Hi, and WELCOME to the ‘1st of the month’ update to AidanBooth.com for December 2015!
Today’s blog post is SHORT… but it’s accompanied by a 26-page ‘scientific ad strategy’ report that explains a systematic process that ANYONE can use to send hyper-targeted traffic to, well… anywhere!
If you’re selling any physical product online, doing ANY kind of Facebook advertising, or simply want to understand about conversion tracking and audience segmentation, then it’s a ‘must read’!
The method I’m sharing today is something I’ve NEVER ever spoken about before.
It can be used by ANYONE to drive sales and build an online income stream:
- You don’t need to be an Amazon seller
- It doesn’t matter where you live.
What I’ve got for you today will HOPEFULLY have light-bulbs firing inside your head…!
You’re about to learn about an eCommerce strategy that is equally effective for people who have their OWN physical product as it is for affiliates (or people with no product at all).
It revolves around Shopify (but any kind of eCommerce platform would work, including WordPress), and how you can build a brand new eCommerce store which can begin to generate income in under 48 hours. We’ve used this basic strategy several times now, and it works like clockwork.
’48 Hour Sales Machine’ Process
Here’s a ‘birds eye view’ of the process:
- Find a product that you want to sell
– This can be your OWN product, or a product you have no ownership of whatsoever (someone else’s product) - Build a simple store with pictures and information about the product
- Choose the product sell price
- Send hyper targeted traffic to your store
- Accept payment for the product on your store
- Ship the product to the customer
- Identify and scale the profitable traffic channels
The Shopify ‘Loophole’
When most people think of Shopify, they think of an eCommerce platform for people who have their own physical products to sell.
And for the most part, these are the people who are using Shopify.
There is however an off-the-radar way to use Shopify that I’ve never heard anyone talking about before…
It’s a ‘hybrid’ eCommerce strategy that allows you to sell other peoples products on Shopify without having any special ownership or any special access to the product…
Here’s the key…
Shopify does not distinguish between someone who is selling their OWN product, and someone who is selling someone else’s product.
For example, you could sell other peoples products on Shopify as an affiliate and Shopify would never know (and they wouldn’t care, it’s a 100% legitimate way to sell on Shopify).
Here’s An Example
Here’s a more graphic example of how the system works (the process is virtually the same if you’re selling your OWN product, or if you’re selling someone elses product)…
1. Find a niche product that you want to sell
For example, this 11-piece tea set:
http://www.amazon.com/Gracie-China-Coastline-Imports-Porcelain/dp/B004PGM3B4/
This could be a product you own and developed, or it could be a product you have NO ownership of whatsoever. The process works in both cases.
2. Build a simple shopify store with pictures & information
For example, you could build a store like this:
Click here to see the live demo store
NOTE: You don’t need a big product catalog, even just one single product is fine (the site shown above is a one-product eCommerce store).
3. Choose the product sell price
If the product is yours and you developed it (for example, in China), then you’ll be buying at wholesale, and selling at retail to make a margin.
If the product is NOT yours, it’s simply something you’ve found on Amazon which you think would be cool to sell, then you can just price the product a little higher than what you can buy it for.
For example, the 11-piece tea set above sells on Amazon for $69.25. If I were to buy this as a consumer, I could add a margin to it ($15) and then sell it in my own store to make a profit. I could buy it on Amazon for $69.25, then sell it in my own store for $84.25 (a $15 markup in price).
4. Send hyper-targeted traffic to your store
You can do this in a range of different ways:
- Facebook Ads
- Google SEO
- etc
Facebook is the easiest and fastest way to start, I’ll show you how in a second.
Click here to download the ‘Scientific Advertising Strategy’ report for the detailed process map
5. Accept payment for the product on your store
Shopify can accept payments via Credit Card using Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe), or simply through Paypal. Both options can be instantly set up (without any special acceptance procedure) and both options work just fine.
6. Ship the product to the customer
Once you’ve made the sale, you need to ship the product. You’ve got a couple of options here:
- If it’s your own product, then you can fulfil the order as you normally do (if you’re already selling on Amazon, then just use Amazon FBA… it can be 100% automated).
- If the product isn’t yours, you can personally buy the product on Amazon (or wherever), and send it to the person who purchased on YOUR website.
7. Identify and scale the profitable traffic channels
Now that you’re making sales you need to work out your ROI. Measure the ROI for each traffic channel, and scale the ones that are profitable.
***MISSION-CRITICAL STEPS***
Step #4 and Step #7 (above) are absolutely CRITICAL to this process working. Thankfully, both are ‘scientific’ processes based on numbers and raw data.
I’ve created a 26-page report called the ‘scientific advertising strategy’ that walks you through the entire process.
The report covers:
- How to build a Facebook Fanbase (and why it’s OPTIONAL for this method)
- The 3-types of audiences, and why #1 are the people you MUST target
- The 10-step conversion tracking system (this is critical to measuring your ROI)
- The 4-part ad setup process (and 20 detailed mini-steps so you can easily replicate the process)
- The ‘8 ad segmentation rule’, and how it siphons off the more lucrative audience EVERY time
- How to use Facebook’s ‘5-image ad’ option (and the types of images that work the best)
- And MUCH more…
A Few Common Questions
When I’ve explained this method to my friends and private students, these are the most common questions I’ve got back…
Won’t the product owner (Amazon seller) be annoyed that you’re selling their product?
