Currently set to Index
Currently set to Follow

Amazing Selling Machine 13 Review (5 Mistakes Students Make)

March 11, 2024

amazing selling machine

My Verdict

Searching for an accurate and honest Amazing Selling Machine review? Amazing Selling Machine 13 is the latest version of the course in 2024. It’s also known as the Amazing Selling Machine Evolution or ASM 13. This Amazing Selling Machine course is the latest in a long line of updates since 2012, and includes 60% new content over the last version, ASM X. There are also dozens of biased ASM 13 affiliates, but you’ve found a reviewer who isn’t getting paid for this opinion. 

With nearly 30,000 members, a price tag of $5000, and countless affiliates promoting it, Amazing Selling Machine Evolution should be the highest-level Amazon private label course available. Perhaps, 3 or 4 years ago, ASM was the most comprehensive training. But in 2024, there are other courses just as comprehensive and even more in-depth, depending on the module.

The Amazing Selling Machine course is lacking detail and real-world examples during critical parts of the Amazon business, like running Amazon PPC ads to get product reviews and boost your rankings. They included a step-by-step setup process for these paid ads, but no examples of what a real, successful campaign looks like. Some of these other programs offer more live coaching than ASM 13. Still, most people will still get a lot out of ASM because of the opportunity to connect with over 30,000 Amazon sellers inside the program.

So, is Amazing Selling Machine Evolution the best course for you? Should you trust what the instructors tell you? Is the Amazon private label business model worthwhile in 2024?

How does selling on Amazon compare to one of the other top online business models out right now, which is the local lead generation business that has far less saturation / competition? Let’s find out.

Pros

Robust Amazing Alliance Community of 30,000+ ASM members.

Many experienced sellers in the group to connect with, the program has been around since 2012.

ASM hired 20 experienced sellers to answer questions in the private forum.

Accountability built in the training with earning badges by proving that you completed certain tasks with screenshots.

Cons

Could use more real-world examples. What brings value is the coach explaining his own unique story of struggle and triumph. This was lacking. The training is comprehensive, but feels generic.

Support provided by a forum. They do not have a Facebook group, so the Amazing Alliance community feels less personable.

It's unclear if the head coaches are actually building high-level Amazon businesses today or not.

Forum posters sometimes give poor advice to protect their own Amazon stores.

Price

Amazing Selling Machine costs $5000 or payment plan of 6* $997 monthly, one of the more expensive Amazon courses.

Refund Policy

30 Day money-back guarantee.

Origin

ASM started in 2012, one of the oldest running Amazon coaching programs.

Reputation

Difficult to get honest Amazing Selling Machine Reviews because people are promoting it as an affiliate. There are some mixed opinions about the support provided in the group.

Visit ASM 13's site: Amazing Selling Machine 13

My Personal Review on YouTube

Review by Joey - "Facebook community valuable"

  • Verified Student

Joey here. I purchased ASM through one of their more popular affiliates, who has a following of their own on YouTube. This was around 2018 when there were a lot more up to date, positive reviews about this course. So, by listening to these affiliates, I totally bought into the dream that they were selling. You know, you see the cars, you hear how easy it is to make money doing this and all of their advertising. Really, there were too many income guarantees. 

Rolling into my experience after purchasing, I still have not recovered. My initial investment kind of had to take a wash on the course and my product. The thing is you need to put a ton of money into your Amazon business in order to remain profitable. It's just how the cash flow is.  And you don't want to run out of inventory when customers are ordering because your Amazon account metrics will just plummet. 

So I wish I had known how much money I would have to continue to put into this business to make any money. It's been pretty tough not making that initial investment back. I probably should have done my due diligence a little bit better and researched this.

I will say that the best part of the ASM course was the Facebook group. I've found that the course itself was a lot of information , but the Facebook group with so many people in it, so many other sellers was just so helpful. A lot of my fellow sellers felt very similar to how I feel, others were profoundly more successful.  It's just quite valuable to experience all those different perspectives.  

Review by Megan - "Better examples in YouTube videos"

  • Verified Student

Hey, I'm Megan. I joined Amazing Selling Machine at the end of 2020. It ended up being a really good time for me to start, because I actually was able to keep my job during the pandemic and with just staying home, I was able to save up kind of a little bit of a nest egg. And so I had the money for the $5,000 ASM course, and even a little bit extra for an initial inventory purchase.  And as a lot of people were in 2020, I really wanted to learn how to make money from home. So that worked out great. 

In addition, I chose it because ASM has been around since 2012. And you just don't see that with other courses out there.  Usually they're created by some YouTuber or have only been around for a year or even less. And so the history was impressive to me. Plus, the community has tens of thousands of people that can help you with specific questions. They even have a mentorship through that community. 

So as I started going through the course, they did an okay job of explaining how to get your business going and your brand created.  But I found that the Amazon PPC coverage that they had included just wasn't doing it for me. Now I'm a visual learner. And if you read me something, it will not stick in my head. So I had to go over the course a few times I had to write out what they were saying. Then I had to go through my Amazon account and try to apply it. The group helped a lot when I had a specific question. But, really more over the shoulder type examples of specific situations would have been helpful. Thankfully, I was able to find that style through some free up-to-date YouTube videos. And I ended up buying a lower ticket course that included those visual representations that I needed to become a little successful in this. 

