Can a novice still do business on Amazon? Be careful of this big pitfall!

Children without umbrellas can only run hard

I really like the words in the title. This sentence also helped me get through the confused period when I just graduated.

Because my family was not well off when I was young, and I didn't like studying, I barely made it to a technical secondary school. At that time, my family didn't have any serious career plans, and they thought that it was a good idea for boys to learn a mechanical and electrical skill, so I didn't think much about it and just went to school.

Now I think about it, I still have some regrets, because I didn't have a strong sense of urgency for the future, so I didn't learn professional knowledge well even in the technical secondary school. Basically, I just went with the flow, like most technical secondary school students, playing with my phone in class and playing games in Internet cafes after class.

After graduation, everyone started looking for jobs. Like most of my classmates, I did not choose a job related to my major. My family could not help me find a job, so I did not have many options. After trying many jobs, I chose to work as a salesperson in a 4S store.

The bitterness of salespeople

I often hear people say, “Sales is a very challenging career.” In fact, based on my own feeling, this is both true and false.

Indeed, during my time in sales, I became more worldly-wise and my tongue was “trained”. Even at the class reunion, I was surprised at how sophisticated I was in toasting and passing cigarettes.

But then again, the growth that this training brings you is actually difficult to play a role in other than sales. In addition, I also wanted to make money and start my own small business, so I started to sell some small things in my spare time and set up stalls near the university town.

Reach out to suppliers and also reach out to Amazon

Although setting up a stall sounds simple, it took me a long time to research because it was my first time trying to do something on my own. I went to the university town to check out the location and found a place that students must pass by when they go back to the dormitory after shopping in the nearby mall at night.

The products I chose were must-haves such as gloves, earmuffs, leggings, etc. (it was winter at the time). After all, little girls are more likely to buy these small items at stalls, so the styles are all cute.

I even used hot pot to exchange some opinions on product selection from my female colleagues. I also gave them free products and asked for some actual usage experience to make it easier for me to sell to these young girls.

Now when I think about it, I was already consciously selecting products, conducting market research and even sending products for testing at that time, which laid the foundation for my later contact with Amazon.

In short, the effort you put in always paid off. Although I didn’t make much money, that winter was extra fulfilling for me because I knew I had found another path for myself.

Later, I often went to the factory to select models. However, the people in the factory were not very happy with my small quantity, but they did not reject me.

During that time, I often chatted with people in the factory, which might be a sales habit. At that time, the people who had the time to talk to you in the factory were basically not workers, so I could often chat with the boss who came to select models and place orders. It was at this time that I came into contact with Amazon.

The first payment to Amazon, conservative thinking lost a lot of money

I actually knew the limitations of setting up a stall, and I had always wanted to open a Taobao store, but I had also done some research and knew the current competition on Taobao, and the suppliers themselves said that their Taobao stores could not succeed, so I gave up the Taobao store route, but then I learned about Amazon, which gave me new hope.

I know that Amazon has much less competition than Taobao, and many Taobao sellers are preparing to switch to Amazon. I have long wanted to do e-commerce, so I am ready to do it.

The initial work was the same as many sellers. I learned from forums and various websites, and then registered a personal account (which should not work now) to start selling some small items. At that time, I asked a lot of questions and almost forced the freight forwarder to block me, but I finally started selling.

My initial thought about the product was to just make a small profit, and then slowly raise the price when I sold more. Of course, now I know how naive this idea was, but at the time I really thought that small profits but quick turnover was a tried and true strategy.

But I didn't lose much in the end, because the various costs were higher than I expected, and I didn't even consider the loss of goods. After shipping some goods and checking the profits, I found that I was losing money, so I raised the price a little, but after the increase, I didn't get any orders at all. Then after struggling for a while, I still relied on setting up a stall to clear out the goods on hand.

After learning from the pain, I went to the forum to learn again, and then I realized the impact of price adjustment on products. Fortunately, I only shipped my own goods during that period and did not do FBA, so the inventory on hand did not become a burden.

After recovering some money, I registered a company profile, upgraded my personal account to a professional sales account, and started to do self-delivery again. But this time, I left myself enough profit margin. I knew that I was a complete novice in this industry, and there were too many costs that I could not predict. It was simply a fantasy to want to play with extreme profits.

Although the sales volume is not high, there is enough profit margin and I don’t need to spend extra money to stock up. The store can basically be self-sufficient. I will launch some new models this year, but I will never think about selling at a low price. I also hope that newbies like me who want to do Amazon will give up this idea as soon as possible.