The Grand Re-Entry

Wow, I realize it's been over a year since my last blog post.   To be honest, I think I lost a bit of my motivation and drive over the course of this time.

We created a new skin care product called Deliciously Sexy, and we became a little disappointed when the product didn't take off quite as fast as we hoped for on Amazon.     In meantime while we were trying to get our brand going, we also made the mistake of neglecting the other products we had available for sale on Amazon.

Needless to say that it was a pretty down year for us as an Amazon retailer, but it was actually a blessing in disguise.   In some odd way, you actually gain a much better understanding of business when things aren't going well.  

We've also taken this time to realized that we are more committed than ever to make our dreams a reality.    During this past year I've consumed myself with studying people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Peter Voogd, Ramit Sethi, and other high performers.     One of the biggest shifts for me came after I read the book "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" by T Harv Eker.    There are 50 million other books out there that tell you to have a positive mindset when dealing with money, but somehow this book really made me start to think about money in a positive way.

One of my biggest takeaways from reading about other people is that they always invest in themselves.   This is probably one of the biggest differences between rich and poor people.   Rich people are willing to invest in themselves, and that's what I've started doing.

In that same spirit, I also went to a Tony Robbins one-day event that featured Gary Vaynerchuk and Robert Herjavec from "Shark Tank".  It was the best $150 I ever spent.   I left that conference feeling like a new man, and it was the best money I ever spent.     I've also invested in one of Ramit Sethi's courses (Success Triggers) and I'm investing in the Power Quadrant System which includes interviews with people like Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey.

My wife has also decided to pursue a career as an erotic photographer after we signed up for Power Quadrant and Success Triggers.   I've also become a certified NLP Practitioner, and I'm currently studying on how to become a successful life coach.

2017 is going to be our year!!!!    We are committed to making our dreams become a reality, and I hope everyone out there can take at least one small step towards your dreams this year.    Even if you only spend 15 mins trying to get one step closer to your goal, it's at least 15 more minutes than you did the previous week.

$4000 in One Month from Amazon FBA - Happy New Year

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

 

$1200 in One Week on Amazon

So my last Amazon deposit on Nov 25th was $788.   It was my highest 2 week total to date, and I was super pumped about making that much in just two weeks.

So now I have a problem.   In less than one week, I already have over $1200 waiting to be depositing into my account on Dec 8th.   Basically I'm on pace to have over $4000 deposited into our account for the month of December.  So what's the problem?

I've pretty much run out of stock on my 5 most popular items.   Three of my items come from one particular company in China, and they just happened to be moving locations when I placed another order with them.   This caused a week long delay in the production of my items, and they still haven't been shipped to me.   This means I'm losing tons of money while my items are out of stock.   I actually made over $800 in just 2 days, and the sales have been dwindling down since I don't have many of my items in stock.

Also, like most first-time Amazon sellers, I use the profits I make to restock my items.  Since I did this, I can't really order more items until after my next deposit around Dec 8th.  Then of course I run the risk of not getting the items to Amazon before Christmas.  I wish someone had told me just how much your sales will grow during the Christmas shopping season.   I'll just consider this a lesson learned.   Next year I'll be sure to start stocking up on things around October.

First $1000 Month as an Amazon Retailer

Took a few months to get there, but it looks like I'm finally going to make over $1000 this month.

  

I still have two more days to go until the balance is deposited into our bank account, so there's a good chance I can make over $1100 this month.   I'm spending about $150 a month on advertising so that's eating into my profits some, but I think that's a fair trade-off.  

Also I've decided to stop labeling my own products.   I figured by the time I buy labels and take the time to print them all out and individually label each product, I can just have Amazon label the products for me. (For a fee of course)   This really cuts down the amount of time I have to spend getting everything organized.  Now when I get a product delivered from China, I just perform a count to make sure there isn't a missing item.   I print off the shipping label and I drop it off at the UPS Store.   This also allows me to replenish my stock much faster.  I'm dabbling with the idea of starting to send some of my products to the Canadian Amazon site to see if it will increase my sales.

I decided to take the plunge and started selling an expensive item on Amazon.  My most "expensive" item before now was just $19.99.    The product that I'm selling now retails on Amazon for about $149.99, but I decided to sell it for $109 just to try and generate some sells.  

What's strange is that I have an item selling for $13.99, and Amazon charges me a fee of $4.99 to sell it, which equates to Amazon charging me 36% to sell the item.  Conversely, Amazon only charges me $13.21 to sell my $109.99 item.   So Amazon is only taking 12% for this item.   I wish I had known this sooner, I would've started selling more expensive items a long time ago.

For those of you selling on Amazon, I highly recommend that you make sure you are stocked up on your items for all the Christmas buyers.  I'm hoping to break the $3000 mark for the month of December.      