 We have had a few sales, but I'm pretty sure that those are still from the PPC campaign that we ultimately ended up running.  Really only time will tell if we can actually rank this product. So it makes me nervous but we're still hopeful that this will be a consistent income source for us 

Review by Jeremy - "Profitable in just 6 months"

  • Verified Student

Hey, I'm Jeremy. So little backstory before getting into the course. I had actually tried selling on Amazon on and off for a few years previously by purchasing products on sale in stores near me and reselling them. It worked out as a nice little side hustle for about $500 a month, but definitely not enough to live off of. That's when I came across Amazing Selling Machine. I found that they teach how to brand your own products and actually grow a sustainable business.

 So at the beginning of 2021, I caved and bought the course. Luckily, I was able to save most of the money from my reseller days so I could afford to pay the $5,000 all at once instead of splitting it up and paying more like I'm sure most people do. For me, getting on track right away with Amazon private label has been totally worth it. 

Instead of spending hours and hours trying to piece together free information and losing money by doing the wrong things. I used the resources in ASM to get profitable in just six months. The eight week course itself was professional and when I've gone back to reference certain things, I've noticed they keep it well updated. 

I'd have to say though that the best part of this program and the aspect that made it worth the price tag for me is a private resource vault. The resources there were extremely useful at the beginning and the readymade templates for evaluating suppliers and such were so helpful in saving time. 

My only real complaint with the course was that it was a bit misleading regarding the business startup costs. The training recommended a budget of around $2,000 for inventory, which would've been manageable. Once I actually found a product opportunity and crunched the numbers, I ended up needing closer to $5,000 in inventory just to get a decent profit margin. Once factoring in Amazon PPC budget, which I didn't even consider in the beginning, my starting costs ended up being closer to $7,000.

Luckily, I was able to borrow some money from a family member and have since paid them back. But that startup money came as a huge surprise for me. Anyway, I found it worth it overall because now I have seven products making me a livable and stable each month, which is what I wanted to get out of Amazon in the first place.

Review by Kelly - "Not making nearly as much as I thought"

  • Verified Student

Hello all, my name is Kelly and I’m going to give my experience with the Amazing Selling Machine course. So, I work as a sports production manager and I found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands when I was furloughed during covid because there were no live sporting events going on. And.. while searching for ways to make money online, Amazon seemed to be one of the most commonly recommended options, and I figured “well, I buy on Amazon almost every day”. So that’s essentially how I came across Amazing Selling Machine. I wanted to learn how to sell on Amazon and really had no idea where to start. 

Amazing selling machine was presented as a step-by-step guide to building a 7 figure business on Amazon. Well, I’ve been using the course to sell on Amazon for around 2 years now and I’m nowhere near 7 figures, or even 6 figures for that matter. Despite having spent around 20 hours a week on my business, I’ve only been able to generate between $3000 to $6000 in revenue per month, and my profit margin is only around 15 to 20%. For spending thousands on a course, I’m not making nearly as much money as I thought I would. 

I really don’t know if I should be blaming the course itself, or if Amazon has just gotten so competitive nowadays. I will say, the course does provide a lot of valuable content and I probably would have failed and quit amazon a long time ago without it, but I feel like selling on Amazon doesn’t quite live up to the hype that the course makes it out to be. I doubt I’ll ever be a 7 figure seller, but at least my investment in the course is paying off somewhat.

5 Common Mistakes Students Make Inside Amazing Selling Machine in 2024

After reading many of the issues students were posting inside the ASM forum, we've compiled a list of top reasons people fail in ASM.

1. Underestimating how much initial investment is needed

Many of the ASM sales pages make it seem like you can start an Amazon FBA business for $5000 or less. However, this only leaves room for ordering inventory and not much left over for marketing. Launching your product is only half of the battle. You have to then spend money on PPC campaigns to get sales so that you can collect customer reviews. Without customer reviews, your product listing won't rank and without rankings you don't have a business. There's a learning curve to running PPC, you need to spend some money before its optimized. This means you might spend another $3000, therefore your starting budget for Amazon FBA should be somewhere around $8000 to $15,000 that you're willing to invest in the business and not see a return for at least 6 months to a year.

2. Not Reinvesting Back into the Business

Some students take their first profits and they go on vacation, only to realize a few months later that their product that they successfully launched has new competition and the product became unprofitable. In 2024, Amazon FBA has become far more competitive because more brands & suppliers are listing their products themselves. Which causes all the 3rd party seller to operate on slimmer margins. Today, you can't expect to make amazing income with just 1-2 successful products, and there's no guarantee those products will stay profitable long-term. Therefore, students need to reinvest their profits back into the business by launching more products. Veteran ASM students recommend at least 5-8 profitable products before taking profits out of the business.

3. Not being patient enough during product research

Students can get stuck trying to pick the right product. Some are urged to take action and not get stuck with analysis by paralysis. However, the students that rush this step pay the price months down the road when they realize that their product was destined for failure. Make sure your product has the right profit margins and sales volume. Also don't pick a product based on your passions. Pick a product that has right metrics at bare minimum. This still doesn't guarantee success, but at least you're giving yourself the best chance to succeed. Be analytical, not emotional.

4. Not vetting the suppliers enough

Once you pick a product with the right metrics. Students are asked to contact various suppliers. One of the common mistakes made is getting lazy with this step and only contacting 3-5 suppliers. However, the students that get the best deals contact far more suppliers like 10-30 suppliers. You also want to order samples from them and see how they respond to your questions and perhaps customization of your product. Are they fast at responding? Are they accommodating to your custom demands? Are you satisfied with the quality of samples? It's also highly recommended to hire a company to do a inspection of your chosen supplier before ordering inventory. This ensures that their inventory is also great quality, because some suppliers can simply send their best quality product as samples. Having a great supplier with high quality product is crucial. You can do all the steps correctly, but if you have poor quality product that gets negative reviews, there's no coming back from that.

