Guest post by Kev from Life Success Engineer

Not everyone that starts on Amazon succeeds. There are many reasons for this but in this blog post, I wanted to share the top ten hard truths why people fail with Amazon FBA Online Arbitrage. This comes from 30 months of working with many online arbitrage sellers and seeing the patterns of success and failure.

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Here are my top ten reasons why people fail with Amazon FBA Online Arbitrage. You can use this list to do a review of your own mindset and business operations.

1. False Expectations

When somebody starts doing online arbitrage, their expectation may be that success will be easy and rapid. This may come from false messages within online communities from those that are successful, but it must be stated that at the beginning of any business — the learning curve is sharp.

It is those that persist through the challenge of finding profitable products at the start that reap the rewards later.

2. Lack of Data/Emotional Selection

The data that Amazon gives does not lie. They give us all the information we need about products and therefore we must use it to our advantage. We should never assume anything or use emotional judgement. “I would buy it” or “I think it would sell” does not lead to long-term success.

3. Chasing Sales/Revenue & Not Profit

When you see the sales screenshots online, this does not share the full true story. Nobody knows what the profit margin is, and it is a trap to chase the revenue number.

All sellers must focus on profit and not get sucked into competing with other sellers racing to the lowest price.

Related: Avoiding a Price War on Amazon

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4. One Man Band Mentality

The reality of business is you cannot do it all yourself. You need help.

You may be able to start this business alone but sooner or later it will run you down and you will become overworked and your business will suffer. Start with the team building in mind.

5. Systems Mindset

Systems in business are critical for success.

For example, at McDonald’s, every task that they do throughout the day is done exactly the same way every time it is done.

Always think in terms of step-by-step procedures and start writing them on documents to send to your team.

6. Lack of Investment

You need to invest in your business. This can be via your resources, your team and different services.

RepricerExpress is a perfect example. The investment in this quality service is far greater than trying to do everything yourself.

7. Accounting (Purchasing)

You need to have a system in place to manage your accounting to the decimal point. Discover the best accounting software for Amazon sellers.

8. Accounting (Money Management)

This is the most fundamental principle in business. Without good money management, you will not be successful long-term. Begin by writing down all your expenses and be clear on your outgoings so you don’t fall short of cash. Cash is king in business.

9. Expanding too Rapidly

There are many scenarios when expansion is the right thing to do, however, there are many more when expansion is not the right thing to do.

10. Fixed Mindset – Lack of Learning

80% of success is mindset and the other 20% is mechanics. It all starts with the way you think. The ultimate reason for failure will always be mindset because no matter what happens, it is those that do not give up will succeed.

That’s it! I hope this blog post has been useful! Want more free Amazon training?