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Recently I read several posts and comments in the community and found that there are quite a few people who work alone, and they are all successful. Some earn dozens of dollars a year, which is better than working for others, and some earn hundreds of dollars. The key is that they only work alone for two or three years. There are also more successful companies that have grown from one person to a team of dozens of people.
The success rate of going it alone is so high. Can you share what are the key factors for your success? For example, luck, successful product selection, strong operational capabilities, sufficient capital preparation, or something else? I really want to ask for your advice.
I am not a top-notch operator, but my operational ability is not bad. After 5 years of boutique operation experience, I worked alone for 3 years and ended up bankrupt. I lost all my savings in 3 years and started all over again. I found a job and accumulated funds. So I also want to learn more from you about your successful experience of working alone, hoping to start a second career in the future
"Wonderful Reply"
Yakilobe - The end of the Amazon... Agree with: Shangjinplus, Mediocrity, Skyblue, Will smoke cat smoke, Good times more » The psychological journey of selling small. Some of you may have seen what I shared before and have a slight impression of my current situation. My situation is that I started with 20,000 yuan in 2023 with my partner. The two of us started with 20,000 yuan in funds. In September, the product was launched on Amazon. Up to now, we have invested 70,000 yuan in total and recovered about 20,000 yuan. The account forms a self-circulation, and the money recovered can bear the operation of the account. Now the daily sales are 400 dollars. The profit is about 20-25%.
Because I had too little money, I could only start as a small seller. There were many restrictions, and I dared not ship too much. The freight forwarder compared prices and changed suppliers back and forth just for the lowest price. But at the same time, I think I learned something more important. I didn't do it, and I didn't have the strength to do bigger and farther things.
The packing is done by two people, without any hired help; the business license they use is their parents', and they didn't think about starting a company directly; they find the supplier with the lowest price they have encountered so far; they find the freight forwarder with stable and low prices; they never use air delivery, not even for the first batch of goods; and when replenishing the products, they want to be conservative and aim to have 2-3 months' sales volume.
In summary, we use time to accumulate small advantages and use time to expand these advantages. This time may be very long.
We feel like a small flame, which can start a prairie fire, or be like a candle, which can be extinguished by a light blow from others. It is difficult to travel, it is difficult to travel, there are so many forks in the road, where are we now? Cross-border Europe and Europe • Changzhou I saw you in the previous post. Your profit margin is quite high and your sales are stable.
Yaqiluobei · Shenzhen @跨跨欧欧: Hahaha, this is my third comment on issues related to working alone.
wj w112255 • Shenzhen I am exactly like you, just using time to exchange
Xiaomai is learning • Hubei Yours is the model I am currently using. Stable profits are good enough.
SamChen95 • Wenzhou I am also a small business owner, doing everything myself. I have invested RMB 60,000 yuan so far, but I haven't started the circulation yet and I am still holding back on payments for goods.
The category I'm in is destined to be a distribution category, but the funds in hand are too little, and I can't do it like a factory store or a powerful trading company store. Every time I put a new product on the market, I have to think for several days before I make a decision.
At present, I only have one slightly successful product, which ranks in the top ten in its category, but it also benefits from the fact that there are few competitors. Even so, I lost money on this product in the early stage, and I kept replenishing the stock before it gradually started to pick up.
Every time I launch a new product, I encourage myself in my heart: this product is selling well, so if it becomes a hit, that would be great. If it doesn’t, I’ll just lose money on the logistics fee.
But I also know that time cost is actually the biggest cost.
Give yourself some encouragement every day, but if others say too much, it's really easy to become emo.
Anonymous user
Agree from: duoduo75788, ccdzd1, fineyishun Luck + product selection + strategic direction + funds. If two of them are met, it is no problem for your income to exceed that of a part-time job. If three of them are met, it is just around the corner to earn a million a year.
Luck: Luck is very important for Amazon. The market environment before and after 2023 is completely different. I entered the market at the end of 2021 and caught the last wave of dividends. At that time, the CPC of advertising was not expensive, not as high as it is now. In addition, at the beginning of 2022, I didn’t know how to choose products. I put two or three products on the shelves. In the early stage, I placed orders and gradually got up. But now I have only one product that I have been working on, which is also my main source of income. (I was lucky. There were three styles in front of me at that time, and I chose one. The market competition was not fierce at that time, so it sold well as soon as it was put on the shelves. It was out of stock several times in the early stage.)
