- Hi, and welcome back to another Amazon selling video.
If you're new to my channel, my name is Nikki Kirk,
and I've been selling on Amazon doing retail arbitrage,
all from a fifth wheel RV,
for the last three and a half, almost four years now.
It's been a while since I've done one of the like,
how I got started and what to expect as a new seller video,
so I thought I would just go ahead and do one for you today.
Just to kind of help you set some expectations
and realize what it is you're getting into.
One of the first things to understand is,
it takes time, and it takes money and,
it doesn't take a lot of money.
You can start with honestly, 200, 300, $500,
if that's what you have.
That's what I started with, but it does take some money.
And definitely, definitely time.
You are starting a business.
This is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
This is not really a get rich ever scheme.
But it is a way to make a life for yourself,
a job, a career, flexibility, time with your family,
whatever it is, side hustle, money for a house,
whatever that thing is that you would like more money for,
get out of debt, I could go on and on.
But it is there to help you,
but it is not winning the lottery,
it is not a windfall of money, it is not without work.
In August of 2017, I started selling on Amazon
with just $500, plus $200 of supplies.
So we're talking $700.
I bought the bare minimum supplies.
I used a scale like a regular weighing a person's scale.
And I would just hold the boxes.
Now, I only did that for about a month
before I just decided a $35 scale was worth it.
But there are things that you can do.
So, I started with the bare minimum of supplies.
I didn't pay for any software.
I did pay for some trainings.
And I was unemployed, started my Amazon journey.
Now I was unemployed by choice because I did quit my job
after saving six months of expenses
all to hit the road and travel the US in an RV.
But I did not have any income coming in.
So, when I found out about selling on Amazon,
I jumped on it.
It sounded like the best thing,
because I love shopping (laughs softly)
But I wanted to share that with you
because I didn't have a lot of money
to sink into something that might not work.
So I started, you guys, on the lower end of capital.
Members of the BOLO group, or my Ungating groups,
are always sharing their reasons or their successes.
And so, I just wanted to share
a couple of them with you today,
because while you can love listening to me talk,
it's so much better when you hear so many other stories.
So I wanted to share a couple with you.
So Delta shared,
"This is my first month, I want to cry tears of joy.
"I never thought being a stay-at-home mom
"that I would ever make this type of money, $6,000.
"I take care of my kids, school and home all day.
"And after dinner, my husband gets home
"and I go sourcing and pack for three to five hours.
"It's been a lot of hard work and so many newbie mistakes,
"but the light is shining so bright through the tunnel."
So, even if it's that you want to help provide
for your family or bring in a second income,
those are all things that are happening
with Amazon sellers every day, so it's definitely possible.
Malena shared,
"I am so happy today.
"My husband decided he was going to start his journey
"on Amazon as well.
"He has been a gymnastics coach for 20 years.
"And after seeing how good I am doing on Amazon,
"he said he will start part-time,
"and if everything goes good in a year,
"he will do it full time.
"So we can have the freedoms to raise our children
"and both be parents present at all times."
So that's amazing, that one made my heart melt
because that's amazing to just, it looks different
for everybody because there's different priorities
and things going on in your life.
For me, it was just that I didn't want to
have to work for someone.
And it was a perfect idea for me
because I can do it from literally anywhere.
So, whatever your reasons, there are people out there
just like you, who are making it work.
Even in Canada, Nick shares,
"Keep sharing BOLO friends.
"Together we grow stronger and faster.
"Thank you everyone.
"Welcoming myself to the 10K club,
"and soon the 100K club."
So congratulations, Nick.
EliColleen shared,
"The 50K club.
"Keep hustling, keep learning,
"keep pushing and getting better.
"After four months of selling, one month deactivated,
"I kept my motivation and the hard work pays off.
"I have learned so much
"and still learning something new every day.
"Many thanks to Nikki, and the BOLO family."
If you're in the groups and you want to share your success,
literally it makes me so happy.
I know it's like hard to be like,
"Oh yeah, congrats."
When you're just typing it on Facebook.
But it literally makes me so happy
to hear you guys' success.
If you are not in any of the groups
and you want to comment your success,
I will love to cheer you on and just celebrate with you
because it's seriously so exciting.
Justin shared his success for January,
"Starting 2021 off strong.
"Five full months into this and I broke the 10K mark.
"I just about doubled my sales from last month."
Congratulations, Justin, that's amazing.
And then Jeff shared his January milestone,
"Big milestones in January.
"I hit 5K total sales in January.
"Had a daily sale every day in January."
Let me just really quickly say that,
that is something that I still remember.
And I haven't not sold something for a really long time
but I've gotten close one time
where a sale didn't come through
until the very end of the day.
And it's so awesome to make a sale every single day.
So congratulations, Jeff.
And then he hit 10K total sales this evening
while packing up his next shipment.
"Love the side hustle, keep scanning y'all."
So congratulations, Jeff, on your success,
and all of you guys on all of your successes.
Just getting started and opening your account
and getting out there scanning
and keeping after it when it's hard, is such a huge success.
You guys keep going, it's worth it.
Okay, so yes, all of the like big cheery, it's amazing,
but what really should you expect
when you're getting into it?
Let me just break your heart right here.
That you should not expect to actually make a profit,
take money out of your business,
for at least three to five months.
I know it's hard.
You have to keep rolling over that money
every time you get paid from Amazon,
to help grow your company into a place
where you can take out profits every month
and keep doing that.
So if you just go into it,
not expecting to take any profits out,
for three to five months, you're setting yourself up
for a better start and less frustration from the beginning.
So, say you are starting like I did with $500.
