You might remember Jake Jordan from some of his previous guest posts, such as 7 Lessons From My First 7 Days in FBA or Case Study: How I spent $4,000 in sourcing money in 30 days.
He has taken our listing course, and has written a review on it. If you have questions, feel free to ask them below or in our facebook group.
Here is a link to the course, in case you want to check it out before reading the review.
Review: Creating a Product Listing on Amazon
I am a big fan of educational courses on video from places like Youtube and Udemy. The problem with a lot of the people creating courses to teach a concept is they often don’t take the time to think like the person who will be watching it.
Not the case here.
Chris does a great job in this course showing you how to not only create quality listings, but telling you the reason why each recommendation works.
So let’s look at each section of the course and discuss what I found useful and challenging.
Section 1: Introduction
Why is creating your own product listing in your Amazon store important? How is it going to help create more profit for your business? These are the type of things Chris discusses before diving into the course.
The second portion you actually get a look at all the items or information you would need to go and start a new listing.
Nothing mind-blowing here. If you bought the course you probably already know why you might like to do this as a seller. Good start to the course.
Section 2: A Few Skills
This is where things start actually revving up into gear. As with many things in life, concentrating on getting good at just a few things can pay big dividends.
Editing a photo – People who want to buy something want to see the product first. It’s amazing how many people don’t care about their product photos! Chris walks you through a very straightforward process to get a simple but nice photo.
This is one of the areas where it may have been good to add bonus material of how to create several versions based on the type of product. I find editing photos is one of the bigger challenges for most people, so more video resources would likely help out!
A Good vs a Bad Listing – I would pay the price of the course for this section alone. For someone like me who like to be shown the ropes, the info covered here was absolute gold!
“Which one would I choose as a consumer?”
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The video walks through almost EVERY aspect of the listing and gives a best practice approach on every element. This was the most useful part of the course for me.
Once again, this walkthrough was worth the entire time I spent and I have watched it numerous times.
Consumer Behavior – Understanding what your consumer wants is the difference between hocking items on the side of the road and being a true online business.
As a marketing director by day, this was definitely the most enjoyable part of the course for me. While most people don’t think this way on a daily basis, everyone thinks like this as a consumer.
Chris does a good job breaking down some of the traditional trends that happen with a product or niche and how that can make you money as a seller.
If you follow Chris on Periscope (@cawilkey1) you know he loves to wax poetic on economics 🙂
Section 3: Creating a Product Listing
For those that are looking to get straight to the nuts and bolts of actual listing creation, this is where it happens. The process is not long or complicated so don’t expect miracles.
However the valuable part for myself is knowing what all the fields are for and how I can use them to best describe my product. Also understanding how to create a functional listing vs a best case listing is nice to know.
Sometimes you just need to get items shipped!
The Quick and Dirty Method –
I’m happy that Chris took the time to talk about keyword research in this section. That was not necessary to complete this video series. However he is a pro and understands that keyword data (even in a very quick listing upload) is VERY important!
Everything from how to pick a category, to which fields you can skip are included here so that you can be up and listed ASAP.
The Correct Way –
A big difference in this section is really about the amount of detail things go into.
For example when picking a title Chris talks about using keywords in the title, and using variations to cover lots of people’s thoughts.
He also talks in detail about the best way to create the description and features sections. This may seem like a silly area to spend time on, but there is so little copy in a listing that it becomes the only place to talk about your product.
Section 4: Conclusion and Bonus Materials
What We Learned –
Need to figure out what to go back to, or focus on? This is a nice wrap up of what was covered and the highlights. This is in essence an outline of the course with brief descriptions.
So want to know what you are going to learn? Maybe start here…
Keyword Research –
Everything you wanted to know about finding good keywords for your listing. Ok, not everything, but a great primer on the technique to start with and deploy moving forward.
Chris uses a tool called AMZ Shark that is a paid tool. I personally know of lots of free keyword tools so I do not pay for one.
One of my free favorites to get a nice variety of product searches is www.keyword.io
Not only does it cover Google and Bing, it wades into other REALLY valuable search sources like Amazon, Alibaba, Ebay and Youtube.
Style Guide –
This is actually not a video but a PDF with Amazon best practices. It is something available through seller central and a nice addition to the course so I don’t have to go look for the things Amazon requires of my listings.
Rules from Amazon –
This is also a PDF that covers creating ASIN and UPCs for your product if they don’t exist. Amazon has begun cracking down more on duplicate listings (which is a good thing!)
So really everything you need to know is in the document, and therefore another good addition to the course. Some commentary about FAQs on this subject might be a welcome addition.
While the document is straight forward, I often see application questions about adding or removing listings all over the Facebook groups.
More Rules –
*Yawn* Yep another PDF with rules. I kid…. It’s important to know what you should and should not do, and once again nice to have here for your reading pleasure.
OVerall I’m very happy with the course and of course would recommedn it to anyone who has not done a listing before.
It would also be valuable for a seller that has created listings, but not spent much time understanding what certain listings perform better than others.
Happy listing!
-Jake Jordan
Well, Jake nailed it. This course can help new and old sellers alike, presuming you currently do not have “creating a listing” in your skillset. The reasons to create a listing are vast, the obvious being to create a bundle or to sell a brand new item.
All the information is contained here. Cheers.