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If you’re seeking to start an Amazon company, you’ve probably heard of Sophie Howard, sometimes known as the Amazon Selling Queen.
Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is one of the few companies in Covid 19 that is still developing at a rapid pace. This is what motivates so many prospective entrepreneurs who want to try their hand at eCommerce to look into the worldwide marketplace.
To be successful with Amazon FBA, you’ll need a tried-and-true template that’s simple to duplicate.
Sophie’s Blue Sky Amazon is one of the most popular Amazon FBA courses today.
“Is Sophie Howard a con?” you may wonder. Is it worthwhile to take the Blue Sky Amazon course?
Because I’m not an associate of Sophie’s course, you can trust that my opinion is unbiased.
Key Takeaways from the Blue Sky Amazon Course
I’ll go through the following points in my Blue Sky Amazon course review:
Sophie Howard, who is she?
Sophie is a New Zealander who was born in the United Kingdom and began her FBA company in 2014 while caring for her newborn baby at home. 
With the help of a staff of virtual assistants, she built a seven-figure Amazon eCommerce firm selling tea goods in only 18 months.
Sophie is currently renowned as the “Amazon Selling Queen” and the founder of the “Aspiring Entrepreneurs” brand.
Her organic tea brand, “Higher Tea,” is proof of her established private label technique. This brand got an acquisition offer from a corporation, which she cites many times in her classes.
Sophie launched Amazon Jetstream Income in 2016, which details her selling experiences and offers to assist others in starting businesses on Amazon. I purchased her book on Kindle, but there wasn’t much in it for novices. It’s more akin to a long sales spiel.
Sophie has, however, participated on a number of podcasts since 2017. One of the podcasts hosted by Sophie and Augustus Kligys, the creators of Orange Klick, might provide you some Amazon FBA guidance.
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What is the Amazon Blue Sky Course?
Sophie titled the two-part course Blue Sky Amazon Seller Academy after herself.
It has 14 instructional modules that cover the complete Amazon FBA business strategy. The major emphasis is on assisting mid-level sellers in developing long-selling items and scaling their businesses via virtual assistants, sales funnels, and other online services such as Feedback Genius.
That isn’t to say that an inexperienced seller can’t benefit from Sophie’s classes. However, you will gain the most if you already have a basic understanding of the Amazon FBA concept.
If you’re not sure what Amazon FBA is, here’s a video to explain it:
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A Summary of the Product University Course
Module 1 – Fundamentals
The video is 5 hours, 37 minutes, and 50 seconds long.
This module serves as the course’s basis. It is broken down into four sections and covers basic ideas such as:
- Sophie’s professional profile
- The ability to have a good attitude in order to establish a successful FBA company
- Making plans for the following year
- Investigating the advantages and disadvantages of different business platforms, such as retail arbitrage.
Aside from that, there’s a debate of how to construct a sales funnel. Sophie would demonstrate how she makes one. When it comes to a large-scale project,
A description of sales funnels is also included. And she’d guide you through the process of creating a funnel much more quickly than she did a few years ago.
Overall, this module provides useful knowledge. However, since Sophie crisscrossed the ideas and concepts, this module is not set up in a manner that makes it easy to take notes.
Module 2: Product Selection Techniques
Video Duration: 5 hours, 16 minutes & 41 seconds
In this session, Sophie believes that a large MOQ (minimum order quantity) is helpful to a seller since it provides a greater entrance barrier, unlike other Amazon FBA coaches who educate you to buy items that sell rapidly. This may help to cut down on the number of rivals.
Sophie’s goal, in other words, is to educate you how to make incredibly distinctive things that will last a long time.
Module 3 – Sales Funnels Fundamentals
Video Duration: 5 hours, 24 minutes & 19 seconds
The module is divided into four sections. Sophie would start by giving you an outline of sales funnels and its components, such as advertisements, lead magnets, and so on.
Sophie would lead you through the process of putting up a funnel using Russeell Brunson’s Clickfunnels in the second session.
The third session will show you how Sophie created a funnel for her student’s selected product as well as a Facebook marketing campaign to boost visitors.
Lastly, the 4th session begins with an evaluation on her student’s funnel and a 30 minutes of Q&A.
Module 4: Who are you going to recruit as your Virtual Assistant?
Video Duration: Time: 4 hours, 28 minutes & 20 seconds
This module consists of three courses, each of which focuses on how to recruit virtual assistants (VAs) and where to find them. Sophie would describe how she outsourced duties to virtual assistants and the challenges she faced.
She offers her knowledge in managing a staff of virtual assistants with you. Sophie, for example, had delegated supplier negotiations and product selection to her capable VAs.