5. Underestimating how long it will take & Quitting too early

I understand that ASM and other Amazon programs will use bit of hype to sell their courses. Often times, this means they will make it sound as though profits can be earned as soon as 3-6 months into the program. However, once you join ASM and begin talking to the veteran members and seeing past forum posts. You'll see that vast majority of sellers needed to go through various learning curve stages that can take 1 whole year. The students that actually stuck it out over 1 year are the ones that have a real shot at making this business work because there's so many variables (sometimes outside your control) that can derail your Amazon FBA business. Unlike the local lead generation business where all you're selling are leads or information. When you're selling physical products overseas, it just takes much longer to communicate with suppliers, ordering inventory, getting inventory shipped to a FBA warehouse (2-3 months alone), designing packaging, photographs & more. And if you make any mistakes, which is natural when you're a beginner, you have to repeat some of these time-consuming tasks all over again. The worst thing you can do is having unrealistic expectations and getting impatient when a mistakes is made or one step is taking longer than you expected. Patience is very important with Amazon FBA. If you have the budget, it's wise to launch multiple products at once so you're not stuck waiting on 1 product to succeed or fail.

Who are the Founders of Amazing Selling Machine?

Jason Katzenback and Matt Clark founded ASM in 2012. Rich Henderson joined in 2013, and Mike McClary entered soon after.

Rich Henderson

Rich is one co-creators of Amazing Selling Machine and serves as their chief of ASM course materials (aka, the ASM mentor behind all of their training materials). He came onto the company early, hired by Jason 2013, and had spent over a decade in affiliate marketing and SEO prior. He, like Jason and Matt, is super passionate about sharing his experiences to educate the entrepreneurship community. 

Mike McClary

Mike spent well over a decade as a contract accounting consultant. Upon taking a salaried job for one of his long-time clients in 2012, he realized the corporate life was a dead-end road with little freedom and lots of responsibilities. In 2013, he was introduced to the Amazing Selling Machine. Shortly thereafter, he quit his job and began what would grow to be a $3 million Amazon FBA business. His success would catch the eye of Jason and Matt. Now, since 2019, he has worked as the Chief Product Officer. 

Who is Jason Katzenbeck?

After college, Jason Katzenback quickly realized that his engineering degree didn't bring him the fulfillment he was looking for. He left the profession in 2004 and in the years following, Jason would find himself at the helm of multiple multi-million dollar companies. A natural teacher, his hands-on approach as a CEO would lead him to consider business coaching. He would later launch Amazing.com with his friend, Matt Clark, in 2012. As of 2024, he is no longer an owner at Amazing. He is the CEO of Archon Media, Inc.

Matt Clark Amazing Selling Machine

After getting clean from drugs, Matt Clark made a spontaneous move from Houston to Austin, Texas, to pursue college. He worked as an investment banker, but found the career path to be unfulfilling. 7 months into the job, he began selling supplements and upon transitioning to Amazon, he would go from selling 10 to over 11,000 products. He scaled too quickly, however, and nearly went broke, learning some tough lessons along the way. By his 26th birthday, Matt had come back around and founded 3 multi-million dollar businesses. He would meet Jason Katzenback at a Tony Robbins event, where the two connected over a shared interest in business coaching. 

Over the years, Matt Clark has remained at Amazing, while Jason left in 2015 to help his daughter, who was diagnosed with cancer. It was during this time that Matt transitioned ASM to a monthly subscription course, which didn’t work. They had to lay off half of their workers and almost lost all of their money. Matt transitioned back, with the help of live events, and Jason came back after his daughter passed away in 2018. 

How Old is Matt Clark?

Matt Clark graduated college and started investment banking in 2008, which puts him around 38 years old in 2024.

What’s Included in Amazing Selling Machine Evolution?

The 8-Week Course

Rich Henderson narrates the entire course. Which I thought was interesting because he doesn't have extensive Amazon experience before Jason hired him.

On the surface, the Amazing Selling Machine modules seem like they cover every facet of the business, but some modules are lacking depth. For example, Rich shows you how to set up the Facebook campaign to generate extra traffic for your Amazon product. But he never actually sets a real campaign up himself and shows anything that's currently working today or examples of what was working for him in the past. They use a lot of PowerPoint slides, so sometimes it feels like information overload. More video cuts to actual screen share would've been nice.

Overall, you can't argue with the fact that ASM covers every facet of the business a lot more intensely than most cheap courses or free training. But if ASM is not careful, other high-end courses like Private Label Masters is nipping at their heels, actual active 8 figure sellers that can show tons of examples teach these courses.

The ASM Mentorship Program

This sounds like one-on-one type coaching, but it is not. ASM mentors are just a team of successful ASM students that ASM hired to answer questions on their private forum of 30,000 ASM students.

 Every big coaching program needs a team of support like this. I appreciate that ASM at least vetted their team to have reached decent success with Amazon. You have to actively seek and ask questions in the forums to take full advantage of the ASM mentor program. Still, they have a 24 hour response rate, which is pretty decent.

The Private Resource Vault

They offer some coupon codes to some tools, some templates to use when emailing suppliers, templates to evaluate products when doing product research, and some recommendation for companies that can handle transportation, logistics, and product photography. Overall, very practical and helpful resource.

