- Hi, and welcome back to another Amazon selling video.
Today I am talking all about my bad buys and dumb mistakes,
and some of them are just dumb and some are just things
that happened and I thought I would just break it all down
because it's not always roses and profit rainbows.
(laughing) If you don't know me,
my name is Nikki Kirk and I am in my fifth wheel RV
in the slide, which is my office now.
It used to be the dining room and I have these desk
where I can move around to make it more interesting
for you to watch.
I also recently got a ring light.
So the lighting is now probably better,
but it feels a little bit obnoxious.
And like I'm in a studio, which is a little weird.
Here's a shot of it.
And yeah, it's definitely needed
because I had a few scenes from my videos
where I'll have to like pull the shades
because all the natural light that's coming in
and it just looks crazy and I look super white
and I like to look tan, even when I'm not.
Anyways, I'm rambling now so let's get into the bad buys.
So I'm gonna share 10 with you today and just walk you
through what happened on every one.
First one is this Australian gold sport's spray gel
sunscreen, which when I bought it,
was not a bad buy, it was making money.
It cost, oh, this is my IP alert extension.
P.S. if you wanna save $30 off, it is linked below.
When I bought it, it was 7 60,
So it was 6 99 at Marshall's.
And it was selling for like 15 or $16, possibly even 18.
So it was not a bad buy it was a great buy
because I bought it in the summer
when people need sunscreen.
However, for whatever reason, the price started to drop
as the item did not sell.
I sold some of them at $15, most of them,
but this last one was just sitting and sitting and I kept
lowering it and lowering it and lowering it.
Just trying to get rid of it.
So you see here, I purchased nine, I sold nine.
They were 7 60 like I said, the Amazon fees
on every sale was $5.62, total cost
for the whole thing, including fees, $13.
I sold it for $15 on average.
So that's for all nine averaged out selling for $15.
So my profit on this one per item was $2.54.
And then this is a report I pulled from Amazon.
So you can see the buy box percent.
That's the amount of times I won the buy box was 15%
and then really quickly right here.
So my total purchase price for them was $68, sales 141.
I only profited on this item $22, which is not horrible,
but when you're hitting lower the price, lower the price
for what feels like months on end. (laughing)
It's not fun.
So that last one, I finally sold it for $7.
So I did take a loss on that one,
just straight up from the buy.
So if I said I sold it for $7
when everyone was selling, costing $13,
I ended up losing like $7 on that one.
So this next one might help you
if you are out scanning at Marshall's and you see it
and you think, "Wow, this is a great buy."
"It only costs 3 99 and it's selling for 19."
But the problem is that as soon as I got home,
took the price tags off and then listed it.
It said, "Oh, you can't list this,
it's restricted on Amazon."
Even though right now, I can try and list it again.
So that was really frustrating.
I have no idea what happened
because I have sold body shop stuff in the past.
So that one went back to Marshall's, unfortunately.
There is not much of a lesson to learn on that one,
except for that stuff happens.
And you will have to take stuff back to the store.
So if you don't like returns, I don't know if RA
is for you because you definitely
will be taking stuff back to the store
and it's a little awkward.
I literally just took back three costumes,
like seven things of cupcake, like making kits
and oh, a bunch of York Peppermint Patties.
This next one you could possibly consider a BOLO
if you wanna sell it because it is still out there.
I actually passed up eight of 'em just yesterday
when I was outsourcing.
Here's what happened on this one.
So I scanned it and I was like, "Yay, that's awesome."
It was 3 99 at Marshall's so cost about 4 40 after tax.
At the time it was selling for 15 99 when I sold it.
So I got it, I took the tags off
and I went about packing my shipment.
At the end of the shipment, it said, "Some of the items
are pesticide or hazmat."
"So they have to go a different route."
Which is fine.
You just ship 'em post office
instead of through UPS with Amazon.
But it was four little dinky,
they're like, tiny and I really did not wanna do that
and so I was like, "Whatever, I'll just take 'em
off the thing and take 'em back."
Again, I had already taken off the labels,
so that was gonna be annoying.
And then I thought, "You know what, let me just FBM them
because that's what everyone else was doing."
So I went ahead and sold them.
You could see here, they all sold for, about $13 each.
I ended up making 3 89.
So again, it wasn't so worst in the world.
The shipping was 2 93, the Amazon fees were $2
and so the total cost was $9 and again, I made 3 89.
They did all sell in like three hours, all four of 'em.
So, I mean, they are out there.
It was just like, "Really?"
"I can't send 'em?"
"And then should I take 'em back?"
It was just a whole cluster
and I thought I would just share it
because that was a weird thing that happened recently.
This next one is another weird thing that happened.
