Starting out Exporting with Amazon FBA

[Hassen]

Haven't actually had the time to do anything since the last post lol. But I've found that ads results vary greatly by product. For some it might be better to stop ads altogether after some initial traction in terms of sales ranking, but for some others it seems to pay off more handsomely, at least for longer.

Right now I have $100 in my Amazon account from sales profit again, and it's only the 19th. I think this month I could probably end up with twice of what I made last month, even after paying the pro seller fee.


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[herby]

Good to see you making progress. Keep it going on, aim for bigger profits.

 

[Hassen]

Didn't get any order for the past week. Not sure what's going on.


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[Hassen]

New inventory is on the way. Should reach Amazon's warehouses in two weeks or so.


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[Hassen]

30 day sales went over $500 for the first time.
Translated into revenue it's probably around $200, after the pro seller fee & ads. At least I'm close to breaking even on a monthly basis, i.e. the revenue is close to being enough to support sourcing new inventory & international shipping, so I can save up my salary.


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[MoneyDoc]

This thread is a perfect example of how persistence will eventually pay off. Some people would quit or find a new product after they get no sales for a week starting off...

Glad to see you went from doing no sales to over $500 in sales a month.

What's the BSR (best sellers rank) on your top competitor's product?

 

[Hassen]

This thread is a perfect example of how persistence will eventually pay off. Some people would quit or find a new product after they get no sales for a week starting off...

Glad to see you went from doing no sales to over $500 in sales a month.

What's the BSR (best sellers rank) on your top competitor's product?

Uh, 728? That's the rank of the product that's similar to my newest listing, at the top of the search.
I don't really consider this particular one my "competitor" per se... There are really tons of similar listings & I'm happily taking my share in the pool instead of actively competing against one or two specific listings, so to speak.

I did find new products. In fact that it's part of my strategy now that since finding one best seller is difficult, I currently have around 50 active listings (variations included) & don't expect all of them to be flying off the shelves all the time. Most of my products are cheap (I don't compete against other Chinese sellers by low prices though, I have prices higher but still reasonable & win over customers through using FBA & better product photos & writing the listings in better English, it's just the items themselves aren't overly valuable, so they are cheap) & many have prices below what regular FBA sellers consider worthwhile, since American domestic FBA sellers have the barrier of entry: they cannot get products or shipping for as cheap as I do, because I purchase inventory only from manufacturers who don't export & then arrange for international shipping separately myself & the minimum quantity of order I face is very frequently only 1 item.

So now I put up a bunch of listings, buy & send in only a few of each, replenish whatever sells in larger quantities & drop whatever doesn't.

I was suspecting that the old products were not getting sales for a week because they were targeted at students, who were all out partying during summer break instead of shopping on Amazon. Now it seems I was right on that speculation. The new products I got were targeted at the partying crowd/summer theme, now only if I got them in earlier - I had a friend in the U.S. to ship the inventory to Amazon warehouses after the shipments are sent from China through a courier agent company that doesn't do customs clearing & that time the forward shipping was delayed due to friend's family having stuff coming up.
Now I've found a freight forwarder who can clear customs & handle taxes beforehand through Hong Kong so my shipments goes straight to Amazon warehouses, and so the shipping time from my house to Amazon went from a month down to 10 days.

Currently I got some new products again, small items targeting students & some others at young professionals, plus some family-oriented stuff. Trying to vary the kind of products so sales don't get that seasonal again.
Still need to finish up the listings for this shipment of new inventory, which just got in last night.


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[McCoyH]

Awesome thread! Good to see someone slowly succeeding. The hardest part is the waiting while things get rolling, you just want to give up and try something else... Great job!

 

[Hassen]

30 day sales just went over $600. I'm sending out some more inventory this weekend, and then will start to source and order new products.


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[Hassen]

30 day sales have been stuck at a few dollars short of $700 for the past few days.

Will send out new inventory tomorrow & talked to my shipping agent the other day about the shipping options of some new products... Exciting stuff.

Anyway, time for some slowlane rant. at work we had a departmental meeting this week & I was chastised by the manager for leaving work on time the day before, when there was nothing remaining that really needed to be done that day to warrant (of course, always not payed) extra hours. Manager then shared story about when he was at my level, he used to at one point spend a week living in the office in order to put in the amount of work needed & got UTI from not having clean underwear to change into. He then proceeded to claim days off shouldn't exist at all for sales departments.

I am so. damned. done.

I truly cannot understand how people quite literally work their asses off for something like two or three grand dollars a month. What?
Also I hate it when people launch into long talks about achieving better performances to keep their positions, so to keep the pay... I don't mind working long hours at all, as I always have during my entire academic and professional careers, but I'd never do it for money. It's just so depreciating, pathetic & plain not worth it. This slowlane shit of working fingers to the bone just to keep a job position where money is given in exchange for the voluntary slavery is getting on my nerves.