No. Why would they…? I’d LOVE someone to do this for our products! You’re buying at FULL price and selling at a margin. They will be happy for the extra sales!
What if you sell someone elses product but are then unable to fulfill it because it’s out of stock?
Normally you can find each product through multiple channels… if it’s not on Amazon, it’s on eBay. If it’s not on eBay, it’s on the brands own website. If however you absolutely cannot find it, just refund the buyer and say you’re out of stock. No harm done, everyone is happy.
How does Shopify pay you?
Depending on how your Shopify account is set up, Shopify will pay you direct to your bank account, or direct to your paypal account.
Do you need to be in the USA?
No. Take me for example… I’m a New Zealander living in Argentina, and the process works FINE.
What about returns?
Returns can be sent to YOU, or directly back to Amazon (since the product was technically purchased through Amazon anyway).
If you have a question you want answered, leave a comment below…
Coming Soon…
We have some VERY exciting things in the pipeline over the next couple of months, including…
The ’12 Day Giveaway’ Is BACK!
Our annual ’12 Day Giveaway’ is just a few weeks away! Last year we gave away over $10,000 in prizes, as well as 12 days of rock-solid content.
This year we’re doing it all over again, but with BIGGER prizes and BETTER giveaways!
Click Here To Register For ‘The 12 Day Giveaway’ Prize Draw Now
Questions? Comments?
If you’ve got a question or a comment about the content today, or anything else, leave it below!
Thanks for reading,
Aidan
Great actionable content as always I think i am going to try this and see if it works as you say.I will make sure to come back and let you know the results.Thanks for this valuable post Aiden.
Hey Derek, I’d love to hear how you go, please let me know 🙂
I’m guessing you could also do the same thing using any other channel, not just Amazon? For example, I can sell a product which I know I can get on ebay, then send it to the customer? This is brilliant! Strange I’ve never heard of it before!
Hi Barton, glad you like it! YES, the same method can work for any channel really, the key is that YOU can process the orders 🙂
Hi Aidan! So basically what I can do is sell a product even if it’s not mine, then buy it on Amazon to fulfil it? Is that right?
Thats right Craig 🙂
Great stuff Aidan, keep on sharing!!!
Thanks Shelly!
Very cool Aidan. I look forward to the 12 day giveaway! 🙂
Thanks Martin!
Hi Aidan.
My only concern with this method is that, the customers are going to know that this product is available at amazon for much less than what they paid, because the packaging will show them that it is coming from Amazon. And many will probably go and check to see if it is available on amazon, and my guess is that many will return the product when they find out that they can buy it for less from Amazon… What do you think?
Hey Mohamed, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not always the case. If you’re selling a very specific item, one a store which is a ‘specialist seller’, then you can sell for more. As for the Amazon receipt, you can always take that our yourself if you want to (admittedly, it’s an extra step, but you can do it). Choosing the right kind of product (that people don’t just shop for on PRICE) helps with this as well.
Getting Amazon to send as a gift overcomes the receipt/price concern.
GREAT idea Richard, thanks! 🙂
Hi Aidan,
Thanks for this wonderful post! 🙂
Questions:
1. You said:
“you can always take that out yourself if you want to”.
That statement implies that you order the product, have it shipped to you (and then you remove the receipt) and then you ship it to the customer.
But isn’t that impractical? Why not have it shipped directly from Amazon to the customer? Or have you been doing what Richard suggested below (getting Amazon to send products as gifts)?
2. Can you recommend a good course about ecommerce arbitrage? I’d love to learn it in greater details. Or if you can’t recommend one, you should launch a course on it…..that’s one product idea for you 😉
3. You seem to have so many businesses! How on earth are you able to manage them all effectively? And how do you have time to do so, without losing sleep? Any time and business management tips you can share? There’s at least 4 business models I’m VERY interested in doing (Amazon FBA, affiliate marketing, ecommerce arbitrage, and selling digital products), but I’m thinking of just focusing on 1 or 2 at most, simply because I don’t know how to manage too many businesses!
Hi Frank,
>>> 1. But isn’t that impractical? Why not have it shipped directly from Amazon to the customer? Or have you been doing what Richard suggested below (getting Amazon to send products as gifts)?
YES, I agree entirely. Shipping it to you would be a last resort…
>>> 2. Can you recommend a good course about ecommerce arbitrage?
No… I don’t know of any! However… it’s NOT difficult. I bet you could get 90% of what you need just in this blog post.
>>> 3. You seem to have so many businesses! How on earth are you able to manage them all effectively? And how do you have time to do so, without losing sleep? Any time and business management tips you can share?
hehe, we’re always experimenting! It’s not ‘easy’, but we’ve built up a decent infrastructure over the years, and teams who can help us. Time management is an ongoing focus for both Steve and I… it’s easy to get sucked into your business when things are going well!
