4 Hour Work Week - Tips To Make It Highly Possible

4 Hour Work Week is something that many people want, but very few know how to get. I am here to share with you my tips to make the 4 hour work week highly possible no matter who you are and how much experience you have. 

Best FREE Software For eCommerce Sellers, Private Label, Wholesale

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The Seller’s Journey: How to Be the Hero Your Business Needs


By Tim Calpin

Do you know who Joseph Campbell is?

He’s the foremost authority on journey and myth. Renowned storytellers like Spielberg and Scorsese are all about him.

Campbell believed all truly great stories were, in fact, the same story. He coined something called The Hero’s Journey, a narrative structure that embodies characters ranging from Jesus Christ to Luke Skywalker (as Luke should prove decidedly less controversial, we’ll use him as our example here).

The hero’s journey produces a character with integrity, worth and direction. If a seller can emulate this journey, they’ll create a business with the same characteristics – one that will naturally draw demand and generate a strong brand.

Three Act Structure

Let’s start with the basics. Every story has three parts: beginning, middle and end. And this is universal – it can be applied to the macro and micro alike. A much smarter writer than I once stated that, if you watch closely enough, even “the tick of a second hand on a clock” has three movements – preparation, movement and a resettling. Beginning, middle and end.

In terms of journeys, we refer to these parts as acts. Within these acts, there are plot points. Key moments where the story’s characters are faced with conflict. These points alter the trajectory of the characters and incite growth and change. Take a look at this breakdown:

Take note of these five key points:

The inciting incident

End of act one

Midpoint

End of act two

Climax

Let’s see these moments in action, first in the context of a story most of us know, the story of Luke Skywalker. Then we’ll see how these elements apply to your business and run through a few simple case studies to show how successful retailers have adhered to this journey structure.

Enter Luke. Here’s his journey breakdown:

ACT ONE/BACKSTORY: We meet Luke. He’s young and immature and kind of a baby. His biggest concern in life is picking up power converters at Toshi station.

INCITING INCIDENT: Luke buys R2D2 and C-3PO. He finds the hidden message of Leia pleading for help. This leads him to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

END OF ACT ONE: Luke decides to go with Obi-Wan to save Princess Leia.

ACT TWO: Luke teams up with Han and Chewie as they venture off to save the princess. Along the way, he trains as a Jedi.

MIDPOINT: Luke and co. are captured by Darth Vader. The journey gets harder but Luke grows proportionately stronger. He’s now capable of achieving his final goal.

CLIMAX: Luke saves the day (and a planet) by destroying the Death Star.

ACT THREE: Luke, Han and Chewie are given sweet medals at an intergalactic awards ceremony.

How Does This Translate to Business?

What does this mean for us? Picture these plot points as metrics for the most important journey elements: growth, change and sacrifice. Applying this structure to your business will allow you to benchmark moments leading to your ultimate goal. Envisioning the life of your business as a movie or story can help you to define all the scenes that have to occur in order for you to succeed in your third act.

Act One

The first act of any business starts before the business has begun. Your backstory is the series of events that lead you to opening your business. For the fashion retailer, it might involve designing your first piece of clothing. Or purchasing the ultimate pair of Air Jordans. It could entail your history in a family business, your education or personal relationships.

Your backstory is the most magical stage. It is the Inspiration Stage.

Your backstory is, in many ways, the most magical stage. It is the Inspiration Stage. It’s important to define this because it’s at the heart of your business. The person who opens a store solely as a means of making money will (and should) make vastly different decisions than the person whose business is a passion. When it comes time to create your brand, this is a stage you should draw upon. It’s your ideal, unhindered by the compromise of doing business. You may want to refine your brand along the way, but there should always be some element of this startup spirit.

Your inciting incident is the day you start selling. We’ll define this moment as First Purchase. It is the impetus for everything that happens along the journey after that.

The rest of this initial act is the continuous rise to your first climax – the end of act one. In the Seller’s Journey, we’ll call it Initial Growth. Unlike in movies, there’s no real time constraint or limit to when this occurs, no hard-and-fast rule that defines it. This journey point will be different for every business.

