Need Advice: Invested $10,000 in Amazon FBA, No Sales in 90 Days – Facing Losses
Dear Amazon Sellers and Experts,
I am reaching out to this community with the hope of finding guidance, support, and possibly a helping hand in what has become a difficult situation for me as a new Amazon seller.
Back in Jan 2025, after extensive research and careful planning, I selected 7 products using Jungle Scout data and insights. I ensured the products had good demand, decent profit margins, and relatively manageable competition. Based on that, I invested around $10,000 USD, which covered inventory, shipping, labeling, FBA prep, and related expenses.
My listings went live since end of Feb 2025, and everything seemed ready for success. Unfortunately, it's now been over 90 days, and I haven't made a single sale. I’ve tried to optimize titles, images, and bullet points. Despite my efforts, the products are just sitting in Amazon's warehouse.
Meanwhile, I’m constantly getting charged monthly FBA storage fees, fulfillment fees, and other Amazon-related charges, all of which are being debited from my personal credit card. I am now at a point where I'm facing a complete loss, with a growing financial burden and no sign of recovery.
I understand there are many variables at play—pricing, listing visibility, PPC, competition, etc.—but I truly feel lost now and don’t know what to do next.
I’m humbly requesting:
- Honest advice from experienced sellers—what should I do differently to get sales going?
- Suggestions on listing improvements, PPC strategy, or any practical ideas that have worked for you.
- If anyone is willing to offer free consultation or a quick audit of my listings, I’d be truly grateful.
- Any ideas for liquidating slow-moving inventory if there’s no way forward to at least the actual product cost.
This is my first attempt at building a business on Amazon, and I sincerely believed in the potential. I’m not ready to give up yet—but I can’t afford to keep burning through money without results either.
Thank you in advance to anyone willing to share their experience or guidance. Even a few helpful tips could make a world of difference right now.
Warm regards,
Team Xpress VirtuOcart
42 replies
Seller_rI7BZIczK8iAC
Are you sure your listing is showing up in the search? Please post the ASIN and we will take a look. There has to be a reason for this desaster. Unless you sell phone cases or in another high competitive field.
... and you see the result if one million people use the same data....
Seller_Sram36TnVt73c
this is a really really bad time to start on Amazon...many sellers are experiencing a slowdown in the last few months. My December sales were lower than my November sales...an ominous sign. Consumer confidence is very low right now and the recession isn't helping.
Seller_4zBzdtgCyS9EI
I am not sure how soap / food dispensers are a good choice?
There are currently over 20.000 listings coming up for food and soap dispensers, nobody will EVER see yours unless you spend a small fortune on PPC
Travel adapters have so many listings you could put them in a book.
Even your Collapsible Wagon Cart has over 2000 established competitor listings
Thing is, these may be well selling items, but not as a new product from a seller without reviews and feedback.......you either spend another 5K on PPC or should have your inventory returned and sell it locally (so you don't have to charge shipping and make more profit)
Seller_4zBzdtgCyS9EI
Cut your losses now!!!!! You will regret keeping your inventory at the warehouse. Wait till long term storage hits and you will be out much more than you already invested.
Seller_LVZcgxAgZ2xBv
Not the first to be burned by JungleScout, whose data guarantees you will be following the herd into a barren gulch from which there is no escape.
Common sense and some basic cost/margin calculations can go a long way. There was someone on here last year who launched a copycat sports accessory that was identical to the competition, some of whom had thousands of reviews, yet was priced 30% more. No way something like this can work, yet some app or "masterclass" led the seller to believe it was a good idea.
If you want to target a competitive product category, look at the qualitative data (such as competitors' reviews) to understand where some opportunities may be had for differentiation.
Seller_kIukTwdhvntAp
"This is my first attempt at building a business on Amazon, and I sincerely believed in the potential."
Some basic business rules of advice for OTHER sellers that might listen BEFORE they jump into the river.
