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The full text is 3740 words and takes 12 minutes to read.
First of all, we have to acknowledge a fact - the people who really make money by relying on Amazon are, after all, a minority, and these few people are also the ones with the loudest voices on the Internet. In fact, most of them are friends who work silently or small sellers who have already died. Therefore, we have to point out here that those who can achieve success through a short period of hard work and learning have certain "genetic" advantages, that is, our resources, money, and personal environment. These factors are crucial to our development. I am not saying this to discourage you. Chairman Mao said that as long as your mindset is not slipping, there are always more solutions than problems. As a complete novice, without any foundation, I certainly did not give up directly. I kept working hard and not only succeeded in this matter and opened my own company, but also influenced many friends around me...
Here, I would like to share with you the three stages of my cross-border e-commerce career: Beginner - Startup - Development Of course, I gained different things in all three stages, whether it was mentality, money, or experience. But you can experience the differences and gaps between the different stages. 01 In the beginner stage, treat cross-border e-commerce as a side job I started working on Amazon in the second half of 2017. At that time, I was working as an accountant in a company with a monthly salary of 3K, which was basically a paycheck-to-paycheck situation. Later, I started to consider side jobs. After considering for a while, I decided to work on Amazon. Although the threshold is a bit high and the operation is difficult for me. However, Amazon is one of the few projects that can be regarded as a "career", and many others either do not last long or are disguised as part-time jobs, exchanging time for money. I first do self-delivery and then forward it to FBA. As for why I do this and the detailed comparison between these two modes, I will explain it to you in detail later. I have explained the fantasy stage above, and then I started the actual combat: I went home to stock up every night. I did it by force because I didn't know how to do anything else. I hope to get orders for my store by stocking up a large number of goods. Basically, I go home after dinner at around 8 o'clock every day, and start stocking up until I go to bed at around 1 o'clock in the evening. This process is still very painful. Basically, I repeat the same process dozens or hundreds of times every day, which is boring and boring. I force myself to sit in front of the computer every day to stock up. I haven't played LOL since then, and I often doubt myself. At that time, I wanted to make some achievements, so I persisted. After more than two months of tossing, I finally got good news. I got my first order! Now I remember very clearly that the profit of this order was 53 yuan. This feeling is like seeing a little light in the darkness. Why do you want to give up sometimes? It's not because you are afraid of hard work, but because you are afraid that hard work is meaningless. Now I finally see some results, proving that my approach is effective, although now I think it was stupid. At that time, I still chose to continue to stock up as usual. Two months later, I have been doing my side job for more than four months now. Because there are a lot of goods, I am almost up every day. The number of orders has indeed improved, basically 3-5 orders a week. At this time, my store already had more than 10,000 SKUs. After a while, the number of orders has not increased, and I can't guarantee one order a day. I am very distressed. Because I don't know why these products can be sold, what did I do right, what did I do wrong? It's basically a state of stumbling. At this time, a senior in the industry told me that the number of goods uploaded is really not the key to determining how many orders a store can get, but the selection of products is. Then I realized that I was going in the wrong direction. During this period, the number of orders remained basically the same, but at the same time, because I didn't understand Amazon's rules, it led to serious infringements, and one of my UK sites was blocked. I was very tired at the time, and planned to give myself a vacation. After two weeks of adjustment, I started again. It was also at this time that I began to learn how to avoid infringement, how to select products, optimize, operate, and promote. After this adjustment, I finally increased the number of orders, from 3 orders a week to 3 orders a day. About 100 orders a month, and the profit is about 8,000 per month. The above is my experience as a newbie using Amazon as a side job. Let me summarize it for you: 1. I completed 3 orders a day in more than half a year, and earned about 8,000 yuan a month from my side job, but the process was painful and I did a lot of useless work; 2. Failure to learn the platform rules and avoid potential infringement risks will lead to particularly serious consequences; 3. Don’t blindly upload products. Direction is very important. Learn theoretical knowledge before you start. You should focus on product selection, optimization, operation, and promotion. These are the core, not the number of products uploaded. Then, I left my previous company. Because I like e-commerce and am willing to spend time and energy to study and learn. I treat Amazon as a career. While improving myself, I also like to share, and started to bring friends around me to do it together. Of course, I didn't lead like I did before, because that would be a detour. 02 In the early stages, I quit my job and worked on Amazon full-time After leaving, I expanded two new stores. The first store was closed in the UK, so the remaining four stores had relatively stable orders. But overall it was a bit chaotic, so I only processed orders for the first store and stopped other operations. I plan to operate the two new stores.
I usually work from home, so I have more time, so it is no problem to run three new stores at the same time. At that time, my plan was to work 9 hours a day to be responsible for the operation of the store, and after "getting off work" at night, I started to learn a lot about operation. It was also at this time that I accumulated and practiced a lot of practical knowledge and summarized a lot of my own views. This also laid a good foundation for my later switch to FBA.