This is how you’ll recognize it: The end of your first act is the day your business changes you. This might translate to quitting your day job. It could be taking out a loan or finding an outside investor. Maybe you move out of the garage and into your own storefront. Whatever the circumstances, it’s the first time you substantially scale up. If you find you have trouble defining a discernible end to this act, it could be your first problem.

Act Two

Upon entering the second act, your scope is much wider. As in a movie, TV show or book, this act is all about Rising Action. Everything you do keeps the line angled up, crawling forward. It’s defined by growth, change and sacrifice. To sum up Skywalker, Luke trained as a Jedi (growth), went from an immature young man to a full-bore hero (change) and put himself in harm’s way to save others (sacrifice).

Growth

True Growth, the growth experienced upon a real journey, isn’t like a lot of the tech growth we’ve all grown accustomed to. It can’t be hacked, it can’t be bought. It’s got to be earned. In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell defines the 10,000 Hour Rule, which states that a person has to spend at least 10,000 hours engaged in an action before they can master it. He found this to be true in cases ranging from The Beatles to Bill Gates. Time + effort is the only formula that equates to this brand of growth.

With online retail, it can be easy to put in the minimum while convincing yourself you’ve done all you need to do. You post on Facebook, send out a tweet. You buy a few AdWords for increased promotion. You check Google Analytics. While these things are necessary, they’re probably only allowing you to maintain the status quo. By lapsing into this minimum-viable routine, your journey line runs a plateau. As such, I’ve listed three ways here to inspire the type of growth we’re talking about:

Build A Supporting Cast

There are several services, tools and platforms out there that can help you grow your store. Drop shipping, for instance, is a great way to introduce new products and start cross-selling. There are platforms out there that’ll allow you to access several drop shippers and automate their inventory feeds. Larger ecommerce stores can look into companies like Stitch Labs or Magento. Platforms like ChannelApe (I’m their CMO) or Doba work for smaller independent sellers. Let companies like these be your R2D2 and C-3PO.

Find A Mentor or Train Online

Business owners that continue to learn put themselves in a great position for growth. Reaching out and building relationships with established members of the retail community will probably benefit you more than you can anticipate. You’ll want someone to bounce ideas off of – whether it’s a more professional arrangement with a paid retail coach or an email or phone correspondence with someone running an ecomm site, someone who’s got experience, connections and insight.

If you’re not into the whole interpersonal thing – that’s cool. There are many viable and affordable tutorial sites like Lynda.com and Coursera that offer a range of great classes. In learning a new area of business, you’re certain to find new opportunities and insights.

Create An Antagonist

Every great hero has a formidable villain. In business, your antagonist is not always quite so defined – but you can create one from your pool of competition. This can be done one of two ways. The first employs a contemporary. Find a business that’s in your league, research them and set goals to surpass their performance.

The second way of creating an antagonist is by identifying a more established business and measuring against their growth. The nice thing about this approach is that it’s often easier to find research on these organizations. If a company is publicly traded, you’ll be able to view its SEC 10-K reports and filings online. If they’re a private company, you should still be able to derive enough information to keep pace with them.

While you may not be doing the volume these companies are (yet), you can set your goals comparatively. For example, Amazon recorded $107 billion in revenue last year. You’re not there yet, that’s cool. But these sales amount to a 20% increase from 2014 to 2015. If you’re ambitious, there’s no reason why you couldn’t set this percentage as your YoY growth.

Change

Change is directly correlated with growth. When a character starts the hero’s journey they are often immature and inexperienced. During the second act, they evolve so that they can continue overcoming conflict and ultimately end their journey. These changes are reflected in a character arc. You, too, should have an arc.

There are two types of change along the Seller’s Journey: Active and Reactive. Active Change occurs when you see opportunities and areas for improvement and capitalize on them. A great example of active change is Zappos’s product offering. After experiencing awesome growth as a shoe retailer through their first eight years, Zappos began offering clothing and accessories in 2007. As a result, they reached $1 billion in sales the very next year, reaching this goal two years before projected.

