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
for the last five years all from my fifth wheel rv but in late 2021 we bought
a piece of property out here in oklahoma so that's my garden behind me that i built
so usually some videos have been in the shed but i got up super early this morning to film
outside before it gets 102 degrees later this afternoon so hopefully this is a nice backdrop
for this video i thought i would sit down and tell you my five amazon regrets when it comes
to my business the five things i regret and the whole scheme of my amazon journey if you like this
video or you like any of my videos don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more amazon selling
videos how to and everything amazon selling business so the model i do for amazon is called
retail arbitrage it's literally me going into stores buying stuff that sells on amazon for more
money and makes a profit you can do it literally anywhere i've done it in every state the lower 48
i haven't gone to alaska or hawaii yet but i've done it in all of the lower 48 states in rural
areas and cities so i'm telling you that it can be done and that's the model i do there's also online
arbitrage which is the same thing only you're buying stuff online but primarily mine i would say
90 95 of my business at the moment is retail arbitrage where i go into stores my number one
regret is waiting so long to start so in 2017 in april or may i heard about retail arbitrage
that's when it first crossed my path at the time i was working a desk job and i was getting ready
to hit the road in an rv i was about to quit so i had heard about this thing and in june when we
left in the rv i bought a selling course but i didn't actually go through and start sending my
first shipment until august of that year i really took my time going through the course dragged my
feet and i just wish i would have started a little bit sooner as opposed to waiting so long knowing
what i know now that it takes four to six weeks before you ever see a payout from amazon how it
takes three to six months to even make a profit like i wish i would have just got the ball rolling
sooner so if you're like me or like i was and you kind of know about it you're watching this video
you're watching other youtube videos and you think you want to do it but you're just not doing it
just start here is your moment to take this advice and just start because it takes a while to grow it
and build momentum you might as well start now and not wish that you had started sooner if you
want my help in starting your business i created a amazon selling course to walk you through it it's
called beginner fba and it includes a facebook group of support of sellers who have been doing it
for a year sellers like me who have been doing it for longer there to help you so i'm in there every
day answering questions that you might have but the training course is 16 video modules including
audio so you can listen to them like a podcast on the go i have the written transcripts of literally
everything i'm saying so that whatever your way of learning it's there for you you can use a combo or
you can use one most importantly it's step by step walking you through so when you're packing your
first shipment i'll be there walking you through it when you are ready to go outsourcing i'll be
telling you what to look for how to find stuff strategies for in-store for online all of it fba
and fbm is in this course so if you want my help it's at beginnerfba.com no matter how you're going
to start just start i'm telling you it's worth it and you don't want to have that first regret that
i have that i wish i would have started sooner so if you're watching this video right now when
it first comes out this is literally the time that i started right my first shipment went out
mid-august so let me tell you that now is actually a great time to start because q4 is right here
at our door and so you're gonna get see profits potentially a lot faster like i did i didn't have
to wait six months i saw profits in four to five months because q4 everything is selling so it's a
little bit easier to start right now but no matter what time you're watching this video just start
my number two regret is not using my tax exempt form sooner i've been selling for five years i
didn't start using it until year three i was wasting so much money potential profit payment
and sales tax when i didn't need to be so your sales tax certificate resell license it has a lot
of different names it comes from your state and it is free to get in most states i know florida you
have to pay for it but in most states it's free to get and it lets you buy stuff that you're going
to resell tax free meaning more profit for you so instead of paying that 10 sales tax or i just use
10 as a rough estimate because i've been in all the different states so i always do 10 just to
make sure i buffered but anyways instead of losing 10 of your potential profit you can get that right
so it opens up a little bit more items that you if you do the five dollar minimum profit model like
i do that you might not have been able to buy now you can buy so it's really not as terrifying as i
thought it was i had my sales tax exempt license i think around year two
but i didn't do anything with it once you have it you just go into walmart go to the guest
services tell them you would like a tax exempt card and then they you have your form and then
they just fill out information in like an archaic computer it's one of those computers with like the
orange text it's crazy anyways they add you to the system you have your card and now every walmart
purchase for your business is tax-free for your inventory i should say that you're gonna resell
at stores like marshalls tj maxx home goods you literally just hand it to the cashier and they
if you're already in the system it's super easy you give them your phone number they look you up
