Well, it’s a New Year and 2025 holds some very interesting and exciting prospects in my endeavor to become a successful Amazon FBA eCommerce seller. Before I get into that though, let me do a quick “mea culpa” (i.e. ‘my bad’) and confess that it’s been 6 weeks since my last post! Funny … my last post back in November started with:
Well, my plan to make daily posts isn’t working too well so far, I’m going to have to pick up the pace.”
So clearly I didn’t pick up the pace …. yet. That’s OK, 2025 is going to be better and I’m shooting for at least weekly posts now (rather than daily) as I’m sure that will be enough to explain how things are going in my journey to build an ECommerce business.
OK, on to what’s new. Here’s what’s transpired since the last post on Nov 16, 2024.
Catchup: Once I decided to pursue Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon), I decided to pursue selling my own Private Label product. This model basically says to find an existing product that sells ‘OK’ but has a lot of negative reviews about some feature or function that you think could be improved. Then you find an offshore manufacturer (e.g. in China like Alababa), have your “improved” product built, list it on Amazon and hope it sells. After investing in a coaching/training program in mid-November, I decided that the long product development cycle and significant investment in the initial order made private label too risky as a place to start out so I pivoted to something called “arbitrage”. I later learned that most experts agree that starting in private label is a mistake and a high risk endeavor, so moving to arbitrage which was the right decision. Footnote: I was fortunate that the guys at Honest FBA (my coaching choice) agreed to refund most of my ‘investment’ in their Private Label course and coaching, so my first misstep wasn’t as painful as it might have been.
Following the decision to pursue arbitrage, I began researching Retail Arbitrage and Online Arbitrage and decided those were where I want to place my bets. After Thanksgiving holidays was over, I signed up for a $39/month program started by Jim Cockrum called the Proven Amazon Course, which included membership in his Amazon FBA Facebook group “Silent Sales Machine”.
November and December were largely spent learning the basics of Retail Arbitrage, the many tools involved, learning Amazon’s process, requirements and restrictions, and some other factors that are required to be successful in this model.
If you’re not familiar with Retail Arbitrage, it’s essentially a process of finding ordinary, everyday products that are sold at a good price in retail stores that I can purchase, send to Amazon, and make $2 – $10/unit (or more) reselling them on Amazon due to the price disparity between the two sources. Simple in concept, but tedious and with its own challenges in practice. It seems lots of people try and quit.
Frankly I was skeptical this was a viable business model when I started too, but after listening to countless podcasts ranging from high school kids to single parents, all who were having varying degrees of success, I realized that this is legit and where I want to invest my time and effort.
A word of caution: After spending 45 days in this pursuit now I am confident that it’s everything I hoped it would be in terms of potential income, but I should point out ….. it’s a real business and takes consistent, focused work for several months to learn, get started and begin to have even a little success. That’s not really surprising and those statements apply to any real world business, but with so many online claims of “instant riches” I was frankly relieved to see that while this works, it’s not quick or easy. But if you have that long term perspective, and enough focus and determination to stay the course through the learning curve, it’s an excellent business model. Lots of challenges, but that applies to any legitimate opportunity.
Coaching
There is so much information available on YouTube and other social media platforms that buying coaching is not exactly necessary, but throughout my career whenever I was on the fast track to learn something it always went better, easier, faster and with fewer mistakes and missteps when I had a mentor, coach or advisor to help. I’m confident that I can figure out how to be successful in Amazon FBA, but if a few dollars can shorten the learning curve by 2-3 months or more, then that’s an excellent return on investment (ROI) that I’m willing to make.
With that in mind, I’m considering an Arbitrage coach now. After the first misstep (private label) I’m obviously proceeding cautiously, but my fundamental belief in coaching or mentorship remains intact so I just need to find the right arbitrage coach for me. As with anything, what’s right for one person may not be right for another so your mileage may vary, but in my next post I will be sharing more info on the coaching I choose and how that’s going.
In the meantime, I’ve reviewed roughly 500 products from pictures I’ve taken in different store(s) for arbitrage potential, found 12 products now that I can resell profitably, and I just sent some of those to Amazon to resell. The plan, once the initial test is completed and it’s proven that these products will sell at a profit, is to return to those retailers and repurchase these products periodically as necessary to to keep the supply to Amazon steady and always have inventory of those products available to sell. My goal is to eventually build a catalog of 100 products in my store on Amazon and to generate $1 million in annual sales. It’s part of the game to recognize that prices change from time to time and a product that’s doing well today (and maybe has for months) at some point will no longer be available at a profitable price, so constant sourcing for the next product to sell is part of the gig, but I’m fine with that and frankly enjoy it. I’m really enjoying finding profitable prodcuts or “ASIN’s” (Amazon Standard Identification Number) in the FBA world. ASIn’s are Amazon’s internal equivalent of a UPC.
For now, I have sent a small number of different products (ASINs) to Amazon to test, to confirm they will sell at a profitable price. I purchased 5 of each item for the test, and once I know I can resell them profitably I’ll return to the stores where they were purchased and buy more to send to Amazon.
That’s it for now. Next post: More about coaching, the tools that I’ve been learning to run my business, and what was required to put together that first shipment of products to Amazon FBA.
I’m really excited to see what I can generate in sales in 2025, starting from -0-. I’ll share every win and every defeat, in the hope that it provides some education and possibly motivation to someone else trying to find a way to build your own side hustle or even full time income.
Next post? Goal is Jan 10. Stay tuned to see if that happens, or if it takes 6 weeks again! 😀
Cheers and Happy New Year!