If you only change when you have to change, you’re missing opportunities.

Reactive Change occurs when a business is confronted by a problem that threatens their profitability and/or stability.  Walmart’s purchase of Jet.com is a good example. As the retailer continues to be threatened by the online success of stores like Target, they’re making a big move to ensure that they’re still relevant in an emerging market. Had Walmart built their own online infrastructure years ago, they may not have had to consider such a large acquisition.

How do you measure change? There are all sorts of ways – especially with analytics what they are today. As this is high level, I’ll list some very general methods. The first is simply monitoring your active/reactive ratio. You should have more instances of active change than of reactive. If you only change when you have to change, you’re missing opportunities. And when a reactive change becomes necessary, it’s frequently because an initial active change was overlooked.

Write down five numbers:

The products you offer

The employees you have

Your technology integrations

Your social media likes

Your postal code

Compare the fluctuations of these numbers quarter to quarter, year to year. This exercise is less about whether the numbers go up or down and more about the changes themselves. Did something change? Why did it change? Is this good or bad?

Sacrifice

The hardest part of any journey is sacrifice. By the end of Luke’s journey, he’d lost his Uncle Owen, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his right hand. As a retailer, you shouldn’t be facing any imminent loss of limb. So that’s good. You’ll have to sacrifice in other ways though. Time, money, sleep, emotion – you vest all these in your business.

In the hero’s journey, the ultimate sacrifice is the one that’s made selflessly. It’s offered up to benefit others. In the retail world, this translates to decisions made for the customer. As a retailer, there are going to be opportunities to make more at the cost of offering the customer less. These are short runs wins, but journey losses. A consumer-focused business is one that has longevity.

The ultimate sacrifice is made selflessly. In the retail world, this means decisions made for the customer.

A close look at shopping comparison offers insight into consumer sacrifice. The best shopping comparison tools, like PriceZombie and PriceBlink, set themselves apart from other SCEs by providing a price history. This allows a customer to see when the price of any particular item is at an all-time high or an all-time low. This can help incite a sale. But when prices are high, this history often deters users from making a purchase. While the shopping comparison entity loses in the short run (they only earn affiliate income when a purchase is made), they win in the long run because they’re sacrificing a quick sale for the long-run good of the customer.

Your midpoint and second act climax are closely tied together. The cool thing about the Seller’s Journey is that it encompasses your entire business history, but it’s also applicable to shorter periods along the way. Your climax is a goal that you set. Subsequently, your midpoint is the halfway mark to that goal. This doesn’t necessarily correlate with actual figures and time periods. It isn’t just cutting a sales goal into two halves or a year into six-month periods. The midpoint is when you actually become capable of hitting your end goal. As such, we’ll refer to the midpoint in the Seller’s Journey as Climax Capability.

Let’s say your goal is to gross $1 million in sales. This doesn’t mean that your midpoint is $500,000. Your midpoint is the day that $1 million in sales becomes a feasible projection. It means you’ve grown that much. In truth, this Climax Capability point should come far before you reach that sales figure, as long as you have the resources, relationships and integrations you need to do so.

Act Three

Once you’ve reached your goal, your third act resolution is a time to celebrate. It’s important to acknowledge when a goal has been achieved and a journey completed. While this in no way signifies the end of your business story, it allows you to put what’s happened into a definitive context. As you’ll see in the Seller’s Journey image below, a third act looks an awful lot like the beginning of a first act. Using the momentum you’ve gained, you should be able to segue right into the next phase of your ultimate journey.

Apple’s Seller’s Journey

Now that you’ve got a basic understanding of The Seller’s Journey, let’s see how it’s played out in some real world examples. And how you can learn from what great retailers have accomplished along their journeys.

Steve Jobs and the story of Apple have inspired several great books and one great film (sorry, Ashton). There’s a reason for this: it’s because these stories are true journeys.

