Starting out Exporting with Amazon FBA

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2,400.

I lowered the prices of a few products with excessive inventory & put up Amazon ads for them. My recent few shipments seem to be taking foever to be checked in by the FBA locations... I don't know if it's always been this way & I just never noticed, or what.

Had another 17 pics done yesterday & it took only less than $3. I'm going to finish up a few listings today. Ordered some restocking inventory again too.

I'm scheduled to quit my job in 3 months. My FBA adventure is sort of taking over my attention and time, & I make more from it anyway. I think in 3 months' time I can stablize the cash flow a bit more & make sure apart from using the revenue to restock, I'll have enough left to support myself.

 

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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $2,500.

I'm out of my best sellers & my restocking shipments have arrived at the FBA centers a few days ago, but they just wouldn't start to become checked-in!

I'm losing my mind here waiting for the f@%$#!g centers to process my inventory.

 

[Gravy South]

Hey Hassen, great to see you are doing very well, especially you are actually going into a different direction in Amazon FBA instead of selling huge quantities to foreign buyers.

 

[Hassen]

Hey Hassen, great to see you are doing very well, especially you are actually going into a different direction in Amazon FBA instead of selling huge quantities to foreign buyers.

Thanks!

I do expect sales to tank after the Christmas season though lol

 

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[Sunscreen]

What monthly sales are you hoping for before you quit your job in 3 months?

 

[Hassen]

What monthly sales are you hoping for before you quit your job in 3 months?

I'm hoping to make 3k a month, which translates into... About a bit more than 5k in monthly sales.

I'm not too hopeful I'd hit it, but I'll quit my job anyway. 3k dollars is a rather privileged income in Beijing & gets one living comfortably. I live at home so I pay everything for myself other than rent, besides I currently make $780 at my job, which is already pretty nice in Beijing for a recent graduate.

 

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $3,100.

Ordered more packing material & ready to restock again. Putting up more listings next week & maybe source one or two new products. Applied to upgrade to unified account to see if I can start selling in Canada as well.

 

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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $3,300.

 

[db7903915]

Love this thread. Staying tuned.

 

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $3,700.

 

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[Gin&Jews]

Love this thread. Staying tuned.

Same here. Please keep updating!

 

[db7903915]

Uh, 728? That's the rank of the product that's similar to my newest listing, at the top of the search.
I don't really consider this particular one my "competitor" per se... There are really tons of similar listings & I'm happily taking my share in the pool instead of actively competing against one or two specific listings, so to speak.

I did find new products. In fact that it's part of my strategy now that since finding one best seller is difficult, I currently have around 50 active listings (variations included) & don't expect all of them to be flying off the shelves all the time. Most of my products are cheap (I don't compete against other Chinese sellers by low prices though, I have prices higher but still reasonable & win over customers through using FBA & better product photos & writing the listings in better English, it's just the items themselves aren't overly valuable, so they are cheap) & many have prices below what regular FBA sellers consider worthwhile, since American domestic FBA sellers have the barrier of entry: they cannot get products or shipping for as cheap as I do, because I purchase inventory only from manufacturers who don't export & then arrange for international shipping separately myself & the minimum quantity of order I face is very frequently only 1 item.

So now I put up a bunch of listings, buy & send in only a few of each, replenish whatever sells in larger quantities & drop whatever doesn't.

I was suspecting that the old products were not getting sales for a week because they were targeted at students, who were all out partying during summer break instead of shopping on Amazon. Now it seems I was right on that speculation. The new products I got were targeted at the partying crowd/summer theme, now only if I got them in earlier - I had a friend in the U.S. to ship the inventory to Amazon warehouses after the shipments are sent from China through a courier agent company that doesn't do customs clearing & that time the forward shipping was delayed due to friend's family having stuff coming up.
Now I've found a freight forwarder who can clear customs & handle taxes beforehand through Hong Kong so my shipments goes straight to Amazon warehouses, and so the shipping time from my house to Amazon went from a month down to 10 days.

Currently I got some new products again, small items targeting students & some others at young professionals, plus some family-oriented stuff. Trying to vary the kind of products so sales don't get that seasonal again.
Still need to finish up the listings for this shipment of new inventory, which just got in last night.


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Would you mind sharing your freight forwarder? I got in touch with Deringher and they estimated >$400 for a small box of plastic items.

 

[Hassen]

Would you mind sharing your freight forwarder? I got in touch with Deringher and they estimated >$400 for a small box of plastic items.

My current one ships directly to the FBA centers. It's Forest Shipping, you can find them at forestshipping.com or .cn & they are based in Shenzhen. They can do UPS, DHL, and HK EMS/Speedpost that basically connects with USPS. They ship by sea as well but I've personally never used it. My agent and I communicate through QQ & I make payments with Alipay. If you'd like, I could ask them directly whether/how they provide services in English to customers abroad & who to contact, just let me know.

If you need some prep work done on your end (I think Forest has labeling service but I've never inquired), I used jfchinese.com before, who ship to addresses in a number of countries internationally & are not responsible for customs clearing. There isn't an English site of theirs that I'm aware of, but you might try writing to them anyway & just ask.

