In today's video, I'll be answering questions from my Q&A Facebook group. If you'd like to get your question answered in an upcoming video, click this link to join the group:

 

I want to join 'Ollie's Ecommerce Q&A Group'

 

Please note, you need to answer the questions that appear when you join or you won't be allowed into the group. I'm doing this to prevent spammers in the community.

 

 

Hey, how's it going? It's Ollie here. Really excited to get to some of your questions today. Now before we dive in and answer some of these questions, I wanted to give you an update with this giveaway that I'm running inside this group. So if you're in the group right now, first of all, then you are in the competition. So you have a chance to win some of the crazy prizes that I'm offering.

 

If you look at the post somewhere in the group, you can see exactly what I'm offering. There's things that range from my FBA Secrets course, plus a 'done for you' product, plus my 30 day test batch program- that's the first prize- to getting a 'done for you' product and my test batch program, perfect private label course, and other things for everyone who enters the group as well.

 

So no matter what it is, you have a chance to win a prize. Now there's two ways you can actually up your chances of winning a prize. One of them is to write an introduction in the post. Just tell me about your goals, about why you want to sell on Amazon and just let us know a little bit about you. If you write a post in the group, then the best introduction post is going to win a prize.

 

Also, you can win a prize for inviting friends. So if you invite some friends who you believe would actually be genuinely interested in selling on Amazon, and they answer a question as they enter the group, I will count up how many people you've invited. I can see who's invited who and whoever invites the most friends will win.

 

Now at this stage, nobody's invited any friends yet. So you could probably just invite two or three friends and be in a very good chance of winning. So do those two things if you want to have a higher chance of winning a prize. And in the meantime, let's dive in to your questions.

 

Got some great questions from new members today and it's really incredible, actually. Yesterday we had 31 members and today, at the time of reading this, we have 62. So we've literally doubled the group size in 24 hours. So if that isn't progress then I don't know what is. So, massive congratulations for the growing the community.

 

If start up cash is extremely low, and selling experience minimal, how quickly should I really dive in?

 

Let's kick off with a question from Lisa. So Lisa Downing asks, if start up cash is extremely low and selling experience minimal, how quickly should I really dive in? So this is a great question and I guarantee a lot of other people will be asking the same thing, Lisa. So I'm really glad that you asked this question.

 

First of all, when I started selling on Amazon, my cash was extremely low. I had about 20 pounds spare cash in my bank to get started. So I had nothing and I had no selling experience as well. I really didn't know exactly what I was doing.

 

What I did is I took out a credit card and spent half of the money on the credit card on stock. The other half I bought a training program to learn how to actually buy the stock and what to do with it, etc. That got me started. And from that 300 pounds, I turned it into something like 600 pounds, and then the 600 pounds, I bought more stock, sold it, and then turned it into a thousand pounds.

 

I just kept doing this over and over and over and over again. And within my first year, I did 300K in sales. Fast forward to today, I've done 2 million. So the point is, please don't be put off if you have low experience and low cash because Amazon does 90% of the work for you.. you can start with no experience. You can start with no money and you can spend a little bit on stock and you can see some sales very, very quickly.

 

If you're creative, if you work hard, if you take the right action, you can use a tiny little bit of resources and get wildly successful results. Now, if you have next to nothing in terms of capital, like, really pennies, then arbitrage could be the best way to start. Because you can do that. And that's how I got started.

 

You could do that with 50 pounds. You could go to a local supermarket, buy some discount products, scan them with the profit bandit app on your phone, sell them for a profit on your account, and then start building up a bit of cash.

 

Anytime you have some spare money, put it into the business, buy some arbitrage products, make a profit on them, and you can start growing your cash and you start learning how to use the Amazon system and learning how to make sales. And then you get confidence. And then once you get confidence, maybe yeah, you could use a little bit of money borrowed from a credit card or something to put into the business.