ACT ONE/BACKSTORY: Uber-nerds Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak dream of building the first home computer.

FIRST PURCHASE: Jobs and Woz sell 50 hand-built Apple I computers to one of the first computer retailers, The Byte Shop, in Mountain View, CA.

END OF ACT ONE: Apple releases the Apple II in the late 70’s. This puts them officially in the big leagues – rivaling competitors like Commodore and IBM.

ACT TWO: Apple likely has one of the most turbulent second acts any company has experienced. They release the Macintosh, fire Steve Jobs, put out a series of flops – while Microsoft kills it – and hire Jobs back. They make a lot of mistakes, but all in the name of progress.

CLIMAX CAPABILITY (MIDPOINT): This is a good example of a journey point not adhering to time constraints. Apple’s mid-point runs twelve years from 1985 to 1997 – the same years that Jobs was absent from the company.

CLIMAX GOAL: The release of the iMac in 1998 revolutionizes home computing.

ACT THREE: We’re living in Apple’s third act. Once they got it right, they just kept soaring through a successful third act with the iPod, iPhone, iPad and laptop series.

Apple exemplifies the need for sacrifice. The year before the company released the computer that changed the world, they were down to a few months of operating budget, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Jobs made the decisions to cut the development of 70% of Apple products so the company could focus on their most relevant product offering. Throughout their entire history, Apple has always made hard decisions and sacrificed for what they thought was best for the user.

The Girlboss Seller’s Journey

The story of Sophia Amoruso and Nasty Gal Vintage isn’t quite as well-known as Apple’s, but it’s definitely more accessible. And considerably more badass.

ACT ONE/BACKSTORY: Misspent youth. A teenage Sophia takes to hitchhiking and shoplifting. During this time, though, she cultivates a love for vintage items.

FIRST PURCHASE: Sophia sells a stolen book on her newly opened eBay store, spawning her brand ‘Nasty Gal Vintage’.

END OF ACT ONE: After being caught shoplifting, Sophia gives up stealing altogether and focuses all her time and effort on her eBay store.

ACT TWO: Sophia becomes a marketing pioneer, using social media (MySpace mostly) to promote her site and inventory. Sales and popularity grow.

CLIMAX CAPABILITY (MIDPOINT): Sophia gets kicked off of eBay. Instead of giving up, she opens her own online Nasty Gal store.

CLIMAX GOAL: By 2011, Nasty Gal reaches sales of over $20 million a year.

ACT THREE: Amoruso continues to be a retail mogul. She’s segued this into a best-selling biography, a Netflix series and her own personal brand #girlboss.

Two things stand out in Sophia’s story. The first is how strongly tied her brand is tied to her character and her backstory. Amoruso was and is a retail rebel. Her history, attitude, perspective and love for a fashion niche are all manifested in Nasty Gal’s name and look. She never went mainstream and that’s part of what’s made her so popular.

Amoruso also embraced change. She sold fashion through eBay and used social media to market before these things were commonplace. She transformed from a seller to a store owner to a business mogul to a writer to an icon. That’s straight up reinvention.

Your Seller’s Journey

So many people walk blindly into business. By identifying a narrative, placing yourself in it and adhering to the rules of the Seller’s Journey, you can effectively tell your own story. It is the master plan, the ultimate strategy. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. When we take a closer look at any real-life Seller’s Journey, it’s going to look less like a straight line and a lot more like this:

Every business has its ups and downs, no matter what your strategy is. Each peak and valley is less important than the overall upward trend. To maintain that, you’ve got to know where you’re at and where you’re headed. I hope by using this process you’ll grow, change, sacrifice and create a profitable business with integrity.

(SOURCE)

8 Tips for Making this Your Best Year Yet for Amazon FBA Sales

By Karon Thackston

Stephen Smotherman truly is a success story worth following. You’ve probably seen his guest posts (#1 and #2) on the Marketing Words blog before. I’ve invited him back once again to answer some questions and provide you with a bucket load of solid info to take you into the new year. Welcome Stephen!