Coaching Calls

They also do coaching calls, but it's not always done by the main mentors. Yes, if you’re lucky, Mike McClary or Rich Henderson may call you. But mostly, these calls are done by former ASM students that became successful. This is still better than nothing. But I believe no one's going to care more than the head coaches about ASM. Anytime the head coaches drift off from the actual coaching aspect, the quality of coaching degrades.

What's New with Amazing Selling Machine Evolution?

  • Amazon Branding Tool Suite - helps you save money on tools needed for building private label brands
  • Private Sourcing Agent - You can choose to have ASM find 3 suppliers and they'll negotiate for you. Great for beginners, but according to Tim Sanders you should get used to talking to at least 10 different suppliers to find the best prices.
  • Dan Ashburn's Launch Strategies - Dan is an ASM affiliate who has done $12 million in sales. He shares with you some of his launch secrets, like running various promotional campaigns on social media that drive traffic to your store.
  • Monthly Coaching Calls - Rich Henderson and Mike McClary host monthly coaching calls.
  • Zoof, ASM's Product Research Tool - they provide an easy-to-use traffic tool to find low-hanging fruit products. I use Viral Launch for product research but this is a pretty decent tool especially for beginners. 
  • Product Analyzer Tool - After finding some product options, use this tool to apply the product compared to the market (a better name would be market analyzer)
  • Perfect Keyword Tool - This tool saves a significiant amount of time finding the best keywords to boost your product listing. 

Badges for Amazing Selling Machine Module Completion

Different parts of the business, like contacting suppliers, is rewarded inside the platform with badges. Provide actual proof with screenshots to the ASM team to move up.

Top Earner Badges

Students can choose to verify their Amazon revenue with the ASM team and you can get on the top earners list. This helps motivate other students and foster the Amazing Alliance community.

Channing and Justin Dyson's Testimonial: How They Went From Broke to $10K Month

Channing and Justin's Background and Story

Channing was a 24-year-old hairstylist, while Justin worked part-time in sales while attending college. They looked for an additional income source to support their family's needs, and that was when they discovered the Amazing Selling Machine. Within a year, they made $500,000, which was enough for Channing to quit her job. 

How Channing and Justin's Business is Doing Today

The business is already making at least 1 million dollars in sales. Justin was able to quit his part-time sales job to focus on their Amazon business. According to the couple, their company was included in Inc Magazine's Inc 5000, America's list of fastest-growing companies. 

Lessons Channing and Justin Learned on the Biggest Challenges They Faced

Platform Selection: Channing and Justin stress the importance of choosing the right e-commerce platform. They chose Amazon because of its huge user base, which exponentially grew after the pandemic. 

Business Pitfalls: The couple emphasized that there are pitfalls in online business. You may choose the wrong products, tap the wrong suppliers, or use ineffective marketing strategies. What's important is you're able to determine and address them right away. 

My Experience with Amazing Selling Machine 13: Lack of Real-World Examples…

Running Amazon PPC ads, or paid ads, is critical to the success of your private label business. In fact, according to InfluencerMarketingHub, a strong PPC strategy is the difference between a high-earning Amazon seller ($810,000 annually) and a low-earning Amazon seller (26,000 annually).

This is especially true in private label because it's your own brand that no one has heard of before. Essentially, you need to become an expert in marketing your brand. If you do not master advanced marketing tactics, like:

  • Lowering your Cost-per-click metric (in 2021 the average was $0.89/click)
  • Raising your Click-through rate (average is 0.41%)
  • Maximizing your conversion rate (average is 9.87%)

No one will find your brand, trust your brand, or order products from your brand.

For some time, it was enough to gather customer reviews over time to boost the Amazon algorithm and move your product. But in 2024, it's becoming harder to get customer reviews. If you do not get reviews, you will not rank, and you won’t have a business.

ASM Only Teaches Amazon Advertising : Enough in 2024?

Unfortunately, ASM's paid Amazon ads training only shows you how to set up Amazon advertising (at a very basic level, as an Intro to Amazon sponsored product advertising). It never shows you an example of what type of ad / copywriting gets amazing results or talks about monitoring ad performance and adjustment. This is where all progress is made, and they should cover it in a $5K course.

When thinking about Amazon FBA, most people assume it’s an e-commerce business only. In reality, it’s a marketing business. Suppliers handle most of the physical part of the business.

Building your marketing skills will help you gather those important reviews and improve those metrics. Using Facebook ads is one way to do this in 2024. JungleScout reported that 31% of consumers started searching for products they need on Facebook. That’s 31% of consumers that you aren’t reaching if you’re not using Facebook ads in addition to your Amazon advertising strategy.

When the above is on the screen as they're going through the Adwords part of the training (which is arguably the most important strategy), it is not a good sign.

When is the last time these coaches ran a successful paid ad campaign?

Are the Founders of Amazing Selling Machine Still Actively Selling on Amazon in 2024?

This is the biggest question I have for ASM. Matt Clark and Jason Katzenback started ASM back in 2012. Since, we know Jason has left Amazing as of August 2020. Mike McClary started as an ASM student, but according to his LinkedIn, he mainly consults and teaches (although Mike McClary Ventures could include selling on Amazon). We couldn’t find any clues about Rich Henderson, but it’s possible that he runs an Amazon store. Though remember, his background is in affiliate marketing and SEO.

As for Matt, he supposedly sells on Amazon still, according to his Instagram. But, the profit margin for selling a course is over 80%, while Amazon FBA profit margins are 15-25% on average. When you consider that ASM 13 has over 30,000 students and the course costs $5000, it’s easy to see which business is more lucrative. The coaching business model is more profitable than Amazon. So, it’s highly plausible that Matt is no longer operating high-level FBA businesses today.