 

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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $4,100.

 

[Aaron W]

Best of luck Hassen, your almost there!

 

[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $4,400.

Ordered some new inventory, still need to work on getting the listings up. Some of the packaging material I ordered still hasn't gotten shipped, so need to ask suppliers about that as well.

I feel.. pretty worried about things. Currently I keep tabs on how much money I take in from Amazon and how much I spend on restocking & ads & other stuff, but it's still sort of difficult to figure how much I am actually making since the monthly figures of the above two aren't directly related, and I avoid recording inventory as assets, bc they are debts if they just sit there & accumulate storage fees. In short, I don't really know how much per month that I can extract from the whole FBA cash flow in order to pay for my own living expenses, once I quit my job. I wish to save up a bit next year as well... Idk. I guess if I were to make 3k a month from FBA, half of it I would use on restocking, and the other half I would split between spending and saving... We'll see.

 

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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $4,700.

Also, guys, thanks a lot for you encouragements, but I'm really far from getting where I wish to be—quitting my job is only a beginning. I hope to save up about 20k or so next year (so like, make 5k or more each month, including the part I'd put back into the FBA process) so I can move to Canada & access a lot of recourses that simply aren't available in China, like fulfilment centers, Facebook Ads, etc. that I'll utilize to build a real business. Currently I have a cousin who supports my idea of quitting my job & helps me out with packaging up the items; she's been an entrepreneur since the 90s, & she has sister-in-laws who made millions (of USD in value) from their clothing businesses & moved to Canada afterwards. Next year I plan to hire my retired aunt & my grandpa's ayi (some expats in China might know about it, it's basically a live-in housekeeper that's very common for middle-class families & not like a maid that only rich people can afford to hire) & get them to help me with packaging, but in the long run this isn't sustainable or able to grow if I can't outsource it to a fulfillment center or some sort of readily available structure. I mean yeah I could give some local college kids part-time jobs, but my mother is very against the idea of me bringing strangers into the house, & I'm not going to rent some place in such a real estate bubble like Beijing just to establish my own fulfillment center.

Once I land in Canada, I plan to switch to items whose labeling and packaging can be more easily outsourced to fulfillment centers. And in the beginning if I were to rely on continuing what I'm currently selling, which I most likely will, I'll get the shipments forwarded to me first & hire some new Chinese immigrants who'd need some labor work to get on their feet & as a way to get to know some others in the community & give back to the new immigrant community that I currently rely on for relevant information on making my move.
But that's all for quite a while later.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $5,000.


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[Hassen]

Oh also, I can't figure out the damn Canadian marketplace. I set up the connection between the American & the Canadian marketplaces & it just, won't, sync. Wtf?


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $5,600.

Talked to my freight forwarder & it seemed neither Canada nor the UK Amazon FBA would be worth the cost to pursue. I'll run some more calculations to make sure later.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales went over $6,100.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales got stuck a bit over $6,200.

Even though I know it's Christmas & all sales stop, I'm a bit worried. What if the sales plummets from this point & never climbs back up?
Well, I guess I'll deal with that when it happens. Whatever.

5 shipments of my bestsellers on the way to the FBA centers & ordered lots more inventory of similar nature.

Had a bit of dispute with the Ayi - my mother insists I'm paying her too much to package the products, while I feel I pay too little; the Ayi's grumpy about it bc she misunderstands & miscalculates her pay. I feel it might be a bad idea to try & hire my grandfather's caretaker since she seems to have no ability to prioritize. She forfeits her afternoon nap to do the packaging that's meant for idle times like watching TV in the evening, & then is unhappy that she earns 1 dollar for her time instead of the 5 she thought. The paying scheme I'm using with her is flat rate for every item: some requires taking pieces out of packaging & assembling into one bag, while some are just slapping a label on. She's complaining that the former takes too much effort.

I'm sort of prepared to go back to packaging things myself until my aunt comes back from vacationing in the south.


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[Gravy South]

30 days sales went over $5,600.

Talked to my freight forwarder & it seemed neither Canada nor the UK Amazon FBA would be worth the cost to pursue. I'll run some more calculations to make sure later.


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May I ask what kind of costs which has deterred you from choosing to enter these 2 markets?

 

[Hassen]

May I ask what kind of costs which has deterred you from choosing to enter these 2 markets?

Customs clearance fees & higher shipping rates.

I haven't really run the actual numbers through bc apparently FBA listings can't be synced directly. Also since I've always created each listing by hand on the web I don't have a complete excel file I can upload. I'm thinking about trying to find some third party listing management solution atm.


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[Hassen]

30 days sales dropped back down to $5,500.


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[Hassen]

Dropped back down to $5,300.


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[Hassen]

Down to $5,000.


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[AgainstAllOdds]

I liked your posts out of respect for the honesty.

You've already made tremendous progress in your business. Even though you're suffering from the after-Christmas hangover, I'm sure that you'll do great. Keep up the hard work.

 

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[Waylon]

Very inspiring thread. I have been setting myself up to do this for over a month. I need to buckle down and focus on launching.

If you could give advice to someone just starting out, what would you say?

 

[Hassen]

$3,600.


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