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The 2017 Reselling Plan
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As I wrote earlier, I recently lost my job, which ended up being quite the blessing in disguise. Not only did it give me more time and freedom, it also gave me the drive to really grow my own businesses outside of a day job.
So, with that in mind, I wanted to take 5-10 minutes of your time and tell you what my reselling plan looks like for 2017. After all, this year I'm really going to have to bring it in order to continue doing this full time.
Where I'm at Two Months In
I probably should've started this post back in early January, but now that I'm "unemployed" I have significantly less time than I did when I had a day job. It's funny how that works...
Anyway, let's dive in:
January
I hate January as both a reseller and a regular joe. It's cold (I'm in Michigan), there are a lot of returns, and it's hard to judge a product's sales-worthiness.
So, as any good travel hacker would do, I went on vacation.
My wife, myself, my father, and a buddy of mine went on a 7 day cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's newest ship, The Harmony of the Seas. After all, nothing says a December well done like a vacation!
The biggest ship in this photo is The Harmony of the Seas. This thing is huge!
And during that the rest of January, I pretty much put my buying on pause. Instead, I decided it'd be more fun to give people money back for their used items they bought from me! I figured I'd try something new. 😉
Kidding. But, January is notoriously bad for returns on Amazon due to people not wanting their presents, the products not fitting right, and/or the price dropping after Christmas and the customer wanted to buy it for less. Whatever the reason, Amazon offers an extended return period for all holiday purchases, so returns are plentiful and awful!
In addition to the terrible returns, it's also very hard to read a Keepa chart in January, because most item prices/ranks are inflated due to the recent holiday season. As such, it made taking this month off that much easier!
February
After we got back from the cruise and February came, I hit the ground running. Every week day this month, I spent probably $400+ on product from both wholesalers and OA sources. I don't do much (if any) RA during non Q4 times, as I find it to be a hassle not worth dealing with.
In addition to buying a crap ton of product, I also started focusing a lot more on finding wholesalers. I much prefer dealing with wholesalers than I do with stores.
The reason for that is...
- The products are replenish-able at the same price you bought them for last time.
- You have invoices, so if your account gets suspended, you have a much better chance of getting it reinstated.
- You can buy in bulk without worrying about your order being cancelled.
Buying from wholesalers is a dream, but finding and contacting them can be a pain in the butt - but I'll get to that in a later post.
In addition to focusing on wholesale, I also started the process of Private Labeling a product.
If you don't already know, private labeling is where you find a product that is already made, make some changes to it to make it better, then sell it under your own brand.
Private Labeling is the ideal way to make money on Amazon and even off Amazon because:
- You control the listing, so you don't need to worry about a race to the bottom.
- You have an unlimited supply of a replenish able product
- Margins are fantastic!
Now, I'm still in the early stages (I only just got my samples), but I think this is going to be a hit! I'll write up a few posts about private labeling in the near future, so you can follow along with my journey.
My 2017 Reselling Plan
As you can see, a lot has happened these last two months and I fully expect a lot more to happen the rest of 2017, so I decided to make a road map of what I want to do/accomplish in 2017.
Here are my goals/plans for reselling in 2017:
- 2017 is going to be the year I finally launch a private label product. I've talked about it, researched it, and dreamed it for the past two years, but finally in 2017 I'm going to put in the time and make it work!
- In 2017 I'm going to wholesale 50% of my inventory. I already wholesale 20% at this point, so I don't have much further to go to hit this goal.
- In 2017 I'm going to sell over $600,000 in product. In 2016, I sold about 300,000 with 100 of that in December alone (no job remember?).
- In 2017 I'm going to start selling in different marketplaces. I've already started doing this on eBay thanks to Joelister (affiliate), but I plan to branch out to other marketplaces and possibly even start my own store.
I've set a lot of goals for myself and my business in 2017. Some of them are going to be a challenge, but honestly I think I can hit each and every one.
Hows your 2017 going? What goals do you have?
Related Posts
How I Combated and Won an IP Claim on Amazon
Private Labeling 101: Intro to the Case Study
How Losing My Job Turned into One of the Best Things That Could Have Happened
Private Labeling 101: How I Found My Private Label Product + Current Status
