First taste of fastlane, goal of 500k sales this year and my plan to get there

[Andyc2288]

In this thread I will log my process in taking my e-commerce business and brand to 500k in sales.

I turned in my two week notice earlier this week.

Before I log, this is how far I am now:

I found my product in November of last year, pulled the trigger. First inventory landed 12/31/2015. I sent it into amazon FBA and made my first sale 1/9/2016.

The niche is also a hobby of mine so I plan to build a brand from this using amazon as the launchpad.

My first batch of around 300 sold out pretty quick... My daily sales were about 10-15 a day after about two weeks. (This was super exciting to me because I expected to struggle to hit 10/day)

I ordered another 500. It seems I can't keep up with the demand.
I had an average of 20-30 sales a day with this new batch. Peaked at around 45/day @ $35.
Since this item comes in variants, the sales are slowing down as I am already selling out of my more popular variants. I set my PPC @ $45/day and never touched it since my last batch.

I went to a expo in late January and was able to get a short feature in a youtuber's vlog. He has about 40k subscribers. I spoke to him on snapchat and he was responsive, so I told him if I see him I will give him some free stuff.

Margins are good I get 45%-55% (depending on my promotional pricing)

Since I am 22 years old my credit is not that good to have a good line of credit for purchasing, but my older cousin gave me a loan of $5k to buy inventory. Combined this with the money I earned so far from my initial 2 shipments, I have 2000 more units coming. Which should get me 80k in sales. Since amazon takes $10 per sale from me, I would be getting 60k in cashflow to buy even more inventory.

This is I am doing so far. It seems I can continue to keep growing my sales. Last thursday I hit a record of $800/day followed by 1.5k/day the next day. Not quite sure what happened after that my average was 800-1.1k a day until I ran out of inventory yesterday.

With my main competitor doing about 100k in sales per month with just this one item, I believe I can rival that while expanding my product line. 500k this year is possible, if I can get consistent 1k a day in sales with item item (80/20 rule) while adding more skus.

Confident I can bringing the average sales per day of this one listing higher so I can get consistent 1k in sales per day, because once this new shipment of inventory lands, I will be offering more variants than my competitors.

On my listing I see that my item is frequently bought with another item that my competitor sells in the niche. I placed an order and will have my branding on this item.

My plans is to become an established brand on Amazon under this niche and build my own platform so all my eggs won't be in one basket.

 

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[Andyc2288]

What I did today: 3/4/2016

• First day post 9-5 job, woke up when I wanted to, walked my dog, had a thought in my head. (wow, this is what it's all about. No more life of servitude)
  Was very motivating just to have that experience.
• Opened checking for my llc
• Applied for the chase ink plus card, more purchasing
• Working on a postcard sized insert my previous shipments were a test so I didn't have any fancy packaging or inserts.
  -I will have a domain on the card that will redirect to https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?ie=UTF8&asin=(insert asin here)#
  -Discussed with a designer on skype, paid him $40 to design the aesthetic of my postcard while I work on the text.
• Still getting about 1-2 orders from my shopify store which I am currently working on. Installed a custom theme which looks great, it's filled with dummy images at the moment because I don't have pictures for banners just yet.
  Since I have this free time from quitting my job, I am looking for a dslr camera so I can learn how to took my own pictures.
• Reading threads like the Keeptight women's fitwear thread to see how others have create a brand from scratch.

 

[StevieB]

Great job on the rapid sales success. I know you mentioned it but I would expand as quickly as possible to other platforms. Amazon can shut you down for ridiculous reasons, like a competitor lying and saying your products aren't what they claim to be. Or someone else who got something they didn't think matched the description, etc..

Your sales can be completely cut off overnight and takes weeks to months to get it back up.

I know you have a website you're setting up but have you also tried UK Amazon and EBay?

 

[Andyc2288]

Great job on the rapid sales success. I know you mentioned it but I would expand as quickly as possible to other platforms. Amazon can shut you down for ridiculous reasons, like a competitor lying and saying your products aren't what they claim to be. Or someone else who got something they didn't think matched the description, etc..

Your sales can be completely cut off overnight and takes weeks to months to get it back up.

I know you have a website you're setting up but have you also tried UK Amazon and EBay?

Definitely thought about expanding to other countries on amazon like germany and uk but first I have to focus on optimizing my amazon.com listings first.

