Fulfilled by Amazon?

Thanks man! I appreciate the cold truth here. Guess I'll just kill myself as there really is no real way to have passive income without having rich mommy and daddy or being in some a nepotistic type kiked situation. Feels bad.

Same thing happened to me about 5 years ago.

It works still, but you need a decent niche/improvement over something existing for decent profit. The best YouTuber on this subject is Dan Vas. You don't need to buy his course. 1k isn't enough to start though. You probably need around 5k.

It works as an additional sales channel for your own creations. But buying the same shit everyone else is selling and trying to put it on FBA does not work.

>you need a decent niche/improvement over something existing for decent profit
for example?

I would say you need a great cheap entry level product to build your brand, then upcharge on premium offerings. Helps prevent the counterfeit problem

I use it all the time and don’t make my own products. I just source shit from liquidation stores and online arbitrage. Disadvantages are running out of shit that sells fast and constantly having to source but at least no one can just counterfeit my shit and kill my investment.

Yes, look fba has its benefits but you really need to use it as a supplemental sales channel....fundamentally you'll have better long term success getting a respected ebay store for your niche...however both your ebay / amzn stores should be powered by your own website / shipping dept (even if thats just you). Basically use those things to find new customers, but try like hell to convert those customers to coming to your website directly to bypass the gatekeepers.
ppl that believe amzn hype "just let us run your biz user" will be raped sooner rather than later.

>just source shit from liquidation stores and online arbitrage
get kicked for even that now (they ask to see 'invoices'. And that you are a 'recognised customer' of 'an authorized wholesaler'. etcetera). eBay way less stress, AMZN is a permanent juggling act against the inevitable. If its YOUR OWN PRODUCTS, sure - but thats another barrel of bullshit, right there

checked, and as someone who spent years doing affiliate / e-commerce type shit, this is the stone cold fucking truth.

the trick is to become the hypeboi - pretend to be making a bunch of money from FBA or teespring or whatever the newest thing is, while actually making your money from referrals on all the tools and courses and software and webhosting and what the fuck ever else they need to make their "passive online income"

I have an original product on FBA that's going to do 200k in sales this year at a 60% profit margin. I spend maybe 2 hours on it per week.

changed my life desu but I'm aware I basically won the lottery.

E L A B O R A T E

came up with the idea for a product, contracted a factory thru alibaba, had a few videos of my product go naturally viral and the rest is history. ran almost no paid adverts/got lucky that my alibaba factory was great.

we've done 350k in sales over the past 2 years. quit my job last october and have just been travelling off of credit card point bonus's ever since.

>I've never once seen a thread about it on Jow Forums but never the less am looking for possible input or advice.
There was a time before crypto...

>example?
There were caffeine pills. There were breath mints.

Then there were caffeine breath mints.

Get it?

Here’s some proof btw

Attached: 001354C2-6C77-4D46-B07A-E20C52A79256.png (1125x2436, 355K)

If you come up with something new that people actually want, there's no better way to bring a product to market. However to be protected you need IP, preferably a patent covering whatever makes your product novel. Amazon can be great for entrepreneurs but it's a niche use case. For most product-oriented businesses it's just another ad venue.

Yep, I have a patent covering my invention.

My favorite Amazon product of all time is the bug assault fly gun (shoots salt as buckshot to kill flies). It's the perfectly example of an entrepreneur saying fuck all the gatekeepers, and it sells like crazy.

I've heard of Amazon straight-up taking over successful products. They get your supplier info and then sell it themselves for cheaper. Possibly even at a loss until you're forced out of business.

I'm giving it a go and not even doing it FBA, (instead stocking & selling / delivering stuff myself to start with) and the fees are fucking ridiculous, as well as the delivery charges.