now your tax exempt you don't have to pay sales tax the first time you get into their system
they'll just input your information again super easy nothing to be scared of don't waste time
like i did waste that profit make your life harder definitely if you have a sales tax exempt license
use it don't just be like oh i'm too scared like i was because it's really not scary it's just the
fear of the unknown i'm telling you it's not scary one thing to remember though once you
do have your license is you do need to fill it back out like you need to file your taxes even
though you're probably going to file zero because amazon remits the sales tax you have to file them
on time because hello florida they will get you even if you have zero that you owe you're gonna
have to pay a late fee plus now interest on xero i don't know how they do that but
take it from my experience you want to file on time amazon regret number three not starting when
i had a desk job now to be fair i learned about it when i was about to quit my job so there's not
really a lot i could have done but i could have started a little bit sooner um but if you have a
desk job i highly recommend starting this why you have that job while you have that income coming in
that you're not worried about paying bills because like i mentioned earlier it's gonna take three
to six months before you ever turn a profit it'll be four to six weeks before you ever see a payout
from amazon which is probably not profit but just your money back like in the beginning like your
first payouts might be like 50 so it's gonna take a while to get that ball going and so if you can
do it on the side while you're learning and still have that desk job i highly recommend or whatever
your nine to five is i highly recommend starting while you have that especially if your desk job or
your job is kind of easy like i could have sourced after work and at lunch i probably maybe not great
to say could have sourced online during work like my job was pretty easy so i there's no reason i
couldn't have done this and got that ball rolling to be able to quit and go full time doing amazon
however i can't go back in the past so i'm here to tell you that if you want to start
and you still have that full-time job keep it and start this as a side hustle to build either for
extra income for something you need pay off debt pay off loans whatever you want it for definitely
it's helpful to build it up on the side until you can take it full time or maybe you don't want to
take it full time at all whatever you want for yourself and your freedoms and your life amazon
can help you do it but it's a lot easier and a lot less stress if you don't have to pay the bills
with that money i often get emails from people who are like basically desperate and they're kind of
sad because honestly if you're that desperate and you need this money right now to pay your bills or
whatever it's for this is not for you this is not going to make you any money for six months
so if you need bills you're better off going to get that other full-time part-time gig that's
going to give you money right away because this is not that model but if it is something that you
want to build up over time definitely it's going to work in the long run but it's not a get rich
quick scheme you probably won't get rich at all but you might have the freedoms that you want in
your life so when i started i already had six months of savings built up i had ten thousand
dollars which was going to pay for my bills and i pulled out two thousand dollars roughly of that
to start this business around month four is when i paid that two thousand dollars back to my savings
and month five is when i first pulled out a profit at the end of december so like i said i started
right before q4 so it was a great time to start and i was able to pull out a profit in month five
slight change of scenery the sun started coming up and you could see the reflection of the camera
on me or the shadow i should say so i had to push a little back so new scenery all right let's jump
into regret number four not having enough money my first q4 so i literally did not have enough
capital to keep buying stuff during q4 and like i mentioned q4 is awesome time to start everything
sells you will find it so easy to start your business this time of year i had seriously
underestimated how much stuff sells and so i didn't have enough inventory but i didn't have
enough money capital to keep flowing in that inventory so around mid-november i had to stop
sourcing for a week and a half which is forever during q4 and that really hurt me because i had
to wait for my next amazon payout so definitely do everything that you can to have enough money
all of q4 i started selling in august so october the start of q4 was really month three for me so i
was still learning this thing didn't totally know what i was doing i was only using cash at the time
now i use credit cards i buy everything on my credit card and then i pay off my credit card
when the money comes back from amazon so that's how i do it now but at the time i was just using
solid cash and so i didn't have anything to go outsourcing how i would suggest you prep for q4
is right now decide if you can trust yourself and your business with the credit card if you
want to go that way or if you want to use cash on hand both are perfectly fine ways to do it
but if you can't trust yourself or you're still learning amazon i would not recommend getting
a credit card because you can get into debt fast making bad buys which you will do as a new seller
and you might just like end up with debt that you can't pay back so definitely if you're not wise
with credit cards be real with yourself don't use a credit card use just cash now either way you're
gonna do it you wanna because a credit card has limits right you wanna be prepared so what i would
suggest if you can is not to plan to take any profits out of your business during q4 so that
