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 four years helping new sellers for
the last two so a lot of my audience is new amazon sellers either you are brand new or you like six
months in or you are thinking about starting and you're just wanting to get more information either
way welcome to my channel and today i wanted to do a video where i'm helping you set expectations as
a new seller so you've probably heard about amazon how great it is how anyone can do it and it's easy
and all that kind of stuff and yes amazon is great you can make money you can have the life
you want you can work when you want not work when you want eventually but it does take time it's
not necessarily easy it's work i mean it's not the like it's not brain surgery but it is actual work
so you are starting a business when you start selling on amazon and today i wanted to share
some things like what i would have told myself if i can go back and tell myself something as a
new seller and what members of the community are saying like i said what's something if you have
been signed for six months or more that you would tell your beginner self if you could and these are
their responses they are really great so i thought i would share some of mine and some of theirs for
me i totally agree with everything that members of the community are saying about selling on amazon
but i just wanted to tell you on a personal level what selling on amazon has done for me what i
would go back and tell myself as a new seller trying to learn and understand is stick with
it stick with this business because it is going to change your life in ways that you could never even
imagine this thing you're creating is awesome it's going to give you the freedom you always wanted
and you just have to simply stick with it don't give up keep pushing now for me it's i'd never
giving up never was an option and i forgot to say that in my old white cellar quit video
but i literally giving up was not an option i needed something to make money on the road in
an rv and this was perfect it was working and i was gonna make it work in any way i could
i was always learning and i still am always learning and i'm still i have so many ideas
for how i'm gonna grow my amazon business not the courses and the guides and the groups and
all that i'm talking about sign on amazon i have so many dreams still to come about what i want to
do to continue to grow that business and the great thing about amazon is they give you that ability
to grow and move and do what you want to do on their platform for me it changed me on levels of
building my self-confidence and just believing in myself and knowing that i could do this
i could make money and not have to work for anyone like that was crazy because that had always been a
dream of mine to own my own business and i can't believe that it was actually possible through
selling on amazon it changed everything about me i can tell you that when i started selling there
is no way i would have had a youtube video channel a video alone or a channel talking about it like
there's just no way and all of that confidence and just believing in myself all started by taking the
sleep to sell on amazon i don't ever have to sit behind a cubicle again i never like that will
never be something i have to do again and that is amazing in itself because i never felt like i was
doing my best living my best life sitting behind a cubicle dealing with co-workers and personalities
and all that kind of stuff so that is that is amazing that i knew pretty early on i'd say
within a year that i knew i would never have to go work for someone else again now don't get me wrong
i would love to work at trader joe's or costco and that kind of thing i like retail but i never have
to go sit behind a desk if i don't want to i can tell you that as you start to do this something
just changes in you if you are someone who is like me who doesn't like to sit behind a desk
and work in a cubicle and work for someone else it starts to change you it changes you inside
it changes your personality i mean all for the better i don't think anything has been worse
since i've started selling on amazon it's just if you it's got all these amazing things that happen
if you give it time and believe in yourself and honestly time and believing yourself and just
doing the work is what is successful on amazon so that's like my big picture like what i would
tell them myself like if i could go back and say like and it's funny because i'm saying this now
like what i would tell myself and i knew myself then right i would probably be like oh okay crazy
like but that is really what's possible so that's my big picture like how it changes you kind of as
a person for the better but now i want to go into the facebook group and the bolo group and just
tell you what other sellers are saying they would say to themselves to give you a better idea of
what to expect and just encourage you on your business if you have any questions please feel
free to reach out i love to answer your guys questions so here we go let's dive into what
others are saying in the facebook group so the question i asked good morning if you have been
signed for six months or more knowing what you know now what would you say to your new just
getting started selling on amazon self marna says do your accounting from day one caitlyn says stick
to your sales rank guide she's referring to the guy that i have for free on my website so when you
sign up to my email list you get it emailed over to you along with like i think it's like almost
10 other pages of content all for free so just sign up for my email list and you can get that
it's also if you buy the ungating guides it's in there as well and how to use it and all that but
so that's what kaitlyn says stick to your sales rank good and look at keepa more frequently
just to see if amazon ever sells something because sometimes you might buy something that
amazon is selling and while it's not the end of the world it's not the best either because
amazon is going to give themselves the buy box and make the sell for themselves more
than they're going to give it to third-party sellers so that's why i don't buy anything if
amazon is selling it so that's all really good advice sales ranks you'll probably see this come
up a lot sales ranks are so important because they tell you if the product is selling or not
barbara says just get out there and start scanning the more you do it the easier it
gets and the more you will find stacy says cut yourself some slack when you make dumb mistakes
everyone makes them just learn from them and grow honestly if you're not making mistakes you are not
doing it right because you make mistakes and then you learn from them and you are learning
this whole new language selling on amazon so please expect to make mistakes try to limit them
as much as like a financial hit like don't go buy 70 of something that you didn't really research
