The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

eBay And Amazon Rookie Mistakes & Life Lessons

Kimmy XD

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
133%
Jun 27, 2017
27
36
Seattle, WA
Hello guys,

I know I'm new in this society of fastlane thinkers and I thought I'd share my own story on how I went from high to low. I hope anyone who reads this learn from the mistakes I've done and the lessons I've learned.

Early in 2016, I have flipped the light switch on by accident. I was then selling on Ebay cosmetic products sourced from China. It was a fun experience, even though short-lived. I remember seeing money pouring into my bank account to the point that the profit was paying for my car. I'm pretty sure all of you have felt that jolt of excitement when you first saw the money coming in.

For a couple months I was earning roughly about an average of $4000-$5000 a month just with eBay alone. I have to admit that having physical products was tiring with all the printing, packing, and shipping; Plus inventory updating and re-ordering all by myself. Hence, I decided to dropship. BIG ROOKIE MISTAKE of mine. I did AliExpress and the shipment time took ages that I had a lot of return requests and reimbursements made. With that, my ratings went down and led to the suspension of the account. I'm sure majority of you guys know what happens if you get suspended. You never get reinstated.

I bid farewell to eBay after attempts of recovering my seller account and transferred to Amazon Seller Central. I tried different products ranging from accessories to office products and the likes. You'll be surprised to find out what item sells and what doesn't. In my case, my fast moving product was a faux surveillance camera (a dummy one/a fake one). Of course, not learning from my mistake, I dropshipped the products again. Account suspension came next -- not only because I had "invalid" tracking numbers but competitors bought my product and left negative reviews to up theirs. I also got messages from competitors threatening to report my account if I didn't take my products down. It was horrible.

I tried to reinstate my account and got a response from Amazon. However, I had to opt for the "Fulfilled by Amazon" program this time. Until now, I haven't tried it yet as I haven't found a profitable product for this program with all the fees Amazon requires.

There it is. I know it's not much, but that was my first break of trying it on my own. Learned from it this time and swear to do it right this time as well. I hope this helps someone starting out their journey to the eBay and Amazon World of Commerce. Goodluck!

Here's to better days and a better 2018!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Woodsman81

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
86%
Dec 10, 2017
85
73
43
Alma co
Is it because you are picking shitty drop ship companies?
If I understand you correctly you're just selling other people's products is it possible to have your own product shipped in a timely fashion from a drop ship company?
 

Kimmy XD

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
133%
Jun 27, 2017
27
36
Seattle, WA
Is it because you are picking shitty drop ship companies?
If I understand you correctly you're just selling other people's products is it possible to have your own product shipped in a timely fashion from a drop ship company?
That was the rookie mistake I did back then. Just jumping into action, not even trying to understand the whole concept of the business. Looking for good dropship companies is probably the next quest I need to delve into. As far as private labeling my own, back then I had no budget for it which was why I dropshipped stuff. It was a mess.
 

JAJT

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
549%
Aug 7, 2012
2,970
16,306
Ontario, Canada
Awesome progress, hard lessons learned but the best lessons are always learned the hard way :)

There's quite a few Amazon threads on here if you want to read up on it. Lots of folks have success with Amazon FBA despite the fees (although the fees are brutal, I agree).
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Zefty

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
43%
Feb 14, 2018
14
6
India
Awesome thread.. failure is inevitable in business.

how many days did it take for your dropship that lead to the ban?@anonymoose
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top