means when you sell stuff in october you're going to get those amazon payouts use that money again
to buy more inventory just keep rolling it over into more and more stock so that at the end of
december or into january you get that big profit payout but you're building it up to be able to
sell the most that you possibly can during q4 now that might look like if you're using amazon to pay
your bills now congratulations you're doing this full-time and amazon's paying your bills you might
want to save up a little bit right now to be able to pay your bills during those months when you're
just going to keep rolling over or if you can right now start rolling over your profits now
so everything you put into your business you're going to keep it in your business the money you
get back in profit you're going to go buy more inventory and really grow how much inventory
you have in stock because like i said everything sells during q4 so you want to have a lot of stock
that's what i was doing my first q4 because it was all a part of my beginning months where i wasn't
pulling any profits out of my business really i did pay back my initial investment but other than
that i wasn't pulling profits out so by the end of december 2017 i got my first all profit amazon
payout of 6 759 and it was awesome so my advice to you right now is to plan what's your strategy
going to be how are you going to have the most capital because q4 is here is right at our door
and you want to be prepared so that you don't end up with a torturous week and a half like me
where i couldn't go sourcing and finally my amazon regret number five is not getting ungated sooner
now remember i told you i didn't have money in my first q4 i also thought that i didn't have money
to get ungated i was trying to roll over everything into just straight inventory but
now looking back i realized how big of a mistake that was so ungated on amazon means that you can
sell in the restricted categories so when i started i was gated in grocery
topical which is beauty i was gated in toys like pretty much every toy imaginable was gated
and those are some really high profit categories especially during q4 but year round if you have
been out there scanning and everything that is showing restricted for you i would highly
recommend getting ungated and getting engaged now ahead of q4 so in october i finally spent the 200
to get ungated in grocery just grocery and that alone i was already kicking myself for
waiting that long and i only waited three months so believe me when i tell you i wish i had gotta
get it sooner there's a whole reason i created the new seller beginner on gating guides because
you can get engaged right now as soon as you start selling you can start getting ungated
and it is a game changer because of all the profit that you'll find out there once you're ungated i
literally can't recommend it enough my guides come with a facebook group where you have other
sellers hundreds of sellers in there who are there to help you they're awesome community members
they're like me they're kind they're ready to help if you have a question if you want to know
what to order all that kind of stuff is within the group the guides walk you through step by step how
to get ungated with each distributor so there's a couple distributors in each guide so that you can
pick which one you would like to go with i have a toy on getting a grocery and topical and gating
a premium brands on gating as well as the q4 guide that i created updated for 2022 which
walks you through everything retail arbitrage and q4 there's a whole bundle or you can just get the
ones that you need but again if however you're gonna go and get ungated i highly recommend it
so i gotta get it in grocery in month three now you're not gonna believe this but i did not get
ungated in toys and the big toy brands like star wars lego marvel disney until after my second q4 i
waited i went through a whole nother q4 without being engaging in these high profit toys
i was it was a regret that's why i'm here to tell you regret number five i wish i had done
it sooner because there's nothing like scanning all these toys that make profit and you can't
sell them it's literally torture getting ungated is an expense a tax deductible expense for your
business so it is so worth it and i know sometimes it might feel like you don't have the money to
invest in it but it is an investment and it's an investment that pays off pretty much instantly
you'll go outsourcing as soon as you're on gated and find all these products that you
were scanning before and you couldn't sell so you might spend 200 to 400 dollars to get ungated in a
lot of different brands and categories that's just going to make your q4 that much easier
and profitable i guess i was just hoping that these things would automatically ungate
and there are some brands that do auto and gate but the big ones star wars lego marvel wwe
those will almost never auto ungate and so you do have to place an order with a distributor to
get ungated again i have guides if you want my help with it but don't be like me those are my
five amazon regrets and i left so much profit and like money on the table because one i was paying
sales tax for three years when i didn't need to be i waited so long to get ungated and i spent my
savings because i didn't start when i had a desk job like i said i literally couldn't have because
i didn't really know about it at the time and you can't do something if you don't know about it
but if you know about it and you have that desk job definitely think about starting it
now while you have that income so i hope this video was helpful that's the five things i regret
is when it comes to my amazon business don't forget to like comment subscribe let me know if
you have one of those regrets as well and i will see you back here for another amazon selling video
you