As for time management, check these posts out:
https://www.aidanbooth.com/the-4-secrets-to-running-a-7-figure-online-business/
https://www.aidanbooth.com/29-tools/
The way you should start, is to have ONE (max of 2) main focuses, then when these businesses are working, that’s when you should expand… not before.
Hope this helps, comment again if you have other Q’s!
Hi Aidan,
Thanks so much sharing those 2 links. They’re absolutely top notch! I especially like the “4 Secrets” posts….can’t believe I missed it, despite the fact that I’m subscribed to your list =).
Some more questions, if you don’t mind:
1. How much % of the revenue should a business owner allocate to pay himself, assuming a gross revenue of $1 million per year? I know that the answer may vary greatly, depending on one’s lifestyle, location, etc. But let’s assume the location is in North America (where I am, Canada, is really expensive!), do you think $80-100K/year is reasonable?
2. Your “4 secrets” post mentions that you have employees in China, Pakistan, Argentina, the UK, and Canada. What’s a reasonable monthly salary to pay people in those countries, assuming they work for an internet based company such as yours? I’m a pretty generous guy, and if I had foreign based employees such as yours, I’d want to make them happy and pay, say, $4000-$5000/month if they’re based in North America/Europe, and around $1000-$1500/month if they’re in Asia. But if you can suggest better numbers, that’d be great!
3. Referring to the 80/20 rule, what’s the “80” of your revenue generators? Your FBA and Shopify businesses?
4. Are you still doing affiliate marketing (i.e.: making niche sites, getting them ranked on Google and making commissions?)
5. How about your viral website business (a la 100K Factory), is that a big revenue generator?
6. If you ever had to start from scratch, which business model would you start with?
You’re welcome!
>>> 1. How much % of the revenue should a business owner allocate to pay himself, assuming a gross revenue of $1 million per year? I know that the answer may vary greatly, depending on one’s lifestyle, location, etc. But let’s assume the location is in North America (where I am, Canada, is really expensive!), do you think $80-100K/year is reasonable?
If gross revenue is $1MM/year, I think you can pay yourself a bit more than $100k 🙂 Just depends what your profit margins are, and how much is “tied up” in employees, inventory etc.
>>> 2. Your “4 secrets” post mentions that you have employees in China, Pakistan, Argentina, the UK, and Canada. What’s a reasonable monthly salary to pay people in those countries, assuming they work for an internet based company such as yours? I’m a pretty generous guy, and if I had foreign based employees such as yours, I’d want to make them happy and pay, say, $4000-$5000/month if they’re based in North America/Europe, and around $1000-$1500/month if they’re in Asia. But if you can suggest better numbers, that’d be great!
Firstly, your numbers here are pretty good estimates.
What we pay REALLY depends a LOT on the task. I’ll give you a few ideas though… good ‘administrative’ level employees can be found for $1000/month in Pakistan. Argentina is more expensive, but you have a different skill-set (you’d be looking at $2k+/month in Argentina). Programmers in Pakistan can range up to $5k or more per month (depends on expertise, experience etc). For USA, UK, Canada, our employees get competitive professional compensation packages, in fact, probably better than they would in any normal ‘office job’ (but many of our employees have been with us for quite a few years now). I agree with you compeltely, it pays to pay well 🙂
>>> 3. Referring to the 80/20 rule, what’s the “80” of your revenue generators? Your FBA and Shopify businesses?
Our business is broken into three different channels which are pretty well balanced, and each operates almost like it’s own business. eCommerce, online training (for example, the 100k Factory program falls into this), and offline business consulting. Inside of each of the three channels, the 80:20 rule definitely DOES apply though.
>>> 4. Are you still doing affiliate marketing (i.e.: making niche sites, getting them ranked on Google and making commissions?)
Yes 🙂
>>> 5. How about your viral website business (a la 100K Factory), is that a big revenue generator?
Yes 🙂
>>> 6. If you ever had to start from scratch, which business model would you start with?
Right now, I’d be torn between the 100k Factory model, and Amazon… in fact, I’d probably fuse the two together so that I could get the best of both worlds. It REALLY depends what your objectives are, what type of lifestyle you want. For example, 100k Factory sites have VERY low overheads. eCommerce is more cost intensive (employees + inventory). There are pros and cons to many of these, but the 100k Factory method is pretty hard to ignore right now I think.
Thanks again Aidan!
1. I noticed you didn’t mention the Philippines. Don’t you have employees there?
2. Normally online entrepreneurs choose to outsource to the more economical regions such as Asia. But you have UK and Canadian employees, so there’s gotta be a reason for that? What do your Canadian and UK staff do? What can they do that people in the more economical regions can’t?
We use Philippines mainly for non-permanent work, we don’t have an office there, but occasionally hire project-based employees.
As for Canada, UK, USA staff, these are managerial positions that require different skill sets 🙂
In your list of 29 tools, you mentioned some project management tools, but I didn’t see anything like Basecamp. Do you use such a tool? If so, which?