thoroughly because it might not be worth it so try to limit where you can but understand that you are
going to make mistakes some of them might cost you money and you are learning in the long run
jamie says make sure you have enough money to keep sourcing somehow because one of the
worst things to do is stop sourcing i ran out of money and stopped sourcing and things are only
starting to pick back up again after a month and a half after beginning to source again
the lag time is crazy you lose so much ground if you stop i had this happen so my first q4 i
was i think my credit card either i can't remember at this point either i didn't have any more money
to source or my credit card was maxed out either way i was waiting on that payout from amazon
and that waiting time was killing me because especially during q4 you want to be sourcing
as much as you can sending stuff in and the lag time she's referring to
is when you stop sourcing it takes a while so i just sent in the shipment yesterday and it's going
to take about a week or so before amazon gets it and gets it checked in and it starts to sell
so that is why you want to keep sending stuff in as much as you can once a week every other week
however often you can definitely want to send stuff in if you have a lump sum when you start
try to portion it out however best you can i mean if your amount is pretty small it might
be harder to portion it out but as much as you can so if you have a thousand dollars maybe send 500
shipment in and then do another 500 shipment and just kind of like to keep that thing going
and building because like she said if you can't keep sending stuff in that lag and like you're
gonna have really good sales and then it'll go down while you wait for yourself to get there
again carrie says pay for keepa and check every item before buying honestly learning how to use
keepa i did a video where i go over it all i'll link it here but learning keepa just three basic
things you want to know is amazon selling it what's a sales rank and is it pretty steady the
price those are the things you really want to know and keepa will tell you all of that so using keepa
will help you limit your mistakes mark says getting on gated and nike and adidas were
really game changers herman says focus on learning the lingo learning the process and the money will
come if you don't quit trust it will again that's what i keep trying to tell everyone as long as you
keep going at it you take breaks when you need to either for your mental health or you just don't
have the money to funds to do it right now but take breaks when needed but you have to keep going
to make it in the long run because it does work if you work it robin says be patient with yourself
and with waiting for payouts it takes time to get the momentum going don't buy things in desperation
hoping they will sell know your product so these are really how to limit your mistakes
if you buy something that doesn't have a sales rank you will be really lucky if it sells
sometimes it happens but if you doesn't have a sales rank that is an indicator that it is
not selling so don't buy stuff without a sales rank double check keepa make sure you didn't buy
it on a fluke like high price and really it sells for 9.99 and your thinking is going to go 50. you
know that's a big loss especially if you bought 70 of them so it's really helpful to know and do the
research up front in the beginning because it does take a lot of more time and it can get frustrating
but it is worth it simone says you will not put a dime in your pocket until around the fifth month
that's very true jillian says you will have flops and that's part of learning something new
also there's have a separate bank account from your amazon stuff from the beginning
very crucial even if it's just another personal free checking account you want
to have two separate checking accounts you don't want anything personal on your business and vice
versa because it just gets really messy comes tax time so definitely keep everything separate
jay says after every month look at how you did and look at how you could do better
budgeting items etc i often look at what sold last month like usually before i'll go sourcing i go
okay what are some items that did really well and i pull a report and it'll tell me
like i think this item did really well and i sold it for a great profit but then in the
reports telling me uh no actually you made like a dollar and it's not worth it to ship it again so
i always go and look for that to be like what what's selling good and what do i need to go look
for so definitely looking back is a great time to like every month go okay what were my bad buys
what stores were good to me that i kind of forgot about sometimes i'll forget about ross or tuesday
morning like i haven't been to tuesday morning in a couple months and i should probably head over
there and see what they have i might be missing out on some good stuff so all different things
that you can learn by looking back at how your business was doing okay so that was the bolo group
now i'm gonna head over to one of the end gating groups and see what the members there had to say
lauren says don't be afraid to spend more money on products relay on the sales data which you can
get from keepa learn from trustworthy sellers and take advantage of stores a little further
away from your everyday route that is really good advice i don't have an everyday route because i'm
changed where i am every day but i would say if you have some stores that are maybe an hour or
hour and a half two hours depending on your like time and ability to want to drive that
far don't get me wrong it'd be hard for me to drive two hours but it might be worth it once a
month to just take that trip out there and see what you can find in other areas especially if
you're kind of hitting a wall with where you're at hodia says take classes early on don't wait
becky says don't get over excited when you find a lot of a particular product and clear the shelf
do a test buy first go wide and not deep that means by wide you have a lot of different products
not deep a few products like with 100 and something of quantity of them so you really
especially when you find something too good to be true you want to check keepa you want to check the
ranks you want to keep see was amazon selling it um is the price pretty steady all that information
is on keepa and then you don't want to clear the shelves i say test six to twelve it really depends
for me how big the item is how much it cost me to buy it those are all factors that go into
how many i'll test with but i really recommend testing because when i haven't and i bought 70 120
i took a loss on all those so no matter what it is you want to factor in
are you willing to take a loss on this because definitely testing is your best friend delta
says follow the guide recommendations i bought things higher in sales rank than suggested and