STEPHEN: Thanks, Karon, for asking me to do this interview with you. Before I get into the answers, I wanted to say thank you for all that you do for the Amazon seller community. Your blog posts, resources, and products are all top-notch and I enjoy recommending them to anyone who sells on Amazon. Every email I get on your mailing list is filled with an actionable tip that helps me often. So, thank you for all you do. Ok, let’s get into the interview.

KARON: Thanks! I appreciate that. OK, as the fourth quarter rush comes to an end what are the top three tasks you recommend for Amazon sellers so they can start the new year on the right foot?

STEPHEN: I love this question because most people just assume they will start their new year focus on January 1 when the calendar turns. But those who succeed view the coming year like a marathon. Marathons require training and preparation… so thinking and planning ahead right now is a great way to use your time. The top three tasks to make sure you start 2017 off right are:

1. Goal setting – Many of us have goals, but a goal without a plan is just a dream. Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time bound. A weak goal is “I will make more money in 2017 than last year.” A great goal is “I will average sales of 200 units per month by July 2017 by reinvesting as much capital back into more inventory as possible.”
2. Long-Term Storage Fee Repricing – On February 15, Amazon will charge a long-term storage fee for every item you have stored in Amazon warehouses for over 6 months. It’s a good idea now to try and reprice your inventory that will cause the bulk of your long-term storage fees (I have walkthroughs on my blog and in the YFBA book that show in detail how to do this).
3. Get your books in order – If you’ve been lazy about keeping track of receipts, profits, losses, sales, etc. then now is a great time to start fresh. It’s important to know your numbers so that you can see what items, stores, categories, etc. are the most profitable for your Amazon business. Maybe you thought selling grocery items was worth the time and money, but do you really know? Keeping good track of your numbers will show you in more details how well you’re doing (or not doing). Plus, keeping good records will also help you out come tax time.

KARON: You are so right! So then, tell me… once the three things above are taken care of, what are two vital tasks every Amazon seller should do on a monthly basis?

STEPHEN:

1. Reassess inventory possibilities – When it comes to RA and OA, it seems like most stores have waves of when it’s profitable to source there for inventory. Some weeks one store is great while another may dry up. Ride the waves as long as you can but when a store dries up, look for other stores to see if a profit wave is forming.
2. Improve your product listings – Sometimes this means repricing your item to be more competitive. Check CamelCamelCamel or Keepa to see if you can still expect to get the prices you originally set. Other times it might mean improving the product pages of inventory you have multiples of in stock but they aren’t selling.

You asked for 2, but I’m giving you 3 because it relates back to your first question:

1. Go back and review your goals and action steps. If you set goals in January and don’t revisit them monthly, you’re just wasting your time. Review your goals and see if your current actions are causing you to get closer to or move further from accomplishing them. Adjust your actions if necessary.

KARON: Thanks for the bonus J Now, let’s move from monthly to special occasions. What is your approach to planning for various holidays throughout the year?

STEPHEN: It’s smart to plan ahead to take advantage of both major and minor holidays, but I wouldn’t jump on board every holiday opportunity at first. Just pick a few holidays this year and try to be in stock for those few holidays at least 3 months in advance. It might feel weird preparing for Halloween in July, but if you wait until September to start, you’ll lose out on tons of sales and might even end up with unsold inventory. People start buying holiday-related items earlier and earlier each year, so be sure you are in stock for those customers and that you’re sold out before everyone else frantically drops their prices right before the holiday. To make quality holiday-themed purchases, check CamelCamelCamel and Keepa to see what prices and sales velocity you could expect for those items.

KARON: Do you have specific strategies related to the four seasons?

STEPHEN: When it comes to buying clothing and shoes, I only source for the season we are currently in. Clothing and shoes are usually more of a long-tail item (it takes longer to sell than other categories). It might be tempting to buy sandals during end of summer clearance sales, but it’s not likely that you’ll get the sale of that shoe until next summer. I don’t want to have too many shoes that don’t sell quickly because that shoe is currently out of season and then have to pay monthly storage fees as well as larger long-term storage fees.