Product selection: Everyone knows the importance of product selection, so I won’t say much here. There are many posts on the forum. Here I recommend a recent post (not written by me, hahahaha) https://wearesellers.com/question/90898
Strategic direction: Actually, my product selection ability is not outstanding, I have only learned some basics, but in terms of strategic direction, I think I can surpass most people. In the Amazon industry, there is no need to stick to one site, you can pay more attention to other sites. Some niche sites, although not as large as North America, have considerable profits and are easy to promote, which are more suitable for players with poor ability and weak capital chain.
Funding: Amazon has gradually become an asset-heavy game, but the good thing is that having money does not necessarily mean you can do whatever you want. Among the factors for success in going it alone, money is not the most important, but it is necessary. I entered the market with 50,000 yuan at the end of 21, plus salary turnover. With the current Amazon market, it is estimated that a new entrant would need more than 100,000 yuan. However, the first three points are still important. On the basis of the first three points, the more funds the better. The more money you have, the bigger the plate you can make. Anonymous user • Shenzhen So you worked part-time in the early stage? When did you become a full-time worker? Then your risk and pressure will be much smaller. If you can succeed and then quit, it will be more stable and less stressful.
Anonymous User • Jinhua @Anonymous user I have been working alone and working at a job. Now the profit from working alone is about four times the salary. But because I have to open products all the time, Amazon also holds back payments, and I don’t have much capital chain on hand. I don’t want to ask my family for money, so I have been working all the time.
Anonymous user Agree with: CalsoF, Wickham, I see you, Zi Ze, Zhi More » In the early stage, I explored and tried and failed constantly. Because I didn’t have my own framework, I lost more than 300,000 yuan in half a year. I lost all my funds. I was anxious and couldn’t sleep every day. I went to bed at 2 o’clock every night and woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning. Fortunately, I prayed to a god who was effective and borrowed 100,000 yuan from a friend to start over. With only 100,000 yuan, every step was like walking on thin ice. I couldn’t pay the rent several times. In the early morning when it was quiet, I always wanted to cry.
After persisting in this environment for more than a year, we finally built a product, which is currently ranked third in its category, with more than 200 orders per day, and 300 orders on a good day, making a profit of several thousand yuan every day. However, we are still very anxious because we start to worry about whether the listing will be spoofed or whether the store will be suddenly audited.
I bought a house and a car this year, but every time I think of this painful period, I don’t know how I got through it. Even if I were allowed to go through it again, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold on to the end. It took me only five minutes to tell the story in three years, and my tears started to well up. Cat Smoking · Shenzhen It was a process like walking on thin ice, and looking back it can be described in just a few words.
With you • Hubei I feel the same way! I have been in business for more than a year and I am still losing money. I hope good luck will come soon! !
Luffywen • Shenzhen Could it be that he worshipped the Xuanwu Mountain in Jieshi? I heard it is very effective.
Heart sinks into the sea 2333 • Guangzhou Why do I feel like similar posts are just stories?
xin20230805 • Jieyang @心沉海2333: People who work at Amazon spend all their time making money, so there is no need to spend time making up stories for people to read. All we can say is that the stories have been embellished and some parts may not be true.
Fairy tale of the years or a joke • Shenzhen Let me put it this way, 200 orders a day, 6,000 orders a month, assuming a factory price of 30, it would cost 180,000 just to get the goods. Before reaching these 6,000 orders, it would be impossible to start the business with only 100,000 funds.
Anonymous user Agree with: 123juaner123, Cat-smoking cigarettes, Cross-border Xiaoliuliua, The east wind blew again last night, ccdzd1 more » I think product selection and operational capabilities come first, luck comes third, and capital comes fourth.
For small business owners, the only things they can control are product selection and operations. Luck is indeed a subtle thing sometimes, and it is difficult for them to control it. Finally, there is capital. More capital only means a wider range of products to choose from, a higher tolerance rate, and a faster frequency of new products. If you don't have good product selection and operation capabilities, no matter how much capital you have, you will lose it all sooner or later.
