- Joined
- Apr 19, 2015
- Messages
- 99
Rep Bank
$1,705
$1,705
User Power: 599%
Alright, so I have no idea how to start this thread so I will just hop right into the process without much background information. It’s a long yet detailed read, so if you’re just about to start your importing/ecommerce business you might get some valuable lessons out of it or at least I hope so.
In February 2017, after a lot of struggles and failures, I was again up and ready to roll. After learning as much as possible about the whole process of importing and selling physical products on Amazon, I decided it’s time to act.
Around the beginning of February, after spending countless hours researching the market and different products, I nailed my search down to a few products and finalized my work by picking my winner. There was (at this point of time) little competition, no FBA private labelling sellers, a bunch of bad listings and a clear NEED for improvement on the existing products. The reviews clearly stated various repetitive problems which just waited to be solved.
So, let’s get started:
First off, I needed a legal business. On February 16th I received my letter of acknowledgment that my business was officially registered and that I am now allowed to sell and trade products online.
On March 2nd I contacted a bunch of suppliers which fit my criteria. I spied through their transaction history to look where their products are going to. I realized that the competition has to have a supplier which may can be found on here. After some Sherlock Holmes like investigation I could narrow down the supplier my competition was working with. The fact that they were selling successfully since 2014 led me to the conclusion that the quality of the products had to be on point. I ended the communication with all other suppliers and was concentrating all my efforts this one supplier.
I wanted to get taken seriously and I didn’t want to come over as the newbie which hasn’t done anything like that before, so I tried my best to hide my missing knowledge. Using @biophase “First email to new supplier”- template came in just handy to keep up my charade of the professional importer who runs a huge importing business. This would surely prevent me from getting scammed or paying too much because they would never know that I’m doing this the first time! Ha! Well, turns out it didn’t work as planned and I got busted a few emails into the conversation getting asked if I am doing this the first time. Woops!
Luckily the supplier was super friendly and helpful which was a pleasant surprise. Nonetheless I follow a strict no-trust policy (as harsh at it sounds) and research everything I am not 100% sure. By doing so, the conversation and order process was lengthened by days or even weeks, but at least I could be sure that everything was going as planned.
On March 3th I registered for the EORI (Economic Operators' Registration and Identification) number which is needed to import goods from outside of the EU. Of course I had to fill out the form online, just to print it out and send it via as a letter because who needs logic anyway if you live in one of the most overregulated and bureaucratic countries in the world.
On March 14th I checked the front door of my apartment building at least 10 times in a timespan of one hour because a little package was about to arrive. The leftover time was efficiently spent running from the one end of my apartment to the other and peeking out of the windows in desperate search of a van sprayed with a dark blue lettering with a little touch of orange. Suddenly my phone got an email notification that my FedEx package was being delivered. To this day I don’t know how the delivery man made it into the building without me spotting him or his car, but as soon as I had my package in my hands nothing else mattered. Samples finally arrived!
On March 18th, after carefully and extensively testing the samples, I contacted the supplier and let them know that I was happy with the quality of the samples. The quality was great and the improvements on the product I ordered were nicely executed.
On March 23th I started to contact different logistic providers such as DHL, FedEx and UPS to gather some offers regarding the shipment. I asked for all kind of different quotations to learn about the pricing and what costs I have to expect.
On March 30th my new bank account was set up and ready to go. I thought it would be the smarter choice to start a new account to keep the accounting and finance in check. I would rather go through the hassle of creating a new account now than to sit there at the end of the year trying to figure out what was used for private consumption and what was spent on the business.
On March 31th, 13 days after telling the supplier I was going to buy (remember the part where I mentioned that I research everything twice?) I wired the first 800$ (30% T/T) to them. Just the fact that the supplier would answer every so little question nicely and with proper reasoning gave me a really good feeling about this company and the possible business relationship which could evolve nicely if everything goes like planned.
On April 8th I set up a website with photos of my product to get an exemption from Amazon to sell without an EAN number. In order to qualify for this, you need to have a product which is labelled with your brand, a photo of it and a working website showing that you “run the brand”. I registered a domain and set up a Wordpress theme. Since I learned programming in school a few years back, I still was able to customize it and add some features to it. I didn’t want it to look sloopy in case a future customer somehow finds it, so I made sure that everything was perfect and just as I wanted it to be.
On April 11th I started to design the insert card which would explain the usage of the product. This should add a little more value to the product which will surely be appreciated by the customers. I designed it in Photoshop and took this really serious. I deleted single pixels to perfect it to the dot until I was completely satisfied with the end product. The main work was done in one day, however the following days I would add and alter the card at least an additional 5 times until I was fully satisfied.