However, managing a coaching program of close to 30K members is no joke. This could very well explain the sheer lack of real-world examples when going through the training. Amazon FBA has changed so much in recent years compared to what it was 4 years ago. Let alone in 2012? It was a joke how easy it was back then.

So, is ASM Really Up to Date?

I'm not saying the training hasn't been "updated" over the years. It has. But anyone can rehash training videos and strategies they gathered from elsewhere. The training becomes more valuable when the coach can bring their own unique experience behind it, your own case studies, examples of success and failure, and how you overcame those stumbling blocks. We’ve seen this in Brandon Young’s Seller Systems. He says:

brandon young

“We are also large sellers ourselves, which is another distinguishing factor between the other courses and ours because we’re always in the process of launching products and finding new products and doing all of this ourselves. So that, as we see anything change, which it always does at Amazon, we are the first to report it to you and we can collaborate.”

As Brandon says, the coach has to be in the trenches everyday building their own Amazon business, because what works in Amazon FBA changes rapidly.

Amazing Selling Machine Evolution vs. Private Label Masters

amazing selling machine

VS

Private Label Master is another $5000 Amazon FBA course. It started in 2018 by Tim Sanders, an 8 figure seller. The group only has 1200 members, so it's not as robust as 30K in ASM. 

But Tim Sanders provides live group coaching calls once per week where you can pick his brain. He did $20 million in sales in 2021, so he is someone that's actively building his own Amazon empire today.

Everyone has their own unique preference for people we resonate with, so I can't decide for you.

ASM is still one of the most prolific coaching programs out there that deserves its $5000 price tag. But Private Label Masters is also worthy and worth looking into.

Read my full Private Label Masters Review for more info.

Amazing Selling Machine Evolution vs. Proven Amazon Course 2.0

amazing selling machine

VS

Amazon Selling Machine costs $5000 while the Jim Cockrum Proven Amazon Course is only $500 or $30 monthly. ASM has much higher produced videos while PAC's training has a more home-made feel to it, but the training is still good. So if you're starting Amazon FBA on a budget, PAC is not a poor option. These two programs have been around forever and they both have pretty big members only community behind it, but I still give ASM the slight edge. Their Amazing Alliance community feels more engaging.

Amazing Selling Machine

Proven Amazon Course

Price

$5000

$500 one time or $30 per month

Started

2012

2009

What stands out:

Amazing Selling Machine course had done a good job of updating the look and feel of the training platform.

Proven Amazon Course training feels a bit old. They could use a lot more revamp of how information is presented.

For more info about PAC, you can check out my: Proven Amazon Course Review.

How Does Amazing Selling Machine’s Affiliate Program Work?

Amazing Selling Machine has an affiliate marketing program that allows affiliates to promote their course and earn 40% commission. The course sells for $5000, so that's $2000 per conversion. This is one reason you see so many Amazing Selling Machine reviews that are heavily biased, since they are promoting this course to earn that commission just like Wealthy Affiliate.

Becoming an affiliate is competitive. It's best for those that have already built up some sort of audience online. One such affiliate is Tatiana James. You can watch her glowing reviews of ASM on her YouTube channel, as well as on her husband’s, Stephen of Project Life Mastery. Stephen is also an ASM affiliate. Both influencers offer bonus materials if you sign up for ASM 13 through their affiliate link and email their team. This affiliate's bonus include a free product image for your listing.

Tatiana’s affiliate offer

Stephen’s affiliate offer

If becoming an Amazing Selling Machine affiliate (or any affiliate) sounds like a good idea to you, you'll have to start from scratch. You have two options: build a YouTube channel or a blog. Both take a considerable amount of time and effort. And, it will take months (if not years) to make a $1000 month. ASM’s affiliate page shows impressive results like these:

Amazing Selling Machine’s Affiliate Program

But remember, these are huge influencers like Stephen, who has 1.26 million followers on YouTube, 92.8K followers on Instagram, and 13K members in his courses’ Facebook community.

Full Disclaimer: I am not an affiliate for Amazing Selling Machine, because I believe this opportunity is better. What you see on this page is my honest assessment of this course compared to other Amazon FBA courses.

Is Amazon FBA Still Profitable?

Yes, Amazon FBA is still profitable in 2024 but the competition is heating up. According to Jungle Scout, there's 4000 new sellers every day. These include big brands, suppliers and major distributors (even Amazon private label brands themselves) under pricing everyone. Amazon is like the Olympics of e-commerce.

You’ll have a better chance of becoming profitable if you invest in coaching that will give you cutting edge strategies to differentiate yourself from the competition. ASM has taught me a few tricks, but I learned from other courses as well.

You can still make Amazon FBA profitable, but you should understand why Amazon became unprofitable for some sellers. Just some reasons include Amazon’s ever-increasing seller fees (up 5% effective April 28, 2022) and shipping delays and costs from continuing post- pandemic supply chain issues.

Also, Amazon is always changing. Just because someone can show a screenshot of sales today doesn't mean those sales will be there a month from now. 

Even when you find a clever product bundle idea: how long will it be before another seller copies your idea and undercuts your prices?

It's going to happen. Your focus should be to watch your cash flow like a hawk and continue to reinvest back into Amazon FBA by launching more products every chance you get. Take massive action, but be smart about it. Learn from other's mistakes. Study the reason most people fail at Amazon FBA: unrealistic expectations. 