In a past post, you mentioned that you used to use double opt-ins, but switched to single opt-ins. Isn’t single opt-in risky? In the event of false spam accusation, how would you defend yourself? (i.e.: you’d not be able to prove that the person did click a confirmation link). Also, a big name marketer told me that he got in big, big trouble because someone subscribed to his list using a spam trap email address, and he said he wouldn’t have been in trouble if he had used double opt-ins. So yeah…while single opt-ins are amazing in terms of conversion rate, the potential downside can be scary. Any thoughts?
Hi again Frank!
Personally I’m not a huge fan of BaseCamp… I’ve used it a few times, but I’ve never really loved it. Regarding opt-ins, we almost ALWAYS use double-optins these days. We’ve switched back and forth a few times over the years, but now we use double-optins where possible (unless someone is already on another list in the same autoresponder account)
Hey Aidan,
It sounds great and what about things like vitamins or brand able items. Wouldn’t it be like reselling a product? Wouldn’t I really need to have permission to sell certain items doing it this way? If I were a vitamin company and people started selling my products and advertising and using my images and possibly text, then fulfilling on Amazon, can’t that pose a problem?
Hey Julia, you ARE reselling a product… it’s good old fashioned retail arbitrage 🙂 There MIGHT be some restrictions in some categories, but remember… you’re selling this on your OWN site, not on Amazon.
Hi Aidan,
I think this arbitrage model have been practicing by many affiliate and online marketing at least in the last two yrs.. there are plenty of this ecommerce shopify courses available mostly using ebay and amazon or aliexpress to source the product. But most of the problem is coming from the vendor in ebay or amazon when you can generate lots of sales and the vendor you are dealing with have lack of inventory. Reader can check ecomm expert academy as one of the course explain this on details.
Hey, yes, it’s not “100% new” (almost nothing is these days). There are courses out there, but most of the ones I’ve seen just overcomplicate something that is actually very very simple. And a lot of them focus on RESELLING on Amazon, something I do NOT recommend…
Why do you not recommend reselling on Amazon?
I just think it’s better on your own website, especially if you’re using paid ads… also, selling other peoples products on Amazon is a grey area, for example, from time to time we have people try to sell our products which the are NOT allowed to sell (ours are branded and trademarked), as an Amazon seller, it’s kind of annoying when other people sell your stuff, and often undercut your price. There are times when it’s fine to do it, but it’s best to ask the owner of the product first 🙂
I want to get 7 steps through which i can sell products
Hey Aidan,
I have seen this strategy before, my main concern is logistics (including transit/returns and packaging costs) and privacy side of these transactions (stuff being sent to your home from your buyer) as well as dealing with disputes (between yourself, your buyer and/or Amazon seller). On a separate note, stuff like charge backs from PayPal need to be considered as well. This is similar to drop-shipping strategy I used before except you purchase the product yourself.
Would you be able to elaborate on these scenarios?
Many thanks,
Slavko
Hi Slavko, like EVERY method, this one has it’s downsides, however even these downsides still make it better than most ways people earn a living! 🙂
1. Logistics is easy… people buy on your site, you send to vendor by purchasing on Amazon (or wherever).
2. Privacy… you don’t NEED to use your home, but if you do, and if you’re earning thousands, it’s probably a fair compromise worth making.
3. Paypal Chargebacks… VERY rare on physical product sales.
Hope this helps Slavko, by no means is the process perfect, but it’s another option you have available to you.
What is the start up cost – the product cost?
The startup cost is really just setting up a Shopify site. You never buy inventory until AFTER you’ve sold it…
It suddenly makes sense … doing all the research on my competitors for Amazon, I notice they sell their own items but a whole bunch more on their own ecom sites … so THAT’S what they’re doing! Great stuff, as always.
I’m wondering if, when you buy the product from Amazon (say, 20 of them with a coupon), you can send it BACK to Amazon and have them fulfill it as your own arbitrage item? Hmm …
Yep… this is often how people do it… or some modification of this process 🙂
Regarding buying then RESELLING on Amazon… as an Amazon seller, I HATE this. I think it’s unethical so wouldn’t do it… but yeah, it’s what a lot of people do.
Hi aidan, i already have a facebook fan page for my website would really love to try that and see if it works. Great stuff!
Let me know how it goes! Good luck!
On the surface this seems fairly straight forward [gulp]
For a guy like me who has a very serious learning curve to setting up a “store” / web site / page / landing page
Realistically from a untrained stand point how fluid can it be to create a “page” for the item sold?
I’m wanting to try to tackle the biggest beast first to make this a viable consideration
Would one go to like Fivver to make it happen?
I’m not trying to avoid work, just not wanting to spend 3 weeks making a site
Hopefully I do not come across whining , just addressing my Achilles heel
Thank you for your reply
Hi Andy, there are a few core ‘chunks’ of tasks that you need to learn/do:
1. Build a shopify site (Shopify has EXCELLENT support to help you get this done… and you can hire people to do it for you for less than $50 on Elance.com)
2. Facebook advertising – obviously it’d help if you had some grounding, like if you’re already part of the 100k Factory training program, but if not, it’s like anything, you’ll learn while you’re doing it. Probably won’t get it 100% right first time, but it’s a starting point.
