Would you like some help starting and managing your PPC campaigns? Or for more generic, routine aspects of your private label business, like customer support and order management? These are just some of the things Amazon virtual assistants can help you with.
Some sellers decide to forgo a VA and manage the A-Z of an Amazon business alone. But not everyone is willing—or capable—of doing so. That’s where an Amazon virtual assistant comes on board.
So, where do you find an Amazon FBA virtual assistant? What duties will they perform? And is hiring one the right move? Read on to learn the answers to these questions and more in this guide.
An Amazon virtual assistant (or Amazon VA, for short) manages the day-to-day affairs of your Amazon store. Depending on their expertise, they can handle keyword or product research, sourcing, listing creation and optimization, order management, advertising, customer support, and more. So naturally, the more skilled they are, the higher they will charge.
An Amazon virtual assistant can handle one or more aspects of your Amazon store. Think of it as outsourcing (or automating) the more tiring or repetitive aspects of your online business to someone with the proper knowledge and experience.
The best Amazon virtual assistants offer - as they call it - A to Z services. These include product niche viability, branding, and social media management. But be wary; the Amazon VA market in 2024 is saturated, and many service providers may ‘oversell’ themselves just to snag a client.
If you plan on hiring a VA, ask the right questions to gauge their ability and determine whether they’re worth the price tag.
With that disclaimer out of the way, a mid-tier virtual assistant for Amazon FBA can handle the following tasks:
Some Amazon virtual assistants market themselves as ‘product hunters’, whereas others may call themselves ‘keyword researchers’. Expect these VAs to have active subscriptions to multiple leading keyword research tools available in the market.
They also know the latest product-hunting methodologies and can find the right keywords (i.e., those with high demand, low competition, and easy to rank). Most follow a data-driven approach that considers the dynamics of a marketplace, your overall budget, and why a specific product niche is the best in its overall category.
Finding the right supplier (for example, on Alibaba.com) and negotiating the best prices is challenging. With countless manufacturers producing the same products, choosing a supplier that meets your price point and quality standards is like finding a needle in a haystack!
An experienced Amazon virtual assistant will quickly spot the tell-tale signs of quality manufacturers and be equally competent when negotiating prices. Since suppliers are known to turn their backs on agreed-upon terms and conditions (hello, contractual agreements!), hiring a seasoned VA ups your chances of dodging financial disasters.
✍️Note: Keep an eye out for VAs who have links with natives to scout local markets for killer rates and inspect your inventory. To help, look for VAs with experience dealing with Chinese suppliers and reputable freight forwarding companies.
The product listing or detail page is the face of a brand. But don’t think creating an optimized product listing is just about being fancy with words; you’ll need to do some strategic keyword placement to rank high on Amazon.
This involves understanding where to place primary and secondary keywords in the product title, bullet points, and description in the most natural way. And that’s just one aspect of listing optimization—never mind the importance of backend keywords.
Regardless of how efficient you are with your keywords, a listing can only be considered fully optimized with high-quality images. For this, we suggest hiring a specialized VA that offers professional photography along with A+ content or, at the very least, can get it done through someone else.
Sellers should routinely track changes made to their competitors’ product listings. Failing to do so will most likely slow down sales velocity, followed by an eventual drop in the rankings.
To understand listing optimization a little more, visit our Amazon listing optimization blog. Otherwise, it might be best to hire an Amazon virtual assistant and leave it up to them
✍️Note: When planning to sell internationally, some VAs can help to translate your product listing. For FBA, you can also check out Amazon’s local customer support services, and the Amazon Build International Listings (BIL) tool does a decent job too.
Amazon virtual assistants who know how to run and manage Ad campaigns are highly sought after by small and large-scale sellers. Creating an ad campaign is easy (head to the Advertising tab, select Campaign Manager, and choose a campaign type). But here’s the problem, which kind of campaign is best to start with?
Your options include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. Let’s say you opt for Sponsored Products, is automatic or manual keyword targeting the right choice? To sum it up, running and fine-tuning Ad campaigns can be beyond the scope of new sellers.
Even if you decide to educate yourself on the topic, the odds are that you’ll lose money initially while you’re still figuring things out. Suppose this isn’t what you’re looking for. In that case, you can save time and energy by hiring a virtual assistant for Amazon FBA who specializes in creating and managing Ad campaigns.
