hi and welcome back to another Amazon selling video my name is Nikki Kirk and I've been doing
Retail Arbitrage selling on Amazon for six years now and it is absolutely awesome I've
enjoyed it so much and just like it's changed my life so completely that I have been telling
helping other sellers get started helping them get ungated helping them grow their businesses
through the bolo group and all that stuff for the last three years it's kind of crazy that it's been
three years um but that has just been so much fun through both my free YouTube content and then my
paid courses and I'm getting guides so if you want to check out any of that of course you can
subscribe to this free YouTube channel or if you want my help getting started step by step I have
the beginner FBA training course or I have the ungating guys which again walk you through step
by step how to get ungated for Amazon selling okay so now this video I wanted to do I've wanted to do
it for quite a while and I finally sat down to do it everything that Amazon's selling is not there's
a lot of stuff out there and maybe you found this video and this is your first time to my channel
welcome if it is but there's a lot of things that Amazon selling is not and I think it really will
help you get a better perspective on what Amazon selling is by understanding what it is not I've
got four things that Amazon's selling is not that I will walk you through and then of course
what it is so the model I do is Retail Arbitrage and online Arbitrage same thing different space
of where you're sourcing so Retail Arbitrage I'm actually going into stores I'm sourcing products
I stores like TJ Maxx Marshalls Walmart Home Goods Ollie's Grocery Outlet Ross's Express roses sorry
roses Express Ross Roses Discount there's so many stores basically if there's a store a
grocery store it has products you can scan and find items to sell on Amazon that make a profit
that's Retail Arbitrage I'm on Arbitrage same exact thing only you're doing it online so you
can Source online at home or if you have a job where you have an hour at lunch you can Source
on your job like whatever it is whenever you can do it that's online so that's the model I do now
there's a ton of different models out there for selling on Amazon there's private label where
you're going to go to market you're going to find a product buy it or make it whatever that entails
and then you are going to sell it under your brand on Amazon there's also wholesale based basically
the same thing I'm doing only your sourcing from wholesalers direct and I'm pretty sure that might
be it but I'm sure there's other models out there there's like so many ways to sell on Amazon well
there's ways like if you have a website but you don't have a warehouse and you want Amazon to
warehouse and ship your stuff still it's under your website it's not even sold on amazon.com
it's sold on your work your website and then they ship everything out for you there's like again so
many different models to selling on Amazon but the one I do again Retail Arbitrage and online
Arbitrage so what it is not it is not a get rich quick thing I have gotten so many emails over the
years of people who are interested in selling on Amazon and they need money right now they need
money to pay their bills to live their life to feed you know their family whatever it is that
is not something that you want to start doing Amazon to do if that's your case you're better
off going and getting a nine to five job that you can pay your bills with and then starting Amazon
as a side hustle to work your way up to it you might not ever get rich selling on Amazon in fact
I'm an adventure that you won't ever get rich but what you will get is income to do whatever it is
that you need the income for so over time after you've built up your Amazon business
people start it as a side hustle so they've got their nine to five job and they start Amazon and
then maybe they want to quit their nine to five because they don't like it or they start making
more money on Amazon like whatever your future looks like whatever you're trying to do there's
a good chance that Amazon can help you out with that but you're not gonna get rich doing it when
you start selling on Amazon try and think of it like you're starting a business first of all but
try and think of it as you're opening a retail store your customers are just everyone shopping
on Amazon already which is why it's good which is why it's an awesome place to sell because there's
very little startup costs to it but you very much are a retailer so you are going to have to
Source the products that you're gonna sell you're going to have to package them up either to send
them to the customer which is fbm fulfilled by Merchant or as I like to call it fulfilled by me
or you can pack it up and send it to Amazon warehouses that's fulfilled by Amazon FBA which
is what I primarily do because again live in an RV oh sorry I don't think I said that I live in an RV
and so because of that I don't have a lot of room so FBA has been awesome and it's still the model
that I do mostly although I am mixing up fbm now so you're a retailer you've got your stuff your
inventory you bought the stuff and now you're gonna sell it to your customers it's going to
take some time to get going and why I recommend not just like trying Amazon to pay your bills
immediately you might not ever see a payout from Amazon for four to six weeks and when you do start
to see your payouts off of stuff you've sold you might have done a couple thousand dollars in your
first month which is awesome but you're probably only going to get fifty dollars a hundred dollars
500 back from Amazon and so you're not really going to be able to pay your bills with that
right you're probably just paying off the cost of goods that you already bought so it takes a long
time to get that snowball going which is why I really recommend if you're a new seller starting