Can barely keep the inventory up with the demand, but it is getting better as I keep reinvesting all my profits

 

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[MC Hammer]

Hey man this sounds really exciting for you. Wish I had found my golden ticket by now, though I have an idea which could help buy me time or make it easier to quit my job. Your post has motivated me to move forward with the plan. I'll be checking back. Thanks for sharing.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[BlakeIC]

Diversify! You don't want to be doing 500k annually all from just amazon and not cash flowing from any other sales channels

Congratulations though on your success

I only have 1 question, are you selling a proprietary product or a generic that is branded with your company name?

 

[SmoothFranko]

In this thread I will log my process in taking my e-commerce business and brand to 500k in sales.

I turned in my two week notice earlier this week.

Before I log, this is how far I am now:

I found my product in November of last year, pulled the trigger. First inventory landed 12/31/2015. I sent it into amazon FBA and made my first sale 1/9/2016.

The niche is also a hobby of mine so I plan to build a brand from this using amazon as the launchpad.

My first batch of around 300 sold out pretty quick... My daily sales were about 10-15 a day after about two weeks. (This was super exciting to me because I expected to struggle to hit 10/day)

I ordered another 500. It seems I can't keep up with the demand.
I had an average of 20-30 sales a day with this new batch. Peaked at around 45/day @ $35.
Since this item comes in variants, the sales are slowing down as I am already selling out of my more popular variants. I set my PPC @ $45/day and never touched it since my last batch.

I went to a expo in late January and was able to get a short feature in a youtuber's vlog. He has about 40k subscribers. I spoke to him on snapchat and he was responsive, so I told him if I see him I will give him some free stuff.

Margins are good I get 45%-55% (depending on my promotional pricing)

Since I am 22 years old my credit is not that good to have a good line of credit for purchasing, but my older cousin gave me a loan of $5k to buy inventory. Combined this with the money I earned so far from my initial 2 shipments, I have 2000 more units coming. Which should get me 80k in sales. Since amazon takes $10 per sale from me, I would be getting 60k in cashflow to buy even more inventory.

This is I am doing so far. It seems I can continue to keep growing my sales. Last thursday I hit a record of $800/day followed by 1.5k/day the next day. Not quite sure what happened after that my average was 800-1.1k a day until I ran out of inventory yesterday.

With my main competitor doing about 100k in sales per month with just this one item, I believe I can rival that while expanding my product line. 500k this year is possible, if I can get consistent 1k a day in sales with item item (80/20 rule) while adding more skus.

Confident I can bringing the average sales per day of this one listing higher so I can get consistent 1k in sales per day, because once this new shipment of inventory lands, I will be offering more variants than my competitors.

On my listing I see that my item is frequently bought with another item that my competitor sells in the niche. I placed an order and will have my branding on this item.

My plans is to become an established brand on Amazon under this niche and build my own platform so all my eggs won't be in one basket.

Thats incredible progress man and Congrats on having such success up front you stumbled onto your own little gold vain. If you don't mind me asking how did you go about picking your product for the particular niche?

 

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[JasonR]

Diversify! You don't want to be doing 500k annually all from just amazon and not cash flowing from any other sales channels

I digress.

If I were him I would FOCUS on the single sales channel and scale it.

Then, and only then, would I look for other channels then Amazon.

Amazon owns 40% of all US web transactions right now. Think about that for one second.

 

[BlakeIC]

I digress.

If I were him I would FOCUS on the single sales channel and scale it.

Then, and only then, would I look for other channels then Amazon.

Amazon owns 40% of all US web transactions right now. Think about that for one second.

I actually 100% agree with you

It didn't hit me until afterwards to mention that

 

[Andyc2288]

I digress.

If I were him I would FOCUS on the single sales channel and scale it.

Then, and only then, would I look for other channels then Amazon.

Amazon owns 40% of all US web transactions right now. Think about that for one second.

Thanks for the input Jason

Yes right now I am focusing mostly on amazon.

Just building my website to have it up, I do get 1-2 sales from it weekly. And to build my mailing list from.

 

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[Janetriever]

You're selling private labeled products? I guess you're outsourcing from Alibaba. If so, I would like to ask you a few questions about dropshipping, if you have the time.

 

[hughjasle]

Fantastic Job!