✍️Note: Plenty of newbie VAs out there claim to be Amazon PPC experts. During the interview, ask a potential VA to present evidence of how they have helped previous clients run and manage successful Ad campaigns.
Customer support can consume a lot of time and is an inevitable part of running an Amazon business. Taking care of customer support-related tasks is the bread and butter of every VA. Some of these include answering customers’ questions, dealing with refund requests, contacting Amazon for negative review removals, managing email campaigns, reporting listing hijackers, and so on.
The customer service end of things is relatively easy to deal with when it comes to FBA, both for the seller and the VA. In FBM, a virtual assistant is expected to resolve logistics-related issues. These include managing and processing FBM orders, taking care of refund requests, and creating removal orders, to name a few.
Some VAs have been in the game long enough and are now Amazon FBA experts themselves. Such individuals (or agencies) have a firm grip over many - or all - aspects of Private Label selling. In some cases, they’re established sellers themselves, so get ready to pay such people a pretty penny--well upwards of $1,000.
Amazon virtual assistant services cost anywhere from $400 – $3,000/mo, depending on the provider's skills and experience. But you can also hire VAs hourly, part-time, or per-task if you’re not ready to hand over core business operations to someone else. Visit popular freelancing platforms to know more about the average Amazon FBA virtual assistant salary.
Now that you know what a VA can do for your business, it’s time to move on to the Amazon virtual assistant hiring process.
Visit freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork to hire someone to set up an Amazon store or scale up your already established business.
Upwork and Fiverr are two digital platforms that connect entrepreneurs and businesses with freelancers.
After setting up an account, search for terms like “Amazon VA,” “Amazon Virtual Assistant,” or “Amazon FBA wholesale virtual assistant”. For more specialized tasks, type in “Amazon” followed by “Product Researcher,” “PPC Expert,” or “Sourcing Specialist,” depending on what you need.
Similar to Amazon and Google, a drop-down menu will suggest relevant terms. After selecting the type of virtual assistant you’re interested in, a list of profiles will appear, with the best-performing ones at the top. Here’s an example:
When recruiting an Amazon VA on Upwork, consider the following metrics:
Alternatively, you can post an ad detailing the tasks you want potential VAs to fulfill. This information will act as an Amazon FBA virtual assistant job description and help you procure the best talent.
Fiverr also features similar metrics that help sellers connect with reputable service providers. If freelancers consistently perform well, they’re upgraded to ‘Level One’ sellers, then ‘Level Two’, and finally ‘Top Rated’, like those on Upwork. If you want to hire the best of the best, you can set custom filters like the ones below.
Top Rated freelancers are hard to come by. However, those with a Level One or Level Two badge can also be great virtual assistants. Here’s an example of a Level Two freelancer offering professional Amazon photography services.
✍️Note: You can Fiverr’s official page to view the criteria for different seller levels.
Based on all the facts, hiring an Amazon virtual assistant will help if you are: short on time, sell on Amazon as a side hustle, or need to delegate tasks to someone else.
As we approach the end of this blog, let’s address an important question. Is it necessary to hire an Amazon VA? No.
An Amazon virtual assistant can be handy, but they’re not a prerequisite to success or making lots of money on Amazon. Today, plenty of business intelligence or seller tools make it easy to find and sell products on any Amazon marketplace in the world.
Such solutions have a low learning curve, come with additional training resources, and cost less than a virtual assistant. One example is Zonguru.
Zonguru is an all-in-one FBA seller tool suite that makes it easy to find a best-selling product, do keyword research, and shoot your listing to page one. For some product inspiration, check out our free eBook of 80 of the hottest products to consider right now.
ZonGuru was designed to be the quintessential ‘virtual’ assistant. To perform all the tasks of a live VA and, in some cases, outperform VAs. How so?
Here’s a quick peek at some of the features:
The image above shows the search result for the word keyword “boys cap”. Easy Source only recommends the best suppliers/manufacturers on Alibaba.com based on key metrics like performance, time spent on Alibaba.com, and customer ratings.
And that’s not all--sign up today, and you’ll get access to various other tools and resources, like podcasts, webinars, guides, and a customer support team to egg you on. ZonGuru is, without a doubt, the best bang for your buck when launching and growing a profitable FBA business!
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