Link to PART 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8zgr27/another_fba_business_startup_post_minus_the_self/
So it has been a while since my last post, about 4 months. I had expected to make a post much sooner (in September) but had a few delays. Long story short, expected to start selling in September, but shipping delays, customs exams caused delays. I officially started selling on September 30th.
I will try to keep this short, I have 2 Private Labeled products, lets call them Product A and Product B.
Product A arrived at Amazon first and went live on September 30th. My plan of action was to price the same as my competitors $24.99 and go hard on Amazon Sponsored Ads. My product is the same quality as my top competitors but included 2 bundled items. So my thought process was, I am offering so much value for the same price. Well....I sold ZERO units the first 4 days. I was getting views / clicks but no sales. I had created my own pictures but thought it was the weak point with my listing. I had no budget for pictures, having already spent over 15,000 I create new pictures which I must say looked great! I uploaded them and got my first sale the same day (October 4th). Sales started to trickle in, roughly 2 per day for the next 5 days. PPC cost was exceeding my total revenue so this was not sustainable at all.
I decided to change my plan, stopped Amazon Sponsored Ads and did a 140 giveaway at 80% off using ZonJump (10 coupons per day for 14 days). In 10 days, ZonJump was only able to give away 36 coupons. I started to have doubts creep in, maybe this new venture of mine is going to be a complete failure but I am not one to give up! This is not all ZonJump's fault, the product is really niche and hard to target potential customers using facebook ads. Good news is the launch got me to page 2 of my main keyword.
The issue with this product, it is sort of seasonal. Its best sales are between March - September. I knew this going in but I didn't want to wait until 2019. I anticipated sales to drop about 40% for this niche during the off season months....well I was wrong. Sales for the niche dropped about 75%. The 2 top competitors that were selling 750 units each per month during the summer was selling 150-180 per month now.
Currently I am selling about 50-60 units per month. I have lowered my price to $16.99 to keep sales up because I am on Page 1 position 7 for the main keyword for the niche. I don't want to lose rank so I am willing to make 20% profit (well zero or likely in the red when you factor in the crazy storage fees). In no way do I consider this a failed product. I am waiting for the season to come back around and expect to see about 200 sales per month at an increased price of $19.99. but I've been wrong before. I may have to pull inventory in March and resubmit it to avoid long term storage fees.
Product B arrived October 19. Long story short, the first 2 weeks I sold 3-4 units per day with zero reviews. All my sales were organic or facebook Ads since PPC doesn't seem to like me or I cant get it to work. It is probably the latter haha. Facebook Ads was BIG for this product. It increased my sales from 1-2 a day to 3-4, so by 100%. It helped me rank really well for my main keyword. Best of all, it is much cheaper than Amazon Sponsored Ads. I wasn't happy with my product pictures and pulled a unit from my inventory that took about 2 weeks to arrive! (I had damaged the sample unit I had because I am clumsy). I uploaded the new pictures on November 12th. Sales BOOMED! I went from 3-4 a day to 8-10 a day! My margin for this product is currently 55% but I do intend to raise the price to earn me a margin of 77%.
My main issue with Product B is stock...which I guess is a good problem to have. At the current rate, I will be out of inventory by the end of December. I placed an order for double the amount of my first order (first order was 400 units). Manufacturing takes 1.5 months, shipping + amazon checking in inventory another 1.5 months, so pretty much a 3 month lead time. It sucks but I am happy for the sales. Guest what!? I am Page 1, Number 1 for my main keyword! this product is also seasonal and also sees a big boost in sales during March to September. So I am anticipating selling about 20-25 units per day during high season if Amazon plays nice. Also, because my 2nd order is so large, my supplier gave me a discount. I will have a 104% margin for my next order!
Current status: I am not running PPC and sales have been good for product B. Product A is eh...but I strongly believe it is due to it being low season demand for that product.
I have left out so much details but didn't want to make this post a book. So feel free to ask questions!
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