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Thanks for letting me join the forum. My name is John. I’ve been listening to the podcast for many years and never missed an episode! I also enjoy my Ting as recommended by Jay and Ryanne 🙂
I have a goal to make a full-time income on eBay and quit my job(again). I used to make my living completely online for about 7 years and had to go back to work due to a major loss of income from Amazon business. I am trying to go back to my old eBay numbers and possibly double it so I can quit my job once again.
I’ve decided to join this forum for motivation and because this is one of the only forums that is not filled with negativity. Thank you.
John
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Not all that, but it was a part of it. I’ve removed about 1800 inventory at one point. But mainly because two of my main suppliers decided to sell their stuff themselves on Amazon (which I knew in advance, but not prepared well). Plus other stupid funding mistakes (my fault).
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Glad you found us John, welcome.
–Are you still selling on Amazon? If so, what kind of items?
–What are you now selling on eBay?
–Would you mind sharing what kind of loss you had on Amazon? We always hear the hype stories and would be curious to hear how things can go south quickly. -
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My main products (about 75% of inventory) were international grocery and custom bundles I’ve created. I had a good relationship with a few local import & distributors. Basically, I purchased their overstock and non-moving items dirt cheap. Another 25% was a mixed lot of (mostly used) books, media, and other items I found in thrift stores, estate sales, etc. Currently, on Amazon, I still have some books and other media (selling more VHS tapes than CDs..) listed plus some of the custom bundles I’ve created a long time ago. On eBay, I was selling some of the grocery items that were too close to the expiration date to be sold on FBA, but I sold mostly clothing.
I am currently selling everything without a niche. Just selling off what I’ve gathered in the last 4 years. My garage is still full of them. My second store actually focused on one category. I started that one as an experiment.
What kind of loss? 30-40k in annual income (profit) from Amazon. It dwindled down slowly since 2016, and now down to almost nothing. On eBay, I was doing about $23-28K in revenue by 2016, and now down to about $15k in 2017 and did about only $5k this year so far.
Hope this is not too much information. Don’t really feel comfortable sharing my numbers on my first day, but it’s all in the past now, so… If you ask me, my biggest mistake was not closing the Amazon business sooner when the distributors entered the market and investing too much on retail arbitrage later on. Yup, I am one of those people Jay and Ryanne talked about on the podcast who invest too much on AR and ended up with insurmountable debt. Now that I look back, the stress of doing Amazon, all that taxes and sales taxes, sending products, sourcing, funding for 40K profit was not worth it. If I’ve spent that much effort on eBay, I would’ve been at a better situation now. I closed my S-Corp and debt is almost paid off. One day, I will share more about my numbers and story.
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This forum is as anonymous as you want it to be. Your story is super interesting.
When you feel comfortable, I’d love to hear more of how much you invested in Retail Arbitrage and why it didn’t work out.
At least you knew when you call if quits, lick your wounds, and start over smarter.
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