So, you would just go buy all your inventory,
as much as you can for $500 and send it into Amazon.
And then you'll be waiting for it to sell.
And when it sells and Amazon gives you your money back,
then you take all of that money,
which hopefully is your $500
plus all the extra profits you made.
And you're rolling that into more inventory.
So say, now you have $1000 that you're going out to sell
because you made a hundred percent ROI.
You spent 500 and you made 500.
Now you have a thousand,
you're going to go buy $1000 worth of inventory.
And you just keep doing that, snowballing your inventory,
to get your level and your sales up to a level
that you want, to be able to pull out the profit
that you need or that you want.
You should also know that it could be up to six weeks
before you ever get a substantial payout back from Amazon.
So, you'll spend $500 on your inventory.
And when the stuff starts selling
then you'll see your numbers on Amazon,
that what they owe you, that'll start to go up, up, up, up.
But they do hold back some reserves.
And they hold back the reserves for everyone.
They still hold it back for me.
Only, it's a lot less for me
than it is for a new seller.
It's like anything on Amazon, the more you do it,
the more your account health grows,
and Amazon knows you're a good seller,
and your product is legit and it doesn't have any problems.
And all of that kind of stuff.
Once that starts happening,
they will give you more money back every time.
But for a lot of members of the group,
it's been six weeks before they actually see
like a substantial number back.
Fun fact, this is now in the Amazon app.
So let me really quick to show you mine.
It happened in the update this week.
You can go to manage payments and now,
it's all broken down by the different fees
that you have to pay.
And here's the reserve level at the bottom there.
So my balance is almost 7,000, but they're holding back 1400
and then my next payout will be $5,500.
I have a video that breaks down the payment dashboard
in a little more detail, and I'll go ahead and link it here.
But essentially, you get paid every two weeks from Amazon.
You can request a payment anytime,
but it won't be the full amount.
I don't want to go down that road.
It's a little confusing, but just know that for six weeks,
you might get, say you get $50
and your reserves are like 600, it just happens.
But eventually, you will start getting
that money back on a regular basis
to where you can feed it into more inventory.
You won't be taking any profit out for three to five months,
and you won't be getting paid for six weeks.
And just remember, 'cause you're probably like,
"What, why would anyone do this?"
Remember all the success stories I shared earlier?
That's why, you just got to push through in the beginning.
Okay, so here's what it looked like for me.
So I spent $500 on my opening inventory.
And then I sent that all in on the first month.
And then in the second month I was like,
"Oh, you know what?
"Okay, I'm going to pull another $750 out of my savings."
My precious savings, which is all I had.
And I put that into the business as well.
So I went and got more inventory
because I knew I needed to keep building up my inventory.
By the fourth month of selling on Amazon,
I did not have to put any more money in.
It was just that, what is that, 1200 now?
By the fourth month, I had made that money back
plus all the money for the training.
And then in my fifth month,
that is when I finally started pulling out
profits to pay myself.
So I have the money back for inventory
and any profits on top of all that
is what I would pay myself salary-wise.
And that was enough for me to live on, you guys.
I got to travel in an RV.
I got to do touristy things.
I got to shop, I love shopping.
I did not have a boss that I had to answer to.
I got to work when I wanted to.
I didn't have to work if I didn't want to.
And all of those freedoms that came with it and that,
I was paying myself out of profits for three years.
I mean, I'm still paying myself out of profits.
But it's just amazing what you can really do
if you keep pushing at it.
I wanted this video to help set expectations
on the front end.
Because if you go into this thinking
you're going to make money tomorrow, you're not.
It is work, and it does take time.
It's frustrating, it's hard.
And everything gets thrown at you,
curve balls left and right,
because that's the beauty of life and selling on Amazon.
Now, knowing all that, that is why I'm always saying,
now that I know what I know, that if I had a desk job,
I wish I would have done this while I had a job.
So if you have a desk job or you have a job,
you can do this on the side.
Or if you're a stay-at-home mom,
and you want to bring in more income
and you have the flexibility of time
and being able to put some money into this, start it then.
Because then you are in a position
where you don't have to go into your savings,
and you can just quit your job when you're ready.
When your Amazon business is making money.
Now, if you don't have a job, you can still do it.
You just have to know that expectation,
that it is not going to pay you back for a while.
You can do this part-time, like I do.
I've only ever done it part-time.
You can do it full-time and you can build up
that inventory even higher and the profits even higher.
Or you can just do it on the side
once a month, twice a month, whenever you want to.
If it's just a hobby that you're making money also,
I mean, that's great.
Things are going to happen.
Customers are going to suck.
Amazon is going to suck.
So many random, weird things will happen,
but if you really want this,
you got to keep pushing through all of that tough stuff
and just keep going, keep scanning, keep pushing through,
like Eli said, she was shut down for a month.
And she's still pushing through, did $50,000 in sales.
So you got to just keep going.
I know it's tough.
Just know you're not alone.
It sucks and is tough for everyone.
There are so many different aspects to Amazon
and you cannot prepare for them all.
The attitude I take towards it is
that I just take it as it comes.
So if something comes up, if Amazon sends me an IP issue,
then I handle it then.
If they send me some other thing,
if something would just stranded, then I handle it then.
I don't try to take on and worry about
everything all at once, because it will just drown you
and you won't end up doing anything.
So take it as it comes, you can do this, just start,
get out there, scan, and set your expectations now,
so that you won't be frustrated in the end.
I hope this video was helpful.
I hope it helps you just keep going,
or just start, you guys.
Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you back here for another Amazon selling video.
(upbeat music)