Anyway... I've started to seriously consider quitting in the foreseeable future. Living expense here is only $500 a month since I live at home, though I pay for my own work meals, phone bills, all purchases, etc. If I could make $1,000 a month from my FBA endeavors I could actually quit & have money to live on & to replenish inventories, & most importantly free up time to learn & do more stuff to get closer to the fastlane. This month of August I made $300. Maybe in a few months' time I'd reach the $1,000 target.

 

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[Hassen]

30 days sale went over $700.
Made $400 for the month of August. (Apparently I was too tired to do 1st grade math right earlier.)


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $800.
Shipped out new inventory.

I think sales is slowing down a bit today though.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $900.


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[Hassen]

One strange thing I've realized is that the customers who praise the products only say it in transaction/seller feedback, & those who leave product reviews are unhappy with the purchase, often due to clearly not reading the product descriptions (saying what they received is not what they expected while the specific feature they object to is clearly stated in the product description). No idea what's causing it.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $1,000.


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[iwantmyicecream]

Hey Hassen,
I'm glad you're having success!

Where are you selling your products? only in the Usa or also in the european marketplace?
have you considered to open your website or You think that is still earlier?

 

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[Hassen]

Hey Hassen,
I'm glad you're having success!

Where are you selling your products? only in the Usa or also in the european marketplace?
have you considered to open your website or You think that is still earlier?

Only in the U.S. Haven't considered other marketplaces... I guess I'll think about that.
I've no idea how I'm even supposed to open a website at this point. I don't have a distinct brand or niche.

My plan is to simply keep doing what I'm doing until I can quit my day job. Then I'll go from there.


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[exclusives88]

Only in the U.S. Haven't considered other marketplaces... I guess I'll think about that.
I've no idea how I'm even supposed to open a website at this point. I don't have a distinct brand or niche.

My plan is to simply keep doing what I'm doing until I can quit my day job. Then I'll go from there.


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Congrats. Looks like your persistence is paying off. Are you using Amazon for your only sales channel?

Since you live in China and may expand to more products, are you planning on going to the Canton Fair? I'll be at the Canton Fair and Hong Kong in October. Would be awesome to meet up

 

[Hassen]

Congrats. Looks like your persistence is paying off. Are you using Amazon for your only sales channel?

Since you live in China and may expand to more products, are you planning on going to the Canton Fair? I'll be at the Canton Fair and Hong Kong in October. Would be awesome to meet up

Since I work full time it'd be difficult haha, spending 3 hours flying down there only for a weekend, kinda not worth it. Currently I'm also only sticking with small quantities from non-export suppliers.

Honestly I'm pretty much not going to change strategy until I quit my day job, as I feel it's.. Hard to think or do research when holding down a full time job that's like 80 hours a week. I can barely keep up with putting up the listings for the products since I do all the image editing and description writing myself.

If you're ever in Beijing though we can definitely meet up!



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[exclusives88]

Since I work full time it'd be difficult haha, spending 3 hours flying down there only for a weekend, kinda not worth it. Currently I'm also only sticking with small quantities from non-export suppliers.

Honestly I'm pretty much not going to change strategy until I quit my day job, as I feel it's.. Hard to think or do research when holding down a full time job that's like 80 hours a week. I can barely keep up with putting up the listings for the products since I do all the image editing and description writing myself.

If you're ever in Beijing though we can definitely meet up!



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Ouch 80 hours is tough! I'm going to be in Beijing for a night.

 

[Hassen]

Ouch 80 hours is tough! I'm going to be in Beijing for a night.

It's not like that every single week haha sometimes it's 50 or 60, but when it gets hectic it really does. I'm out of town till the 8th & if you're in Beijing after that we can maybe meet up for dinner? PM me & I can add you on WeChat or QQ if you've got one. Skype works too but I don't use it a lot, would need to reinstall it.


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[CMack]

Hassen,

Great post, so glad to see your'e finding success. Thanks for all the updates!

Cmack


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[Hassen]

Hassen,

Great post, so glad to see your'e finding success. Thanks for all the updates!

Cmack


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Thanks!
Wouldn't say it's anywhere near success yet though, but I've definitely been making progress. Thanks again for your kind words <3


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $1400.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2200.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2300.

 

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2300.

 

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2300.

Paid someone to do the product pics for the first time & it's so damn worth it. Spent less than 4 US dollars & got 12 pics that I can upload to Amazon right away, though I'll quickly adjust one or two to be closer to my liking anyway, but it costs so much less time.

 

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[AgainstAllOdds]

30 days sales went over $2300.

Paid someone to do the product pics for the first time & it's so damn worth it. Spent less than 4 US dollars & got 12 pics that I can upload to Amazon right away, though I'll quickly adjust one or two to be closer to my liking anyway, but it costs so much less time.

How'd you get the pics done? Did you take them yourself and have them photoshop the images? Or did you send them the physical products and they did it for $4?

 

[Hassen]

How'd you get the pics done? Did you take them yourself and have them photoshop the images? Or did you send them the physical products and they did it for $4?

I had them photoshop the pics.
I had already done 2 out of the total 14 so I sent them for reference & then they did the other 12 in similar fashion.
My products are all physically fairly small at this point so I can normally just take decent enough photos with a white piece of paper as background & just regular household light source as lighting.