Tagging Miles

Interesting numbers for Amazon Sellers

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Amazon shared an article that I think is really important for Amazon Sellers. It is entitled: Strength in Numbers and shares 5 facts showing the impact of the Amazon Marketplace. But I really only want to highlight two of those numbers. 

Strength in Numbers for Amazon Sellers

Amazon added 300,000 new small and medium sized businesses to the Amazon Marketplace in 2017. That sounds like a lot. But lets put some more context around this, in 2015 (the best I could find), Amazon reported that they had over 2 million third party sellers. Its not clear how much over 2 million they were at in 2015, and Amazon specifically did not specify their total number of sellers in 2016. If I had to guess, Amazon’s got to be at least to 3 million sellers by now.

The more impressive number

Amazon’s second interesting number for Amazon Resellers is perhaps the most surprising (for me):

140,000 Small- and Medium-sized businesses surpassed $100,000 in annual sales on Amazon in 2017.

I feel like I’m surprised by this number, at first glance, 140,000 businesses sound like a lot, but as I think about the network that we’ve built with ResellingDO events, and The Mile High Reselling Club I feel like we have higher than average percentage of those $100k plus earners.

Overall though, it seems to me like 140,000 businesses with more than $100k in annual sales feels low. What that number also doesn’t tell us, is how many of those 140,000 Amazon Sellers are over $500k, over $1M? I suspect it could be something along the 80/20 rule, I suspect 20% of those 140,000 Amazon Sellers are over $500k, maybe even $1M. but that’s still a ton of sellers. It still pales in comparison to Amazon’s worldwide/company-wide sales of $177.9 Billion in 2017. 

What number from Amazon is more surprising to you?

Highlighting The Speakers of ResellingDO 5

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ResellingDO 5 is only a few weeks away now, so I wanted to take the time to highlight our speakers.  

ResellingDO 5

ResellingDO 5 Key Details

  • When: Saturday, August 12th, 2017
  • What: A full day of networking, presentations on reselling covering topics such as scaling, Merch by Amazon, and niche sourcing.
  • Where: Hyatt Place Orlando Airport
  • Tickets: Buy your ResellingDO 5 Tickets here

ResellingDO 5 Speakers

We have an excellent line-up of speakers, as well! 

  • Hans: Hans loves to travel and take photos, flying at least 100k miles every year. In 2011 he leveraged a SkyMall deal to earn 1 million Delta miles by buying $40k worth of cameras and reselling them. That opened his eyes to the possibility and he went into business with a fellow FlyerTalker who he had become friends with. That business that he co-founded now sells more than $5m in electronics every year on Amazon and eBay, and is poised for big further growth with some key foundations having been laid in the past year. Hans made a number of mistakes in scaling up that caused a lot of stress and headaches. He’ll share those mistakes and offer advice on how to avoid making those same mistakes in the scaling up process.
  • Haley: Haley’s a reseller of merchandise as well as an expert in Merch by Amazon, having done rather significant growth in Merch by Amazon over the past year – if you’ve been approved for Merch by Amazon but are not sure what the next step is, this will be one to definitely attend! If you haven’t applied for a Merch by Amazon account, there is still time, do it now!
  • Kenny : Will highlight local Retail Arbitrage sourcing away from the big-box stores in cities both big and small, small-town sourcing, and selling strategies for replenishables.
  • Geoff: Scaling up means focusing on many different aspects; one of the ways you can realize near immediate savings is shipping product via pallets whenever possible. Geoff will give a primer on Less than Truck Load (LTL) shipping and how it can save you shipping costs. 

Reselling, the next frontier for Manufactured Spending

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Whether you feel the golden era of manufactured spending has passed or not, the fact remains that opportunities tend to close faster than new ones open up. Pure manufactured spending (Read: Introduction to Today’s Manufactured Spending) is still viable, but it certainly has gotten harder. Reselling, which I propose to be the next frontier in manufactured spending is no easier. But I would argue that if you take a higher level view, it can open far more doors. It also is your entry into becoming a Weekend Entrepreneur.