Then let me talk about my personal experience. I was lucky enough to change jobs in several companies. Each company helped me improve my personal abilities to varying degrees. Some companies helped me to go from 0 to 1, from opening an account to shipping to promotion. Some companies helped me to master the backend operations. Some companies helped me to select products. In the last company, I got into a niche category by luck. I worked independently while working, and now I have been working independently for 4-5 years.
In my category, the first purchase amount of each product is about 10,000-20,000 yuan, so I don’t think the capital requirement is high. Of course, there is a ceiling on the volume, but the profit is relatively high. Last year, I chose two products based on my years of experience in small categories. The starting purchase amount of both products was about 10,000 yuan. This year, the two products have exploded, and the combined profit should be 100,000 yuan per month.
So I think the ability to select products is still very important.
I hope the blogger can think deeply about the reasons for his failure, summarize his experience, and look forward to your next entrepreneurial success! Anonymous User • Guangdong @123卷儿123: If you don't have the ability, luck will just blow by you and you won't be able to catch it. In my niche company, no colleague went out to work alone. At the same time, when I was working, I was the only one in the company who developed profitable products for the company. It seems like luck, but it's actually strength. Of course, I still thank luck. If it weren't for this luck, my strength would not have been shown so quickly.
Your Brick Friend • Shenzhen There is also a bonus, which is that the success rate of working alone 20 years ago or 20 years ago was higher.
Maniyyds Agree with: I'm surrounded by enemies, wanfenhaoyi, 17:35, and I smoke cat cigarettes I had an investment opportunity with a partner, and I changed from working for others to developing new products. I started working alone in May 2022, and it has been almost two years now. In the first year of development, I developed five or six products. I was lucky to have one or two successful products. I made 650,000 yuan from 2022 to 2023, but I have been losing money since the fourth quarter of 2023. The profits of profitable products have become thinner and thinner, and many products have been eliminated. I reflected on the reasons for the losses in the fourth quarter of last year:
1.Temu's low-priced coupons lead to product diversion and order splitting 2. Too much goods were shipped in the fourth quarter, resulting in a large proportion of warehousing, and we did not expect the market conditions to be so bad at the time.
I envy the good fortune I had in the past, but that’s how business works – there are gains and losses.
I feel that every step of working alone needs to be steady and cautious, and I need to adjust my mentality; I need to control the rhythm and direction of product development. I think only after making a profit will I have greater confidence to invest in new products. If there is no profit and the hope is slim, my pace of product development will slow down. If you have tasted the sweetness in a category, you can continue to delve into this category and develop differentiated products; you also need to delve into the supply chain, standard products will always be swept away (the most profitable link was swept away by temu... Damn temu), there is no link that can always rely on old capital, elimination and innovation... You also need luck... Come on, people who work alone~
For example - old bird Agree from: ccdzd1, Another Autumn, IAMKriz, tunAmi612, Cross-border transparent 88 more » Let me tell you my story
I live in Shandong. I started to get involved in this industry during the summer vacation of my junior year in 2017. In August, I found a small company to start my practice. In December, I pooled tens of thousands of yuan with my friends to start my first company. When I graduated, I lost all my money and was in debt. I came to Shenzhen to work while continuing to do business on my own.
Two years later, the store was up and running. I returned to Shandong and hired people to run the store full-time. The net profit was over 1 million yuan in 2020, and over 1 million yuan in 2021. But in 2022, it was only a few dozen yuan. I had a feeling that the situation was not good, so I decisively disbanded the team of five people who continued to work part-time, and returned to the state of working while continuing to run the store on my own.
Stay calm and don't panic. Don't spread your business too wide. If you see that the situation is not right, start working immediately and switch to a low-cost model. Take steady steps and grow slowly. Anonymous User • Shenzhen You have accumulated more than 2 million, why do you still need to go out to work? You can do it full-time, and the pressure is not too great.
A566666 • United States I think you are the smartest person in the comment section. You understand what is the right time and what is the trend.