 

But be careful, I wouldn't take out loans and things or any credit cards- stuff like that. So you're really confident that you know you can get a return on investment. Okay? But yeah, don't let lack of experience or cash put you off because it's not really about that. It's more about just getting started, getting that first sale, then working up from there.

 

How much money do I need to start a private label business?

 

We've actually got three questions from three people who pretty much ask a similar thing, which is great cause I can answer all your questions in one go. So, question from Michael Giles, who says, how much money do I need to start a private label business, including education, stock costs, advertising, etc?

 

Geovanna asks, how much would be the initial start up costs when selling products on Amazon? And Ferdie Bautista asks, how much investment do I need to start an Amazon FBA business?

 

So, as I just said to Lisa, if you want to do retail arbitrage, then the start up costs are very low, it means next to nothing. I mean, the Amazon professional seller account is about 30 pounds a month. So I would recommend getting that. Don't sell the individual one. That's a cost profit bandit. It's about 10 pounds per month. And that allows you to scan products in the shops and you can spend whatever you want on stock.

 

I took my friend around a toy store, we were doing some retail arbitrage, and he spent about 40 pounds on some Fireman Sam toy that he bought and it sold for a profit. 40 pounds spent on stock. So you can get started from very little with retail arbitrage.

 

With private label, however, it's a little bit of a different story. Let me do a few calculations and we can get an estimation of how much it would cost to do a test batch of 50 units for a private label product. Because, let's say you did all of your research, you found a supplier for a test batch of a private label product, and you found out that it would be, say, six pounds per unit for this test batch. Let's say you wanted 50 of those, then it's about 300 pounds for the stock.

 

This is a pretty average price for a test batch, 300 hundred pounds just for the stock. Let's say you wanted to ship it with express shipping from China to the UK. That would probably be about 200 pounds.

 

So maybe 500 pounds for your initial test batch of products. Just for testing the private label. Then let's say you got 50 products and you spent maybe 5 pounds on each in advertising to get it to sell. That would be.. 5 times 50. So that's what, 250 pounds, right? So that's 750 pounds for the stock, for the shipping, and for the advertising costs. See, 750 pounds.

 

Now there's FBA fees, other fees, things like that, but they will be taken out of your sale price so you're never out of pocket. You don't need to front the money for that.

 

So for test batch, 750 pounds is a good estimate. Now, you can do it with a lot less. You could just order 20 units or 10 units if you want to. You can still get a similar result from a test batch with that. And that would bring your cost way down. Or you could go more aggressive and order a hundred or 200 units. Get the cost per unit down, maybe even make a little bit of profit on your test batch, or take a little bit more risk and spend maybe 1500 pounds. That's a test batch.

 

Now let's say you want to reorder the stock because the test goes very well and now you think, okay, well now I want to order say, 300 units. We're looking at say, two to 3000 pounds for a reorder to launch the product. Now, again, varies massively.

 

You could do a reorder for a thousand pounds if you find a great supplier, a cheap product- very small, very light, good way to add value cheaply. You could do it for a thousand pounds or it could be up to 3000 pounds or maybe more if you want to order more units, but that's an estimate for getting started launching a private label product.

 

Now, the great thing about this is you can start slowly with a test batch and you can build up to bringing in a thousand pounds per month profit when you launch a successful product, and then you have income coming in from this investment- you can use that income to launch more products.

 

And so you don't need to take more money from your savings and put it into the business because the business is making money now and you can launch more products without investing more cash. Very, very, very powerful way to get your business moving, momentum. Those are some estimates for what it can cost to, to start your business. But again, it can vary. So keep that in mind. But but that's my best answer for you.

 

Import automation and using a sourcing agency to find suppliers.

 

Jeremy asks, in a recent webinar you did, you talked about import automation and using a sourcing agency to find suppliers. Nice one for signing up for that webinar, Jeremy. Yes, that is an extremely good strategy. Jeremy says, can you advise on the best way to go about finding a good sourcing agency?