out to not give up if you really want this don't give up for the first six months because it does
take quite a while to get going if you're familiar all with like the debt snowball analogy where
you're like paying off your little Bill and then you go to the next bill to snowball that out it's
very similar you're going to start really small returns you can start with very little money
which is why it's awesome to sell on Amazon but you're gonna have to invest a little bit of money
so you start with that small amount you sell your stuff you get it back you're going to get back
the cost of goods and hopefully a profit off of that but it's real small now you're going
to take that money you got back and you're going to invest it into more inventory that will sell
you'll get that back and we're talking weeks right this is going to take a couple weeks for
all of this to happen and it'll slowly build up and snowball out so I was able to turn a profit
pay myself back my initial startup cost and then start pulling out a profit after five months of
selling on Amazon because I started in August of 2017 and by December of 2017 so Q4 holiday
season when it's the best time to be selling on Amazon but because of that I was able to pay
myself a little faster than normal say if you start in January February March it might just
take a little bit longer but who knows you might find that awesome product and it's going to make
profit for you and sell and hopefully it's a replenishable so if you could just get that
one thing out of this video it is not anything that's going to get you rich which probably ever
but it is going to give you the flexibility that you maybe need in your life the second income that
maybe you need in your life like whatever it is that you need uh or want to do this for it can
do that but it is not going to get you rich along that same note I want to make this very clear it
is not free so for whatever reason there's some videos out there I guess because people have
told me this in real life I've met people um like throughout my journey just you know being around
in Oklahoma talking to people that they are like oh my gosh I just heard about this is it
true that you can do it with no inventory like you don't have to have anything no not true so
what I'm thinking because I'm not seeing these videos myself is that people are talking about
Drop Shipping which is fine and maybe other areas but is against Amazon's terms you cannot drop ship
on Amazon so what Drop Shipping is is I'm gonna put something up on sale on a website because
you can't do it on Amazon so on my own website I'm going to put something for sale but I don't
actually own the thing when someone buys the thing then I'm gonna order it and send it direct to the
customer Drop Shipping is not allowed on Amazon so I to my knowledge there is no model of selling
on Amazon where you can start with no inventory like you don't have to buy anything to start you
have to have something to sell so just it's not free in that regard however it is super low cost
like you can start if you have 200 you can start selling on Amazon you can start with whatever you
have I say like a thousand dollars if you have a thousand dollars that you can invest in your new
business of selling on Amazon that's a great start because you'll be able to buy inventory
you'll be able to buy all your supplies and you can probably stretch that out for a while
versus 200 which is totally fine and you can do that you just might take a little bit longer to
get that snowball going because like I mentioned you're selling this stuff and then you're getting
it back and then you're buying more so the more you can get back profit because you had a lot of
inventory and they're selling then the more you can snowball that and make it a little faster so
Amazon selling is not get rich and is not free the third thing that Amazon's selling is not
is it's not easy I know maybe I make it look really easy um or your friends or your other
sellers that you've heard of YouTube videos whatever you've been watching hearing it is
like easy once you get the hang of it and you know what you're doing but it is not by any means easy
it is work you are going to work so I go out I Source I pack it all up I send it to Amazon I
manage all my pricing uh manually I do not use a repricer so I'm managing my whole business
it's not easy right like I'm out there sourcing sometimes 12 hours 14 hour days you don't have
to do that if you're working a nine to five then maybe you're sourcing on the weekends or you're
sourcing you know after work at night whenever you can do it you're doing it but it is work and
in the beginning it's super frustrating if you are a new seller and you're frustrated you are
right in line you are on the course you are in your lane and you are doing it it is frustrating
it is so frustrating when you're scanning trying to find things to buy that you're gated in that
you're trying to just understand is this make a profit you make mistakes and trust me when
I tell you that mistakes are the best thing to do in your business because obviously you
don't want to make them but you learn from them you learn so much by making mistakes so don't be
fearful of making mistakes Embrace that you are 100 going to make mistakes and hopefully you're
going to learn from them and learn what not to do I sell part-time I have always sold part-time so
if you're new to my channel I have been to All 48 states in this RV and so I was traveling I was you
know enjoying my life in the freedom which is why I started selling on Amazon in the first place so
I didn't have to work a nine to five yes I could find one and do it remote but I don't want to be
have to be in a certain place I don't have to be at my desk for certain hours are answering certain
people bosses whatever I wanted to have freedom which is what Amazon provided I want you to know
that I do it part-time because during Q4 which is again the holiday time frame so it really kind of
