If you’ve made it here you no doubt are thinking of starting an Amazon Seller business. Smart move! congratulations! unfortunately, you don’t have loads of cash. If only there was a way to start small and grow organically.
Amazon FBA is a great
Here’s the good news: The rumors are true; Amazon is the fasted way to create an online business. Period. No questions. As you may have heard by now from countless gurus and influencers, FBA is here to stay. you can also safely ignore all the naysayers who will constantly tell you that the market is saturated, that there are no more good niches to invest in, that Amazon is going to kick out all third-party sellers, yadda, yadda, yadda. A bit like that infamous Commissioner of US patent office that in 1899. famously uttered that “everything that can be invented has been invented.”
There is no other online scalable business that I know of that allows you to create a business from scratch and gives you such a high probability of success. Do you want to become YouTuber or Instagrammer? be ready to invest months or years in building your community, and be a kick-ass marketer. Thinking maybe Shopify or WooCommerce online store is the way to go? you still have to figure out how to drive traffic to your store. Even assuming you have the IT skills or are willing to shell out a few grand for a developer. For most people, building an Amazon-centric e-commerce business is the fastest and cheapest way to get to financial independence.
The bad news
Now for the bad news: if you want to start a “traditional” Amazon business as most Amazon gurus teach it you need two things: Cash and patience. To start a private label business you will need at least 5,000€ but probably more like 10,000 € and 6 – 9 months just to get off the ground. Even if you are doing things on a shoestring, you will need samples shipped from multiple suppliers before you choose the best supplier, once you found a supplier, you will spend a few thousand on your first Inventory, and then, with any luck, you will start selling. Don’t expect to make any money on that first batch though. To drive sales, you will invest a lot in Amazon’s advertising (aka PPC) and set your price point to be very competitive. If you are lucky, and you do everything right you will be breaking even. If you’re unlucky, the product you chose, for whatever reason, is a dud. you be in the 10K€ poorer and you will be no farther along with your plan to fire your boss. Fortunately, there is another way.
The good news (again)
Enter Online Arbitrage. Borrowed from the world of finance, Online Arbitrage is a fancy name for what every store on the face of the planet has done since Adam and Even opened their first garment store, which is to say, buy at a lower price and sell at a higher price. The reason it’s called Arbitrage, as opposed to plain old retail, is that it takes advantage of what economists call “market imperfections”, which means that the same item is priced differently in different markets. You buy cheap in one marketplace and sell it for more in another. So now the question remains: how do you find these opportunities?
Well, one way is to walk into your local retail store, hit the bargain basket, scan the barcodes and see if there’s and bargain that you can buy and flip for a profit. You’d be surprised at how many deals you can find that way. Unfortunately beyond making a few sales a month, you are unlikely to be able to quit your day job. It’s a numbers game. you can scan a few dozens of products a day and most of them will turn out to be duds. Fortunately, there is one thing that is very good with numbers: computers. With software like Actorio Online Arbitrage App, you can find and purchase products in Europe and, best of all, you can start with the money that you currently have in your wallet.
Online Arbitrage software like Actorio gives you the best of both worlds. It’s scalable with some users having a turnover of millions a month, and allows you to start on as little as 20€. you can think of Actorio as a search engine for arbitrage opportunities. With a database of over 15 million products and 300+ suppliers, you will never run out of products to source.
Actorio’s database is eurocentric, which also means that all the products you will find are already in Europe with no need to deal with customs, duties, and regulatory requirements. If you are impatient, this is the way to go. from the moment you find a product to purchase to the moment it’s on sale on Amazon could be less than a week. As well as being a great option for people with the ambition to build a 7-figure business, it’s a great option for novices who are just starting.
The numbers
So how much do you need to start? Since you can buy from local retailers, it can be as much or as little as you want. Some real-world examples: I recently purchased 10 pairs of wireless earphones for 65 € that were sold a few days later for 93 € on Amazon in Germany. Net profit after product cost and Amazon fees of 13 €. that’s 20% made in a week.
So let’s say you start with 1000€, with a rate of return of 20% you’ll have 7,430€ after 12 months that’s a 643% return on investment. Something next to impossible in any other business save maybe pyramid schemes. keen readers may have noticed that this is quite conservative. note that it took me a week to sell the above earphones, not a month. if I keep purchasing and selling every week as I mentioned and manage to do it a few times a month I would get a yearly return of…well, I’ll leave this as an exercise 😉
So where do I start?
Open an Amazon Seller Central account. First and foremost, and I cannot stress this enough, open your Amazon Seller account. It is the simplest part of the process but of all the people I have helped over these years, it seems to be the number one hurdle, and I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s just a truism that in any journey, the first step is the hardest. Amazon will try to push you to their professional seller account, which you will want if you are taking this at all seriously, but if you are just dipping your tow and not ready to commit, you can switch to the personal account and there is no monthly cost. you can always switch back to professional.
Get verified as an Amazon seller. If you have all your papers in order and legally reside in the EU this should not be a big problem. Amazon is occasionally an pain in the derrier when it comes to identity verification so make sure you can produce your documents as soon as Amazon asks for them. you can use your national ID, working permit, or passport as verification methods, so it’s not a big problem.
Find a good accountant. Some people like to do their own taxes, and if you happen to be a CPA, more power to you. But for most people getting a handle of taxes is complicated and the more you learn to delegate the more time you can spend building your business. A good accountant can help you navigate your country’s tax laws and avoid getting in to trouble with the authorities. Get in to the habbit of dewesdf
If you haven’t yet, I would suggest you start with our tutorials. Head over to actorio.com/tutorials and get an idea of what’s it like. Sign up for the 14-day free trial and start making purchases. Don’t worry if you get it wrong a few times. It’s far better to make a few mistakes than to never get started.