For example , Beijing @Anonymous user When I work outside, I also discuss some projects with the boss of the company. The overall income is not low. The boss is equivalent to sharing risks with me and I take the smaller share. In addition, I have been doing this for many years and have accumulated more funds than this. It may be because I am more cautious and safe, so I did not make big money, but saved a lot of small money.
Fat people run fast - Poor Amazon workers Agree with: MMurphy, ccdzd1, IAMKriz, Cross-border wheat home, what what what more » There are a lot of people working on their own this year, probably because other industries are not doing well. Friends around me are all registering Amazon accounts, as if it's like picking up money.
I have been doing this since 2001, and no one I know has succeeded as a solo entrepreneur. I think I am lucky. I have been working alone for so many years, but I have only made money from inventory. The rest of the money is used to pay off loans and live. I have almost no accumulation. I have always been really envious of those who become popular at the beginning, and can get daily sales of 5,000 or 6,000 dollars with just a few SKUs. I am really envious.
In fact, this business is really difficult. Small sellers are almost walking on thin ice. I realized last year that the price I get from the manufacturer for some products may be 1-2 US dollars lower than others, and the competitors make money from these two dollars. So how can I beat them? Later, I changed my mindset, found a new factory, and re-priced it. Then things gradually got better. I still have to be aggressive, aggressive to the extreme. Anonymous User • Shenzhen But the feeling created is that many people succeeded in working alone, and the comments and posts on the screen are all sharing how great they are working alone and how they succeeded.
hehepenn • Shenzhen @Anonymous user Some people feel that they may be phishing by boasting, so that novices can find them for training or introduction to service providers. There are definitely people who are good at it, but we need to be careful on the Internet platforms now. Anyway, there is a sister who is good at it. She is very low-key and never brags on the platform.
Anonymous user Agree with: COWSTORE, dazhang518, 心沉海2333, million-dollar monthly sales operation This post asked my question. Every time I see so many people who make money by working alone on the forum, I am very envious and I can't understand why everyone can succeed, but I started Amazon in 2014. I tried working alone three times but failed. I have been in debt all the time and have to work to pay off the debt. To be honest, the feeling of being in debt is really too uncomfortable. It has been ten years. I have been in debt since the first day of Amazon.
Sometimes I often think that if I hadn't started Amazon, I wouldn't have been in debt all the time, and I regret it. Every time I read the success stories on the forum, I feel like I'm doing well again. However, now I always pour cold water on myself, telling myself not to get crazy and to analyze my situation calmly. Unless the side job makes more money than the main job, I must not work alone. I can't work part-time, and I can't work alone. I am exhausted and confused about life. I don't know what to do. I'm just struggling. COWSTORE • Wuhu I am not talented, I have been working at Amazon for 4 years, and I have been stuck in a cycle in the past six months. I don’t know whether I should do it, whether I can do it, how to do it, and whether I can do it well. I watch videos for a while every day, and then I lose my mind. It is completely different from before. I have not made any money in 4 years, and I am hurt. I feel like I am sick, but I can’t continue like this for a long time. I have to work hard! Come on!
weixin55645 • Changsha I don't know what to say after reading this. Although I want to say something comforting, I think it's meaningless. You have been doing this for ten years and have failed in several entrepreneurial attempts. That means this industry is not suitable for you. You should choose to do what you are good at. The key to making money successfully is to try different projects, make mistakes quickly, change if it doesn't work, and keep iterating if you have achieved some results, instead of hanging on to the same tree all the time.
Anonymous User • Shenzhen Then you need to review the reasons for your failure and learn from them, then you can succeed again. In addition, the years from 2014 to 2020 were all bonus periods, and it was easy to succeed. Why did you still fail? Find the reasons early, and start a business again during this period, and there is still a high probability of success. However, it is more difficult to succeed in the past few years than in the previous bonus period.
Night Owl • Jinhua It has been 10 years, which is quite a long time. If you are still in debt, there may be something wrong with your thinking, or you have chosen products that exceed your available resources. I have officially opened a store for 4 years, paid off my credit card debt, and earned more than 100 extra cash. Although it is nothing on Amazon, there were many trials and tribulations in the process. I hope you can carefully examine your choices, think about the problem from a different perspective, and don't get stuck in a dead end.