Reselling, the next frontier for Manufactured Spending

Manufactured spending at its purest is a form of arbitrage. You are effectively buying miles and points at a discount and redeeming them at a higher value than you paid for them. Reselling is no different in that regard. As we dive deeper though, there are rather pointed differences:

Reselling is a business

That means that you need to consider taxes and reporting responsibilities. 

Reselling avails you the opportunity to earn miles and points at negative cost.

Choosing the right products that you can earn a profit on in their own right, means that the miles and points become pure gravy. Scale that up, and you’ll have no problem with frequent flyer program devaluations but remember, that Amazon can be just like an Airline, they make the rules. 

Mile High Reselling Club

Copyright: lightwise / 123RF

Reselling can be riskier than pure manufactured spending

Because you are buying product, there is the risk that you might have chosen a bad product, or even if you’ve chosen the best product out there, you still have the liability of returns. Bottom line, there is more risk than just having to pay all of your expenses for a month with Visa Gift Cards (Read More: Considerations for Reselling as a Method for Manufactured Spending).

You’re still interested – what are the next steps?

The first step that I always recommend–once you’ve considered the risks—is to consider your risk tolerance and identify a seed budget. Yes, you want to generate thousands of miles and points, but you need to be reasonable as you dive into a business. You want to identify an amount of money that you are willing to lose. Reselling can be like gambling. You are making a bet that a product that you have purchased will sell. If it does sell, you are making the bet that you will make a profit or at least break even. So please, identify a budget and stick to it, as you get your feet wet in this new venture.

Once you’ve identified a budget, consider what marketplaces you want to work with. I’m a fan of Amazon. Specifically, I am a huge fan of selling via Fulfillment by Amazon. Why? Because they do most of the time sensitive work. You source, prep, pack and ship your products to Amazon in bulk. Once your products reach Amazon’s warehouses, all you have to do is tweak the prices to get the products to sell. As your products sell, Amazon pulls them from the bins in the warehouse (read: A Look inside Amazon’s Warehouses) and ships them to your customer. Amazon provides all of the customer service unless the customer intentionally reaches out to you directly—via Amazon. In short – it makes reselling as a side gig feasible.

If you’ve chosen Fulfillment by Amazon, well, you’re in luck, because I have a beginner’s guide that covers creating an Amazon Seller account, all the way through your first shipment and sourcing tips. Check out the guide below:

Once you’ve cut your teeth and sent a few orders, you could even apply to join the Mile High Reselling Club.

Wrapping Up

I realize that asserting that reselling as a method for manufactured spending is not a terribly popular idea within the reseller world. In truth, it increases competition, and it generally pushes down profitability in some areas. Just look at iPad or Apple Watch prices over time. That said, I don’t believe those depressed prices are primarily due to mile and point collectors. I tend to believe that anyone that gets into reselling will logically pursue profit as soon as they see how much work it is. If you think about it, Manufactured Spending is a lot of work in and of itself, and there your “profits” are usually in the single percentage range.

With that said, I still believe Reselling is the next frontier in manufactured spending. I believed this 5 years ago when I started reselling, and it is true to this day, (Read more: My evolution as a reseller). Just know that there is risk, and this is a business. What does that mean? First, always pursue profit, the points will come. Furthermore, this can become work. For me, I bound it in such a way that I enjoy doing it. That doesn’t mean it always balances out though! During busy times like the fourth quarter, I commonly finish my day job only to come home and work for another few hours on the reselling business. Weekends can easily become more time for the reselling business. But you have to have boundaries. If you do, this is an excellent side gig that can also help increase your miles and points balances, and if you do it right, you should make some money too!

ResellingDO 5 – Less than a month away!