Module 5: Behind the Scenes: Amazon Selling
Video Duration: 5 hours, 16 minutes & 41 seconds
Sophie explains how she launched her Amazon company in this session. You will get an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of Amazon FBA.
She’d then go through the fundamentals, such as how to set up a seller account, get a business license, and locate converting keywords using tools (LSI Graph, Keyword Inspector, Google Keyword Planner, and so on).
After that, you’ll see how to design a product listing, from title to description, and how to use Amazon PPC to launch items.
This program teaches the essentials of FBA, which is beneficial to both intermediate and novice sellers.
Module 6 – Unknown Product Sourcing Locations
Video Duration: 42 minutes & 8 seconds
Sophie discusses eight alternative methods for locating unique product sources in this section, including the Amazon Catalogue Technique, Amazon Scroll and Search Technique, Browsing Local Classifieds, Visiting Markets and Bazaars, and more.
Finally, Sophie discusses her own experience of blending work and pleasure when she travels to come up with new product ideas.
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Course Overview for Amazon Navigator
The duration of the course is 9 hours, 42 minutes, and 16 seconds.
Welcome to Module 1
Video Duration: 32 minutes & 46 seconds
Sophie understands that most new FBA sellers will go through a lot of ups and downs in the first three to five months. As a result, she enters this course with a positive attitude about overcoming obstacles.
How? Setting goals is the first step. Sophie instructs her pupils to keep their objectives in front of them and to follow a simple three-step plan to achieve them.
She wraps off this session with some FBA basics, such as how to figure out Amazon’s fees, product costs, and profit figures, as well as how to acquire a business license and sign up for a professional Amazon seller account.
Module 2 – Branding: What You Don’t Know
1 hour, 35 minutes, and 7 seconds of video
This is the module that distinguishes Sophie’s classes from the rest of the FBA. Sophie explains to her students how she used branding to help her grow up her Amazon storefronts to several seven-figure enterprises in this session. She may use this method to set her items apart from comparable ones on the market and demand a bigger profit margin.
Simply said, Sophie will teach you about branding and how to position your product such that it creates better perceived values.
While most FBA classes merely teach you how to put up a brand website and Facebook page, Blue Sky Amazon will teach you how to create a brand that is difficult to imitate and compete with.
Module 3 – Identifying Long-Term-Selling Products
The video lasts 21 minutes and 2 seconds.
Sophie’s ability to choose things that can be sold for a long period is the basis for her success with Amazon FBA. This is how you can follow in her footsteps and develop a long-term FBA company.
Sophie will explain how she identifies unusual and long-term items from suppliers that aren’t in the public spotlight in this lesson. She discloses a number of nations with which she has been collaborating to find unique items. Indonesia, Bali, India, Thailand, and the United States are just a few examples.
Module 4 – Are your listings in perfect condition?
Video Duration: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes & 25 Seconds
Sophie walks her students through the process of establishing a product listing that gets the attention of Amazon visitors in this session. This includes things like title construction, product description, and other aspects of sales copy.
The following are some of the themes covered:
- Searching for keywords
- How do you come up with titles that are appealing to customers?
- What is the best way to make compelling offers?
- Descriptions of products
She underlines the need of developing a product proposition that appeals to millennials, who make up the majority of internet users.
Module 5 – Order the Entire Shipment Instead of Samples
Video Duration: 19 Minutes & 19 Seconds
The subjects of shipping, sampling, and labeling are covered in this module. Sophie, unlike other Amazon FBA educators, gives you easy, practical, and actionable recommendations for streamlining the shipping process.
She identifies the most prevalent shipping issues and provides ways for dealing with them. You’ll discover three efficient methods for delivering your items to Amazon’s warehouse. This module contains all of the necessary information.
Module 6 – How to Promote Your Product Like a Boss
Video Duration: 28 Minutes & 2 Seconds
This session discusses five tried-and-true marketing tactics for launching your items. Sophie offers advice on how to measure sales success using seven key performance indicators.
Aside from that, she offers a step-by-step guide on creating promo codes. Sophie, for example, advises that you create a restricted amount of discount coupons and that the codes be concealed from the product listing.
Module 7 – Keeping Your Account Up to Date
Video Duration: 40 Minutes & 12 Seconds
You must understand how to make data-driven choices and maintain control of your Amazon FBA company if you want to create a long-term Amazon FBA business.
Sophie shows you how to use Seller Central to produce company reports, improve customer service, handle foreign payments, and seek Amazon assistance in this session.
Sales reports, inventory reports, payment reports, customer concessions reports, removal reports, and FBA business reports are all available via Seller Central.