The two new stores were running smoothly, and the first orders were placed in the second and third weeks of operation, respectively. Later, the number of orders per day was about 10, and the biggest problem at this time was funding. Procurement, logistics, these costs had to be paid by myself in advance. So my strategy at the time was to increase revenue and reduce expenditure + help from friends + cash out credit cards, and use this method to get through this difficult period. This process was actually very uncomfortable. I couldn't eat what I wanted to eat, and I never dared to go to dinner parties with friends. When I occasionally took a taxi, my heart would jump every time the meter jumped.
After more than three months, all three stores were able to receive stable orders, with a profit of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan each month. I paid off all the money I borrowed from friends and my credit card. It was so relaxing!
It sounds simple, but you will only know the difficulty if you have experienced it. You must continue to improve yourself and learn while stocking goods and operating the store. Only in this way can you better break through the bottleneck.
E-commerce is not a straight road. There will be difficulties, boredom and loneliness in the middle. There will be a period of self-doubt. Is this kind of life meaningful? Working from 9 to 5 is also good! As the number of orders increases, the balance of my account is constantly changing. I began to feel that everything is meaningful. This requires not only a good attitude of the individual, but also professional guidance and advanced thinking. "Small achievements" are inseparable from continuous learning, summarization and practice.
Let me summarize for you what I have gained during this period, and also what is the difference between this stage and the previous stage.
1. Income: Much higher than before, 20,000-30,000 yuan a month is enough for me to have "eating freedom", except for delicacies from land and sea. I don't have to eat chopped pepper eggs soaked in chemicals all day long, and all kinds of chicken legs with rice from unknown sources.
2. Mentality: When I encounter problems, I am no longer as annoyed as before (I used to feel like the sky was falling when I hit a pit). Now, even if I hit a pit, I can solve it quickly. Even if I encounter a problem that I cannot solve for the time being, I will not freeze on the spot, at least I know the direction to solve the problem.
3. Professional skills: In the past, I didn’t know how to do anything except upload products. In fact, I didn’t upload products well, so it was inevitable that I couldn’t do well. Now I know how to avoid pitfalls, how to select products, optimize, operate, and promote. After understanding these, I feel like I’m flying when I do it.
4. Time: The three stores I have are already receiving stable orders, which means I don’t have to be as busy as before. I just need to maintain the stores and process orders every day. This way I have more time to study, exercise, spend time with my family, and have fun.
03 Development stage, starting a business, setting up my own small company
After a while of such "good days", in early 2018, I decided to set up my own studio. After all, youth is about pretense, life is about struggle, people go up, water flows down, if you don't advance, you will retreat...
In this way, my two friends and I found two reliable big brothers in the circle. With four people, the studio was established. We expanded the stores from 3 to 6. The first month or so of the studio was really tiring. I had a lot of things to do and had to train new people. Later, the studio was on the rise and I was not so busy. At the same time, the friends who followed me at the beginning also did well. At this time, I thought, why can't I help more people?
So we set up our own company and started to try to bring in some students in May 2020. Now that I think about it, I am especially grateful to those friends who believed in me. What surprised me was that without any commercial promotion, I was able to attract and retain students simply by outputting content and word of mouth. Because I have experienced the process of achieving certain results from being a complete novice, I understand what students need besides professional knowledge. I can help them from their perspective. What they are experiencing is what I have experienced before. I think this experience from scratch is extremely valuable to me and the students!
This year, due to the pandemic, we were very tired in terms of logistics and Amazon's policies. However, we also took advantage of a small wave of benefits during the pandemic. We specialized in selling some daily necessities from abroad, which made our sales increase during the pandemic. After the pandemic became relatively stable, we moved to a new office and established a company. The previous office environment was really bad. The elevator was shaky and there was no light in the office area. What was even worse was that the original landlord sold the house, and the new landlord wanted to increase the rent...
After that, we started selling through FBA. In fact, we had been planning for a long time, but it was delayed due to the epidemic. It was because of the preparation and experience before that it went smoothly. The store was very popular a while ago, and we were very happy. We have been doing FBA for more than half a year now, and I believe there is a promising future!
In fact, I think this stage of starting a business is the most difficult, because if you don’t start a business, you won’t know how to pay for social security and housing provident fund. How to design salary. Do you need to punch in? Do you need to charge for posting positions? What if my colleagues take leave every day? Where to rent an office? Is it convenient for my colleagues to work? What to do if my colleagues have a quarrel. The hidden costs are so high. I used to be alone and it didn’t matter what happened, but after starting a business, I am a group of people and I have to take care of all aspects. The above is only part of it. The actual situation is more complicated. Fortunately, I know how to solve it after experiencing it.
Well, that's all. The real fragrance of adults is that they get economic satisfaction. Finally, I would like to share with you my experience in the past few years:
Sometimes we would rather live in familiar tiredness than try unknown happiness. But the moment we step out, I believe it will be a good start.
There is only one reason why many people are confused: they think too much, do too little, hesitate all the time, waste their energy, and finally fail to change. In fact, as long as you take action and keep on walking on the road, there is no destination that you cannot reach!
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