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Its amazing how quickly time flies; it was late March when we announced ResellingDO 5, and now we’re less than a month away!

As a recap, This is the first ResellingDO to occur in Orlando, it’ll be the first time we host the event in a hotel as well, as we’re trying to change things up to keep the event fresh. 

The theme for ResellingDO 5 is all about scaling and expanding the aperture. 

ResellingDO 5 Key Details

  • When: Saturday, August 12th, 2017
  • What: A full day of networking, presentations on reselling covering topics such as scaling, Merch by Amazon, and niche sourcing.
  • Where: Hyatt Place Orlando Airport
  • Tickets: Buy your ResellingDO 5 Tickets here

As with all ResellingDO events, there will be plenty of time to network, which I think is absolutely key. 

We also have a discounted block of hotel rooms, if you’re interested in staying at the host hotel.

One final note: Southwest is currently running a sale; we happened to save $60 on our flights down to Orlando, so definitely check that out, if you are flying in on Southwest.

Will you be at ResellingDO5 in Orlando?

Resellers: Long Term Storage Fees hit 15 August!

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This is your semi-annual reminder that Fulfillment by Amazon long term storage fees hit 15 August. There are a few key things to note as we approach 15 August.

Long Term Storage Fees Assessed on All Inventory

A change that Amazon announced at the end of last year, was that Amazon will be assessing long term storage fees on all inventory. It used to be that you wouldn’t be assessed on the first unit, but that is no more. 

Be careful what you create removal orders for!

This is particularly concerning, since we’re approaching Q4, but if you create a removal order between now and August 15th for “aged inventory” (e.g. those units that have been in a fulfillment center for longer than 6 months), you cannot send replenishment inventory until 1 January 2018! In other words, if you think you will sell these products during Q4, you may have to eat the storage fees.

Amazon doesn’t plan on doing a free removal promotion

Its only $0.50 a unit, but people seem to love the free removal promotions. Unfortunately, this time around, Amazon is being very clear that they don’t plan on doing any of the sort. Right now, Amazon is not hurting for storage space, or so they lead us to believe. In fact, I received an e-mail in the past week with a free storage fee promotion. Quite the turn from a year ago!

Think rationally about long term storage fees

Many folks see storage fees and start to think of how they can be avoided. That is logical, and its a good plan to do early on. Once Amazon starts sending out notices about the annual fees though, I would argue that you are too late. The fact is, storage fees are a cost of doing business. My fees, if I make no sales of my aged inventory between now and 15 August, will be less than $150. I can live with that. In fact, I won’t even lose sleep over that. So I would encourage you, please, think rationally, don’t go overboard, and don’t risk not being able to send in more of an ASIN during Q4!

Care to share what your estimated long term storage fees will be?

Amazing! 10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com!

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Its an idle Thursday night here on the East Coast, and so of course, no one expects something that may be borderline best ever, but Ebates and TopCashback came out with something to blow our socks off. 10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com! You all know by now that I love shopping portals!

Update: Doctor of Credit reader Calvin reports BeFrugal is at 11%, though it doesn’t show on CashbackMonitor. 

10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com

Usually a single portal will do something like this, and lets be honest, Ebates is a favorite for this sort of stunt. I’m not sure if they started it with this:

 10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com

But, it certainly caught my attention! A quick look at Cashback Monitor shows that this is in fact close to the best ever cashback rate:

10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com

And even that, 12% rate was Shop at Home, which right now is at 2%.

But Wait, 10 Percent Cashback at Walmart.com gets better!

If you thought Ebates was good, TopCashback jumps on the bandwagon too!

10 Percent Cashback on Walmart.com

Its pretty hard to beat when there are two cashback shopping portals offering a great 10 Percent cashback on walmart.com like this!

Wrapping Up

I realize this may not excite the miles and points folks here, but for resellers, this can be a big deal. I for one will definitely be taking a look for some of my favorite products, as normally the best I see is 5% cashback, which means this is 200% the norm!