In the following days I ordered the package with one thousand cards (which were free due to an advertisement code) which arrived a few days later. The quality of the printing and the material was top notch and I was super happy that my Photoshop skills were still up to date and could be put to good use!
On May 6th I drove about an hour to an old buddy of mine who is great at photography. I asked him if he could help me taking product pictures and he was happy to help. We spent a whole seven hours taking the perfect pictures and trying our best to ensure that the product stands out from the crowd. It was insanely interesting to see how much work there is behind “taking a quick picture” of a product. (Since that day I’m just amazed by every billboard I come across and I am wondering how much people worked countless hours to just take this one perfect picture of the shown product. Crazy.)
On May 16th I got informed that the goods were loaded onto the ship which took off at the same day. I wired the rest of the money about a week ago after my supplier sent me the pictures of the finished order. My products were already packed up on a wood pallet and ready to be shipped.
Up until this point the workload of my degree in university was bearable. However this changed pretty rapidly when the exams started to come in which would cost me at least one whole day of studying. To save as much time as possible, I forced myself to start studying only one day prior to the exam. By doing it this way, I could be damn sure that I wouldn’t waste a minute procrastinating because there was just no time left to do so and when the anxiety and panic kicks in, you can be damn sure that my brain stops its nonsense and gets to work.
In addition a few projects and case studies had to be finished. The biggest piece of work was a business project for a pretty big company. We had to analyse all of their competitors and the used social media channels as well as giving them a complete breakdown of how they should market their brand on those different channels. Basically doing their marketing departments job.
I remember vividly sitting in front of my damn laptop from Saturday morning to Sunday night researching each and every damn Youtube channel of their competitors while documenting the whole task. Because of the fact that I used to produce videos for Youtube a year or two back and accumulated nearly 2.5 million views till date, it took me about 4 minutes to recognize that they wouldn’t stand a chance using Youtube to promote their product since the CEO told us at our first meeting that they don’t plan to invest any of their marketing budget (strong wtf).
God forbid if I have to go through such a mindless task again. Just thinking about it doing this for a living sends shivers down my spine and depressive vibes through my mind.
Sorry for that - back to the topic.
On June 1st my registration on Amazon was completed. I emailed back and forth with the support regarding my account, the exemption and other stuff. As every Amazon seller knows, this took days to be all wrapped up. At the same time I was constantly in contact with my logistics provider, trying to submit all necessary papers for the transportation.
On June 7th I tried to contact my spokesperson of the logistic provider I chose because there were troubles me authorizing them to receive and transport my shipment It was kind of urgent so I tried to finish it as soon as possible. On this day, I got redirected 3 TIMES because everyone of the employees was either on sick leave, “only working part time” or just not available.
My email got answered two weeks later on June 20th. They informed me that one box I ticked should not have been ticked. Funnily enough, I called their legal department two weeks earlier because of this exact obscurity and he told me to tick it. Who would have thought that filling a simple form would cause that much troubles, nerves and hours…
On June 21th I got contacted from the customs because the HS number my supplier added apparently wasn’t the correct one. They asked for a photo of the product to check if there is accordance between the product and the HS number which was mentioned in the papers. I happily submitted the photos of the labelled product and the finished mass production. The shipment was approved shortly afterwards and was able to be picked up by and transported to my home.
On June 26th I made the last calls with the logistics provider finishing off the whole process and trying to pin down the exact date and time of arrival.
On June 27th I got informed that the truck will arrive the next day on June 28th between 11AM und 2PM. I told him that this would work for me, thanked him for his efforts and started to dial the number of my father. You ask why?
Well, a minor detail I might not mentioned was that I told absolutely no one what I was doing.
No one.
Not a single soul.
I just couldn’t take the thought of the negative shit people spread like sprinkles over every idea or dream which doesn’t fit the norm. Especially friends and family will be the first one to discourage you when you’re trying to change and try new things as sad as it is. However I knew exactly that the outcome of all of this purely relied on my actions and what I was willing to do. I decided to work in silence, patiently crafting away on my future life and wrestle down one problem after another.
Well, back to the phone call.
Since I couldn’t get around asking my father to receive the shipment I called him and asked him to if he could manage to be at home at this point of time because a “package” was about to arrive. Obviously the answer was no because he had to drink his daily coffee at his favourite café at exactly 11AM. After biting my tongue for a good 10 seconds I calmly explained that there’s going to be a truck with around 1000 pounds worth of products and that I would highly appreciate it, if he might find a way to skip the coffee for one day. Without going into more detail of the phone call, he promised me to be at home at this time.
