Is Sophie Howard a Scam? Blue Sky Amazon Course Review

Do you want to become a top seller on Amazon? If so, you might be wondering if Sophie Howard, the Amazon Selling Queen, can help you.

Since Amazon FBA is still fast growing during the pandemic, a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs are desperate to jump on the bandwagon and join the global marketplace, leading to the intense competition on Bezons’ platform.

So, do you still have a chance to make money on Amazon? Is it possible that Sophie’s course Blue Sky Amazon can live up to the hype and give you a leg up? Or is Sophie just a scam?

To give you an answer, I’ve spent a long time researching Sophie and her training programme.

At the end of this article, I’ll also tell you a much better alternative than Amazon FBA which has helped a lot of people making six-figures passive income.

Below is what I’ll cover in the review of Sophie Howard and her training programme Blue Sky Amazon.

What is Blue Sky Amazon Course?

Blue Sky Amazon Course (i.e. Blue Sky Amazon Seller Academy) consists of two courses.

It has 14 modules of video lessons which revolves around the topics of Amazon FBA. The programme aims to help mid-level vendors create sustainable products and grow the business with the help from virtual assistants, sales funnels and other online services such as Feedback Genius.

An Overview of Product University Course

Module 1 – Foundation

Video Duration: 5 hours, 37 minutes and 50 seconds.

This module is an introduction to the course. It is broken down into four sessions and covers basic concepts, including:

• Sophie’s resume

• The positive mindset to build a successful FBA business

• Planning for the coming year

• The Pros and cons of other business platforms e.g retail arbitrage.

Besides, Sophie shows you how to create a sales funnel at a much faster pace than what she did some years back.

However, since Sophie always crisscrossed the ideas and concepts, this module is not well-structured in a way that helps you to organize the information provided.

Module 2 – Product Selection Strategy

Video Duration: 5 hours, 16 minutes & 41 seconds

In this module, Sophie teaches you how to choose products with high MOQ (minimum order quantity) which can create higher entry barriers for your competitors.

But this strategy is much riskier than selling the hot products because no one can be sure whether your exclusive products can sell for a long time.

If not, this will give rise to the problem of overstocking.

Module 3 – Basic of Sales Funnels

Video Duration: 5 hours, 24 minutes & 19 seconds

This module consists of four sessions. Sophie began with an overview of sales funnels and their components such as ads, lead magnets, etc.

In the next session, Sophie teaches you how to set up a funnel using Russeell Brunson’s Clickfunnels.

This follows by the third session where Sophie demonstrates to you how she set up a funnel for one of her students’ products and a Facebook ad campaign to target potential customers.

In conclusion, she makes an evaluation on her student’s funnel with a 30 minutes Q&A session.

Module 4 – Who will you hire to be your Virtual Assistant?

Video Duration: Time: 4 hours, 28 minutes & 20 seconds

This module includes 3 sessions which focus on how and where to hire VAs (virtual assistants).

Sophie shares with you her experience on assigning tasks to VAs and deals with some of the common problems on managing a team of VAs. For example, she has once outsourced the tasks of supplier negotiation and product research to her VAs.

Module 5 – Behind the Scenes: Selling on Amazon

Video Duration: 5 hours, 16 minutes & 41 seconds

In this module, Sophie tells you the pros and cons of Amazon FBA.

After that, she goes on with the basic steps on setting up a seller account, business license and using tools e.g. LSI Graph, Keyword Inspector, Google Keyword Planner etc to identify keywords with a high searching volume.

This follows by a demonstration video on creating product listings and using Amazon PPC (Pay-per-Click) to launch products.

Module 6 – Forgotten Product Sourcing Places

Video Duration: 42 minutes & 8 seconds

In this module, Sophie tells you the 8 different ways to source products, including Amazon Catalogue Technique, Browning the Local Classifieds, Amazon Scroll and Search Technique and Visiting Markets and Bazaars, etc.

In the end of this session, Sophie shares her experience on creating unique product ideas by combining business with pleasure while travelling.

An Overview of Amazon Navigator Course

Course Duration: 9 hours, 42 minutes and 16 seconds

Module 1 – Welcome

Video Duration: 32 minutes & 46 seconds

In this module, Sophie starts with the concepts of positive mindset because she realises that most new FBA vendors experience a lot of ups and downs in the first 3 to 5 months.

According to Sophie, if you want to deal with challenges, you have to set goals. She asks her students to use a profound 3 steps to reach the goals in front of themselves.

This is followed by some methods on how to calculate Amazon’s fees, including product costs and profit numbers, applying for a business license and signing up for a professional Amazon seller account.

Module 2 – What you don’t know About Branding

Video Duration: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes and 7 Seconds

In this module, Sophie shares her unique strategies on branding that was said to have helped her grow her Amazon business to 7 figures. According to Sophie, this strategy can set her products apart from the competitors and increase the perceived values in the eyes of customers.

In another, this allows you to charge a higher margin

While most FBA courses only teach you the fundamentals of branding such as creating a brand website and Facebook page, Sophie gives you more details on positioning your products in a way that is harder to copy.

Module 3 – Finding Products that Sell for the Long-Term

Video Duration: 21 Minutes and 2 Seconds

If you want to replicate the success of Sophie, you need to unearth products that can be sold for a long time.

In this module, Sophie shares with you the tips on finding unique and sustainable products from the suppliers who are out of the spotlight.

According to Sophie, she has been working with suppliers from Indonesia, Bali, India and Thailand to source special products.

Module 4 – Are your listings Pristine?

