Selling items you make on Amazon

Seen a lot about the dangers of reselling, but not this

[HRoth]

I make a lot of the items I sell. Others might make something with the same name, but it is not the same thing. I have my own unique ingredients, for instance, and focus on being historically accurate. I'm wondering if anyone who sells this sort of widget has sold on Amazon, and if so, what your experience has been like. I have seen threads about people who buy something and resell it having negative experiences with them because if the widget is hot, Amazon will figure out who the distributor is and sell the widget themselves for a lower price. But what if you are the manufacturer?

Also, no evil eye I have good rankings for the items I am thinking of selling on Amazon. Would Amazon ads for them then negatively affect my ranking?

I would just like to expand how much I sell.

[dpd1]

If it's a small niche that has a very informed following, then word will probably get out no matter what. If it's something the general public wouldn't know about, then maybe. I guess the only worry would be that you're exposing your ideas to a lot more people trying to make money, and therefore exposing yourself to people looking to copy stuff. If you did it on your own, those types would probably be less likely to find you.

[HRoth]

That's a good point. Lately I have been experiencing quite a number of newbie retailers imitating my products.

[dpd1]

Apparently there's many people out there that have a very difficult time coming up with their own ideas, and no moral issues whatsoever with ripping off somebody else. It never ceases to amaze me how dishonest some people can be.

Just yesterday I noticed I wasn't getting any traffic from a back-link anymore. These guys had contacted me a while back and offered to back-link to me, because my products complimented theirs. I agreed and put a link to their product on mine. So I went to their site to see why the traffic had stopped. Not only had they removed the link, but there's one of my products for sale directly on their site... They just C-P'd all my info, photo and everything. The only thing I can think of is that they must have ordered some under a name I wouldn't recognize.

I'm sort of at the point where I don't even care anymore. Life is too short to spend all my time being an internet cop. It's actually sort of liberating once you just give in. But at what point does it start doing real damage? So far this year I am just barely at where I was at this time last year. This might be the first year where I don't have a gain. I've completely lost a nice gain I had coming into April. Is that due to somebody scamming my stuff or something? Who knows. Sometimes it feels like your the kid trying to stop the dam leaking, by plugging the holes with your fingers. You plug one, and then a new one springs up. Bottom line, I don't trust anybody. And I just feel like the more people you involve, the more chances you have of people screwing you over. Unless you're so big that you can afford to have a suit sitting there defending you constantly.

[HRoth]

I don't know where copying starts to affect business either. It is something I've had to deal with a few times and each time it has freaked me out mightily at first. Gradually, though, I have seen that it has no discernible effect. This happened recently with a fellow who copied my type of sales patter and products and started selling on Amazon. I even posted about it here totally freaked out. He bought some of the ingredients to make the stuff from me and wanted (of course) info about how to make what I make. At any rate, now he is dead in the water on Amazon or anywhere else. I did not see any dip in my business. So on the one hand, I understand getting freaked out, and on the other, I understand not caring anymore.

Re trust, I recently went through a thing where I helped someone who was setting up a shop on Etsy, giving her sources and stuff because I figured an Etsy shop cannot ever really compete with a own-domain shop. We had a bunch of good conversations not only about retail but various personal things. Then she copied text from ten of my pages and even put her own copyright symbol on it on her pages. I sure felt stupid. So I get not trusting anybody now.

Re sales over previous years, one thing I have noticed that helps sales is always creating new products. I have seen when I slow down and don't make anything new that my sales barely hold with previous years. When I make a bunch of new things, they take off.

[dpd1]

Personally I think that's the secret to success, period. Making the exact same few things forever will pretty much doom you to failure. And I think car makers figured that out a long time ago.