KARON: Are there particular times of the year you find it easier or more profitable to source inventory?

STEPHEN: The easiest time to source for profitable inventory is during Q4 (the last 3 months of the year). It’s possible to find hundreds of items you can make a quick 50% up to 200+% ROI… even when buying full price at retail stores.

Another great time of the year to source for inventory is during August clearance sales. So many stores (RA and OA) are clearing out items to make room for all the new products that will be featured in their holiday sales push. This is especially true when it comes to toys. The “old” 2016 toys are clearanced out to make room on the shelves for the “new” 2017 toys that will be in all the sales ads come November and December.

KARON: Do you find that lowering or raising prices in general tend to happen at certain points every year?

STEPHEN: From my experience, it really depends on the category. But overall, I see most prices on Amazon begin to fall in late January and early February. This might be because of the February 15 long-term storage fee. I see the same trend around late July and early August (again, possibly because of the August 15 long-term storage fee). As for prices going up, the times I see that most is the first two weeks of December. This is when the supply of items on Amazon are going down and the prices go up.

KARON: That makes sense. During all the years you’ve been selling through FBA, where have you found unexpected income in your Amazon sales business?

STEPHEN: It’s technically not income, but it surprises me how often Amazon “forgets” to reimburse me for items that they lose or damage… or items a customer forgets to return. Following up on these items and asking for forgotten reimbursements can add up to some large dollar amounts.

As for real income surprises this year, I actually had a book replen that was sold almost 300 times in 2016. A replen is an item that sells so often that inventory continually needs to be replenished. Most replens are consumable items like grocery or health & beauty items, but I would buy the book in cases from my source, and it would just continually sell for great ROI. That was a nice surprise.

KARON: Wow! Good for you! So, to wrap this up, what advice can you give to sellers to help them get and stay organized with their Amazon businesses?

STEPHEN: Don’t try to organize everything on your own. Use free and paid tools like Evernote and Inventory Lab to keep your ideas, plans, goals, numbers, profits, etc. organized. Also, when things get to be too much for you, hiring help to do some of the simple aspects of your business will free you up to do more of the most important aspects, including keeping everything organized.

KARON: Thanks Stephen. As usual, you’ve provided lots of practical, usable tips that sellers can use to help create a significantly more successful new year.

STEPHEN: It was a lot of fun and I hope your readers will get a lot of actionable content from it.

(SOURCE)

Amazon FBA Profits in Q1 - Tips for Starting the Year

In this Amazon FBA training video, Stephen gives tips for starting the new year off right and making big profits in Q1. 

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Tax Deductions For Amazon Sellers You Can’t Afford To Miss Out On

by The Selling Family

As we close up the 2016 business year, it is a great time to review available tax deductions for Amazon sellers.  If you wait until April, when taxes are actually due in the United States, it is TOO LATE to make any changes for the 2016 tax year.

The only things that can be used to reduce your taxable income for the tax year are items that you spend money on in the same calendar year (January-December). If this is your first year as an Amazon Seller, you may have never filed taxes as a self-employed person.

One of the things we as online business owners try to do is get our “taxable income” as low as possible — because that is the portion that we actually have to pay income tax and self-employment taxes on. Let’s take a look at some tax deductions for Amazon sellers that will help you out in April!

In today’s post, we are going to cover some of the things that you can use in your business, and that we feel are good purchases to not only bring down your total taxable income, but to increase your productivity for the upcoming year.

It’s Time To Get Some Tax Deductions For Amazon Sellers

At the end of every calendar year, I like to sit down and make a list of all of the things our business could really use.  Coming off of a Q4 high, and of course a windfall of taxable income, it’s a great time to see how we can make some business purchases.

One thing my accountant has always commented on is the fact that Amazon Sellers just don’t have that many tax deductions overall.  

It’s pretty simple for us, right?  

