Is Amazon The Answer
So I would recommend not googling How to Make Money Online because you will be inundated with so much false and confusing information you will walk away from your computer more dismayed than ever and feeling hopeless.
But I did investigate reselling as a way forward for myself. I have always played with ebay on and off over the years but I never really cracked the code to turn it into a business. Youtube came to the rescue though and I was finally able to find other resellers sharing their information about how to be successful on ebay. I followed all their advice and my first year anniversary is about to happen. My first year I made about $5,000 in profit but I re-invested it all into product so one year down and I’m exactly at ground zero again in terms of money in my account, but I’m building a long term business there.
As I learned eBay I discovered that most successful resellers are on multiple platforms, mostly Amazon and eBay. So I started to look into Amazon as an option. Amazon is nowhere near as easy as the Youtube gurus tell you it is. It’s work. There are many rules and heaps of competition who will cut you to the bone as quick as clicking a mouse. So it’s not for the faint hearted but I believe there is an opportunity there.
One of the main strategies the gurus teach is to make your own product, or private label, and create a listing and start selling and live happily ever after with your millions. Sounds easy and great right? It’s not. Picking a product is a nightmare. At least for me. It takes hours and hours of analysis and even when you think you’ve finally found something, when you execute it, it lays dead in the water. Can you tell I’ve tried it?
You also need a lot of capital to execute. Capital is in short supply around here, but I did use a small amount from my eBay sales to try and dabble into Amazon. I bought a very small amount of product from China, brought it into Australia, listed it and sent it into Amazon Australia. All seven pieces sold but it took a while – longer than I had researched anyway. I tried again with another product and so far not one sale and it’s been listed for about 4 months now. Luckily I only invested $200.00 in inventory for this exercise but there are stories of people investing tens of thousands of dollars and putting it into products.
So to me, it’s a similar gamble as it was for me to put all my money into my business and I lost. Investing into Amazon product is the same gamble. You can have all the information you think you need, but when you execute it, you suddenly find out how the real game is played. It will only take one seller to have more money than you and the ability to undercut you and you are done. Trust me there are many sellers who are very liquid and ruthless in terms of protecting their business and source of income.
There are a couple of other ways you can still make some money on Amazon though. There are two ways to fulfil orders. You can send your own orders out just like eBay but there are more rules around presentation of your packaging and what you can send your items out in. This type of fulfilment is Fulfilled by Merchant or FBM. The other way is to send your inventory into Amazon and they will handle all the shipping and customer service. This is called Fulfilled by Amazon or FBA.
This is the area that the big players are and excel in. The fees for this service are built into their product sale price. It’s better for the customer, especially Prime customers, who expect speedy delivery of their orders. I’m using FBA at the moment and still haven’t been able to pull the trigger in terms of FBM.
I did have a couple of second hand books listed as FBM but after 12 months, I pulled them off. It doesn’t cost to list once you pay your one time monthly fee, but I could see that those books could sit for ten years and not sell.
This is where you can get stuck. Product selection. You need to really know what is going to sell within a timeframe that you are comfortable with. On eBay I can list all sorts of things on there and eventually someone will buy it. On Amazon they’re a lot more strict in what you can list. Many categories are ‘gated’ or restricted and you can’t list in that category until Amazon approves you.
Amazon’s attitude is this. They are allowing you to access their customers and therefore you must meet their very high standards of customer service and quality of product. So you can’t just list any old second hand CD for example. Amazon do not want to risk their customers receiving inferior product and being mad at them. eBay lets you contact the customer and you can come to an agreement. Amazon protects their customers from ever talking to you.
Is there money to be made? Yes. But it’s not going to fall into your lap and you can’t be half in and half out with Amazon. You will need to really do a lot of research, attend Amazon University (highly recommended but not mandatory) and have a little bit of money behind you that you are prepared to lose because no matter how much you research, you’re going to make a mistake so you have to be able to afford to.
I’m not going to be doing a how to series on Amazon. I did think about it for a while but honestly the world doesn’t need it. There is tons of information about Amazon. The one I do recommend though is Watch Me Amazon on Youtube. He’s actually done it and gives you the no bullshit answer on how to succeed.
Other than that I will update on how I’m going on Amazon from time to time. I feel it’s important for me to really learn this platform and have it in my arsenal of multiple streams of income, but I’m not going to be going all in on any one thing anymore. It’s an iron in my fire and hopefully once I learn it a bit more, it will start contributing to my overall plan.
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