On June 28th, 11:23AM my phone rang and a man introduced himself as the truck driver who’s transporting my shipment. He asked me about the clear direction. I reckon that the GPS wasn’t quite reliable which can sometimes occur where I used to live. I tried to explain it as good as possible and he ended the call.
On June 28th, 11:30AM the phone rang again. He was just about to ask which specific range was the correct one before stopping mid-sentence and telling me that he spotted someone opening a shed door.
My shipment has arrived.
On June 30th I finished my last exam successfully wrapping up the whole semester. Since everyone was leaving the city I packed my bags as well and made my way home knowing that my shipment was finally there. I arrived at 10PM and the first thing I did was to jump out of the car and ran into the shed happily looking at two whole pallets full of products through the light cone of my smartphone lamp.
It was such a great feeling seeing the product of so many hours of work, so many long nights and so much effort finally reaching the first major milestone in this whole process. But the whole thing didn’t go by without some scratches. Passing the semester, which was by far the most difficult and workload heavy semester so far (100% compulsory attendance, no gender studies fairy-tale BS degree), going to the gym at least 5 times a week and eating/cooking/preparing meals accordingly, running errands for the apartment and sleeping an average of 5 hours a day for months on end hit me like a brick after some of the constant tension was released. I thought I would take a day off and try to relax a little bit. Well…
On July 1st I researched the whole process of shipping my products to the Amazon warehouse. I had absolutely no idea how this works and what I have to do to make it work. The more I researched the more question marks appeared over my head. Finally I got it all sorted out. Turns out I had to transport the goods to Germany and ship it from there since Amazon doesn’t support shipments from outside of Germany (Regarding the reduced pricing because of their partnerships with DHL and UPS).
On July 4rd, after finishing up the paper work and fixing the shipping date I started to label (ASIN code) every product by hand and inserted the self-designed product description card into the packaging. The supplier offered me to do this but I knew that they would use a low quality material for the card so I ordered some high quality ones as mentioned above. Because of the fact that I had to inspect the products anyway I wasn’t bothered doing this little upwork at all.
On July 5th I finished up the whole shipment. It took about 8 hours to finish up the labelling and to add the description cards. Afterwards I printed the codes for the individual cartons and labelled those as well. This took another few hours since there were quite a few of them.
In February 2017, after a lot of struggles and failures, I was again up and ready to roll. After learning as much as possible about the whole process of importing and selling physical products on Amazon, I decided it’s time to act.
Around the beginning of February, after spending countless hours researching the market and different products, I nailed my search down to a few products and finalized my work by picking my winner. There was (at this point of time) little competition, no FBA private labelling sellers, a bunch of bad listings and a clear NEED for improvement on the existing products. The reviews clearly stated various repetitive problems which just waited to be solved.
So, let’s get started:
First off, I needed a legal business. On February 16th I received my letter of acknowledgment that my business was officially registered and that I am now allowed to sell and trade products online.
On March 2nd I contacted a bunch of suppliers which fit my criteria. I spied through their transaction history to look where their products are going to. I realized that the competition has to have a supplier which may can be found on here. After some Sherlock Holmes like investigation I could narrow down the supplier my competition was working with. The fact that they were selling successfully since 2014 led me to the conclusion that the quality of the products had to be on point. I ended the communication with all other suppliers and was concentrating all my efforts this one supplier.
I wanted to get taken seriously and I didn’t want to come over as the newbie which hasn’t done anything like that before, so I tried my best to hide my missing knowledge. Using @biophase “First email to new supplier”- template came in just handy to keep up my charade of the professional importer who runs a huge importing business. This would surely prevent me from getting scammed or paying too much because they would never know that I’m doing this the first time! Ha! Well, turns out it didn’t work as planned and I got busted a few emails into the conversation getting asked if I am doing this the first time. Woops!
Luckily the supplier was super friendly and helpful which was a pleasant surprise. Nonetheless I follow a strict no-trust policy (as harsh at it sounds) and research everything I am not 100% sure. By doing so, the conversation and order process was lengthened by days or even weeks, but at least I could be sure that everything was going as planned.
On March 3th I registered for the EORI (Economic Operators' Registration and Identification) number which is needed to import goods from outside of the EU. Of course I had to fill out the form online, just to print it out and send it via as a letter because who needs logic anyway if you live in one of the most overregulated and bureaucratic countries in the world.