• Inventory (COGS - Costs Of Goods Sold)
• Amazon Fees
• Shipping Supplies (labels, boxes, tape, etc)
• Subscriptions
• Education

A lot of times as new business owners, we try to keep our expenses to a bare minimum, because we need as much profit as possible.

Tax time is one of the only times that actually hurts us!

Once you have become profitable in your business, I highly recommend looking for ways you can improve your business set-up and systems.  

What could make it easier to prep your inventory?  How could you source faster?  What could you outsource?

These are all things that help bring your taxable income down and your productivity levels up.

If you have been waiting for the perfect time to purchase some upgrades (or even bare necessities), now is the perfect time to get off the fence.

Here are some of the often overlooked tax deductible purchases you can make as an Amazon seller

New trainings/courses to help you grow your Amazon business

If there is a new niche you have been thinking about getting into, why not get the course now and then tap into it in January?

There’s no better time than the first of the year to add some new strategies to your business.  

In fact, I actually recommend choosing one new technique to add to your business in the new year.  This keeps your business constantly evolving, which is a great thing!

For a look at all of the current trainings we offer for Amazon Sellers, you can see the full list here.

One strategy that you can implement in 2017 is Online Sourcing.  Check out our ABCs of Online Sourcing video course.  There is nothing better than sourcing inventory from the comfort of your own home, in your comfy clothes!

One guide I highly recommend that all Amazon sellers pick up heading into the new year is Stephen Smotherman’s “The Reseller’s Guide To A year In FBA.”  This guide is awesome because it walks you through each month of the year and what Amazon sellers should be focusing on.  Never forget any important seller dates with this guide!

You can take $10 off “The Reseller’s Guide To A year In FBA” using coupon code: JESSICA10

Perhaps you would like to add Private Label to your Amazon business this next year?

We recently did a webinar with Chris Guthrie, where he shared the exact steps it takes to start doing Private Label.  You can check out the replay and know how Private Label works!

Add Beneficial Services Amazon Sellers Use

Now is a great time to upgrade any of your monthly services to a yearly subscription if offered.  

If you have the funds available, it is a great way to both save on the cost of the subscriptions (because they usually offer a discount when you pay by the year) AND get the larger tax deduction for this year.  

Yearly subscriptions add up to a good amount of tax deductions for Amazon sellers.

If you are not utilizing these services, now is a great time to evaluate your business and see which ones will help you to move forward in 2017.

Some of the services we recommend considering are:

AmaSuite - This is actually not a yearly subscription service, but a one-time fee. But it is great for anyone who is doing Private Label or creating their own listings on Amazon.   It helps with keyword research, niche selection, analyzing competition and so much more!  We’ve even got a $100 off bonus right now for The Selling Family readers!

RevSeller - This is actually one of my favorite Chrome extensions right now, and one of the only ones I’m willing to pay yearly for!  This brings all of the features of the FBA Calculator right to the Amazon product page you are looking at.  

Plus, with one click of a button, you can see if you are approved to sell the item or not.  This is a major issue when looking for inventory, as you need to know if the brand / specific item is restricted or not! 

We have a special Selling Family discount for you, too   You can grab RevSeller for $20 off the normal price and get it for just $79/year.  Coupon Code: THESELLINGFAM

Inventory Lab - Easily list your products on Amazon and keep track of individual item profitability.

Tax Jar - Handles the bulk of the work for submitting sales tax to the states you are registered in.  Sales tax is one of those topics no one likes to talk about or do, so I like to give the bulk of the work over to them 

Go Daddy Bookkeeping - This is the bookkeeping service that we use for our business.  It is very simple to use and integrates directly with Amazon.  We have a course that helps you set up this service if needed as well.

I know that these services may seem to overlap, so I’ve got a post to break down the difference for each one and why we use all three in our business!

Stock Up On The Best Tools For Amazon Sellers – 

If you have been a reader of The selling Family for some time, you will know that we love to have the best tools to get the job done.  This is one area we try not to skimp on.  Check out our  Top 10 Must-Have Tools For Amazon FBA Sellers and see if there are any that you must add to your business this year!

