.com VIP, a platform built of tools, run by top sellers, leveraging big data, the latest strategies, and our collective mind to make better decisions while building out our Amazon Businesses. I have already 1,2,3,4---5x; my Amazon business, And many others have too.

Amazon News Summary: Amazon Launches "Interesting Find"

So what does this all mean David?!

I think this is a smart move for Amazon. If your product gets used as a “Intersting Find” expect your sales volume to skyrocket and BSR to jump thrroughhhh the roof. It can bring startups into stardom, but also give you a significant advantage amongst your competitors.

That being said, its completely automatic I believe. I suspect this list is curated by A9, and probably involves a statistic related to how many customers “gift wrap” your item. If a large x amount of people gift wrap that item, it will likely show up. Just my guess though.

In all, I think this is a pretty cool feature. Lightning deals does give extra exposure to sellers, but it really is tough to earn money via a lightning deal. Your essentially sacrificing your profit margin to increase your BSR. A tradeoff, only worth it for a non-moving product.

Today’s podcast is episode 35, How to deal with manufacturer delays in your Amazon business.

Mannnn… manufacturing delays suck. And it’s not even the China News Year. What the heck. I’m just messing. Instead of complaining, there’s a lot you can be doing.

So in my current business, I’ve had really bad manufacturing delays with one of my manufacturers.

Manufacturing delays can be caused by:

* Defects on the product line

* Holidays in China

* Low staff at the factory

* Lack of management

* Lack of planning

* Over capacity at the factory

A delay in manufacturing with the have an adverse affect in your Amazon business. Okay David, so…you didn’t plan your order timing right!?

Ha, well I thought I did but in a sense I guess your right. However, I put the order in about 3 months ago and it’s still not finished. My prediction was a 2 month production rate, and slowest 3 months, but we are now in the 3 months of production and it does put strain on the entire business.

Okay David, what effects has this slow moving manufacturing process have on your business…and secondly, what are you doing to fix it?

By having a slow manufacturer, it creates a lot of sitting cash. You have a 30% downpayment that has technically not “worked” for you. Your products will sell slower with higher price points, or you can just run out of stock, which will cause your BSR to go back down. And your likely sitting on a lot of cash on hand, due to the fact your waiting to pay for the other 70%.

Slow manufuacturing, IS a very bad bad situation. Now to get to your second point, what am I doing to fix it?

On the specific manufacturing side, this is a very challenging area. I am pressing the manufacturing as light as possible so it doesn’t come off as too pushy, but I’m also doing a neat strategic thing. I’ve placed my next order, but have refused to pay 30% of that order, until they complete the existing shipment. This gives them more incentive to collect on the current 70% ...