Anonymous user Agree with: CalsoF, songxiaoyu, 123juaner123, beef noodle with eggplant, reflexionar more » Let me comfort you. I started doing cross-border e-commerce in 2012 and have experienced ups and downs. From the perspective of people nowadays, I was just making money in those years, but I still haven’t achieved success in the secular sense, and of course I’ve been left far behind by those people back then.
I won't go into the various mental processes involved, but now I have come to terms with myself. There is no need to compare. Everyone has their own time zone, so just move forward in your own time zone. And success later is easier to maintain. Tea in the summer sun • Shenzhen It's hard to say. It depends on the choices you made at the time. If you had chosen AliExpress, Wish, LightInTheBox, etc. first, you would have failed. If you had chosen Amazon at the beginning, you would have been able to achieve great success.
lzy519 • Zhengzhou @夏日阳光下泡茶: Yes, I started to work on AliExpress and Wish in 2013, but stopped after two years of not making any money. I found a job at Amazon and worked for two years. I started working on Amazon on my own in 2017 and have been working on it ever since.
Anonymous user Agree from: liulixian, 123卷儿123, COWSTORE, something something something, tra1997 more » I started to get in touch with Amazon in 2017, and registered a store and shipped goods in 2019 with only tens of thousands of yuan in my hand. Tens of thousands of yuan was far from enough, so I borrowed some from Jiebei. I originally wanted to do it part-time to make some money, but I was fired at the end of the year. I was in debt and unemployed when I went home for the New Year. Then I didn’t expect the epidemic to come in 2020, and the goods I shipped before the New Year were out of stock when I went home for the New Year. Then I started to do it full-time in 2020, and now I have hundreds of thousands of yuan on hand. It’s not as good as others, but better than most. I can’t make a fortune by doing it alone, but I hope I can go on for a long time. Anonymous User • Shenzhen @Anonymous user forgot to mention the key point. The key to success is timing + product selection. In the past 20 years, you can get orders even if you don’t do much with the product. Currently, we rely on our previous accumulation and accurate product selection. It is getting harder and harder outside, but we are getting better and better here. Product selection is actually more important than operation. It seems difficult for small sellers to make high-quality products. We can only do fine shopping, fine shopping and then elimination. The good ones will continue to work hard and the bad ones will be eliminated. We need to persist for a period of time to see the effect. This cycle may take at least a year, which is a bit painful. The average customer price should not be too high.
The East Wind Never Stops Blowing • Shenzhen Selling masks for 20 years, 1.5 million in half a month
Anonymous user Agree with: 123juaner123, Rabbit makes small money, Cat smokes, MMurphy, Cross-border wheat home I analyzed that the reason for my failure was that I did not design the investment amount, cycle, and stop loss point (time and amount) well.
At that time, family funds and entrepreneurial funds were mixed together, and no separate fee was set aside as start-up capital. The monthly loan repayment was 15,000 yuan, plus living expenses and other expenses, the family expenses reached 25,000-30,000 yuan, and the state of mind alone was not good. I am a thorough conservative and have been struggling at a low level. But there is also an advantage, that is, after working alone for three years, the amount of loss is small, and the time cost is relatively higher. Anonymous User • Shenzhen You are quite amazing. You took the risk of going it alone even though you have a mortgage. The pressure is even greater. But overall, the loss is small, which is a good result. Are you working now?
Anonymous User • Hangzhou @Anonymous user Yes, I found a job to cover the mortgage
CC who only wants to make money • Guangdong @Anonymous user: I have been jobless for three years. How do I find a job? I have to work because my business failed. Will the company accept me and give me a high salary?
Anonymous User • Hangzhou @Just want to make money CC: To be honest, this experience is a plus. The matching job is from 0 to 1. The boss only asked me what experience this failed experience brought me and what I would do next time
DJH Sakura Survivor bias, the dead cannot speak, history is written by the victors, the same is true for Amazon, people who fail generally don’t share their experiences everywhere, only the successful ones who survived will, so it seems that everyone in the world has succeeded.
