After consulting several Amazon FBA millionaires, I was shocked to find out what it really costs to get started here in 2022. Please, allow me to summarize. First, you got your Amazon Seller Central fee: what Amazon charges you, right outta the gate, for the privilege of selling on their platform. That’s thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents per month, even if you don’t sell a single product. Next, you’ll need some product samples. Plan on about two hundred and fifty bucks, minimum.
Then you got your first actual inventory order. Depending on what you’re selling and what it costs to get it from China, you’re looking at around two to three hundred units for about one thousand dollars. Many FBA sellers will order more units than that, to save a little bit extra per unit, so this is playing it safe. But I think it’s smart because what if you don’t make any sales? But again, if you pick a pricier product or it’s heavy and awkward to ship, budget even more than a grand.
Your next Amazon FBA cost is barcodes. You’ll need one unique barcode for each product you list in your store. In other words, if you only have one variation of one product, you’ll only need one barcode. However, if you have different colors or sizes and whatnot, you’ll need a separate barcode for each. Make sense? Good, so you’ll need two hundred and fifty dollars for one to ten barcodes (they’re sold in ranges like that, apparently).
Then there’s product photography. You can’t skimp on this. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, well, those thousand words could say just about anything, couldn’t they? You want well-thought-out, high-res images of every different view a potential buyer would wanna see. Budget no less than a hundred bucks for this. It’s probably best to find a local photographer in your area, with ecom experience, and a portfolio that impresses you wouldn’t hurt.
Next, you’ll probably wanna invest in an Amazon FBA course or coaching program. These can be anywhere from a few hundred bucks on up to ten grand or more. The most popular ones I’ve reviewed cost around five K. It’s easy to be cynical about courses, but the truth is, if it keeps you from picking the wrong product or taking the wrong approach, it could save you months of stress and tens of thousands of dollars in wasted money.
What else? Marketing and advertising. It’s hard to ballpark what you’d need for this because it really depends on your strategy. Are you going the organic route, creating an Instagram account, a YouTube channel, a TikTok, or a blog? If so, with a lot of consistent hard work, it’s possible to spend very little here. Just a couple hundred bucks for software and tools maybe. But if you’re gonna run ads, like most FBA sellers? You’d probably wanna set aside a good five hundred a month, just to be safe.
Don’t forget Jungle Scout. Sixty bucks a month. For finding, launching, and managing winning FBA products. Other optional costs include trademarking (maybe fifteen hundred bucks), fancier packaging (maybe five hundred bucks), logo design (two hundred bucks or so), hiring a lawyer to make sure everything you’re doing’s on the up and up (another grand), and maybe a virtual assistant (say four hundred bucks a month). All-in, you’re looking at eleven grand. Ouch.