What do you think? Will you be buying from Walmart.com now that you can get 10% cashback?

H/T: Sweet

 

Ebates Birthday Week – 15% cashback at tons of stores including Staples!

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Ebates Birthday Week is one of my favorite weeks of the year, and this year is almost as good as the first Ebates Birthday Week that I covered in 2015, 2016 was good, but Staples didn’t make an appearance. Already, Shopping Portals are gravy, Ebates just makes this a whole lot more gravy than usual!

What’s so awesome about Ebates Birthday Week?

For starters, how does 15% cashback at tons of stores sound? 

Ebates Birthday Week

And there are tons of stores, including some really great stores for resellers! Just take a look at a selection:

Ebates Birthday Week

You can see the full list here; if you don’t already have an Ebates account, I would greatly appreciate it, if you would consider using my Ebates referral link.

Its important to note that some stores are only a limited time, so if there’s something you’ve been thinking of getting from Staples, Ulta, Macy’s or others, act quickly!

Highlights for Resellers

With all of the different stores, its easy to get stuck in the weeds, so I thought I’d highlight some of the stores that have traditionally been very good, assuming you have permission to sell the products:

  • Staples – This is a no brainer. Lots of excellent things to buy at Staples, especially when you’re talking about an effective 20% discount, plus 5x Ultimate Rewards Points.
  • Macy’s – There are often good buys here, especially as we get into wedding season.
  • Kohl’s – Kohl’s is particularly nice, when the stars align (read: the math that makes Kohl’s work)
  • Dick’s Sporting Goods – We are getting into the outdoor season

Wrapping up

Overall, I would say this is the best time of the year to use the Ebates portal.

What store are you most happy to see as part of Ebates Birthday Week?

Amazon Seller Support Associate Shares Insight

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I’m not very big on reddit. Its not because I don’t like it, its more because I don’t always have the time to read all of the really interesting discussions, and separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. But this reddit of an Amazon Seller Support Associate sharing insight is pretty impressive. 

Amazon Seller Support Associate Tips

You should definitely read through the reddit, but here are a few tips I gleaned from it:

  • Jeff escalations don’t really go to Jeff Bezos (I hope this isn’t a shocker), it doesn’t necessarily get you any faster service. 
  • Only by UPCs from gs1.org – why might you need UPCs? For private labeling or bundling, among other reasons.
  • Always check your performance notifications – suspensions don’t come out of the blue. metrics are important!
  • 3rd Party Vendors (like Inventory Lab, Glasshouse Inventory, etc) are not necessarily prohibited, but remember, you are ultimately responsible for your account, if they make a mistake, its your goose that is cooked.
  • If you get an oversees partner site and you aren’t happy, or getting anywhere, you can request a Captive Site, meaning you’ll be transferred to a US or Costa Rica based site. This may not solve your issue, but, if you think there’s a language barrier, this might at least help.
  • Associates are held to metrics as well; the biggest one is the survey (which we as sellers are asked to respond to so frequently), this actually makes a difference for the associates, so if they are really helpful, take the 2 minutes.
  • Feedback removal is possible, though it has gotten tougher, your best bet is to clearly state why you believe the feedback is against Amazon policy.
  • If there’s only one tip you take from this post: Set up 2 factor authentication! This is potentially your biggest single account, why risk it?

There’s plenty of great insight, as the Amazon Seller Support Associate continued to answer questions. 

What question would you have liked to see covered?

My Worst Reselling Mistake

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Its not often that we talk about our failures in public. Today I’m sharing my worst reselling mistake. This is, if you will, a “B side” event, for those of you that remember records or cassette tapes. If not, the short answer is – the “B Side” is usually the lesser recordings.

