Custom Design Your Own Amazon Products Part 3


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Ash Monga joins the show talking about how to custom design your own Amazon Products.

Ash is from Imex Sourcing Services and been in China for last 7 years helping people get product from China with finding factories, background checks and logistics working with e-commerce sellers

The product is called the ‘deck hook’ and allows you to carry any skateboard on any backpack.

Before the product you had to buy a skateboard backpack at $80 to $250

This product is priced at $35 and works with any skateboard and backpack so very versatile.

Basic Design – How to Design your own Amazon Products

  • Robert Simpson is Ash’s partner and came up with the concept
  • He drew it up on paper
  • Ash went to a CAD designer and got it made up
  • He went to a professor at his college to create his prototype
  • From there it came to Ash and made it

CAD person needed

  • Much easier to find someone on Upwork that knows how to design your own Amazon products from a CAD perspective
  • If you want to work closely with the designer then it’s a bit harder
  • You can find them pretty easily but they specialise in certain industries (like furniture)

Iterations

  • Once we developed the prototype it was not a complex product
  • First version of CAD design and then went to prototype
  • Then relied on the prototype and went to the manufacturers

Prototyping

  • It was made out of metal and the angles are quite specific
  • Was some basic metalwork only needed on this
  • Used fedlock a magnetic part to hold the straps together
  • In-house prototyping for this product

Seeking a Factory

  • Ash’s background is heavily in sourcing
  • Got hold of the sample
  • Went to factories that we’ve worked with before that we know would be good at new product development
  • Hard to get factories on-board as it breaks their mass production model
  • New products can face pressure from factories
  • We had worked with them before so some trust already built

Costs

  • Less than $5k for the whole thing to get to production prototype with CAD, Professor and Prototyping in factory
  • A good sign for new Amazon Sellers to make new products

Best Approach for a New Person wanting to know How to Design your Own Amazon Products

  • Know you market really well and what the pain points are – single most important factor
  • You don’t need a sophisticated product but it does need to fix a pain point for a sizeable market
  • Choice of materials can influence cost
  • Think 3 steps forward on what the  end product would look like and work backwards
  • How can I simplify manufacturing and use more cost effective materials
  • Good idea to get your supplier on early and explain you have a vision for a very similar product and are looking to add a couple of features
  • What’s the lowest cost methods to create a new iteration of an existing product

Patents

  • Were unsure about whether to go for one or not
  • Low cost strategy for a provisional patent for upto 12 months
  • You can after 12 months file for a full patent which is more expensive
  • Provisional
    • Lawyer spends a little time to document what your product is not in too much detail
  • Full patent
    • We went for it about 2 months before the provisional expired
    • It was out biggest expense
  • Was worth it to defend the product in the future in many marketplaces
  • Unless you are really sure it’s probably not worth spending on it as if Apple and Samsung can’t them why do it
  • The patent does carry weight with Amazon and protection though

Kickstarter

  • Went to get funds on Kickstarter
  • Outsourced the pre and campaign management to a company that specializes in crowdfunding
  • They did a pre-campaign to establish if there is enough interest in the product in the market
  • Ran FB ads to a landing page to test interest
  • With enough pre-interest in the campaign then agreed to go ahead with a full campaign
  • A lot of people do the Kickstarter to fund the first round of production
  • Ash’s primary goal was to get  market validation rather than funds
  • Goal was to raise $20k (within the first 3 days) but they raised $60k in total!

Keywords

  • You’ve developed a new product and you need to get it on Amazon
  • New to Amazon so no keywords and no search volume to rank
  • Ash is currently relying on PPC campaigns
  • Next step is to setup Amazon accounts and targeting and keywords
  • Would target keywords that relate to competing products like “backpack for skateboards”
  • Neighbouring keywords would be targeted
  • Do a deep dive into AMS with some product ads running for information analysis

Influencer Campaigns too

  • Sent a number of product to YouTuber influencers and the videos started coming in that really helped the campaign

 

Contact Ash

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