It's been a pretty productive month for me on Amazon, but it's also been very frustrating. For the Christmas season, I've made a little over $4000 this month counting my $1600 bank deposit early in December. I think this is pretty successful for me considering I didn't know what I was doing for the most part, and I just started in August.
As I sit here typing this, there's about 40 minutes left before it's officially 2016 here on the West Coast. There were definitely a lot of mistakes made and lessons learned this year from doing business on Amazon, and I plan to do much better next year. Anytime you can make some extra money on the side with doing minimal work, it's always a plus.
Now to the frustrating part. I literally could have made anywhere from $8k-$12k in December if I had enough inventory to sell. Some of it had to do with this being my first Xmas shopping season and I had no idea just how much my sales would increase. The other part had to do with delays in shipping from China, delays with UPS, and delays with the Amazon warehouse. One thing I didn't keep in mind is that the manufacturers in China also have a big increase in orders, so it can take them a week longer to process your order.
Most of my orders from China I have shipped by DHL. Before the Christmas season, I always received my orders in about 3-4 business days once the manufacturer finishes production. The package is shipped to me, and then I ship it to the Amazon warehouse. One thing that sucks about Amazon is they ALWAYS make me ship my packages to the East Coast. I use Amazon's cheap UPS ground shipping rates, but that also means it takes 5 business days to get to the Amazon warehouse.
In business, time is money, and this process was costing me money. I thought I would be "smart" and try to work with a freight forwarder in China. This way, they could just pick the package up from my manufacturer and ship it directly to Amazon. The first freight forwarder I found wasted a week's worth of my time until he finally told me couldn't ship the package because the product contains batteries. So I finally just ended up having the package shipped to me.
On a different product, one of my shipments actually sat in the DHL warehouse a full week before it was shipped to me. Another shipment was lost in DHL's warehouse and I had to be reimbursed for my costs.
Then it was UPS's turn to screw everything up. They weren't able to keep up with all of the shipments, and it caused a big backlog in their shipping process. So my shipments that normally took 5 business days sometimes took 7 business days, once again costing me money. The Amazon warehouses also started getting behind. Normally when my products are delivered to the Amazon warehouse, I get a notification within 24 hours that my package has been received, and they will then work on processing my inventory. During Xmas season, Amazon may take up to a week sometimes just to acknowledge that your package was delivered, and then it may take another 3 business days to put your items into their inventory.
There were times this month where I was completely out of stock on literally EVERYTHING because the Amazon warehouse was so slow. You can tell from the screenshot I posted that I hardly have any sales for this past week, and I'm pretty much out of stock on everything.
If that's not bad enough, Amazon just announced they will be raising their rates for sellers in February. As if they don't make enough money off of us already. Also I think for next year, Amazon won't be my sole source of retail income. I should seriously think about creating my own retail website and selling items myself, but I don't know if I want to bother with having to ship the items myself and/or dealing with customers.
As much as Amazon FBA has been a pain in the neck at times, I still think it's a great way to make a living. I made $4000 with maybe 8 hours of actual work the whole month. Sure as hell beats my regular job by a long shot.
My goal for 2016 is to have at least $30k in deposits by the end of the year. If you're one of those people who has dreamed of being their own boss, now is the time to start. Don't let fear hold you back any longer. If you have any questions or wonder how I got started, please don't hesitate to ask.
Good luck in 2016