You say it's your first on AMAZON, but it sounds like it is your first business ever anyplace.
For rookies, DO NOT start with FBA. PLEASE!
Start with a plan someplace else first.
Did you do any product testing to see if there is even any demand BEFORE you jumped in here?
Did you do any test selling anyplace, such as eBay where there is LESS competition and maybe lower fees AND no storage charges?
Did you test to see what (if any) price elasticity there is for different price points?
Did you actually look at the competitive landscape BEFORE you bought any products?
This sounds like the seller from a few years ago who posted a long spiel like yours with no information on the product -- just all the fluff about the dream of Amazon and how the products looked so good to some 'data base'.
After a round of questions they FINALLY shared that they were selling cell phone cases. If they had posted that first many of is who answered could have cut to the chase -- they were competing with their own suppliers and OVER 100,000 other sellers.
As others have said, either do a recall and sell elsewhere (even FBM to save storage fees), or do a 'liquidate'. My inventory doesn't cost me anything to store on some shelves here.
If you can't/won't do a recall reduce the price to move stuff. Better to lose a little on a sale than incur a LOT in storage and long term fees later.
Learn the lesson -- AMAZON is NOT the get rich quick site it used to (theoretically) be. It is more of a bleed slowly to death site with fees for many sellers. Estimates out there are that as many as 25% of sellers are losing money here and just don't realize it.
Good luck in a different adventure someplace else (or even here if you study before the next one!)
Seller_RwnPnz1CDmF0G
have you checked ur EMails ? maybe Amazon sent you some notice about a Critical Issue with your listing that you missed
Seller_7W7SFiLhmaMhQ
I cannot give you a list of things that work as others have. I am fairly new and my sales are just ramping up, but I am selling out of stock every few weeks and I am trying to do Just-in-Time (JIT) delivery to Amazon.
I started on social media and my own commerce site. I bought about $7000 worth of inventory which gave me 6 products with a quantity of 50 each. The manufacturers aren't happy about that, but I convinced them that JIT is better for all of us.
I started selling product right away by placing ads on Instagram and Facebook. When my volume got to a unit a day, my customers started pushing me to Amazon. It took a lot of effort to list on Amazon because of regulatory and compliance issues. I started FBM, but when Amazon took away my "featured pricing" after a few months, I switched to FBA for some products, but not all my products are FBA.
Here is what worked for me. I am selling products into a community of users "Ham Radio". I spend a lot of time on social media promoting myself and my products. I did a lot of research beforehand and used a lot of intuition from the feedback. Facebook groups are great way to get feedback right away.
I am not getting rich from my sales, but they are ramping. I've been running a lot of sales to prime the sales pump and then slowly raising prices. This works. Once people know they can trust you, they will help spread the word.
My friend sells specialty items she collects. She has a good business on EBay. It took years to get to the present volume. We are building a commerce site and applying the same principals to her business. Self-promotion on social media, lots of ads, and products that we know people want to buy.
My recommendation is that you start doing research to find out why people don't buy from you. If you aren't leveraging social media, then you are flying blind. Gone are the days of buying market research. You have to put yourself out there and promote both yourself and your product. Facebook is a much better place to do this than Amazon.
Seller_Wp2Hpw7aH3Ggb
Find someone overseas to run your PPC.. sounds like you got into this to make a little bit of money.. those days are over.. you need to be obsessed with your brand everyday for years to succeed on amazon. Everything changed so quickly. drop your prices to break even and find someone overseas to push your PPC.. get some good reviews.. your products need to be differentiated.. otherwise why would someone order? Amazon is actually made for entrepreneurs to bring NEW PRODUCTS to life, not existing ones. Amazon shoppers are smart and like to find new products that solve a problem in a better way than the old ways.
Seller_T7fHfLGyNF5Sn
Is all your inventory in FBA? If so, ship some of yours back and only keep a low amount in FBA and do FBM so that at least will lower your cost of storage there.