These are really the only two main components, so it’s actually quite simple. Amazon isn’t a complication, as you’re only buying items to resell on your own store…
Hope this helps clear things up Andy!
Hello Aidan, very cool idea and thanks for sharing! It’s too bad Amazon doesn’t let you fulfill other people’s FBA products so that you can ship it directly to them. You said you live in Argentina but presumably you are having products shipped to customers in the US. Logistically, how would you do that? I can’t imagine buying products off Amazon, then shipping to yourself in Argentina and then shipping back to someone else in the US would be cheap or quick. Or, am I misunderstanding something?
Hey Brett,
Yes, all our customers for this method are US based. Our process is as follows:
1. Someone buys on our site
2. We ship to them direct from Amazon (in most cases, these are OUR products, so the branding matches the store where they bought it)
I never touch the products down here in Buenos Aires 🙂
Could you please respond to the following question as directly as possible?
When the customer receives their order, wouldn’t they get pissed off after seeing that their order came from Amazon instead of the Shopify store where they placed the order?
If I were the customer, I would really find it strange, even suspicious, that my order came from Amazon instead of the place where I bought the item.
If you’re claiming that the customer will NOT have any problem with that, could you please provide a plausible reasoning as to why that would be the case?
Btw, I’m assuming that having the item sent to me first is NOT an option.
Also, selling a “specialist seller” product shouldn’t be an option as it contradicts your autoresponder email in which you said:
“There’s an ‘off-the-radar’ way to sell ANY product on
Amazon as if it were your own…”
Hi Adam,
Amazon is merely a fulfilment service. For example, we have brands which sell on Amazon, and ALSO on their own stores. All sales from the stores are shipped from Amazon. We’ve never ever had anyone say anything to us (a lot of merchants do this). If you’re concerned though, you could put some wording on your site to state that “products are shipped from Amazon”.
The comment I made about being a specialist seller refers to selling a very specific set of products on your store. For example, a domain name like ‘SmartPhoneCaseExperts.com’ that ONLY sells smartphone cases.
Hope this helps…
Hi, Aidan!
That means that you integrate somehow Sopify with your FBA account. It s that correct?
Yes, Shopify integrates seamlessly with FBA 🙂
Good strategy Aidan. I had concerns about ordering from Ali Express and the order taking so long in delivery, and with the FBA model we have to wait a fortnight for our money. I’ve been waiting for a strategy to get me started with my small budget. I will get stuck into this and keep you updated. I have to change my thinking though, to pick a product that will absorb the mark-up in price without making it too expensive. Thank you.
I would love to hear how you go Roger!!
What about margins? Do you need a certain markup to make this work? I know it can be difficult to be profitable paying for traffic to a drop shipping site. Are you running into the same challenges with this strategy?
Normally we’d aim for at least $15 mark up. Many of our Facebook ad campaigns result in $4/conversion… so to break even, we’d need to sell for at least $4 more. To make it worthwhile, you really want to have $10 profit per sale on these things though…
Hi Aidan.
Thanks for explaining this. Very interesting.
I am an Amazon seller selling my own products via FBA.
At the top of this article, you said that it revolves around Shopify (but any kind of eCommerce platform would work, including WordPress).
I have a few WordPress sites but how can this work on them? Is there a particular plugin that would allow me to accept payment for my products on them? That is the problem with Amazon because you can’t tell where the sales are coming from.
Other than using Shopify, if there isn’t a plugin for WordPress, can you offer any advice as to what to do?
Great article though.
All the best
Martin
Hi Martin,
It’s been a while since we took payments using wordpress, but I used to use WooCommerce Plugin, so that’d be a good place to start, and I’m sure it’ll work (just not as streamlined as Shopify).
Best of luck!
Thanks Aidan.
I have heard of it. Will take a look and if it is suitable, I look forward to trying this method out.
I need some way to boost sales.
Many thanks
Martin
Hi!Aidan,
I am a cuban living in Marbella,Spain and I love internet marketing but my biggest
problem has been finding a way to make money.But thanks God I got here to your site as I love what I´m seeing.
Many blessings to you,
Orestes
Great stuff Orestes! I’m visiting Cuba in a few months, I hear it’s beautiful 🙂
That will be nice if you visit Cuba,the people are very friendly like me :-)and it is really beautiful island.The best way to see it is if you rent a car as transportation is terrible….but you gonna like it for sure Aidan.
I would like to know if you have any course about this method using Shopify or plan to bring one in the future as I really dream to have my own business online.
Thanks and wish you all the best in Cuba,
Blessings,
Orestes
We’re VERY excited about visiting Cuba! As for Shopify, no… not right now. We’re may look at putting something together soon though, so stay tuned 🙂
That´s gonna be nice so I will stay tuned though I´m in your list now….great!
Hi Aidan,
thanks for interesting post! My concerns: the price margin has to be higher to overcome the shipping costs too, which could be also pretty high… Also price margin has to be able to compensate the advertising costs on FB (or other methods)… What is the experience with this?