My Worst Reselling Mistake

I was ecstatic the moment I saw this deal:

My worst reselling mistake

 

Previously, DJI Phantom’s “color codes” had been:

  • Red – Standard
  • Silver – Advanced
  • Gold – Professional

Now, that was at least my understanding… It turns out that the color coding seemed to be more associated with the quality of the camera. The DJI Phantom 3 Professional’s camera was 4k, the DJI Phantom 4 also had a 4K camera.

Unfortunately, it didn’t become apparent to me, until a week or two later, that the DJI Phantom 4 had a shorter distance range than the DJI Phantom 4 Pro. This proved to be a pretty big difference. Most–but not all–buyers of my units submitted returns. I can’t really blame them. 

Of course, not knowing the significant difference, I was selling this unit, that I bought at $800 for, $1245. And at the time, they were selling like hot cakes! It took a few weeks before the returns started rolling in. 

But Wait, it gets better!

One of those returns, which qualifies as my most egregious return ever, was completely stripped! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the photos:

refund, reseller, FBA

Note, that usually DJI Phantoms have cables and motors at the end of the struts — the buyer actually pulled all the motors and even the electric wire harnesses!

If you thought that was bad, they thought of nearly everything. They even included some ruled paper to emulate the weight of a drone:

Wrapping Up

I totally made a mistake with this. I’d argue that despite making a mistake, that some–or at least one–decided to be exceptionally fraudulent. There’s no fun there, whether or not it is your Worst Reselling Mistake.

What was your worst reselling mistake? 

Pareto Principle in Reselling

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Last year my wife and I made a pretty significant decision in how we run our reselling business. We had been chasing every opportunity we learned of. Best Buy’s Daily Deals? Gotta jump. Kohls offering 30% off plus Kohls Cash (which also stacks with Kohls Yes2You rewards), jump! At some point last year, we made the decision that it was too much. So we took a step back and looked at where we got the most value, where we generated the most solid products and profit. We then utilized the Pareto Principle in reselling, which is the 80/20 rule that I’m sure you have heard everywhere–hopefully.

Applying the Pareto Principle in Reselling

Essentially the Pareto Principle states that 80% of value will come from 20% of efforts. In the case of reselling, we looked at all of the stores we sourced at regularly, Best Buy, Kohls, Target, Walmart, etc. We then looked at how much we were actually generating from those stores, and found those stores that we were clearly more successful at. From there, we made a few active decisions:
  1. Identify our core competencies when it comes to stores that clearly we are better at, like Target, Walmart.
  2. Accept that we can’t be expert with every store.
  3. Transition away from chasing every deal to going deeper in knowledge, and in most cases, deeper in inventory on the deals from our core stores.
  4. Ignore other stores on a regular bases.
  5. Treat truly good deals (e.g. shopping portals, Black Friday, quarterly bonuses) as one-offs, and analyze them in their own right.
    Specifically, I’m trying to avoid getting pulled back into chasing every deal
  6. As available, do measured tests with new product categories from stores I already know.
  7. Occasionally, spend an hour in a new store, but limit the engagement to just an hour.  

For most of the items in the list, the focus is on limiting, which might be counter intuitive.

Imagine the alternative – chasing all of this:

Pareto Principle in Reselling

The risk of pursuing everything… used under Creative Commons from Wendell.

Why Limit Ourselves?

Short answer: Because time is our most valuable resource. I’ve written before that there are only 168 hours in a week. It is entirely too easy to chase everything, get overwhelmed and either want to quit, or just become inefficient. The whole reason for doing any of this, is for the most efficient use of resources. 

The pursuit of miles and points is exactly the same – go for the highest return on invested time first. Whether its the easiest, lowest time investment like Redbird and Bluebird were. Its why the world after Redbird has been less written about. 

This isn’t just advice for weekend entrepreneurs, this is also advice for full time resellers. Really we shouldn’t just limit the Pareto Principle in Reselling, we should be mindful of time. We should be looking at inefficiencies and actively decide if we should accept them.

What have you applied the Pareto Principle to in your life?

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