i just sat there i bought it because i was so excited also wait to send in boxes when
they are full you will pay for heavy shipping rates even if yours doesn't weigh it because
the way it takes into account the shipping is like uh i forget the term now but it's like based on
the size of the box plus the weight of it and it's like a dimensional weight that it does so
in general if you're just starting out you want to make sure i always say 30 products 30 units
is probably the lower end of when you should start sending it because you will start to eat all your
profits up in shipping costs to amazon the more products you have like my shipment i just sent in
was 65 dollars it was 300 something units so it was it overall was not that much to ship but
if you're having to spend 40 dollars to send you know 20 units you're eating a lot and shipping
there omar says keep your job longer probably good advice that's something you have to decide it does
take time to get amazon going especially if you wanted to get it to a level to replace your income
so definitely you know it's kind of hard to know when you should quit your job but it's all
it's all a personal level so i can't say you know in six months you'll be able to quit your job
i wish i had started when i had a job and then i would have not been so reliant on this you know
it's just it's a security comfort thing but that's what omar says karen says if you have the storage
pace don't send everything off fba a good majority may sit stagnant and not sell your fbm items can
be sold across multiple online marketplaces at once so if you want to sell on facebook
marketplace or ebay or all those other markets that exist as well as if the product doesn't sell
you can always return to the store if you have it on hand so that's good advice sally says there's
potential but it's also time-consuming job it's good starts to build up self-employment path greg
says be patient with trying to ungate everything and realizing it will take really six months to
make a profit tim says keep it as your best friend and don't go too deep in case amazon hops on the
listing sarah says rank does matter and make sure you are on the best list team sometimes
there's multiple listings so sometimes when you scan a product there'll be multiple listings so
you want to take into account was amazon selling it on any of those listings what's the sales rate
and how much profit does it make you can list on any listing but so that's what she's saying there
might be a better one so you want to double check severn says patience is the key and ranks do not
lie it will eventually sell mike says get and get it in toys asap this is not a get rich scheme it
is work robert says i would say get out there and scan don't get discouraged it's gonna get easier
donna says amazon changes the world changes be willing to pivot and change things up many sellers
had to learn merchant fulfilled really fast at the start of the pandemic i also learned online
arbitrage a little more during the pandemic so things change and you kind of have to move as with
all things amazon i take them as they come i have a slight camera overheating situation it's like 90
degrees here in oregon but all that to say that as things change in the world and in amazon you just
have to be open and flexible to pivoting and going where you know things lead you so earlier this
summer there was a chlorine shortage still sellers who jumped on that and took advantage fbming stuff
because you can't really ship chlorine into amazon probably profited a lot i know i did pretty good
so all those things that you just have to kind of go with it as the world changes and amazon
changes sheena said i've only been selling three months but my best advice is to trust the process
trust the data get ungated and keep up with your accounting so here's another one who's telling you
to do accounting i'm not going to tell you not to do your accounting it's probably good advice she
also says slow down i feel like some of the worst buys i made were because i thought i was smarter
than the data keepa was giving me and guess what that stuff is just sitting on the shelves there
paul says i would say to myself no the employees are not following you around
you are paranoid and they could care less about you and what you're doing with your phone which
is such great advice i made a really fun video actually also at my parents house when i was here
over the winter and so i'll link it here but it's just awkward scanning things that happen
or what you think as a new seller and so that was a fun video to make judit says don't dump all of
your sourcing money into inventory your first week on amazon because you won't get paid until
like five weeks which is what i was saying if you can to spread out your sourcing money as much as
possible kylie says pivot and problem solve bruno says i'm not six months yet but i would say do not
take any chances on prep don't go overboard but if something can go wrong it will at the warehouse
believe in the drop chest samantha says i would say everything is in the numbers and trust your
research know your ranks utilize keepa rev seller buy bot pro be cool i think that's how you say
it know how to calculate your profit and your roi then look at how much effort it took you to
make 500 in sales and double that to a thousand rinse and repeat samantha is a pretty big seller
so definitely she has great advice anna says scan scan and scan some more but also try typing it in
and use the photo option where you're taking it like a photo with your camera using keeper from
day one saves you so many bad buys and think outside the box not just the usual places like
target walmart tj maxx try hardware stores auto parts stores convenience stores lastly go wide and
not deep until you have a good grasp on the whole process definitely i agree when you're starting
out you don't want to buy a lot of one product if you're buying 12 of something you better have
checked everything really consistently or you're re-planning and if you're replanting then buy
as much as you want because at that point you've already tested it and you know it sells so i hope
that was helpful to you knowing what other sellers would look back and tell themselves knowing what i
would say i just think that it has changed my life in so many amazing ways that i never would have
imagined possible i set out to travel and make money in an rv and this is where it has led me
funnily enough back to my parents front porch but hey i'm not living here i'm just visiting
as always i hope this video was helpful to you guys if you have any questions you want to help
get started you can take my beginner fba selling course if you want to get ungated i have those
options i have the bolo group whatever you need i'm there to help you thank you guys so
much for watching and have a great week happy sourcing and don't buy too much of something
you