On a weekly or monthly basis, as the owner, you must maintain track of these figures and indicators. For example, you’ll need to know your items’ profit margins and which ones are the best-sellers.
If you can’t get your hands on these tedious duties, you won’t be able to grow your company.
Module 8: Expanding Your Business Beyond Amazon and Hiring Virtual Assistants
Video Duration: 1 Hour, 9 Minutes & 17 Seconds
Sophie will show you how to outsource some of the tedious work in this last session so that you can concentrate on growing your company. To avoid the difficulties, she advises her pupils to employ a lot of virtual assistants.
Last but not least, she pushes her pupils to develop their businesses outside Amazon and to create an exit strategy so that they may enjoy their lives.
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Is Sophie Howard’s Amazon Course Blue Sky a Scam?
I can’t claim Sophie Howard is a con since there isn’t enough proof to back it up. She has true Amazon selling expertise, having built many seven-figure enterprises on the platform.
However, she emphasizes that launching an Amazon FBA company takes perseverance and unwavering commitment, and that it is not for the faint of heart.
In reality, it may be significantly more difficult than you imagine.
A high initial expense is required for an Amazon FBA operation.
You’ll need at least $15-20k to start an Amazon company.
Furthermore, since you cannot begin without prior knowledge, you must pay for an FBA course. For example, Sophie’s Sky Blue classes cost roughly $3500, or $995 in four monthly installments.
Furthermore, you must invest money evaluating a variety of items in order to identify the winning product. This implies you’ll need to make listings for various things and sort the best-selling items from the others.
This is a time-consuming and expensive procedure. So, if you really want to risk your hard-earned money, you must consider again.
FBA Business is a complicated operation.
In Amazon FBA, you will confront several problems. For example, you’ll have to negotiate with suppliers, compare shipping firms and freight forwarders, and follow Amazon and local government rules, among other things. For novices searching for a side hustle or a source of passive income that needs minimal time and commitment, this procedure is much too advanced.
There isn’t any immediate cash flow.
A company’s cash flow is its lifeblood. However, with the Amazon FBA business model, most sellers must spend a significant amount of money to buy inventory from Chinese suppliers.
The charges will be significantly greater if you want to develop a one-of-a-kind private label product. Most Chinese manufacturers, for example, charge a few hundred dollars only to create a prototype. If you don’t believe me, you can get a quote from Alibaba.com.
Depending on the nature of the items and the quantity, manufacture might take anywhere from 1-2 months. After that, it takes 2 weeks to ship and pass customs before arriving at Amazon’s warehouse.
This method suggests that you may not get compensated for the merchandise you purchased for many months.
Profitability is harmed by price wars.
Amazon is rife with price wars. When a vendor lowers their pricing in order to attract more clients, other merchants are driven to drop their prices as well.
You may need to reduce product expenses to prevent a net loss. As a consequence, product quality suffers, consumers provide unfavorable feedback, and sales suffer as a result.
You must cope with shifting sales tax regulations, category limits, and Amazon rules, in addition to the fierce competition.
In the worst-case scenario, if you breach certain restrictions by accident, Amazon may permanently ban your account.
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Alternative to Blue Sky Amazon Courses: A Better Way to Make Money Online
I don’t endorse Sophie Howard’s pricey Amazon FBA course, as I previously said. If I had money, I would put it into Regal Assets’ investments, which would guarantee a specific percentage of return.
Furthermore, if you’re new to internet company, you may ask whether there’s a better business model that doesn’t need any upfront investment and can be done as a side hustle.
Affiliate marketing is the simplest and most lucrative business plan I’ve attempted so far. It takes less time since you don’t have to maintain inventory or deal with customers.
While on vacation or at a full-time job, it may help you earn a consistent stream of passive money.
Because the world is full of uncertainty, I’d always choose for the lowest-risk business approach.
However, how much money can you make with affiliate marketing?
A 21-year-old student from my #1 rated affiliate marketing training platform earned $7,395 in only one week, or more than $1000 per day…all while utilizing free traffic strategies and affiliate marketing.
Wealthy Affiliate has been around for almost ten years and has a long list of success stories. Here are some more inspirational success stories from Wealthy Affiliate members to offer you additional examples.
What is the best way to join Wealthy Affiliate?
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You may join up for the beginner membership here if you want to get a feel for Wealthy Affiliate (no credit card required). You may choose to be a free member for an indefinite period of time.
As a starting member, you’ll get immediate access to the community, live chat, over 500 training courses, two classrooms, networking, comments, one free website, and the keyword tool.
You may take advantage of all of these benefits without spending any money.
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