Also I am a member of 100k Factory and unfortunately till now couldn’t reach to overcome the advertising costs on Facebook by income from advertising (adsense). I implemented the steps learned also ROI tips with Bounce breaker but Adsense income is too small to make profit… Could you please give an advice, as I am trying for over 2 months… FB advertising runs good, but people don’t click on ads… (www.bodybuilding-territory.com). Thanks!
All the best,
Oleg
Shipping isn’t always high Oleg, it depends what products you’re promoting (heavier and bigger cost more). As for advertising costs, we can get sales for as little as $4 – $5 (sometimes less) per sale… meaning, it COSTS us $4 to make a sale.
For your 100k Factory site, I would DEFINITELY recommend you look at testing out affiliate marketing. Bodybuilding is a GREAT topic for affiliate income (and also, I would build an email list as well for this topic)!
Thanks for your advice, Aidan! By affiliate marketing you mean promoting clickbank infoproducts or there is other option? I am building an email list chain for clickbank infoproducts promotion…
Is there any suggestion from You on increasing adsense income for it to overcome the fb ad costs?
Thanks a lot!
Oleg
Clickbank is EXACTLY what I mean 🙂 I don’t think here is the right place to dive into detail about Adsense/FB strategy, send us an email, and we can reply there 🙂
Hi Aidan,
Do you have to use Shopify to build your store? Or can you use another platform, say Weebly, and do the same as using Shopify?
Thanks
Darrell
Hey Darrell, many other platforms work. The main thing is that you MUST be able to take orders on your site. So, for example, WordPress + WooCommerce plugin is one option. Weebly may have addons that let you take payments. BigCommerce is another option.
Genius – Aidan, you never cease to amaze me. How do you think of these things?
Hehe, thanks John! Catch up soon 🙂
Thanks for this info. It’s great and comes at a perfect time for me. I’ve scrolled through all the comments and no one else seems to have this question… I’m actually concerned about getting images for a product. If I’m planning to sell something on my site and once sold, order through Amazon and have it shipped, where can I get the images of the item? Won’t I potentially get into trouble if I use their images of an item? Especially if those images happen to be taken by an individual seller? Thanks in advance for your insight on this.
Hi Jeannie, this is a grey area… you could always take photos yourself though, or pay someone to modify the existing images to make them unique… in the long run, if you’re selling a lot of something, then it’d pay to take your own pics.
Hi Aidan:
I love this concept, as it solves a lot of problems I experienced before with having an online store. I am interested in setting up a store with a complete line for a specific niche. The store will sell a mixture of my own handmade products, affiliate-marketed products, and presumably, products I purchase, after I sell them (as you suggest).
Do you see any problem with the hodge-podge approach? Seems like some products will be more profitable sold-then-bought, as you suggest, and others will be better, sold with an affiliate arrangement.
Love the download manual for driving traffic and identifying the profitable items….perfect.
Hey Julia,
Glad you like it! It’s fun as either a ‘side project’, or to build a bigger business around 🙂 I think a mixed approach is FINE, the main thing is to ensure that since it’s a mixed approach, it doesn’t end up taking a lot longer to run the store (I don’t see why it would, but it’s worth considering).
Hey Aidan,
What are your thoughts on increasing your profits by using Amazon Prime? If you’re a member (even start for free using the free 30-day trial that they have for people who have never signed up before and then $99 per year, which you could make up in sales) you get 2-day free shipping on anything in Amazon’s warehouses. We don’t have to pay for shipping and the customer is really happy with us because they got their item really fast! It’s a win, win unless you think it’s too risky and Amazon would get angry about it?
I’m really interested in getting your thoughts on this.
Thanks!
Hi Jay, yeah, you could try using Amazon Prime, I think that’s a great idea 🙂
Great bunch of comments Aiden.
I could not get the report button to work, it stayed on 50%.
Hi Leslie, thanks for commenting! Please try again on the report… should definitely work! If not, please contact our support: http://support.blueprintcentral.com
Great content as usual Aidan !
Very easy to follow.
Have set up an 8 Ad Set for one of my products, will be interesting how it goes.
Cheers Sam
Great stuff Sam, would love to hear how it goes for you!
Is a free shopify shop with subdomain still working for such kind of approach?
Yeah, that’s fine. Just make sure the store is on a domain you own though, not hosted on something like http://www.website.shopify.com, it should be on YOUR domain name.
Hi,
Great stuff!
Some questions though, since you are so good at answering:
1. You are talking about using just a normal Amazon account for buying and selling the items? Not a business account or something ?
2. Won’t the person receiving the products from Amazon see my name on the receipt inside the package or something ?
(Because I can’t send products all over the world with my personal name on it. That’s no good.)
3. Why not (apart from longer delivery time of course). Use supplier like:
Aliexpress.com or Banggood.com (Which have dropship function to remove their name)
instead of Amazon ?
Also because the products on Amazon usually comes from China in the first place.
4. When you receive a lot of transfers with Paypal. What do you do in regards with bookkeeping? Extract every sale from Paypal and/or Shopify? I mean what are you giving to your accounting firm?
Hey Fredrik, glad you like it!
>>>> 1. You are talking about using just a normal Amazon account for buying and selling the items? Not a business account or something ?