To sell an item that cost you £1.29:

>£5.99 Item List Price
>£3.99 Shipping Credit: (Amazon force this on you and don't let you set your own shipping rates, or make it free, unless you're on a pro account, which costs £30-50 a month)
£9.98 Revenue: (Total cost to the customer)

Now from that £9.98 Revenue, subtract:
>£0.26 Packaging: (The larger scale you have, the less this will be.)
>£2.90 Shipping: (Std Royal Mail 2nd Class Small Parcel, Untracked. This cost can be lowered if you can sell high volume, and get on a business account).
£2.70 Marketplace Fees: (These are the Amazon Fees. This works out at 15% "Referral Fee" on your Total Cost, plus a static £0.75, and then add on 20% to that amount for VAT, unless you're running a formal business and VAT Registered, where you pay it only on profits).

This leaves you with just £2.83 Gross Profit (before Tax) from that sale. Now you need to think about taxes, overheads, any other costs of running your business etc, as well as your own time and wages, and the cost of possible returns, scams, damage and all the rest. FBA costs even more as you have the fees for that to add on too.

If you have a huge, high-volume enterprise I can imagine it being very profitable still and the costs of packaging & shipping will be lowered, however it's EXTREMELY hard to start out, especially with just £1k.

The shit part is that as mentioned, Amazon (or someone else) can then just come in themselves at any time and undercut you, even if it's YOUR OWN product. They'll sell at a loss & run you out of business, then up the price.

Also to mention, competing Pajeet or Chink stores will repeatedly place and cancel orders on you, and then report you & your product for fraud etc, saying item not delivered and so on.

A lot of Amazon is ran by bots so it picks up on your negative reviews and then bam, you're under investigation. They may ring you AT ANY TIME and if you miss that ONE call, you're fucked, account shut down, the lot.

Chinks and Pajeets now enjoy selling your product, at a slightly higher price, as they've successfully fucked you up the arse. They also pay for positive reviews, and (Pajeets are horrendous at this), they've even been proven to have family members working inside Amazon, where they have THOUSANDS of negative reviews against themselves deleted every day, they just vanish. There's a huge thread on the forums about this that has been going on for years.

Also regarding the competition and the costs I mentioned in the previous post (£2.90 delivery at LEAST! Totally untracked etc), ever wondered how Chinks on Amazon can sell shit for like £0.20, FREE DELIVERY?

Well, they get it subsidised! There's a fucking STUPID postal rule where the Chink govt subsidises shit on their end, and then once the product is in our countries, our delivery companies are obligated to deliver it, as "delivery has been paid" on the Chink end.

So here you are in the U.K paying £2.90, and a Chink is paying literally HALF A FUCKING PENNY. How can you compete?
>British sellers say that subsidised postal rates and as well as a 20 per cent VAT exemption have fuelled the boom in Chinese online selling that is driving them out of business.
>Though the exact amount of the subsidy is commercially confidential it is understood that Chinese retailers are able to send lightweight packages within the UK for as little as half a pence each.
>"Developing Country"
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5641459/UK-retailers-furious-Chinese-firms-use-loophole-let-ship-cheap-goods-UK.html

The postal subsidies are for developing nations, and China has managed to retain that status forever. Trump tried to crack down but the international postmaster general only rules on it like once every ten years.

I don't give a flying fuck what is said but the moment you say racist crap like paneer or chink you deserve bad luck for the rest of your lives. I can't go a day without reading racist garbage on this board, it shouldn't be like this.

>Untracked Postage
tut tut - Jeff no like that either, unless its AMZN sending. They happily ignore all their own bullshit 'guidelines'. £5.99 item, maybe not worthwhile tracking (depends item, if attracts kids/scammers) , £20+, need tracking, another £1 profit disappears. If someone claims it didn't arrive, DONT BOTHER arguing, its never worth it.
Where the 'Pro' fee is worth it tho, you cannot get the buyer box without it (unless FBA). And even if theres only two of you on a listing, hes got shit feedback and double the price, he'll still get the buyers box and the sales if 'Pro'. AMZN are fucking chinks at heart, except, Jeff dont have one, the cunt

get fucked, you have (obviously) never had to deal with chinks on a commercial footing. And not all chinks come from China either

Indeed, except Tracked 48 - Signature is £5.10. Imagine competing with Chinks with that, unless it's a really high-value item.