On March 14th I checked the front door of my apartment building at least 10 times in a timespan of one hour because a little package was about to arrive. The leftover time was efficiently spent running from the one end of my apartment to the other and peeking out of the windows in desperate search of a van sprayed with a dark blue lettering with a little touch of orange. Suddenly my phone got an email notification that my FedEx package was being delivered. To this day I don’t know how the delivery man made it into the building without me spotting him or his car, but as soon as I had my package in my hands nothing else mattered. Samples finally arrived!
On March 18th, after carefully and extensively testing the samples, I contacted the supplier and let them know that I was happy with the quality of the samples. The quality was great and the improvements on the product I ordered were nicely executed.
On March 23th I started to contact different logistic providers such as DHL, FedEx and UPS to gather some offers regarding the shipment. I asked for all kind of different quotations to learn about the pricing and what costs I have to expect.
On March 30th my new bank account was set up and ready to go. I thought it would be the smarter choice to start a new account to keep the accounting and finance in check. I would rather go through the hassle of creating a new account now than to sit there at the end of the year trying to figure out what was used for private consumption and what was spent on the business.
On March 31th, 13 days after telling the supplier I was going to buy (remember the part where I mentioned that I research everything twice?) I wired the first 800$ (30% T/T) to them. Just the fact that the supplier would answer every so little question nicely and with proper reasoning gave me a really good feeling about this company and the possible business relationship which could evolve nicely if everything goes like planned.
On April 8th I set up a website with photos of my product to get an exemption from Amazon to sell without an EAN number. In order to qualify for this, you need to have a product which is labelled with your brand, a photo of it and a working website showing that you “run the brand”. I registered a domain and set up a Wordpress theme. Since I learned programming in school a few years back, I still was able to customize it and add some features to it. I didn’t want it to look sloopy in case a future customer somehow finds it, so I made sure that everything was perfect and just as I wanted it to be.
On April 11th I started to design the insert card which would explain the usage of the product. This should add a little more value to the product which will surely be appreciated by the customers. I designed it in Photoshop and took this really serious. I deleted single pixels to perfect it to the dot until I was completely satisfied with the end product. The main work was done in one day, however the following days I would add and alter the card at least an additional 5 times until I was fully satisfied.
In the following days I ordered the package with one thousand cards (which were free due to an advertisement code) which arrived a few days later. The quality of the printing and the material was top notch and I was super happy that my Photoshop skills were still up to date and could be put to good use!
On May 6th I drove about an hour to an old buddy of mine who is great at photography. I asked him if he could help me taking product pictures and he was happy to help. We spent a whole seven hours taking the perfect pictures and trying our best to ensure that the product stands out from the crowd. It was insanely interesting to see how much work there is behind “taking a quick picture” of a product. (Since that day I’m just amazed by every billboard I come across and I am wondering how much people worked countless hours to just take this one perfect picture of the shown product. Crazy.)
On May 16th I got informed that the goods were loaded onto the ship which took off at the same day. I wired the rest of the money about a week ago after my supplier sent me the pictures of the finished order. My products were already packed up on a wood pallet and ready to be shipped.
Up until this point the workload of my degree in university was bearable. However this changed pretty rapidly when the exams started to come in which would cost me at least one whole day of studying. To save as much time as possible, I forced myself to start studying only one day prior to the exam. By doing it this way, I could be damn sure that I wouldn’t waste a minute procrastinating because there was just no time left to do so and when the anxiety and panic kicks in, you can be damn sure that my brain stops its nonsense and gets to work.
In addition a few projects and case studies had to be finished. The biggest piece of work was a business project for a pretty big company. We had to analyse all of their competitors and the used social media channels as well as giving them a complete breakdown of how they should market their brand on those different channels. Basically doing their marketing departments job.
I remember vividly sitting in front of my damn laptop from Saturday morning to Sunday night researching each and every damn Youtube channel of their competitors while documenting the whole task. Because of the fact that I used to produce videos for Youtube a year or two back and accumulated nearly 2.5 million views till date, it took me about 4 minutes to recognize that they wouldn’t stand a chance using Youtube to promote their product since the CEO told us at our first meeting that they don’t plan to invest any of their marketing budget (strong wtf).
God forbid if I have to go through such a mindless task again. Just thinking about it doing this for a living sends shivers down my spine and depressive vibes through my mind.
Sorry for that - back to the topic.
On June 1st my registration on Amazon was completed. I emailed back and forth with the support regarding my account, the exemption and other stuff. As every Amazon seller knows, this took days to be all wrapped up. At the same time I was constantly in contact with my logistics provider, trying to submit all necessary papers for the transportation.
