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This is a long post, but help would be greatly appreciated as I try to reform my previous money chasing ways.
Afters reading @MJ DeMarco ’s Unscripted and it's made me re-evaluate where I'm heading. I’m looking to get some feedback from people with far more experience than me in business and ecommerce as I try to plan my next 12 months.
Just to give you some background on me. I've been trying to build a business selling through Amazon FBA for the last 18-24 months. It's not been as successful as I wanted, but that's mainly due to selling too many Me-Too products, choosing very small niches and not offering anything unique or adding value in my products. Hence, my sales have been very low.
Before this, I’ve been guilty of being one of the money chasers that MJ talks about in his book. I’ve looked at property investment, building online courses, affiliate marketing and made little progress with any.
Ironically, I’ve made these poor decisions due to my reason why - I have a young family and I’m desperate to leave the rat race so I can spend time with them. In my hurry to leave the rat race, I can see now that I’ve just been chasing money and not building a fast lane existence. For that reason, I’m cautious about moving onto something else without good reason, hence my query now as I face two options:
Option 1: Continue with Amazon
Put the lessons I’ve learned into building my Amazon store through better product selection and work on building a unique brand.
Pro’s:
+ Amazon is a powerful selling portal with huge numbers of buyers and an easy ability to list and promote products to those buyers.
+ I can build a brand on Amazon and move onto Shopify at a later date
+ I’m not quitting to try something new (i.e. not showing money chasing habits)
+ It builds on my experience of the last couple of years
Con’s
- Breaks the commandment of CONTROL - this is a huge worry for me as I’ve heard of sellers being banned and their income stops overnight with very little communication from Amazon
- Too often on Amazon it becomes a race to the bottom on price
- Developing unique products can come at high initial cost
- Top selling products can easily be copied so I lose my products USP then the inevitable price war begins
- Developing a brand on Amazon is hard
Option 2: Shopify Store to retail existing branded products in an existing niche
As I’ve been selling on Amazon, I’ve come across a few niches that are poorly serviced online. Websites look at least 15 years old with horrible sales copy, terrible product photos and no social media interaction.
My plan is to build a high quality website selling existing brands, using great photos and copy and build a brand that focuses on the people in the niche through a strong marketing strategy that is unique to the niche. However, from my thread I realise this isn’t enough for a USP so I’d need to put some thought into this.
Pro’s:
+ CONTROL - I will have 100% control over my brand and sales channels
+ SCALE - if my marketing strategy works, I can apply it to the other niches I’ve seen
+ NEED - the existing websites are horrible and users are offered a poor experience so there's a need for a 21st century approach
Con’s:
- it's harder to develop a USP selling other brand products
- this could be another money chasing moment as I jump ship to another venture
- my lack of experience in the niche
- my lack of experience developing an online store
- a lot of time could go into this and I still won’t convince brands to sell to me
After writing this, I feel that Option 2 is the more fastlane approach, but I’d love to hear your opinions. Or am I just making an excuse for another Money Chasing jump?
I want to say, thank you for you time and any advice you can offer me. I’m not looking for a forum to make a major decision for me. I just lack people with fastlane experience in my life to ask their opinion so thought this would be a great place to get advice.
Afters reading @MJ DeMarco ’s Unscripted and it's made me re-evaluate where I'm heading. I’m looking to get some feedback from people with far more experience than me in business and ecommerce as I try to plan my next 12 months.
Just to give you some background on me. I've been trying to build a business selling through Amazon FBA for the last 18-24 months. It's not been as successful as I wanted, but that's mainly due to selling too many Me-Too products, choosing very small niches and not offering anything unique or adding value in my products. Hence, my sales have been very low.
Before this, I’ve been guilty of being one of the money chasers that MJ talks about in his book. I’ve looked at property investment, building online courses, affiliate marketing and made little progress with any.
Ironically, I’ve made these poor decisions due to my reason why - I have a young family and I’m desperate to leave the rat race so I can spend time with them. In my hurry to leave the rat race, I can see now that I’ve just been chasing money and not building a fast lane existence. For that reason, I’m cautious about moving onto something else without good reason, hence my query now as I face two options:
Option 1: Continue with Amazon
Put the lessons I’ve learned into building my Amazon store through better product selection and work on building a unique brand.
Pro’s:
+ Amazon is a powerful selling portal with huge numbers of buyers and an easy ability to list and promote products to those buyers.
+ I can build a brand on Amazon and move onto Shopify at a later date
+ I’m not quitting to try something new (i.e. not showing money chasing habits)
+ It builds on my experience of the last couple of years
Con’s
- Breaks the commandment of CONTROL - this is a huge worry for me as I’ve heard of sellers being banned and their income stops overnight with very little communication from Amazon
- Too often on Amazon it becomes a race to the bottom on price
- Developing unique products can come at high initial cost
- Top selling products can easily be copied so I lose my products USP then the inevitable price war begins
- Developing a brand on Amazon is hard
Option 2: Shopify Store to retail existing branded products in an existing niche
As I’ve been selling on Amazon, I’ve come across a few niches that are poorly serviced online. Websites look at least 15 years old with horrible sales copy, terrible product photos and no social media interaction.
My plan is to build a high quality website selling existing brands, using great photos and copy and build a brand that focuses on the people in the niche through a strong marketing strategy that is unique to the niche. However, from my thread I realise this isn’t enough for a USP so I’d need to put some thought into this.
Pro’s:
+ CONTROL - I will have 100% control over my brand and sales channels
+ SCALE - if my marketing strategy works, I can apply it to the other niches I’ve seen
+ NEED - the existing websites are horrible and users are offered a poor experience so there's a need for a 21st century approach
Con’s:
- it's harder to develop a USP selling other brand products
- this could be another money chasing moment as I jump ship to another venture
- my lack of experience in the niche
- my lack of experience developing an online store
- a lot of time could go into this and I still won’t convince brands to sell to me
After writing this, I feel that Option 2 is the more fastlane approach, but I’d love to hear your opinions. Or am I just making an excuse for another Money Chasing jump?
I want to say, thank you for you time and any advice you can offer me. I’m not looking for a forum to make a major decision for me. I just lack people with fastlane experience in my life to ask their opinion so thought this would be a great place to get advice.
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