My Fastlane Diary

[DejanM]

Hey Guys, I already spent some time reading this forum(as I am new here) and there are some really good topics. Of course I didnt read the "whole thing" but maybe somebody is interessted in what I and my partner are currently doing .

We started Amazon FBA Business one month ago and we already earned € 807 (before taxes and Amazon Commission) with one single product.

In the next few days we want to order some additional products which from our point of view will convert - our initial company capital contribution is € 8k - first 2k were spent to source our first product which is currently on Amazon Germany.
Units we bought = 500

So to contribute in this community my idea is to provide you with weekly updates what we are doing and what our output is.

As I am from IT Business it was very easy for me to see what Amazon FBA Sellers are missing, so this is our second step to the fastlane - for the moment I will call this Project X .
Project X will be in the end a SAAS Model for Amazon FBA sellers. But more information about this will be provided when our coding is done. Estimated costs of this project will be I guess 2-3k (we found amazing developers from Ukraine)

If you are interessted in all this stuff subscribe to the topic and let me know if I should go on.
next update will be provided on 15.05.2017

Rock on.

P.S:
To prove there is no crap here - first screenshot
@MJ DeMarco

 

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[DejanM]

Update:
So one more week - one more update.

Since last week we made sales worth € 424 so as the first month of Amazon FBA comes to an end the P&L sheet looks like this

Sales Amount: 1165
discounts: 260
Amazon Fees: 333
Amazon PPC: 135,28
Profit before taxes: 436,72

We will fully close this month next week then I will provide a new P&L as well as a costs of sales calculation .

Beside this we already found 4 additional products which we are going to import from China - at the moment we negotiate on price with the suppliers. For me this step is not so easy, as chinese have a fully different mindset when it comes to business - but we are looking forward to master this as well.

Info on Project X:

- we have a domain
- we have a amazing developer
- first lines of code are already written
- mvp will take around 3 weeks
- we need to patent the name inside EU

- more to come

 

[DejanM]

Screenshot Amazon

 

[DejanM]

Time for a new update:
So the first month is over an this is how it looks like:

Total revenue: 1725
PPC costs: 318,43
Amazon Share: 444,92
TOTAL: 961,65
----------------------------------------
Total Revenue : 961,65
Amount of units sold: 74 units
Cost per unit: 4,80
Total unit costs: 355,2
----------------------------------------
Profit before taxes:
Total Revenue: 961,65
Total unit costs: 352,2

= 609,45

In general I think its okay, we just need to find a way to reduce the PPC costs - I think our Project X will be very helpfull when its done.

Currently we found 4 more products for Amazon and the sample is already on its way to Europe. After we approved it it will be a multiplier i guess.


@ Update Project X - Phase 1 is almost done , two more phases till minimal viable product. I really cant wait it will be sooo huge

 

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[Van Halen]

Awesome stuff

 

[DejanM]

Awesome stuff

Feel free to ask questions if there are any

 

[DejanM]

Welcome to the latest update - now for the first time i can publish an update where a full month is taken into considaration .
So this P&L Sheet is from 01.05.2017-31.05.2017 (May)

Total revenue: 1621,00
Amazon Credit: 255,59 (we get this amount from Amazon because they broke some of our products)
PPC costs: 441,86
Amazon Share: 623,44
TOTAL: 811,29
----------------------------------------
Total Revenue : 811,29
Amount of units sold: 72 units
Cost per unit: 4,80
Total unit costs: 345,6
----------------------------------------
Profit before taxes:
Total Revenue: 811,29
Total unit costs: 345,6

= 465,69

 

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[Hai]

Looking good! Congrats. Do you think this will be scalable?

 

[DejanM]

Looking good! Congrats. Do you think this will be scalable?

Hey Mainstream - Amazon is scaleable if you add additional products - currently I am working with my partner with a single product - in few weeks we will get 5 additional to sell.

Of course I can not imagine myself to be an Amazon Seller for the rest of my life - it just will not work out - I dont like the idea to be fully depend on a single sales funnel. We use it as long as it works
The income we are generating via Amazon is just a "step in between" before we do more interessting stuff - like our Project X - i will provide more infos on the current state of this project in one of the next updates. Currently we are thinking how to set up a kickstarter campaign for it so we can be quicker on this.

 

[DejanM]

A new update:
Since the start of June I was able to optimize my listing - the impact was amazing.
My sales went up nearly 100% and my ppc costs decrease by approx 50% here is the outcome (see screenshot)

Beside that I am right now fighting a little bit with my chinese supplier because I want to order 6 more products but those guys are doing business way much different then I am used to.

Main issue here is that they just dont think - you really need to explain them everything like you are talking to a three years old - this is not fun.

Update @ProjectX
No progress here - developer is sick since two weeks thinking about to find a repleacement

P.S: Amazon is a fu*** money machine - love it

 

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[DejanM]

Just a quick update - this month is amazing , as I am really busy I can not go into details just a short screenshot of progress - i will try to provide a huge update by next week - rock on

PS: You have to read unscripted - i have it since few days from audible @MJ DeMarco - this book is avsome

 

[DejanM]

June 2017
Total revenue: 3037
PPC costs: 367,07
Amazon Share: 1279,05
TOTAL: 1390,88
----------------------------------------
Total Revenue : 1390,88
Amount of units sold: 133 units
Cost per unit: 4,80
Total unit costs: 638,4
----------------------------------------
Profit before taxes:
Total Revenue: 1390,88
Total unit costs: 638,4

= 752,48

The Screenshot is slightly diffetrent because there were some Amazon Credits and so on but I think its good enough that you can see that hard work pays out .

One more thing:
Currently I dont provide some very huge updates because I am focusing on expanding this business and also working on some additional sales funnels like print on demand and dropshipping. But to be clear - Amazon is NOT Fastlane as you are missing the full control over the sales funnel - therefore i currently see it just as an moneymaker which works as long as it works. My only advantage here is currently the quality of execution.

Never ever put all of your eggs in this one basket - but I think if you read the book from @MJ DeMarco you already know that. I am hard working on my Plan B which is truly fastlane but of course it needs time and money and I am working for it.

 

[DejanM]

Just a micro update and a "Lesson learned"
Currently I am strugelling with our chinese manufactors.

We are currently in Out of Stock in Amazon. So if you do this business you really need to ensure that your product is supplied at the right time. When you are out of stock it really sucks - your product rank goes to hell and you dont earn any money.
At the moment we have 2000kg and 6 different products in our warehouse in China but to bring this stuff to Amazon Warehouse in Germany is very challengeing.

We already found a full scale company which is from Germany and they will now solve our problems , of course they are not cheap but its really important to have the same cultural background when it comes to logistics as the Chinese are "very relaxed" on this - something I dont want to afford.

More updates when everything is there

 

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[Walter Hay]

You might find some help by reading my AMA.
GOLD Sharing my lifetime experience in export/import. Product sourcing specialist.

Among other things relevant to problems you have encountered it deals with relationships with Chinese suppliers, understanding the Chinese way of doing business, handling shipping most effectively, and some details about my "Just in time" ordering system. Of course my book gives a lot more detail.

If you have any questions please post them on my thread. I will do my best to help.

Walter