Xiaodouzitian - Amazon small transparent one Agree with: The Empty City is Gone, Skyblue, Panda Loves to Sleep, Ordinary Life, Li Mosquito Repellent More » Other people's successful experiences may not be useful to you. Your resources and operational capabilities are different. How can you apply them to your business? You might as well spend some time reviewing your operations over the past three years. I suggest you review from two aspects: ① product line, ② the proportion of various expenses. The product line determines whether you can continue to start a business, and whether the proportion of various expenses can be optimized determines whether you can turn losses into profits.
The Empty City is Gone - Post-90s Amazon Workers Agree with: hehepenn, JosephGan, ccdzd1, Will of Fire, IAMKriz more » To be honest, there are definitely more people who lose money when working alone, but most of them don't post in the community. The road to entrepreneurship itself is a life-and-death struggle, and many of those who fail go to work to pay off their debts. How can they have so much time to post in the community to seek comfort? Wickham • Shenzhen Those who work at Amazon should try it once.
Empty City • Shenzhen Indeed, the end of Amazon is to work alone, but the original poster said, "I found that there are quite a few people working alone, and all of them succeeded alone." This is a bit like the Ferrari per capita on Zhihu. Only successful people post and talk about it in the forum, but not all those who work alone are successful.
Anonymous user Agree with: Literary Young Woman, Rabbit Earns Small Money, MMurphy, ccdzd1, 123卷儿123 More » In fact, there are thousands of reasons for failure, but the factors for success are always so similar. For example, I just have a little financial reserve. I have failed to promote products three times in total. I was penniless, but I finally got some success with the help of my family. So I just have a higher tolerance rate. Anonymous User • Shenzhen But in the end you succeeded and made it through, congratulations
Small vendor • Jieyang This time we succeeded in launching a product, but what about the next time? There is no such thing as success. We are always on the road of trying.
Li Wenxiang - I want to buy osmanthus flowers and carry wine together, but it is not like a young boy traveling Agree with: rthfgjhghj, Literary Young Woman, Zhe Xingsun, Will of Fire, IAMKriz More » It's not that easy to go it alone. Among those who were preparing to go it alone in 2022-2023, six or seven of them have already failed. I am still struggling. According to the situation around me, the success rate of going it alone is only one in ten. And the remaining nine people have experience in other cross-border platforms. All of them are not novices and have suffered losses of more than 200,000 yuan. Anonymous User • Shenzhen The survivor bias is too big. I see many people in this community who have succeeded in working on their own and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. I am really envious.
Li mosquito coils • Wenzhou @Anonymous user@Anonymous user You only see the success that comes from screening, but you don’t realize that the screening process ignores many failures and eliminated groups. Those who can succeed around 20-21 years are because of the black swan event of the epidemic. Many people mistakenly regard the dividends of the times as their own strength.
Ordinary Life • Japan It is similar to what I have calculated. There are many operation experts from large companies around me, and the success rate of entrepreneurship is about 7%. This number also includes senior employees such as so-called partners or operation directors. If we exclude these, it would be good to have 3 points.
Li mosquito coils • Jinhua @普通人生: If you only use the operation thinking to work alone, you will definitely lose money. Working alone is a test of your ability to withstand pressure.
Anonymous user Agree with: IAMKriz, 心沉海2333, 月销亿亿营, mumuyoho, 小宁子in the Forest In fact, the failure rate is quite high. There are many people around me who went back to work after going out on their own and ended up in debt. I personally believe in the 80/20 rule, and only 20% of people who work out on their own are successful.
One or two years of success does not necessarily mean long-term good results; there are many companies that have successfully gone public and then gone bankrupt.
Some of the posts about successful solo operations may be phishing posts or scams, where newbies are asked to seek advice and then the scammers cheat them in product selection or service provider selection.
wingchu - 2 years of personal operation experience Agree with: 123juaner123, cross-border wheat home, zerozero111, what what what, Dazi is my pet more » No matter what, remember not to go all in, and be sure to leave 3,000 yuan, which is the money that absolutely cannot be used!!! ss w9630 • Shenzhen The money to buy an electric car, right?
wingchu • Shenzhen @ssw9630: How can a scholar say this? This is called the capital for a comeback!
Cat who loves vegetables • Guangzhou I was wondering why you all said that there was 3000 yuan under the pillow. It turned out to be money for electric cars. You must be very clear.
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