On June 7th I tried to contact my spokesperson of the logistic provider I chose because there were troubles me authorizing them to receive and transport my shipment It was kind of urgent so I tried to finish it as soon as possible. On this day, I got redirected 3 TIMES because everyone of the employees was either on sick leave, “only working part time” or just not available.
My email got answered two weeks later on June 20th. They informed me that one box I ticked should not have been ticked. Funnily enough, I called their legal department two weeks earlier because of this exact obscurity and he told me to tick it. Who would have thought that filling a simple form would cause that much troubles, nerves and hours…
On June 21th I got contacted from the customs because the HS number my supplier added apparently wasn’t the correct one. They asked for a photo of the product to check if there is accordance between the product and the HS number which was mentioned in the papers. I happily submitted the photos of the labelled product and the finished mass production. The shipment was approved shortly afterwards and was able to be picked up by and transported to my home.
On June 26th I made the last calls with the logistics provider finishing off the whole process and trying to pin down the exact date and time of arrival.
On June 27th I got informed that the truck will arrive the next day on June 28th between 11AM und 2PM. I told him that this would work for me, thanked him for his efforts and started to dial the number of my father. You ask why?
Well, a minor detail I might not mentioned was that I told absolutely no one what I was doing.
No one.
Not a single soul.
I just couldn’t take the thought of the negative shit people spread like sprinkles over every idea or dream which doesn’t fit the norm. Especially friends and family will be the first one to discourage you when you’re trying to change and try new things as sad as it is. However I knew exactly that the outcome of all of this purely relied on my actions and what I was willing to do. I decided to work in silence, patiently crafting away on my future life and wrestle down one problem after another.
Well, back to the phone call.
Since I couldn’t get around asking my father to receive the shipment I called him and asked him to if he could manage to be at home at this point of time because a “package” was about to arrive. Obviously the answer was no because he had to drink his daily coffee at his favourite café at exactly 11AM. After biting my tongue for a good 10 seconds I calmly explained that there’s going to be a truck with around 1000 pounds worth of products and that I would highly appreciate it, if he might find a way to skip the coffee for one day. Without going into more detail of the phone call, he promised me to be at home at this time.
On June 28th, 11:23AM my phone rang and a man introduced himself as the truck driver who’s transporting my shipment. He asked me about the clear direction. I reckon that the GPS wasn’t quite reliable which can sometimes occur where I used to live. I tried to explain it as good as possible and he ended the call.
On June 28th, 11:30AM the phone rang again. He was just about to ask which specific range was the correct one before stopping mid-sentence and telling me that he spotted someone opening a shed door.
My shipment has arrived.
On June 30th I finished my last exam successfully wrapping up the whole semester. Since everyone was leaving the city I packed my bags as well and made my way home knowing that my shipment was finally there. I arrived at 10PM and the first thing I did was to jump out of the car and ran into the shed happily looking at two whole pallets full of products through the light cone of my smartphone lamp.
It was such a great feeling seeing the product of so many hours of work, so many long nights and so much effort finally reaching the first major milestone in this whole process. But the whole thing didn’t go by without some scratches. Passing the semester, which was by far the most difficult and workload heavy semester so far (100% compulsory attendance, no gender studies fairy-tale BS degree), going to the gym at least 5 times a week and eating/cooking/preparing meals accordingly, running errands for the apartment and sleeping an average of 5 hours a day for months on end hit me like a brick after some of the constant tension was released. I thought I would take a day off and try to relax a little bit. Well…
On July 1st I researched the whole process of shipping my products to the Amazon warehouse. I had absolutely no idea how this works and what I have to do to make it work. The more I researched the more question marks appeared over my head. Finally I got it all sorted out. Turns out I had to transport the goods to Germany and ship it from there since Amazon doesn’t support shipments from outside of Germany (Regarding the reduced pricing because of their partnerships with DHL and UPS).
On July 4rd, after finishing up the paper work and fixing the shipping date I started to label (ASIN code) every product by hand and inserted the self-designed product description card into the packaging. The supplier offered me to do this but I knew that they would use a low quality material for the card so I ordered some high quality ones as mentioned above. Because of the fact that I had to inspect the products anyway I wasn’t bothered doing this little upwork at all.
On July 5th I finished up the whole shipment. It took about 8 hours to finish up the labelling and to add the description cards. Afterwards I printed the codes for the individual cartons and labelled those as well. This took another few hours since there were quite a few of them.
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Last edited:
Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circle, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