Here are some others that will make your selling life easier next year:

Self Sealing Poly Bags - I always get at least one case of our most-used sizes this time of year.  A case is 1,000 bags, so it will last a majority of the year.  The sizes we always have on hand: 8×10, 11×14 & 14×20.  We order them from Uline by the case.  You can also order them on Amazon by the 100.

 

Heavy Duty Packing Tape - Tape is one of the areas that we no longer try to save on.  We have found that when we use “cheap” tape, we use way more and it costs us more in the long run.  The best tape we have found is the Scotch Heavy Duty Shipping & Packing Tape.  Amazon has a great price on the 6-pack!  I usually buy at least 24 rolls.  Since we have a tape machine, that will last us almost all year.

USB Scanner - Help yourself out when it comes time to create your shipments.  A handheld barcode scanner will save you from having to enter all of those UPC codes for every item you are sending to Amazon.

Dymo Printer - If you want to print labels as you create your shipment, then you definitely need a Dymo Printer!  We have the 400, but you can get the 450 Turbo for around the same price and it is faster.

Upgraded Shipping Scale - After we finally upgraded our shipping scale, we loved it!  You wouldn’t think a scale matters much.  But not having to move the box before we can see the weight and having a bigger base has made a big difference.

Laser Printer - We actually now have TWO laser printers in our house — one in each office.  They save us so much money on ink in the long run and are so fast!

Some other small things to consider stocking up on that you may use in your Amazon business:  

• Large size permanent markers
• Dymo Labels
• Avery Shipping Labels,
• Avery Shipping Labels
• Post Its
• Printer Paper
• BoxesBubble Mailers.
• Bubble Mailers

Upgrade Your Office Space For Comfort In 2017

Your home office as a whole is deductible for your taxes.  It is important to make sure that you are ONLY using the space for business, though.

As a general rule, you must use a part of your home regularly and exclusively for business purposes. If your office is your principal place of business (as it is for most Amazon sellers), it’s definitely a tax deduction you’ll want to carefully & thoroughly investigate. If you have questions it’s important to reach out to the IRS directly or a tax professional. (Source)

Last year, we made a lot of upgrades to our office spaces.  Here are some of the things we purchased:

New Desk - My office got a new corner desk with hutch (LOVE IT)

New Macbook - I got a new Macbook Pro for the business.  This is used for creating shipments and on-the-go work.

New iMac computer for the upstairs office where I do most of the computer work.

New iPhones - We both got new iPhones.  Man, we seem to be Apple People for sure 

Color Laser Printer - I use the black and white printer for all of the shipping needs of our Amazon business.  But this year I upgraded my main office to include a color laser printer so that I could print nice printable sheets and ebooks.

New Office Chair - Comfort is a plus when working from home!

A Few Other Tax Deductions Amazon Sellers Often Forget:

Business checking fees. Charges for checking accounts, ATM withdrawals and other bank services are deductible. Love it! Even more good news? Some of the interest on your credit cards may be deductible if you’ve used a card to finance a qualifying business expense. 

Cell phones. Hang onto your cell phone bills because a portion can be deducted come tax time. It boils down to what percentage of your phone is used for business, so great record-keeping is important. (Warning: claiming 100% of your cell phone for business use can trigger red flags for the IRS because that’s so unlikely to be the truth.)

Auto expenses. If you used your vehicle to source products for your Amazon business, you may be able to deduct some of your travel expenses. The 2016 IRS mileage rate is 54 cents per mile for business miles driven.  (See the IRS topic Business Use of a Car.)

The important thing with mileage is it needs to be tracked as you go.  We recommend using a small mileage notebook in your car to write your trips daily, or a smart phone app like TripLog that can track your trips using GPS.  

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Now that you have some ideas on how to get some last-minute tax deductions, which items will you choose?  Are there any purchases you made this week in anticipation of lowering your tax bill?

(SOURCE)