Yeah, but either would work just fine.
>>>> 2. Won’t the person receiving the products from Amazon see my name on the receipt inside the package or something ?
No, you’d buy it and send it to them, with THEIR name.
>>>> 3. Why not (apart from longer delivery time of course). Use supplier like: Aliexpress.com or Banggood.com (Which have dropship function to remove their name)
instead of Amazon ?
You absolutely COULD do this. I was merely using Amazon as an example, as it’s easy for everyone to understand. You can use any source though 🙂
>>>> 4. When you receive a lot of transfers with Paypal. What do you do in regards with bookkeeping? Extract every sale from Paypal and/or Shopify? I mean what are you giving to your accounting firm?
We extract everything. It’s really not that time consuming and can be easily outsourced.
Hope this helps Fredrik!
Hi Aidan. Love this blog post. Can you please clarify some things.
1. If the customer decides to return the item by calling Amazon directly, instead of calling you, won’t Amazon close your Amazon buying account? When Amazon tells the customer “that upon receipt of your return item, we will credit the person who bought the item for you as a gift”. If the customer says, “hey wait a minute, I bought this item. I am the buyer”. Amazon will then tell them that the buyer on the account was me (which is someone the customer doesn’t even know). The customer then tells them they bought if from your shopify store. Won’t you lose your Amazon buying account priviledges?
2.How do you process refunds to the customer when they want to return the item?
3. Won’t Amazon be suspicious when they see you placing a lot of orders for the same product each day? They will figure out that this guy must be re-selling Amazon products. Is it against Amazon’s TOS to re-sell products listed on Amazon without using a pro-seller’s account?
Hopefully you can clear this up for me as I really like what you have outlined so far.
Hi Jim!
For #1, no, I’ve never seen Amazon close an account in this way. One thing to keep in mind is that people are buying things that they want, and they CAN get refunds, send returns. The reality is however, that for 100 orders, you’ll get less than 5 returns, and the people that do return have never been a problem for us.
For #2, they paid you on YOUR store, so you can simply reverse that transaction (Paypal and Shopify Payments make this easy).
For #3, nah, but keep in mind, that when you start selling LOTS of items, you may buy in bulk and start using your own kind of fulfilment. All Amazon are concerned with is that the orders are real (ie, you’re paying for them). We haven’t had any issues 🙂
Thanks for the reply Aidan.
Just wondering,
Q1
are you fulfilling your Shopify orders through your Amazon Seller FBA/FBM account? or are you actually using your personal Amazon buyer account?
If you are doing it thru your Amazon Seller account as FBA or FBM , then Amazon isn’t going to have an issue with that.
Q2
But if you are using your own personal Amazon buyer account, then won’t they have an issue with it as they will know you are using your personal account to resell their products (they will see that you ordered 50 separate orders for the exact same product). I know you mentioned that when you have a hot seller, you can then just buy in bulk/private label. But I was wondering about the first 25-50 orders and the risk with Amazon.
Q3
As far as you know, is it against Amazon TOS to resell product via your own personal Amazon buyer account?
I don’t want to risk losing my Amazon buying privileges unless you know another way to reduce this risk.
Thanks for the feedback.
Hi Jim, great Q’s!
1. We normally do it through our FBA account. We have done it using our personal accounts as well, although not on a HUGE level. Also, keep in mind, you don’t NEED to use Amazon as the fulfilment house, there are lots of alternatives (once you see something sells well, buy in bulk for yourself, and fulfil somewhere else – I think this solves the Amazon concern).
2. We’ve often ordered large bulk orders on Amazon (for events, prizes, giveaways etc), and we’ve never had an issue! We’ve also repeatedly ordered the same thing often, and again, never had an issue…
3. I’m not sure… technically speaking, you’re buying something, and then selling it again, which is PERFECTLY legal. If you’re worried about simply forwarding on from Amazon, then you could send to yourself, and forward on again, that’d solve this issue…
Hope this helps 🙂
Hi Aidan,
Great stuff! I coincidentally started a Shopify store to monetize one of the sites, and it is working well. What I am seeing is many add to cart but no purchases, did you try any retargeting method on Facebook to get those potential clients?
Another thing is the Shopify payments set up from Argentina, how do you fill out the social security number if you don’t have one? I am using 2checkout but it has problems counting the sales.
Thank you!
Andres
Hi Andres,
For your add to carts, where people do NOT end up buying, you may want to consider using the ‘Abandoned Cart’ email function. It’s only available in the $79/m Shopify plan, but it will automatically send an email to anyone who abandons the cart (and you can customize the email to say anything you want, also to give a link back to the checkout page).
For the Social Security number, I’m not sure, as I use the one I have in the USA… there MUST be a way around this though – try calling Shopify to see what they say about it.
Hi Aidan great idea and appreciate your sharing.
Had a few questions if you don’t mind:
1. Privacy: shopify uses your basic home address. Customers see this right? Fulfillment services (Amazon, iherb, etc) have this in receipt sent customers? Would you recommend setting up llc or just run as personal buis?