But also allow yourself to make your own mistakes. Learn from them and keep pushing. Be more persistent than the average person and you will see success.

My Key Takeaways from Each Amazing Selling Machine Module

__CONFIG_colors_palette__{"active_palette":0,"config":{"colors":{"b95d0":{"name":"Main Accent","parent":-1},"82b86":{"name":"Main Dark","parent":"b95d0"},"1fbd4":{"name":"Accent Light","parent":"b95d0"}},"gradients":[]},"palettes":[{"name":"Default","value":{"colors":{"b95d0":{"val":"rgb(0, 0, 0)"},"82b86":{"val":"rgb(3, 3, 3)","hsl_parent_dependency":{"h":150,"l":-0.21,"s":-0.06}},"1fbd4":{"val":"rgb(175, 177, 176)","hsl_parent_dependency":{"h":148,"l":0.69,"s":-0.06}}},"gradients":[]},"original":{"colors":{"b95d0":{"val":"rgb(67, 71, 75)","hsl":{"h":210,"s":0.05,"l":0.27,"a":1}},"82b86":{"val":"rgb(18, 18, 18)","hsl_parent_dependency":{"h":0,"s":0,"l":0.07,"a":1}},"1fbd4":{"val":"rgb(248, 248, 248)","hsl_parent_dependency":{"h":0,"s":0,"l":0.97,"a":1}}},"gradients":[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__

Welcome Module

Walks you through the dashboard and the general ASM business process. You will need to take this module to fully take advantage of all the benefits you purchased.

Module 1: Find Your First Product- Your Guide to the Perfect Product

This module includes the ASM physical product selection method, which includes how to find profitable product categories, determining which products have patents, and what tools to use. Some ASM product criteria include products:

  • priced between $17 and $100

  • With low BSR competitors (less than 100)

  • With competitors with low customer review counts (less than 2000)

As you determine which products match the criteria, you can build a product opportunity list to help you vet out the best possibilities. 

Module 2: Set Up Your Business

Very important to find the right supplier, most people do not contact enough suppliers. This is a time-consuming process that requires a lot of back and forth. Dealing with foreign suppliers that are not responsive was very frustrating to deal with. Even the ASM training warns you that "patience is key".

You’ll learn how to negotiate, down to the word. They include a template for contacting suppliers. ASM encourages you to source products from anywhere in the world (China) rather than domestically. Remember, you may also get an ASM team member to find 3 suppliers for you.

Module 3: Order Inventory and Create Your Brand

This should have been broken into two modules. Your inventory order is an entirely separate beast than creating your brand. The biggest connecting factor between the two is product packaging, which should have your brand on it. Still, these modules teach you what to look for in the products samples you order from your supplier, which was helpful. 

Module 4: Build Your Brand Assets

This builds on creating your brand, and includes insights on building a customer base away from Amazon (Facebook, subscriber lists, your own website, Manychat, Instagram).

Module 5: Create a Profitable Listing- Making a Perfect Product Page

“You want to have your listing created and ready before your inventory arrives at Amazon.”

And you'll have plenty of time to work on that listing as you wait for your shipment to arrive from China...

With that being said, ASM teaches you how to do keyword research and create a product title that grabs traffic.

What about ASM's product title "secret"?

It boils down to this – ASM trains you to optimize the title.

They contrast what most sellers do vs. what they recommend:

  • Standard Method: Brand Name–Product Name–Model
  • ASM Method: Keyword-rich Product Name–More Keywords–Keyword-rich Benefits

Rich calls the ASM Method ideal, but it might not always be possible depending on your specific product and the Amazon category.

And don’t forget, the title still needs to read well–there’s an actual customer out there!

Module 6: Launch and Rank- The Perfect Product Launch

“Not tracking the data on a daily basis is suicide when it comes to Amazon, because then you’re essentially guessing.”

This module is all about running paid advertising to boost your initial product launch and get the ranking process started. Dan and the ASM team are big on data: “Always let the data decide for you!” And I don’t disagree.

If you’re not monitoring your data, you won’t know what’s working and what’s not.

The need to monitor your business constnantly is the one reason it’s so difficult to turn Amazon FBA into truly passive income.

It's crucial to understand this business model is not hands-off.

You might be successful in private label, if you have the drive and stick with it for the long haul.

Module 7: Optimize Your Ads

This part of ASM 13 will only apply to you if your store gains traction. (Imagine buying a $5K course and only being able to use the first 6 modules?) This module is all about making your customer service, ads, and team better. 

Module 8: Scale Your Sales

Topics covered in the final module include:

  • Affiliate marketing with influencers
  • Google ads
  • YouTube ads
  • Email lists
  • Instagram ads and marketing tactics

Amazing Selling Machine FAQs

How Much Does Amazing Selling Machine 13 Cost?

Amazing Selling Machine 13 costs $5K, or 6 payments of $997.

Is There an Amazing Selling Machine Discount?

Yes, there are many Amazing Selling Machine discounts. They often change, and are offered either on sales pages like the one below or after free webinar trainings that serve as commercials for the full ASM 13 course.

Amazing selling machine discount

What is Amazing Selling Machine’s Refund Policy?

Amazing Selling Machine advertises a 30 day money-back guarantee. But they also issue several bonus deals and offers. For example, they also offer a full refund if you complete the course and launch a product within 6 months, as well as an inventory reimbursement up to $7500, as long as you follow their requirements. (I couldn’t find these requirements spelled out anywhere). Other trainings offer $1000 discount.

How Many Members are in the Amazing Selling Machine?

