There’s been a surge of e-commerce gurus advocating starting an Amazon business.
I sort of clunk them altogether in this one group, but it includes people who sell Walmart, Shopify, Etsy and other opps as well.
It also includes dropshippers.
I kinda hate these people most.
Let me explain…
A small group of risk-takers sell items on Amazon and then dropship them through Walmart by ordering on Walmart’s website. So the customer buys from Amazon but receives a Walmart box on their doorstep in a few days.
What a great ethical way to make mo… hold on a sec!
That’s not ethical at all.
It’s also against Amazon terms.
But, hey, we’re just scratching the surface.
What about the ones who drop ship from China?
Are they any better? Hardly…
Selling a low quality $50 item on Amazon with a cost-of-goods of $1.23 is a screaming outrage.
Thousands of people are doing it now.
They contact a supplier/manufacturer in China who’s got contacts with local facilities, send them a photo of the item and a few gees – and bam, they’re in business.
No quality assurance.
No paperwork.
They’ve never even set foot in the facility to validate their products are being manufactured there!
You know what comes next…
List the darn thing on Amazon.
Ship a couple of hundred units and watch the negative reviews poor in.
Soon their Amazon seller account is shut down.
Surprise surprise!
And that’s the best case scenario.
Alternative scenarios include:
– losing all their savings on ads, trying to get visitors in a competitive niche
– pushing thousands of units only to discover they didn’t make any profit, but possibly even lost money
– another competitor uses a spy tool to get an accurate assessment of their sales and flat out copies the product (might even get it shipped from the same manufacturer who has 0 ethics and no exclusivity agreement)
– product suddenly stops selling, for no apparent reason
But here’s the sort that annoys me most…
It’s the sort of people who get into ecom only to document their first 90 days and then turn it into a course or a coaching program and start teaching people to do the same (hint: this is where the real money is in ecom).
All this amuses me because I’ve been making money consistently for years, like clockwork.
Same offers.
Same traffic.
Same systems.
Here’s how I do it and you can too
Sincerely,
clientName & Igor