Count me in as one of the 80 million Millennials in America who desire a life of freedom, autonomy, and purpose. We all do. Except these days it seems that the line between professional life, personal life, and general well-being are all tangled into a ball of thread we pull looking for….more. Well, I can tell you that an incredible opportunity to make more money and earn more freedom is selling physical products on Amazon. This is the new internet gold rush, and it is indeed for real!
I have been selling on Amazon for a few years now, but most recently I launched a product publicly with the intent of sharing my strategies and tactics with everyone. There is a veil of secrecy in the community of Amazon sellers, mostly because it is a competitive field and many believe it to be a zero-sum game. I disagree, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, launching my product (marshmallow sticks) as admittedly a bit of a challenge, as I had to literally put my money where my mouth is. Could I sell in the volume and profit levels that I tell everyone is possible on Amazon? Self-doubt was starting to whisper its presence, but I just had to follow the formula that I have used to launch dozens of products that net six figures monthly.
So did my product succeed? In short, yes. Here is a most recent snapshot of what the sales for these marshmallow sticks have been:
Mind you, these figures are not profits, but top line revenue (not including Amazon’s fees, the cost of the product, and marketing). However, it is about 50% profit, which is a standard benchmark for my products on Amazon.
A ~$4500/month business is not going to get you in the door of the shittiest venture capital shop in the world. However, it is absolutely life-changing. Now imagine after this first product, you launch a second, a third, and so on within a few months. Stack these products into a unified series of related complementary products, assuming they have similar profit margins, and that quickly becomes a $10k-$15k per month income. I mean, is Wayfair, Warby Parker, Jet, or any other ecommerce business that different in essence? Not really, it is just a remix of the “buy low, sell high” mantra.
Oh, and here’s the best part: it is a completely hands-off business. I spent last year traveling through Asia and South America, while still operating my Amazon sales as if I were chained to a desk like the good ol’ days. Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program handles all inventory storage, fulfillment, customer service, and returns. All you have to do is provide a product that Amazon customers actually want.
And that is the true beauty of this business model: simply find demand for products that do not have a lot of other sellers, and capture a slice of the market. It is so simplistic and almost anachronistic, to just cater to an existing market with a better product and build a business around that. Very different than the software and mobile apps business, that often relies on a perceived need that can not always be verified.
Well, how can you verify sales of a product on Amazon? For the past year, I have been tackling this problem as I build a company called Jungle Scout, which helps people find profitable products to sell on Amazon. The amazing experience ingrained in building this company is that it has helped thousands of people find product opportunities and build profitable ecommerce businesses on Amazon. Many of these people have no prior online sales or marketing experience, but have used the software and our free resources to follow a formula to success.
This is an absolutely real opportunity that I wanted to share with you. This infographic that I put together will share a high-level overview of how the process works, but I hope that just the notion of selling physical products online can inspire you to think about the broad opportunities that are yours to capture today.
Awesome, you made it through the infographic! Any questions? Hit me up on Twitter @mercer_greg I’d love to convo on Amazon, ecommerce, startups, or where the greatest cup of coffee can be found. See you around!
