How to Not Become a Million-Dollar Business on Amazon: Gwen’s Story
Gwen was a 22-year old sales manager. One day she decided to quit her job and start her own business journey. After reading a couple of success stories in Inc. Magazine about million-dollar businesses making fortunes on Amazon, she knew where she would stop.
With no idea what to sell, no product in mind, no skills, with just a bare desire to become a multi-million dollar business star, Gwen started to search for the best products that would take her breeze away.
Suddenly, after Googling for “wholesale products”, she stumbled upon Alibaba, said “wow” to herself and began to look for what the market could offer. An hour by hour. Lots of Chinese manufacturers offering crap didn’t impress her much at first, but she didn’t surrender.
After two weeks of searches, she found a very lovely store producing pet stuff, such as dog toys, brushes, and so on.
“Omg”, Gwen thought. “That’s it. There are countless millions of people in the US who love their pets and want to make them happy every second. Why don’t I try to grasp that market? I’m going to make the best products in the World for dogs and cats.” That sounded like a plan.
She took a pen and a paper and wrote her plan:
1. I find the coolest stuff for dogs and cats on Alibaba.
2. I make it look like a premium brand.
3. I sign up for an account with Amazon and list my products
4. Success
It took her 2 months of sleepless nights of chatting with Chinese manufacturers. Their communication was awful, but their products were even worse. Nevertheless, the job was done.
She received a dozen of great samples under her brand name. There were brushes, sticks, toys, etc. Next, she needed to order more from China and start to sell.
She googled “amazon seller accounts” and found Seller Central to make an account there. That took her 10 minutes to upload her ID and a statement and get approved. She was lucky. She didn’t know that thousands of applicants get rejected every 24 hours.
So, she logged into Seller Central and thought “Oh shit”. What is it? She didn’t even know what to click and what to do. What the heck are FBA and FBM? How to add a product and how to send inventory from the Chinese factory to Amazon?
Looks like Gwen had to adjust her initial plan and spend some time learning all that stuff.
First, she went to Youtube and started to search “Amazon for beginners”, “how to add a product to Amazon”, “what is FBA and FBM”. That helped a little but Gwen still thought that wasn’t enough. So, she googles again to find some cheap Amazon courses for beginners. Luck was on her side this time again so Gwen went learning.
After two months of learning, Gwen wasn’t a newbie anymore. Now, she knew that she would go a Private Label model (that’s what having her own brand on Amazon would sound like) and FBA (which means Amazon will ship her products, not she herself). Said and done.
After 3 weeks of waiting, her inventory finally reached the Amazon warehouse. What a day! Wow. She’s done that. Alone. Without help and big capitals. But she didn’t know that story only started.
Two weeks more have passed but Gwen didn’t make a single sale. “What’s going on there?”, She thought. And two weeks more, still not a single sale. “Looks like I need to make some boost”, she said and went to learn about how Amazon advertising works.
More learning and more hours spent. Her first advertising campaign took off. Sales flooded her Seller Central and she was super happy. She received her first seller feedback, and the rating was 5 stars.
Gwen was on the seventh heaven….
…Until the day when Amazon charged her for ads. That amount was 1.5x more than she made from sales after charges combined. Gwen felt broken.
But she didn’t quit. She tried to advertise more, spend more, and make more sales. But the situation didn’t improve. Amazon charged her more than she earned. That was a disaster.
So, Gwen took another course on Amazon advertising. More money and time spent. More than that, the course was quite complicated and looked like rocket science for her.
Next Monday morning she woke up and checked her stats. Same thing. Now, she hated Amazon. She thought: “That’s too difficult for me. That’s not for me. I hate all this selling”. So she turned her advertising campaign off and removed her listings. But Amazon kept charging her monthly fees. Gwen felt scared cos she was running out of money for living and her Amazon business ate almost all her savings.
Conclusion
Gwen is a fictional character. But the story is absolutely real. And tens of thousands of Amazon sellers who have failed with Amazon clearly see themselves in that story.
You just have to accept one single rule: Amazon is a tough business.
The numbers speak for themselves: out of 2.5 million sellers that are registered on their market, only 20,000 make more than one $ million per year. That’s less than 1%. Just imagine. If you failed too, you have to be brave to admit that Amazon is not for you. That’s it.
What could Gwen and thousands of sellers do in their situations? They could sell their Amazon business and quit that nightmare.
Now, it’s time for a little solution. There is a company called Premium Sellers. These guys are professionals in buying and selling Amazon businesses. Even if your business wasn’t profitable, you felt broken like Gwen, and you think Amazon was a waste of time for you, these guys may help you.
They will be happy to buy your Amazon seller account. You will cash out your business. It’s absolutely safe and legal. These guys will transfer your Amazon account to a new business and will start selling from scratch.
All your details are completely safe because you will add new financial info before you send access to them. Also, they pay upfront, so the deal is absolutely safe for you.
Learn more about Premium Sellers on their website: www.premiumsellers.com
Good luck!