There are over 30,000 members in the Amazing Selling Machine private group. Your purchase of the course gets you lifetime access. This is great, because you can access literally tens of thousands of Amazon sellers throughout your entire journey. However, there’s a bad side: since there is no annual fee, inactive users and trolls are in this group. In fact, active sellers post worthless information on forums to protect their own stores.

Does Amazing Selling Machine Sell Any Other Programs?

Yes, ASM also has Amazing Foundations, which teaches how to start a smaller Amazon business than the original ASM course. In this course, they acknowledge that the only way to be successful with a large Amazon private label store is to start with a significant investment.

So, they created this course for people who don’t have that large amount. Along with the 6 module (15+ hour) Foundations course, you get access to Zoof for 90 days, lifetime access to a product analyzer tool, and 6 weeks of private support. The goal for Foundations is to achieve an extra $250/week off of an inventory that costs $500. The cost of this course is $2,497, but they offer it at $997 often.

Does Amazing Selling Machine Have Upsells?

Currently, there are no upsells on the Amazing Selling Machine, unless you purchase Foundations. Then, the upsell will be the full ASM EVO course.

Is ASM 13 Available in Other Countries?

Yes. Amazing Selling Machine 13 comes in English, German, Spanish, and Romanian.

What is the Amazing Selling Machine Success Rate?

Members that completed the Amazing Selling Machine between 2013 and 2016 earned an average revenue of $60,750 per year. Mentors average $2 million in Amazon sales. 

According to one of their members, they believe the success of Amazing Selling Machine to be around 15%. This is in line with Amazon FBA success rate published by Jungle Scout. 

Is ASM EVO Legit? Amazing Selling Machine Reddit Reviews

It's hard to find Amazing Selling Machine negative reviews online because of the affiliate marketing program. However, I thought this very recent Reddit review was valuable, and I agree with the $2K price point. 

amazing selling machine review 1

This Reddit review is another great point. Are you willing to pay $5K for the organization of ASM's instruction?

amazing selling machine reddit

Finally, I appreciate this point about the Facebook group. This is where a ton of value is found, especially with a lifetime membership.

amazing selling machine review 2

ASM Success Story

Justin and Channing Dyson got started with ASM while they were still trying to figure out what to do in their careers, fresh out of college. Through ASM training, today they run a half a million dollar per month Amazon business, at 20% profit margins; that's at least $100,000 per month. 

Channing had a product that she was passionate about and Justin was already studying the Amazon FBA business. So he checked if that product was a good opportunity in terms of demand and competition and it turned out that it was. They had little money at the time, so they just bought $800 worth of inventory. As soon as they listed it on Amazon, it started selling and they grew the business from there. They focused on building a brand with it and did not take money out of the business for an entire year. Instead, they kept reinvesting back into their business. Launching variations of the product. Today they sell 14 lines of the product.


Their Advice: People ask them if ASM is worth it and if the business model works. Justin's opinion is "that's the wrong question to be asking. The question you should ask is: Are you committed to yourself enough to make it work?" I couldn't agree more, even though I have some critiques about some of ASM's modules. If you're committed enough, you can solve any issues out on your own. The Amazon FBA business model has a lot of unique skill sets and moving parts you have to learn. It will not happen overnight. One's persistence is the main difference maker.

Check out our list of Amazon FBA success stories.

Is the Amazing Selling Machine Worth It?

Amazing Selling Machine is worth it simply for the 30,000 ASM member community, Amazing Alliance. However, if you're strapped for cash, then there are more affordable Amazon courses out there. It also depends on what type of teaching you like. 

Amazing Selling Machine is comprehensive, but errs on the side of information overload. If you're a complete beginner, you might get lost. If you're already seeing some success with Amazon or have experience with it, you may join ASM just to access the ASM community. I believe seeing others' struggle and triumph in their private forum provides tons of valuable insight and inspiration for your FBA journey. There's other Amazing Selling Machine alternative courses that are not as big, but bigger doesn't always mean better. Sometimes the coaches show more passion for teaching in the smaller programs. Check out our best Amazon FBA course list.

Amazon FBA FAQs

How Much Does it Cost to Start Amazon FBA, Other Than the Cost of ASM 13?

ASM says that their students spend about $1200 on inventory. However, the optimal amount you need to start Amazon FBA is $5500 to $13,000. The bare-bones amount to get started is $3,500, but the business will be much more difficult and hurt your chances of success. 

Let's say $5,500 is a bare minimum. Now if we add Amazing Selling Machine ($5K) you're looking at $10,500 minimum to start this business.

More in-depth breakdown of costs listed here: Amazon FBA startup costs.

How Long Does it Take to Make Money with Amazon FBA?

JungleScout reports that 20% of Amazon sellers took less than 3 months to earn a profit. 22% took 306 months, 10% took 102 years. However, these numbers seem optimistic. It’s much more realistic to expect 6 to 12 months (sometimes more) to turn profits in Amazon FBA. This is because product research, finding the right supplier, ordering samples, investing in inventory, creating the packaging, brand, and running PPC marketing campaigns all take time.

Top sellers also highly recommend to not take any profits out of the business for 1-2 years because there' are a lot of variables that can make your product not profitable. For instance, your first product may flop after getting a ton of negative customer reviews, or your Amazon Seller Central account may be so successful that Amazon suspends your account because of suspicious activity. When you have profits, you want to diversify as soon as possible, meaning launch more products.

Whatever money you invest in Amazon FBA, be comfortable not touching your money and not seeing returns for 2 years or more. In fact, one of the top 3 reasons for Amazon FBA failure is sellers taking the profits out of the business too soon. Going on vacations with profits instead of keeping your head down and launching more products is a recipe for disaster.