I am adding this to my list of threads I send to friends and family to show them that no matter the age, they can be successful. Well done!

Couple things I'd like to hear from you, Can you detail out:

• How much time you spent learning about the process before you took real action?
• How much capital did you have to have to start with?
• How did you find/discover the product you decided to work with?

thanks in advance. You will undoubtedly hit 500k. Much sooner than you think

 

[Andyc2288]

Fantastic Job!

I am adding this to my list of threads I send to friends and family to show them that no matter the age, they can be successful. Well done!

Couple things I'd like to hear from you, Can you detail out:

• How much time you spent learning about the process before you took real action?
• How much capital did you have to have to start with?
• How did you find/discover the product you decided to work with?

thanks in advance. You will undoubtedly hit 500k. Much sooner than you think

1. I always dabbled even as a kid with buying low and selling for profit. But I wanted to start my own company for awhile now. When I found about selling on amazon, it took maybe 6 months of learning and setting the right mindset.
2. I started with $3-4k. I often see a lot of people say the excuse of I do not have enough money right now, or I will start when I save enough.
   In my opinion, the sooner you start the better even if nothing is perfect at the moment. When your friends and loved ones see some progress, I am sure they will support you.
3. I used apps like junglescout to see something that had a high sales volume. Something I can use as my flagship item for my brand and use the profits to develop and expand my product line after that.

 

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[Andyc2288]

Inventory finally checked into amazon about two days ago, already back at around 25 sales per day.

Product #2 is finishing up production. Saw that this item(my competitors) was frequently bought with my first product so I feel this was the next best item to add.

My first sea shipment ever is being manufactured, put 30% down which is 8000. This should be should be ready to ship in a little over a month. Have to find a way to store 100 cases (55 sq feet inventory) This should get me 150-170k in revenue.

^ Super excited to get all this inventory, I was getting over 1.1-1.5k in revenue per day with only $40/PPC a day before I ran out of stock.
Excited to see what I can do now that limited inventory won't be an issue..

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0GoTneFgv6PdjQ5Z3lvRUtuYWs/view?usp=sharing
Paid $30 to be apart of this PPC discussion but I got a recording to share with you all.


now for some disappointing news...

Found a copy-cat item when I searched up my own brand keyword and upon further inspection found out it was my old boss and his wife trying to sell the same item as me. I can't believe that they would do this but my fault for trusting them enough to tell them what I was selling and the type of revenue.
I looked up to them as mentors and they are stabbing me right in the back.

 

[hughjasle]

Found a copy-cat item when I searched up my own brand keyword and upon further inspection found out it was my old boss and his wife trying to sell the same item as me. I can't believe that they would do this but my fault for trusting them enough to tell them what I was selling and the type of revenue.

At least you know your competitors and their weaknesses/strengths. Better than having a competitor and not knowing anything about them. People tend to over estimate their competition when they don't know them.

Keep it up.

 

[biophase]

now for some disappointing news...

Found a copy-cat item when I searched up my own brand keyword and upon further inspection found out it was my old boss and his wife trying to sell the same item as me. I can't believe that they would do this but my fault for trusting them enough to tell them what I was selling and the type of revenue.
I looked up to them as mentors and they are stabbing me right in the back.

Those F*ckers. That shit pisses me off. They won't last long if they don't know what they are doing. Are they using your brand name in their descriptions or just the back end search terms?

 

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[Andyc2288]

Those F*ckers. That shit pisses me off. They won't last long if they don't know what they are doing. Are they using your brand name in their descriptions or just the back end search terms?

When I first found out the bullets and description is copied word for word, they were even too lazy to change my brand name from the copy i wrote. I think they are just using back-end. But the way they are attempting to brand the item is clearly a rip-off of mine.

3 of my good friends still work for that company.
1 is wholesale manager, 1 is supervisor of customer service, another guy does all the logistics.

They are all leaving the company out of principle, and won't be showing up Monday.

I clicked into the seller storefront and saw the same items my old company sold, but under a new name..

So when I took a picture and sent it to my old co-worker, he confirmed they told him to take the photos and not tell anyone.

The shit that pisses me off is I come from a poor family, and they are so greedy.

Lol the morning I found out,(I still have access to their main amazon account) I actually planned to turn on aggressive PPC for all their best items in FBA once that ran, liquidate their inventory @ 1 cent
My girlfriend talked me out of my whole vengeance plan though.

