Notes from Chris

Episode 367

As an accountant at a large accounting firm in downtown Minneapolis, Ryan Grant’s main responsibility was working on financial statement audits of a variety of clients. At night—or just in his free time—he transitioned to a very different role as an online reseller.

I’ll tell you how it works and how Ryan has been so successful, but first—how did this come to be?

Here’s how it went down. At the close of his first semester of freshman year, he went to the college bookstore to sell back his books. They offered a low price compared to what he initially paid for them. He thought, "I wonder if I can just resell these books myself on Amazon?" Well, he did. And the next semester, he started selling books for friends in return for a percentage of the sale.

They were able to do this for about two semesters, but an ambitious expansion plan caused their premature ruin. Despite being shut down, this experience led to Ryan’s next project, in which he raised the stakes.

With the college textbook hustle behind him, Ryan was eager to experiment further. He graduated from college and began work for an accounting firm, but his focus was elsewhere.

Then he started selling online using the Fulfilled by Amazon program. With the Fulfilled by Amazon program, you are able to ship your inventory to Amazon’s warehouses and then they take care of the rest. You still have to respond to messages, manage pricing, etc, but most of the time that you have to put in work is at your choosing.

For the first 21 months that Ryan worked on this project, he earned more than $230,000 in profit. This averages out to more than $11,131 in profit per month. He didn’t actually pay himself that much; he chose to pay himself a salary of $60,000/year, and invest the rest of the profits back into the project. This was a couple years ago, and the growth hasn’t stopped. This not-so-small project has crossed the million-dollar point in sales and now earns massive amounts of monthly profit!

If you're interested in doing something similar, Ryan says you should pay attention to Amazon’s rules and properly represent the condition of your items. If you don’t take this seriously it can lead you to the inability to sell on Amazon in the future. 

Additionally, here are some first steps if you want to put your reselling abilities to the test: 



1. Sign up for an Amazon seller account if you don’t already have one, and make sure that you sign up for an individual account to start as it doesn't have a monthly fee. 


2. Download & install the Amazon Seller App.


3. Go to a retail store or scan items that you have near your house. A few recommendations include Wal-mart, TRU, Home Depot, Lowes, Meijer, Shopko, Kmart, Target, Big Lots etc. 


4. When you get into the store grab a cart, and expect success.


 5. Locate the clearance section of the store that you go to. It’s important to note that many stores will have multiple clearance sections throughout them, so make sure you cover all of the clearance sections in the store.

 
 6. Scan 250 or more clearance or sale items with the Amazon Seller App. Scanning an item means pointing the camera on your cell phone at the barcode of any product in the store and reviewing the output on the Amazon Seller App. When deciding what to scan, look for items that are 50% off or more. If in doubt as to whether to scan the item or not, then scan it and see what the app pulls up.

 
 7. Buy items that have a sales rank under 250,000 AND have a 50% return on investment (ROI) or greater. Make sure it says you are eligible to sell the item on the seller app as well.

  
8. Ship the items that you purchase to Amazon. You can find a detailed guide on how to create your first Amazon FBA Shipment, here.

 

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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Online Selling Experiment: Learn more about the art of flipping and reselling items on Ryan's website!
• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): The model that Ryan used that allowed him to pass on the responsibility of keeping stock and shipping out orders to purchasers

SEE ALSO:

• Sneaker Fan Flips Shoes For $1,000 A Month: A trip to the mall at age 10 turns into a long-term hustle buying and reselling popular sneakers
• Nomad Family Cooks Up $40,000 Profit With Houseware Import Business: A traveling family creates a houseware reselling business using the Fulfillment by Amazon model, with profits going straight to their travel fund
• Government Analyst Builds Six-Figure Reselling Business: How a government analyst goes from collecting Frequent Flyer miles to collecting money through a reselling side hustle

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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