You're right though, you get NO protection if not tracked, and even then it depends on how the bot / support rep is feeling. Even "Signed For" is useless, only Tracked matters.

The whole situation is ridiculous, same as the "rules" about the catalogue, listing your item on already existing pages, except chinks again just don't bother and spam the catalogue so your product is lost in a sea of shit, mostly that's the exact same thing replicated 200 times, no variation usage either.

Oh and good look at getting it seen, unless you pay even MORE for promoted spots, yours will likely be on page 5 or something.

You're right though that it's horrendously hard to sell anything without the buy box, even I as a customer usually just gloss over those ones, as "Available from these sellers" with no buy button, makes it look like it's not in stock.

The problem is though as I mentioned, getting started. These hypebois online make it sound as if it's easy. That boat apparently sailed years ago, before China got fully on board and ruined everything, then the dropshipping pajeets with their refund and review scams.

Regarding Amazon's dirty tricks, most would just say "Invent your own product then".

Well look up the inventor of Popsockets (pic related), for some reason they really took off, however Amazon decided to completely Jew them (as usual) and demand they were no longer allowed to sell ON amazon, only TO amazon, for a very reasonable (cheaper) price, of course!

This is the sort of shit they do if you get successful. Fortunately this guy told them to go fuck themselves, however they sourced his product from other manufacturers, and continued selling them anyway.

>The next time you buy a PopSockets cellphone grip from Amazon, be forewarned: It likely won’t come with a manufacturer’s warranty — because it won’t be coming from PopSockets or one of its authorized sellers.
>It wasn’t always this way for PopSockets. For several years, the company saw Amazon as an integral part of its business.
>But over time, the relationship with Amazon felt increasingly one-sided, with Amazon often dressing up requests about lowering prices or spending more on marketing as non-negotiable demands.
>Two months ago, the CEO had had enough: He decided that his company was no longer going to sell its goods directly to Amazon. PopSockets would still sell its gadgets on Amazon, but through a distributor called iServe
>But Amazon had other ideas. The e-commerce giant notified Barnett that iServe would be barred from selling PopSockets devices on Amazon, citing a new policy.
> If that wasn’t bad enough, it also became clear to Barnett that unaffiliated sellers of his merchandise — merchants with whom PopSockets does not have any relationship — would still be allowed to sell on Amazon.
vox.com/2018/11/29/18023132/amazon-brand-policy-changes-marketplace-control-one-vendor

Ban you from selling your own product (in an attempt to bully you into selling it TO them, cheaper, so THEY can make a profit), and then allow shitty chink knock-offs to sell just fine..

Attached: Popsockets.png (749x675, 548K)

That's just business/capitalism, what did you expect? White people are the ultimate scammers really

(((White people)))

The lesson here isn't 'fuck amazon.' The lesson is get your patent. A design patent at a MINIMUM for something like this. Utility would be better. You can easily file your own provisional while you bring the shit to market, then if it works hire an attorney.

>inb4 he had a patent
If he couldn't protect his product with it, then his patent was garbage. Second lesson is to keep your provisional as broad as possible and let your attorney narrow it in the actual filing. Bottom line though is if that kid had his IP in order none of that would have happened or he could have sued the ever living fuck out of Amazon.

Yeah they’ve been gating a lot more categories in recent years, but it’s really not that hard to get ungated in categories like Grocery and Beauty. I agree that eBay is useful but it has maybe 1/9th of the traffic that amazon does so sales velocity is much slower on eBay. For me the best time of year to do this shit is selling toys at year end.

Your way to late to the dropshipping game

I know you've inb4'd, but:
patents.google.com/patent/US9367090B2/en?inventor=David B. Barnett

patents.google.com/patent/US8560031B2/en

>PopSockets' founder on how the brand deals with counterfeits.
vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/8/18215313/popsockets-ceo-david-barnett

It isn't as if he's not doing his due diligence. You really think Chinks give a shit about patents? Amazon was forced to take many of the counterfeits down, but they still sell it themselves in a "legit" way.

this.