 

[T-K]

I am really sorry for that betrayal and also quite happy for someone at my age did it. Go for it brother, I'll be watching your progress and I sincerely hope you hit your million milestone very soon.

T-K

 

[Lex DeVille]

My girlfriend talked me out of my whole vengeance plan

Smart girlfriend.

 

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[Entrepreneur101]

Thanks for sharing your experience Andyc2288 and congratulations on your successful start on Amazon, that is a very successful start. I was wandering if you were able to share about your challenges especially with ranking sales with Amazon :
1. Did you use any Launch Services and give away some free products to start your first sales ? If so which did you use and how did it improve your ranking and page appearance ? Did this also affect your first profits a lot ? Was it difficult to rank your product with strong competition ?
2. Other than Amazon PPC is there any other marketing strategies you use to promote your product ?
3. In your opinion in terms of long term brand building which would save more time, to start off like hughjasle setting up your own website and buying traffic from Facebook and gathering an email list or to start off with Amazon ?

 

[Elliott_Diaz]

That is incredible! Amazing to hear of your success. I've heard that its rather challenging at first for a small guy to get into Selling on Amazon. But your story is awesome! Definitely keep up the good work and never get complacent!

 

[Andyc2288]

Thanks for sharing your experience Andyc2288 and congratulations on your successful start on Amazon, that is a very successful start. I was wandering if you were able to share about your challenges especially with ranking sales with Amazon :
1. Did you use any Launch Services and give away some free products to start your first sales ? If so which did you use and how did it improve your ranking and page appearance ? Did this also affect your first profits a lot ? Was it difficult to rank your product with strong competition ?
2. Other than Amazon PPC is there any other marketing strategies you use to promote your product ?
3. In your opinion in terms of long term brand building which would save more time, to start off like hughjasle setting up your own website and buying traffic from Facebook and gathering an email list or to start off with Amazon ?

1. I never used any launch services, but I am lucky to have a lot of friends and acquaintances who were willing to help me out. They received something for free as well so it was a win/win. I started with a list of 20-30 people and just got 5-6 a day to giveaway to. I got two unverified reviews and turned on PPC right away.
2. I did a lot of different things, like paying a page in my niche to promote my item. I went to a convention and a youtuber featured my item... a lot of small things. It's all about planting seeds everywhere.
3. Since I had experience with amazon already I started with Amazon, the traffic I can get from amazon is already there to buy while the other is a little more complicated. I'm still learning and trying to build the site and then using fb ads etc

 

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[perfect 54]

In this thread I will log my process in taking my e-commerce business and brand to 500k in sales.

I turned in my two week notice earlier this week.

Before I log, this is how far I am now:

I found my product in November of last year, pulled the trigger. First inventory landed 12/31/2015. I sent it into amazon FBA and made my first sale 1/9/2016.

The niche is also a hobby of mine so I plan to build a brand from this using amazon as the launchpad.

My first batch of around 300 sold out pretty quick... My daily sales were about 10-15 a day after about two weeks. (This was super exciting to me because I expected to struggle to hit 10/day)

I ordered another 500. It seems I can't keep up with the demand.
I had an average of 20-30 sales a day with this new batch. Peaked at around 45/day @ $35.
Since this item comes in variants, the sales are slowing down as I am already selling out of my more popular variants. I set my PPC @ $45/day and never touched it since my last batch.

I went to a expo in late January and was able to get a short feature in a youtuber's vlog. He has about 40k subscribers. I spoke to him on snapchat and he was responsive, so I told him if I see him I will give him some free stuff.

Margins are good I get 45%-55% (depending on my promotional pricing)

Since I am 22 years old my credit is not that good to have a good line of credit for purchasing, but my older cousin gave me a loan of $5k to buy inventory. Combined this with the money I earned so far from my initial 2 shipments, I have 2000 more units coming. Which should get me 80k in sales. Since amazon takes $10 per sale from me, I would be getting 60k in cashflow to buy even more inventory.

This is I am doing so far. It seems I can continue to keep growing my sales. Last thursday I hit a record of $800/day followed by 1.5k/day the next day. Not quite sure what happened after that my average was 800-1.1k a day until I ran out of inventory yesterday.