Is Amazon FBA Saturated in 2024?

Amazon FBA is saturated in 2024, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make money with this business model. Many product categories (like electronics) are too saturated to enter successfully. But, because Amazon sells everything under the sun, there's still room for people to succeed. What's undeniably happening, though, is that those categories are harder to find and the cost to succeed in them is going up over time.

Here's the unfortunate effect of exponentially more sellers doing FBA today compared to 5 years ago. (According to Jungle Scout, 4000 new sellers join FBA every day).

What are the Challenges of Amazon FBA?

Effect of increasing saturation in Amazon FBA

  • Profit margins across the board are going down as brands fight for the Amazon buy box by having the most competitive price.
  • It’s much more difficult and costly to rank your product, since you need more reviews. Consider allocating around 10% of your total Amazon revenue for PPC.
  • Even when you find some success with a product, how long will it last? A competitor can come in and copy what you have done and undercut your prices. As competition goes up, that time a product remains profitable is also going down.
  • Amazon doesn't need to cater to the small sellers anymore since they have more than enough sellers on their platform. They can increase fees and policies that can screw over the little guys but don't affect the big guys as much.
3rd party sellers getting cut out

The big Amazon FBA shift came in 2019. Many big suppliers, distributors and brands cut out the middleman 3rd party sellers and started selling on Amazon FBA themselves. Amazon also came out with their private label called AmazonBasics that began competing in many product categories. Here's a seller that reported on Quora about Amazon basics becoming their top competitor:

Here's a seller that reported on Quora about Amazon basics becoming their top competitor.

With Amazon FBA becoming a tougher playground. It's imperative to have the most up-to date understanding on what new strategies to employ to still compete today in 2024. Every hot new business opportunity gets more competitive as time goes on. It's those that continue to innovate that survive.

For more info on what you need to focus on to compete with the big players in Amazon FBA, look here: Is Amazon FBA still profitable?

Amazon FBA Alternative Business

Local lead generation is another one of my top favorite online business of mine. You rank websites in local Google search that generate leads for local services like plumbers, roofers, tow truck companies, etc.

It's much simpler than Amazon and you have more control over the business. You're less reliant on all those other factors outside your control such as quality of product, suppliers, customer reviews, big competitors.

Amazon FBA

Pros

200 million Amazon Prime sellers in 2021

Thousands of different products to choose from. If you build a great brand, you can sell it.

Fairly passive once the product ranks

Cons

Getting very competitive. Olympics of e-commerce. Not much you can do to have a competitive advantage against big suppliers or brands.

Average 25% profit margin which can go down over time as competition goes up and Amazon increases fees

Amazon can shut down accounts at anytime

Lead Generation

Pros

Much less saturated than Amazon FBA. Thousands of cities to go into and over 100 niches per city.

Less complex. More flexible  and less hassle than selling physical products.

Much more predictable to get rankings in Google than Amazon rankings where you need reviews. Success is more repeatable.

Cons

Have to work with small business owners

Harder to build and sell a brand

Some sites only make $500 per month net (but passive)

For more information on Amazon FBA, read our full breakdown of Amazon FBA pros and cons.

Local lead gen is the one business model that I would put against Amazon FBA as a proper business that you can build a future with.

Instead of selling physical products, you're selling information which are leads you generate through your skills to rank websites in Google.

There's a lot of advantages of selling information and not be tied down to physical products. To find more info, go here Amazon FBA vs. Local lead generation.

Follow Me
Ippei Kanehara
Founder/CEO

$52K per month providing lead generation services to small businesses

Ippei.com is for digital hustlers, industry leaders and online business owners.

His #1 online business recommendation in 2024, is to build your own lead generation business.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

    1. Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed it. No worries about me not writing. I love helping people and sharing value on this blog. Stay tuned for more articles and thanks for taking the time to comment.

  1. Hi, I love your honest reviews. It’s clear to me that the people taking courses such as Blue Sky Amazon Or lead gen already know the basics of selling on amazon. I am 67 years old and I’m very interested in having a business on line, but I don’t know the very basics. Do you have any suggestions on where I can learn the basics? Any information you can give me would be helpful.

  2. I bought ASM Foundations and it was a terrible program, one that cheapened the brand. I wanted to upgrade to the last offer for the full program I got from Matt Clark (Matt’s offer and the Foundations offer showed up in my e-mail the same day). Forget about it. I got no help, unable to actually reach Matt or Mike who both pretend they’re going to be available, but aren’t interested in anything but money. I had no choice but to request a refund.

  3. Thank You for your in depth review and analysis Ippei. I’ve been looing very closely to get into FBA and this definitely helps in the research to whether or not get into it.

    However On the flip side, I would be interested in finding out more about local lead generation for the U. S and Pakistan (Where I currently am).

    Can you help with this?

  4. Hello

    Many Thanks for this Review, really good, I am from Germany, can I work with you and the Local Lead Gen business there or you think is not possible?

    Many Thanks
    Christian

  5. Lovely review, Ippei. I especially like how balanced and fair your ASM review is. You neither hype nor dismiss it, allowing your readers to make informed decisions on the merits of the case you have so clearly detailed. Thank you for this really helpful review.

  6. I’ve read quite a few Amazing Selling Machine reviews and one thing I find in common is that whenever there are many complaints about the program, it’s from people who probably are too new or at an unsuitable level for the complexity of an ecommerce program of this caliber.

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}