When I bought it I think the rank was 90,000.
You can see right now it's 113,
which is still a perfectly fine rank,
but I bought 12 of them and then they sat,
and sat,
and sat.
I bought it in June and I finally
just sold out of them in September.
I mean, they were $1.99, so it wasn't a huge investment.
And that's why I bought 12 of them,
cause they're all so small
and they were selling for like $15 each
and I thought, "Why not?"
"Cause, I mean, the rank is there, they'll sell."
I honestly have no idea what happened.
It's super frustrating because I thought
it was gonna be a really great fast flip.
And it sat from June to September.
And I really don't like my stuff sitting that long.
Typically my stuff will sell, right now,
like right when it hits the warehouse
and usually within the next month.
So waiting a couple of months was a long time.
I had bought 12 of them but only sold 9.
So something's weird, they must have lost some,
I better check that out.
Their whole fees, I don't know why the Amazon fees
are almost $8 for a little box of tea.
That seems abnormally high.
They cost $9 all together,
but we're selling price was $11
that I was pricing 'em and move.
So I only made $1.36 on every one.
Total costs $17, again, it wasn't huge investment.
My total profit on this whole fiasco was $12.
All right, this next one is a puzzle.
I found it at Ollie's.
And you know, puzzles are a big deal.
Back in summer, when everyone was staying at home.
It was 4 99, Amazon fees were 6 66.
All in $11.65 and guess what I sold that at for?
$11, so I was losing 50 cents
almost on every single one of these
and I wasn't getting the buy box.
I'm pretty sure the rank was a little better.
I don't know, even if it's 100,
that's a pretty good rank in toys
and it just would not sell.
So altogether on this one, I lost $1.40.
This next one was kind of a weird thing that happened.
So when I bought it, they were 4 99 from Marshall's
and they were selling for like $30 I feel like.
It was selling for something ridiculous.
It was great.
It was great profit.
And then, this was not shared in the BOLO group
until, like I had already found it on my own.
And then someone shared in the BOLO group,
this like, "Hey, I just got a customer saying that they
were gonna get six."
So when I looked it up on the phone,
especially when things are this like crazy profit,
I always wanna make sure that it's not a multi-pack
and everything on the phone, in the Amazon seller app
said it was not a multi-pack.
You know people pay crazy money for some stuff.
So what happened was someone in the BOLO group
noticed that customers were complaining,
that they thought they were getting six
and you can see here where it says right size,
one count pack of six, but then right here,
which is what I see in the selling app,
it says contains one 14 ounce can of the wafers,
which is what I was buying, one can.
This is where you're seeing the questions
from the customers and then there's probably some reviews.
Yeah, see, "What should have been getting."
"Don't buy," it says, "its a count of six."
So when I saw this was happening,
when someone mentioned it in the BOLO group,
I just quickly priced my items to sell,
to get rid of 'em because I did not want
any bad feedback due to this thing.
Which honestly, I did all the checks that I normally do.
So I don't know if at one point it used to be a six pack
and someone changed it to a one pack.
I'm not really sure, but even the title says 14 ounces.
Luckily, nothing bad happened to the people who bought mine.
I guess the moral of the story is that things happen.
And you should always always,
always double check to make sure it's not a multi-pack
listing because sometimes it is,
and you wanna make sure that you're listing correctly.
This next one is just boys' swim shorts
that I bought in July.
So there was still plenty of time to be listing them.
I had sold some swim shorts earlier in the summer as well,
but for whatever reason, these ones just sat,
and sat, and I kept lowering the price
to match the buybacks, because they were just sitting.
They finally sold.
So I bought them in July and they finally sold in September,
which is far too long,
especially when fall is rolling around
and no one's swimming anymore.
So that was a little scary,
but I did finally get rid of them.
I just made $1 on every single one of 'em,
total profit on that one, $2.
So I guess the moral of that one is be aware
of what season it is and where you're at in the season.
I can't say that I wouldn't have bought 'em again.
Maybe I wouldn't have bought so many of 'em
cause I did buy 'em in multiple sizes,
two in this specific size.
So I feel like this one, I really should have known
based on the picture but (laughing) it had a good rank
when I bought it.
It was inexpensive and I just thought,
"Well, it's obviously selling if the rank is there."
So you should always check Keeper to make sure
that it was not a fluke rank.
I can't tell you if I checked Keeper or not.
I wanna say I did, but who knows?
I might not have.
Pretty much when I sent it into Amazon,
the rank went up to 500,000 in toys.
And I don't know if you know anything,
but 500,000 is a bad rank in any category.
As you can see now it's at 700,000.
So that guy, I only bought three of 'em.
They cost 4 99, so 5 40 after tax.
And altogether I made $1.25 on them.