Amazon Business - $500 Barrier Broken

Most of you who read my blog know that I've recently started selling products on Amazon.   I'm happy to say that I finally broke the $500 barrier this month!  Almost $350 will be deposited into my account tomorrow, which makes my total for the month $530.59.

I don't even know how it happened, because there were some items that I basically gave away for 75% off to try and get people to buy my new product.  Not to mention having to pay another $39.99 for my monthly seller fee, and the cost of shipping my products to Amazon.  I'm pretty pumped to see what my sales will look around Christmas time.

On a side note, the wife and I have started the process to trademark the name of our new product.  While I'm happy about the money I've made so far, I think this product will have a lot of potential.  The biggest mistake I've made so far is choosing products that only need to be purchased one time.  I won't be making that mistake with our new product.

To those who are thinking of getting started, I'd recommend picking a product that customers will have to buy repeatedly.  Think about the different items that you buy on a continual basis.   Razors, dish soap, printer ink, baby wipes, etc.   These are all products that are bought repeatedly, so once a customer likes your product they're highly likely to buy it again. 

Amazon Business Update Part I

So I've decided to blog regularly on my successes and failures as someone trying to start a business as a seller on Amazon.  Maybe this will help inspire others who are on the fence about selling on Amazon, and maybe help you avoid some of the pitfalls I've encountered.

I stated that my goal was to make over $600 this month, and I didn't quite reach that goal.  Amazon will make deposits into your account around the 15th and the last day of each month.   As you can see from the attached picture, I had a payment for $257 sent to my bank on the 15th, and tomorrow they should be depositing $218.   While I didn't reach my goal of $600, I would've come close to reaching that goal if it weren't for all of the Amazon fees:

So from Sept 16th until today, I had over $400 in orders, but all the Amazon fees are killing me.   To be a professional seller on Amazon, they charge you $39.99 each month, which is included in the fees pictured.   I also set up some advertising for my products, and I'd estimate that about $60 was spent on advertising.   You'll also see that I offered some discounts on my products (Promo rebates for $51.34) in order to attract more buyers.

I also had to purchase more items to ship to Amazon, so the shipping fees are also included in the Amazon fees.  Using Amazon's UPS ground shipping service does save you a little bit of money, but it's still money that comes out of your profit margin.   

I think I'm going to eliminate advertising for this next pay cycle to see if I can increase my profit margin.  For you new sellers out there, I would recommend not selling any item below $10.99.  If you use Amazon FBA, the fees are usually going to be at least $4 for an item.  Right now I have an item in my inventory selling for $10.99, and Amazon is going to charge me a fee of $4.54 for processing and shipping the order to a customer.   That leaves a profit of $6.45, and then of course I have to subtract the $2.60 I paid for the item, leaving me a profit of $3.85 for each item.

 I also have another item I sell for $23.99, and Amazon deducts $6.27 leaving me $17.72.  Subtract out the $8 I paid and that leaves a profit of $9.72.   So as you can see, you can do much better the higher you price your items.

My goal in the next coming month is to bank enough profit so I can buy bigger quantities of each product so I can be in a better position to negotiate pricing with my suppliers.  The bigger your order, the more suppliers are willing to negotiate.   I also need to think about expanding into other products with higher profit margins.    

Starting your Business on Amazon

Sorry I haven't written much on here lately.  I've been reading a few books lately about how to sell products on Amazon, so I figured I'd take a stab at it.  First off, it's not nearly as easy as these books make it out to be.   There's a lot of things that can go wrong when trying to sell items on Amazon.  No one ever really mentions Amazon fees, having to pay to ship stuff to Amazon, or the amount of time it takes to label your products.  Also, shipping things to the US from overseas (China, Thailand) can be quite expensive, and you may have to deal with custom fees.

Not to mention that if you're not someone with deep pockets, you may have trouble finding an item to buy at wholesale because most suppliers require a minimum order quantity.   Nevertheless, I found a few items to sell, and I think I did okay for my first month.

I managed to make a little over $400, which is good I think for my first month, but of course that doesn't include the money I spent on a label maker, or the fact that Amazon will often make you split up your shipments to send to multiple fulfillment centers.   Also, Amazon actually lost one of my shipments so about half of that $400 was from Amazon reimbursing me for my lost products.

The first month was also tough because some items just weren't able to sell, and I also had to spend a little bit of money on advertising.  As with any business, getting started is the hardest part and I have definitely made my fair share of mistakes along the way.

Still though, it's a great feeling to know that I was able to make this money on my own as a side business.

My goal for next month is to make at least $600, and hopefully get to the point where I can consistently make over $1000 a month.