Video Duration: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes & 25 Seconds

In this module, Sophie teaches you how to create a product listing that captivates Amazon visitors. The main focus is how to write sales copy, including title construction, product description and so on.

Some of the topics include:

• Keyword research

• How to create titles that appeal to customers

• How to create irresistible offers

• Product descriptions

She put a lot of emphasis on creating a product message that appeals to the millennials who constitute a majority of Amazon visitors.

Module 5 – Don’t Get Samples, Order the Entire Shipment

Video Duration: 19 Minutes & 19 Seconds

In this module, Sophie provides you with simple and actionable tips to deal with shipping, order samples and labelling.

She gives you solutions to get around the common problems of shipping and develier your products to Amazon warehouse on time.

Module 6 – Promoting the Sh*t out of your Product

Video Duration: 28 Minutes & 2 Seconds

In this module, Sophie teaches you 5 marketing strategies to launch products on Amazon. She gives a hint on 7 key performance indicators to keep track of your sales performance.

In addition, there is a step-by-step blueprint for you to set up coupon codes. For example, Sophie reminds you to restrict the number of coupon codes and make sure the codes are hidden from your product listing.

Module 7 – Maintaining Your Account

Video Duration: 40 Minutes & 12 Seconds

To build a successful Amazon FBA business, you must get used to data-driven decisions which help you get a better control of your business development.

In this module, Sophie shows you how to extract business reports from Seller Central, optimize customer support, process international payment and seek help from Amazon when necessary.

With Seller Central, you can get access to different business reports such as sales report, inventory report, customer concessions report, removal report, payment report and FBA business report.

As a seller on Amazon, you can’t skip the tasks of checking these numbers and metrics on a regular basis; otherwise you won’t have a clear idea on the profit margins and the best-selling products.

In short, you can’t automate these dry tasks which are essential to the growth of your Amazon FBA business.

Module 8 – Scaling Beyond Amazon and Hiring VA’s

Video Duration: 1 Hour, 9 Minutes & 17 Seconds

In this last module, Sophie teaches you how to assign the dry tasks to your VAs so that you can have more time to concentrate on scaling your business. Though in reality, it’s never been more difficult than hiring competent VAs to help you manage the business.

After all, if the VAs are really capable, they would have started their own businesses instead of working for you.

Is Sophie Howard a Scam?

Sophie is far from being a scam, nor is her training programme a get-rich-quick scheme.

I found that she really has real Amazon selling experience and has created profitable Amazon stores.

However, she makes it clear that starting an Amazon FBA business requires persistence and relentless focus, which is not suitable for the faint of heart.

In fact, it can be far more challenging than you think.

The Problems with Amazon FBA Business

As an experienced entrepreneur, I would never recommend any novices to start doing online business with Amazon FBA.

Below are some of the major problems with Amazon FBA business.

FBA business needs a large upfront cost.

To launch a business on Amazon, you will need $15-20k, at least.

Besides, since you can’t get started without any knowledge, you have to pay for an FBA course. Sophie’s Sky Blue courses, for instance, cost around $3500 or four monthly instalments of $995.

Moreover, you have to spend money on testing a number of products in order to find out that winning product. This means you have to create listings for different products and filter out best selling products from the unremarkable ones.

This process is time-consuming and costs a lot of money. So, you must think carefully if you really want to risk your hard earned money.

FBA Business is sophisticated

You have to face a lot of challenges in Amazon FBA. For instance, you’ll have to negotiate with suppliers, make comparisons on shipping companies, freight forwarders and comply with the regulations of Amazon and local governments, etc. This process is too sophisticated for beginners who might be just looking for a side hustle or a source of passive income that requires little time and investment.

There is no quick cash flow

Cash flow is the lifeblood of a business. However, in the Amazon FBA business model, mostly sellers have to invest a considerable amount of money to purchase inventories from suppliers in China.

If you want to create a unique private label product, the costs will be even higher. For example, most manufacturers in China charge you a few hundred dollars just for creating a prototype. If you don’t trust me, you can ask for a price on Alibaba.com.

In most cases, production may take 1-2 months depending on the nature of the products and quantity. Afterwards, it takes 2 weeks in shipment and custom clearance before arriving at Amazon warehouse.

This process indicates that it can take up to months before you’re paid for the inventory you bought.

Price war reduces profitability

Price war is ubiquitous on Amazon. Whenever a seller tries to attract more customers by lowering the prices, other sellers will be forced to cut their prices as well.

To avoid a net loss, you might have to cut the product costs. This results in lower product quality, negative feedback from customers and hence a drop in sales.

Apart from the intense competition, you have to deal with changing sales tax laws, category restrictions and Amazon policies.

In the worst case, Amazon might even ban your account permanently if you mistakenly violate some rules.

Is there an Easier & Better Alternative to Amazon FBA?

If you’re new to online business, you might wonder if there’s a better business model that doesn’t need initial capital and can do it as a side-hustle.

Of all the business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far. It is less time consuming since you don’t have to manage inventory or handle customer service.

It can help you to generate a steady stream of passive income while going on vacation or working a full-time job.

Since the world is full of uncertainty, I’d always choose a business model that has the lowest risk.

But How Much Can You Earn in Affiliate Marketing?

A 21-year old student from my #1 recommended training platform of affiliate marketing was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods and affiliate marketing.

Wealthy Affiliate has existed for more than 10 years and there are many success stories over the years.

To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.

Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?

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If you’d like to be the next success story and get the most out of Wealthy Affiliate, you can upgrade to the Premium Membership later.

After that, you can get access to everything without the bother from any upsells.