If you're looking for an additional source of income, selling products online is another option.
Business Insider also spoke to individuals who started e-commerce businesses with just $1,500 and grew them from zero sales to six figures. All revenue claims were verified by checking the Amazon Seller Dashboard.
They shared key strategies for success on a tight budget.
Sahaj Dhingra bought the stock after receiving the order.
Sahaj Dhingra, 20, a university student, made six figures in three months through retail arbitrage.
Provided by Sahaj Dhingra
The summer between my second and third year of university, Sahaj Dhingra I made $100,000 worth of sales on Amazon in three and a half months. He was a retail arbitrageur, buying products from Costco (mainly beverages such as soda water and energy drinks) and reselling them.
One strategy he implemented about a month after launching helped him scale quickly. That is, we started listing products before purchasing inventory. That way, we could buy only the amount we needed to meet demand. This reduced risk and freed up capital if a new, more profitable product was discovered.
Dhingra originally only had about $3,000 and knew she needed to be strategic about how she spent it.
“With that $3,000 budget, if you have $1,500 for a good product, and then you find another product that has a higher profit margin and sells better, you're now investing capital in a less efficient product. ” he explained. “On the contrary, if you create a list in advance, you can allocate capital to the most profitable and most in-demand products first.”
He said this strategy worked because he was confident that Costco would always provide a steady supply of the products he sold. “So, if he lists 50 of something and maintains the sales, this is how it will be every day.” Now, how many letters do you have to send today? And just run to Costco to meet that demand. ”
He was able to use this strategy because he was using Fulfillment by Seller (FBM) instead of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). With FBA, you couldn't list your products until Amazon received them, and you'd have to pay storage fees for unsold inventory. After all, he believes he wouldn't have made a profit if he had gone the FBA route.
Mr Dhingra, 20, reinvests 100% of his profits into his arbitrage business, which was another key to scaling, he said, adding: “Not a penny goes out of my business checks.'' All the money went straight back to the bank.'' This is the only way I was able to expand this far without adding capital, because you can't double the next month's revenue with the same capital. This is the method. You need that profit. We reinvested to continue growing. ”
Jatin Narang approaches brands directly to find 'profitable suppliers'
Entrepreneur Jatin Narang has built several businesses around Amazon.
Courtesy of Jatin Narang
Jatin Narang is 24 years old and financially independent. His various sources of income are built around Amazon.. This London-based entrepreneur started his wholesale business with a budget of $1,500, a relatively low-cost strategy of buying products in bulk and reselling them on Amazon.
Narang learned that selecting products is very easy in the wholesale business. All you have to do is find what's selling, he says. “There’s no need to focus on a specific category as long as it’s selling and you can get it at a lower price.”
When it comes to knowing what's selling, software like Helium 10 and JungleScout provide accurate information.
The challenge in wholesale business is finding what he calls “profitable suppliers,” or suppliers who will sell their products at a price that allows them to make a profit.
“The best way to find profitable suppliers is to approach brands directly,” Narang explained. “Let's say you want to sell petroleum jelly products. You contact Vaseline and open a trading account. That way you don't need a middleman who is a wholesaler, which reduces costs.”
This approach requires you to call Vaseline or the brand you want to sell. Simply type the brand name into Google (in this example, search for “Vaseline”) to find the brand's official website. Next, go to the “Contact Us” page. There you will usually find a sales number or customer service number.
Narang recommends picking up the phone instead of sending an email. Telephone calls are more efficient and can be the difference between which brands you can open a trading account with. You want brands to know you're not “just some random person knocking on doors to make a few hundred dollars,” he says. Your delivery is important. “We speak in a professional manner: 'We're here to do business for you. We want to build relationships that can generate tens or hundreds of thousands in profit over the long term. It is.”
Shan Shan Fu used Etsy to test what would sell best on Amazon
Mr. Xiang Xiang Hu, Founder of Millennials in Motion.
Courtesy of Mr. Xiang Xiang Fu
Shanshanfu Amazon sold enough socks and tights. She felt comfortable leaving a large American company to work for herself.
A key part of her e-commerce strategy was testing her products on Etsy before listing them on Amazon. She explained that selling on Etsy is cheaper and easier. She says, “Amazon requires a barcode for every unique product or product variation. It's not that hard to get, but you have to buy it, so it's an additional charge.” “
Fu, who works in private label (as opposed to retail arbitrage or wholesale), estimates that 20% of her products account for 80% of her sales. She brings the best products from her Etsy to her Amazon.
How she chooses products in the first place is using Helium 10 to find products that are in high demand and have little competition.
You can search for any keyword, such as “cute socks,” she said of her experience with Heilum 10. “And you see that there are 10,000 searches a month for 'cute socks,' and 1,000 competitors. You have to compare all the keywords.” , find the one with the least competition. ”
When Hu finds a product that he thinks has potential, he reaches out to his contacts to find factories that make that particular type of product and orders small samples of 20 to 50 pieces. This allows her to check the quality of the product. She also uses the samples to take photos for the final listing page.
If you're just starting out and don't have a network, we recommend using Alibaba.com to find suppliers. To make sure it's exactly what you want, you should contact several manufacturers and ask questions about the product.
Fu prefers to choose between 10 and 20 variations of the product he wants to sell. For example, when she decided to sell face masks during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, she selected 10 different types and styles. She had the variations shipped to her apartment, took photos, wrote a description of her product, and first she posted it on Etsy.
We then looked at click-through rates and conversion rates to see which performed best. Out of her 20 products, she won the top 4-5 and launched them on Amazon.