You guys, I bought that one in May.
So I have had it in my inventory all from May to September.
And it was super depressing but I can tell you what,
every time one would sell, you know,
every once in a while, I would get so excited
to off load another one
because they were making a slight profit.
I wasn't totally losing money.
At this point, I was just happy to be breaking even,
but, oh my gosh, I probably did pay it in fees on that one
for storage, but I'm not sure.
I even had the buy box you know, half the time.
It just was a dud, it was not selling.
I do buy stuff, sometimes, if the photo is a little weird,
which clearly someone just took this in their house,
but you should definitely beware.
That should have been my first clue, honestly.
So that was on me.
All right this one is one that I actually remember
talking about in a video.
And if I can remember which video, I'll link it here.
I was super excited because this one was at Walmart.
It's one of the Walmart brand of backpacks.
It came up, it had a good ranking and the price was high,
but I'm thinking that the price was high
because it was just newly listed and newly ranking.
I got four of 'em.
They cost 9 99, so 10 57 after tax, the total cost,
each one was $18, average selling price was $17.
So I lost 50 cents on that one.
So that was a gamble, and that was a back-to-school gamble
that I probably shouldn't have taken.
Anytime something's at Walmart,
and it's fairly easy to find, because it's at Walmart,
you really shouldn't trust that the price
is gonna remain high like that,
especially if it was easy for you to find.
That's what I mean about like how you'll consider
how many sellers and everything.
If I found, like just yesterday,
I found something that there was a lot of in the store.
So that means there's probably a lot of it
in all the other stores
and so I didn't go super heavy on it,
because if I take the loss,
like the tea, I don't wanna take a huge loss.
And so that's just something to keep in mind
when you're deciding how many to buy.
You wanna know, how easy is it
for anyone else who's selling to find?
If it's super easy, don't buy a whole lot.
And honestly, for all of this, my total profit,
the total cost I spent to buy it all at retail was $378.
And the total profit was $52.
So overall, even all these bad buys,
they weren't a huge hit to me
because I didn't buy a whole lot of them.
And so when you go wide, instead of deep.
So deep would be, I buy 100 of one item,
which never ends well for me,
or wide where buy five of this, two of this,
three of this, six of this.
That way, if you do take a hit,
it's not a huge hit to your overall number
because it's just one item and one loss.
So I'm gonna tell you what happened on this last one here,
because this was a weird thing
that I've not had happen before.
And I ended up just disposing of all the rest of 'em.
So you can see, I bought 24 of them.
I sold 13.
So it's this Faberware knife.
Honestly, I thought I hit the motherload with this one.
It cost 5 99 and it was selling for like 21 or $22.
It was gonna make great profit.
It was blister packed so I couldn't even touch the thing.
It was thin, light, easy to ship.
I bought 24 of them.
Now you're already noticing here why I just said,
I don't go deep on something.
Guess what? I went deep on this one.
24 is kind of a lot.
And I paid for it.
My total costs all in after Amazon fees of 6 51 was 12 50.
I did sell them for fairly high and I made $9 on them.
The problem is that I had to scrap 11 of 'em.
I literally told Amazon to dispose of 'em
because if I was in a house, it would be easier
to have 'em all sent back to me.
And I could probably take them back to Ollie's
if I wanted to, but since I'm on the move,
Amazon would be sending 'em to my mailbox, haphazardly,
however, five from this warehouse, two from the warehouse,
and then I'd have to pay for them to be sent back to me.
So at the end of the day, it was just easier
for me to tell Amazon to dispose of them.
And the reason I did that is because
I was getting negative customer returns.
So honestly it probably costs me more than this
because I didn't even factor the returns.
The knife handle was all greasy.
Again, I can't touch it cause it's in the blister pack.
So I don't know what that is.
Maybe that's why it was at Ollie's
because they knew it was kind of like a bleh item.
I'm not really sure, but it just goes to show you
that it is a real risk when you go deep on something,
because if it does fail, it fails on a bigger scale.
So altogether the cost to buy all 24 of them was $143.
My total profit was 122.
Probably there's some refund money missing there.
But then, my overall profit on the item was -21 65.
So those are just some of my more recent bad buys
and I hope this lets you know that you are not alone.
If you make a bad buy, I still do it all the time.
It's just not as huge
because I try not to buy so many of them.
If you had a bad buy you wanna share,
go ahead and send me an email
or leave a comment in the comments below.
If you like this video and wanna see more
of the negative side of it, I guess, the not so fun.
Let me know what you would wanna see and I'm happy
to make a video on my experience on the subject.
Thank you guys so much for watching
and I hope you have an amazing week ahead
and a happy sourcing.
(upbeat music playing)