2. In practice this could pivot to a private label operation easily? How much work to have Amazon FBA add your own private label for resell?
3. Advice on budgeting for this (spreadsheet, rule of thumbs for ad size budget/duration/? I’ll figure this out in execution but would be cool to see realistic conversion/sales/income numbers and just how big a shopify store can actually get from targeted Facebook ads
Thanks and excited to share results
Hi Bobby, to answer your Q’s:
1. Yes, customers can see the address you put. Doesn’t have to be a home address though… for example, we sometimes use addresses we’ve set up at places like EarthClassMail.com
2. Yes, it could… at least, you could validate the viability of a product (using someone elses product), then source your own 🙂 Setting up to sell on FBA doesn’t take long at all, what slows most people down is when they import from China (or wherever), it’s not difficult through.
3. For Facebook ads, if you’re segmenting out into 8 different groups, then start with $2-$3/group per day. You’ll quickly see what is and isn’t working 🙂
Hope this helps!!!
thanks so much for this valuable info! Once again!!
Hi Again, Aidan:
I’m setting up a store with a strong niche concept, using this method (along with our own handmade pieces) as a means to learn exactly what our audience likes, while we learn more about the audience, itself. I’m excited…I believe it will work, and we expect to get cash flow working for us, as we learn.
Just want to provide a little feedback, in case others want or need to know:
1. I expected to combine affiliate selling with this sell/buy technique….along with our own pieces (which we see as samples for future white label production).I thought it would be better to sell the higher priced items as an affiliate, so I wouldn’t have to mark up the prices. FYI, Amazon affiliate sales aren’t possible on Shopify. What the heck…might as well go for the sell/buy method, anyway.
2. I was a little set back for a moment about images. But I looked at discussions about this on various forums, and I decided that it’s not likely to be a problem. I’m cropping screen shots for my Shopify site. PIctures look great, mixed with our own photography for our items.
3. We’re adding value to the items we’re curating, by putting them in a context with other items (collections that will enable customers to understand how and where styles fit into their taste and lives), so I don’t feel the least bit bad about marking them up.
I do have one question, for you or others.
I’m using some brands with a little heft. I’m shy of using products with the brands showing on labels. Seems like it’s not a good idea to display the brands in our catalog. For some brands, I can probably ask for permission, and maybe strike up a relationship. But having come from a long corporate career, I’m pretty sure that would sink me into quicksand with the somewhat bigger companies.
It’s very likely that we’ll go into production with our line of styles that emulate some of these items, once we learn what customers in our niche like. We won’t copy them illegally, but we will riff on them. I don’t mind that customers will receive the products and go look for more products from the brands they like. That’s fair. But I don’t want them to look up the items, immediately, and find that they can buy them for 20% less somewhere else.
Any comments or suggestions. Avoiding branded labels is limiting my choices quite a bit.
All hints and suggestions are welcome. We will launch in a couple of days…want to share what we learn in the early stages.
Best of Luck to Everyone!
Hi Julia, so great to hear you’re taking action on this! My general rule of thumb is, if in doubt, ask… so you may want to try this with the big brands first. I don’t see what the issue is, as long as you don’t claim to be an official reseller or anything like that…
Hi Aidan,
I am in Buenos Aires for the day with my wife (last minute trip). We are leaving at 8:00 PM today. If you are free today let me know. I am staying near el obelisco!
All the best,
Andres
Hola Andres! I would have loved to, but I’m in Key West, Florida, with Steve!! Next time!!
Say hi to Steve for me! Have a great time up there Aidan!
All the best for you and your family
for this 2016 that is coming soon.
Abrazo grande
I’m confused on your logic behind your ad group segregation. Perhaps you can clarify for me. Why would you separate each age group into its own ad group? Since facebook already gives you the click breakdown by age range under the audience tab couldn’t you just see what age group is clicking the most and then refine one ad group? To me it makes more sense to segregate them by interests so you can see what age group is performing the best inside of each interest group. However you have probably been doing this for much longer than me so I was wondering if I am missing something that was obvious to you?
Hey Jesse, great question 🙂 The reason we do it like this, is that we find it gives a more accurate reflection of the real costs (and performance) of the segmented age brackets than when just looking at the performance data breakdown for each ad when you’re NOT segmenting by age. You don’t really get a true reflection of what the real cost of each audience segment is unless you break them out into individual groups. Hope this makes sense, please comment again if you have another question!
Aidan, Using the sell then buy model, how do you ensure that you have accurately covered yourself for the variable shipping costs for different sizes/weights of clothing items?
Pete
Hey Pete, you just need to carefully work this into your prices… you’ll know what these costs are before you buy/sell…
Do you recommend any particular shopify theme?
No, we don’t use Shopify for the new type of site we’re building, we use WordPress. We DO use Shopify for websites set up with Amazon brands though, but no theme in particular.
Lets say the consumer bought the product from amazon that i don’t own from my shopify store, How exactly do i ship it to them?? do i purchase the product myself from amazon and then ship it to them or can i just enter the consumers address on amazon and let amazon ship it to them??? I’m really confused here.
Amazon handles ALL the shipping for you, the program is called ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ (FBA)