With my main competitor doing about 100k in sales per month with just this one item, I believe I can rival that while expanding my product line. 500k this year is possible, if I can get consistent 1k a day in sales with item item (80/20 rule) while adding more skus.

Confident I can bringing the average sales per day of this one listing higher so I can get consistent 1k in sales per day, because once this new shipment of inventory lands, I will be offering more variants than my competitors.

On my listing I see that my item is frequently bought with another item that my competitor sells in the niche. I placed an order and will have my branding on this item.

My plans is to become an established brand on Amazon under this niche and build my own platform so all my eggs won't be in one basket.

 

[sWALK90]

Subb'd...love to hear how this plays out.

I started myself on amazon and was doing pretty good but amazon cut the switch off after 3k in 10 days lol...but it was my fault sadly for shipping a few items late.(there holding the funds for 90 days ... -_-) Now im rushing to sell in other places.

 

[Andyc2288]

Spoke to my supplier today to see if I can get some sort of buying credit from them.

They agreed to continue producing a months worth of inventory at a time and I will pay them when ready to ship.

So I asked them to use the 30% down payment I put towards my sea shipment for the next shipment instead. Reason being I did some calculations and don't think I will have the funds to complete this when it was ready.

Maybe in a month or two after I sell the current 2000 units I have.

Subb'd...love to hear how this plays out.

I started myself on amazon and was doing pretty good but amazon cut the switch off after 3k in 10 days lol...but it was my fault sadly for shipping a few items late.(there holding the funds for 90 days ... -_-) Now im rushing to sell in other places.

I read your thread, sucks to see that happening. Are you permanently banned?

At least you confirmed a demand for whatever it is you are selling

 

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[sWALK90]

I read your thread, sucks to see that happening. Are you permanently banned?

At least you confirmed a demand for whatever it is you are selling

Some places say you can get suspended (with chances of appealing) or just flat out canceled...(you will never sell again.)

Im hoping i can appeal it in the future....im focusing on other places right now..

but right now i know for sure i have money just sitting so at-least the're not keeping it.(its a future pay check lol)

 

[MotiveInMotion]

Inventory finally checked into amazon about two days ago, already back at around 25 sales per day.

Product #2 is finishing up production. Saw that this item(my competitors) was frequently bought with my first product so I feel this was the next best item to add.

The packaging is looking very good, got in contact with one of the winners of my old 99designs contests and now he's my go-to guy when I need any type of package designing or thank you inserts etc.

My first sea shipment ever is being manufactured, put 30% down which is 8000. This should be should be ready to ship in a little over a month. Have to find a way to store 100 cases (55 sq feet inventory) This should get me 150-170k in revenue.

^ Super excited to get all this inventory, I was getting over 1.1-1.5k in revenue per day with only $40/PPC a day before I ran out of stock.
Excited to see what I can do now that limited inventory won't be an issue..

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0GoTneFgv6PdjQ5Z3lvRUtuYWs/view?usp=sharing
Paid $30 to be apart of this PPC discussion but I got a recording to share with you all.


now for some disappointing news...

Found a copy-cat item when I searched up my own brand keyword and upon further inspection found out it was my old boss and his wife trying to sell the same item as me. I can't believe that they would do this but my fault for trusting them enough to tell them what I was selling and the type of revenue.
I looked up to them as mentors and they are stabbing me right in the back.

Ouch Bro! That sucks about your old boss and everything, but glad you're doing well. I'm in the same position for wanting to build a brand in which Amazon does not have their hands in, because it'll be outside of their control and more sustainable!

There was a thread that MJ made, if someone could find it, that talks about sharing the niche OR the revenue, but not both because it puts a target on the business

Keep up the killer work friend

 

[Bourbons]

Ouch Bro! That sucks about your old boss and everything, but glad you're doing well. I'm in the same position for wanting to build a brand in which Amazon does not have their hands in, because it'll be outside of their control and more sustainable!

There was a thread that MJ made, if someone could find it, that talks about sharing the niche OR the revenue, but not both because it puts a target on the business

Keep up the killer work friend

This is it...

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/why-all-the-secrecy-heres-why.50174/

 

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[Andyc2288]

This is it...

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/why-all-the-secrecy-heres-why.50174/

Actually read the thread when i joined, still told my them. very naive of me

 

[m1kesta]

As someone else had asked, could you tell us a bit more about the product? Did you make it from scratch, or was it private label with some small details changed?