 

I said this in yesterday's video about looking for products and getting them cheaper, etc. Same thing. The number one thing you have to do whenever you make a new connection in business - whether you're going to be parting money with someone or time with someone - or it is a partnership, whether it's a supplier, whether it's a staff member, whatever it is - you want deal flow.

 

In other words, the worst way to find a good sourcing agency, which a lot of people do, which I've done with services in the past, is you type into Google FBA sourcing agency, you look for a website that looks kind of nice and they seem kind of nice. You message them, they seem nice on the phone, and you start doing business.

 

That is the worst way to find any service provider. Why? Because you could have just connected with the world's worst sourcing agency and you would never know you need deal flow. In other words, you need to contact 20 sourcing agencies, get quotes from as many of them as you possibly can.

 

Understand how their service works. Understand the turnaround time. How long does it take them to find the suppliers? How long does it take them to get quotes and get you samples? Do they do inspection services? How much do they charge? Ask all of these questions and get a feel for what it's going to be like to work with these people. Communicate with them.

 

You will find out things very quickly, like if you send them a message and it takes them four days to get back, it's an indication that maybe the communication isn't that great. Maybe the customer service isn't that great. If you message and they get back instantly and they really want your business and they'll do anything to make you happy again, good sign, right?

 

So contact loads of them, get quotes from loads of them. Once you have a list of quotes, at least five minimum in front of you, and you have information about how good they are, what they provide, then you can make an informed decision about which one to go with.

 

I remember quite often people ask me for recommendations, but sometimes it depends on specifically what you need. The right sourcing agency for you might be very different to the right sourcing agency for someone else. So you have to find out who's the best company for you.

 

So do that exercise, find loads of quotes. You have a much higher chance of finding a sourcing agency or any service provider who'll work with you and get you great results.

 

What is the first step in getting started in this business?

 

All right, let's have a look. So again, we've got another three questions. In fact, four questions from people who are pretty much around the same lines. So great, I can answer all of you in one go.

 

Rachel says, what's the first step to getting started in this business? Great question. Kamil says, is it still relatively easy and profitable to start an Amazon business? Shahzad says, private label products - how do I get started? And Janice says, a step by step video on how to set up an Amazon account.

 

So first of all, to answer Camille's question, absolutely is still profitable to build an Amazon business. How do I know this? Well, number one, my business is profitable. Number two, I've got several clients right now who are quitting their jobs handing in their notices because their business is providing more income for them.

 

The part time hours they're putting into their business is giving them more money than the full time job. That says to me that this isn't just some pipe dream, this is real. It's a real business. Is it easy? No. No business is easy. But if you step up to the game and you really focus on it and you take it seriously, you can build a real income.

 

So how do we get started? If you go to the top of this group and you look for the pinned post- the announcement at the top of the group, I've given you some free resources. I've given you a fast start guide, which teaches you- it's four videos- how to set up your account, how to find products to sell on your account, how to make sure those products will sell within 60 seconds, and how to send products into the warehouse so they'll sell on Amazon.

 

Very, very simple.. teach you everything you need to know. Also, there's a PDF there that teaches you how to find hot products and a PDF which teaches you how to get products to sell. All for free.

 

So if you're not in the group and you're watching this video outside of the group, click the link below, join the Facebook group, and you'll get all of that stuff. And if you're in the group, go to the announcement at the top and you will find all of those resources.

 

So that should help all of you guys out with your questions. And I think those are all the questions for today. So thank you so much for watching this video. If you joined the group recently, thanks so much for joining the group and being part of the community. If I missed your question then comment below and I'll answer it in an upcoming video.

 

If you have any follow up questions, again, comment below. And if you found this video valuable, then leave a light comment 'cause it really helps build engagement inside the community. It helps the community grow, and it just becomes an even more valuable place to be. All right. Thanks so much for watching this video and I'll speak to you very, very soon.