Hi,

Is the above a viable career?

Much the same as being a local bike shop,I guess reduced margins. I’d be looking at selling new bits, rather than full bikes.

There are clearly people out there making a go of it.

I guess my question is what’s the difference between success and failure in/ on amazon?

Cheers

Martin

I wouldn’t leave my current job for it, but you could give it a go alongside for a while.

Don’t know where you’d make profit unless importing cheap seat posts etc in bulk from China then re-selling for a small profit – with the warranty implications that brings.

In this day and age why would you restrict yourself to one sales channel? Especially since your biggest competitor is likely to be the company that provides the platform, at the same time as taking 10% off your gross.

If you think you might have a viable idea, try running under one of ebays ‘sell for a £1 promotions’ as a personal seller for a few months if you can, then do your figures on adjusted business margins.

There are clearly people out there making a go of it.

As a Career or a side line though?

I’ve toyed with the idea of bringing a bulk lot of certain bike parts in to the UK from the far east, holding stock and then selling them on for a small mark-up via ebay/amazon.

But when you look at the costs you’d have to cover and other things, as well as factor in a nominal cost for your own time (which people often seem to forget) I’m not totally sure it’s really worth it.

Like I said, maybe as a side line for an existing business. But I think it’s something you’d have to commit to like a full time job to get the same sort of financial reward and there’s inherent risk in doing that, and it would never really be a labour of love…

I reckon you’ll find it hard work. Amazon FBA typically takes 25% of gross sale price to include delivery, fulfillment, storage etc. Then you’ve got to factor in a percentage for returns, so unless you’re buying in the quantity you can go brand direct rather than via distributor, there’s very little left for you. It would only take one CRC flash sale or reactive price adjustment and you’d be sitting on dead stock.

taking 10% off your gross

My wife sells her own products through both her own website and Amazon and Amazon take a LOT more than 10%.

Thanks for that!

I thought it would be closer to 10% on amazon.

Maybe time for a more detailed spreadsheet

What do you see as the key differences between selling on Amazon and eBay?

If you actually think about how many things you’d need to sell to clear say £30,000 a year.. Some items you’d make maybe 50p per item…. that’s 60,000 of them you’d need to sell.

Even if you make £5 per decent side item, that’s 15,000 of them you’ve got to sell…. That’s 15,000 plus packing, postage, etc… So for your actual time…. Sheesh..

I think you’d need something/things fairly niche but popular to sell.

I struggle to actually work out how shops manage to turn a profit. They must work on much higher margins of course.

What do you see as the key differences between selling on Amazon and eBay?

Amazon control the whole show and are the ones making the money at every step. Marketing, logistics, etc. all generate profit for them. Want to improve your page ranking? You’ll have to bid for search words and pay per click to Amazon media services. Like someone else mentioned, Amazon FBA will manage a lot of the headaches in fulfillment for you, but at significant cost to you.