starts in September so September October November December I am all Amazon like full-time seller I'm
Outsourcing like three or four days a week I'm packing up shipments as soon as I have enough to
send to Amazon I'm sending those out and it is so much fun because the sales make it so worth it but
the rest of the year I Source once a week maybe every other week I Source a couple times a month
I send shipments in when I have the time or that I want to like you can have that flexibility in your
life once you get the handle of it especially if you're only going to sell one time of the year I
highly recommend Q4 but selling year round allows you that flexibility to do whatever you want with
the rest of your life while you're making money selling on Amazon back to it not being easy it's
not really easy to say sorry parents I can't go on that vacation because I don't know why you want to
go in October November December like I can't do these things because I'm all in on sourcing so
I'm saying no to things but I'm saying yes to my business where the rest of the year because I do
part-time I can then say okay you know I am going to take that vacation in you know March February
whatever and you can do those things because you have planned your life accordingly if that makes
sense so learning to sell on Amazon is very much like learning a language so just like you're not
gonna know fluent Spanish or French or Italian right off the bat you're gonna have to slowly
learn it and you have to take that approach to it so you're going to be frustrated in the beginning
you're going to be learning things that you've never learned before a lot of people who sell
on Amazon this is their very first time owning a business so you are owning a business so there's
a lot of things to learn with that regard however it is totally worth it like I mentioned mentioned
all that flexibility you get to set your hours you don't have to sell a lot during Q4 if you
don't want to you can sell normal it's totally up to you it's your business and the fourth thing
that Amazon is not goes hand in hand it is not passive so Retail Arbitrage online Arbitrage is
not passive there are very few passive income things in life and like real estate is one of
them because it's just sitting there making money hopefully but selling on Amazon is not passive so
if you hear anyone telling you that it is passive question everything else they're telling because
it's not passive if you're not sending an inventory you're probably not making sales
so you have to go out there and get the product and send it into Amazon uh even with private label
you have to go Source a product make a product send it to Amazon there's so much research that
goes into that so you're not like it might end up being semi-passive or a lot like you might be
able to work on it one day a week if you want to later on but in the beginning lots of hard work
again not easy so just know that Amazon selling is not passive but what it is is it allows you to
have that flexibility so if you don't want to work you don't have to work if you don't want to work
one week or you two weeks or a month I didn't Source all of June last year because I broke
my leg I literally couldn't I did some online sourcing but honestly I was just kind of like
I couldn't do it I was gonna like take that as a sign to like just slow down and relax a little bit
and at the end of the day it was good for me and it didn't hurt me that much because
everything I had sourced in May really was still selling all through June and then in
July when I was able to go sourcing again so it really is it allows you that flexibility
so if you want to grow it to where your kids can start helping you one day or if you want
to grow it to where your spouse or your partner can start helping you or take it off like it the
possibilities are endless I've been selling six years and I feel like I'm just now starting to
really grow my business even more and it's exciting I will not stop selling on Amazon
anytime soon because I absolutely love it it is like going sourcing is like my stress relief now
like it's my I love I've always loved shopping and now I get to do it and make money doing it
all the better selling on Amazon is absolutely worth it if it's something you want to do
it's going to take you time it's going to be frustrating you're going to have to go through
that learning curve just like every other new seller new business owner but it's absolutely
worth it if you're watching this video and it's a couple videos that you've already seen and
you've been questioning it should I do it should I not do it take this as your sign to just start
you can start small you could start with what you have but just start because you learn so much by
selling on Amazon by doing it the more you do it the more you're gonna understand it and the more
hopefully fun it's going to be for you just like it's a lot of fun for me so Amazon selling is not
get rich quick it is not free it is not passive income and it is not easy it might become easier
eventually but it will always be frustrating let me tell you because everything is Amazon is crazy
different things happen all the time and since we're selling on Amazon we have to navigate that
roller coaster with them but it is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it and I enjoy being able
to pull out an income and make money by selling on Amazon if you've enjoyed this video don't forget
to subscribe and let me know if you are ready to start selling on Amazon if you've already started
selling or let me know what year you started it's exciting to see just who's out there watching
these videos if there's any other video ideas or something that you want me to make or that
you'd like to see about selling on Amazon please don't hesitate to comment below in the comments
thank you guys so much for watching I will see you back here for another Amazon selling video
thank you