October 2017 Side Hustle – $13k in Sales, $1.7k in Profit
October was another average month. Sales were up slightly from last month but my profit took a hit due to a $642 fee I had to pay Amazon for the privilege of storing my product at their warehouses. Here’s a snapshot of my sales/profit for last month:
And here’s the fee breakdown (ouch):
A lot of people think that buying something on Amazon means they’re getting the lowest price because they’re purchasing straight from Amazon.
However, most stuff sold on Amazon is offered by 3rd party merchants (like myself). And you probably are not getting the absolute lowest price because of all the fees like this that Amazon charges. If you’re looking for bargain bin prices, you’ll usually have better results on Ebay.
Of course, the quality control on Ebay is much worse and it can be a pain to return stuff. You also don’t get 2 day shipping which is why so many people still stick with Amazon.
I thought it would be helpful to show some of the behind the scenes stuff that Amazon sellers go through so you can understand part of what goes into the cost of the item you’re buying. There’s a lot of expenses that happen between the factory in China and the package arriving in your doorstep and after all of this is factored in, I’m looking at a 13% profit margin for October which isn’t very good.
If I hadn’t been hit with the storage fee I would have been up around 18% which is more in line with previous months.