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You are currently viewing Is It Too Late to Start Selling on Amazon in 2018? Q&A with Megan of the Bootstrap Boutique

Is It Too Late to Start Selling on Amazon in 2018? Q&A with Megan of the Bootstrap Boutique

If you’re doubting whether diving into Amazon and trying out private label is something you can achieve, listen to Megan’s story. While tackling a full-time day job, Megan started the side hustle of her dreams with nothing but the information you’re reading now: e-commerce success stories from the internet. Now, founder of the successful blog and YouTube channel Bootstrap Boutique, Megan’s here to walk us through her lessons from private label and why it’s never too late to start small and think big.

Megan’s Story

Like many of us, Megan dreamed of starting a side-business to flex her entrepreneurial muscle. After listening to Scott Voelker and Steve Chou, Megan started a YouTube channel to stay accountable and track her private label progress. Two years later with two products up and selling and two more in development, Bootstrap Boutique is still alive and well inspiring fellow entrepreneurs to do the same.

Deciding On A Product

Before pressing play on her second product, Megan spent months doing methodical research. She poured through Amazon looking at numbers on Jungle Scout as well as historical data and trends to (hopefully) ensure her product would launch into the marketplace with success. Finally, when she noticed a product trending, she struck while the iron was still hot and released her version.

Improvements & Customizations

Perfecting a product can be tricky. For Megan’s two products, she used two different yet equally effective strategies. 

For her first product, Megan asked users to tell her how they used the product in their review after the purchase. After reading through the results, she realized that people were using her product for something she never could have imagined. As a result, she went back and revamped the listing to target consumers within that niche market.  

With her second product, Megan sought to improve the product quickly. She poured through reviews and found consistencies in customer complaints. Using that information, she went back to the supplier who remedied the issue so she could release a new and improved version. 

Off-Amazon Marketing?

A great thing about discovering that a niche market loves your product? You can target that audience in marketing.

After realizing her product attracted a niche market, Megan developed a strategy for reaching that niche consumer off-channel. She sent her product to fellow YouTubers who participated in that specific activity and asked them to do a simple step-by-step tutorial. 

Kicking Off Sales

Admittedly, Megan got lucky with her first product. After listing it, she saw heavy sales within the first few weeks. Normally, it takes a bit longer because Amazon’s algorithm needs a minute to kickstart picking up keywords and ranking you. In general, Megan recommends turning on PPC (pay-per-click) right away. Don’t wait for reviews to come in – the sooner you’ve got traffic going to your product, the better. 

Variations

Quick Tip – When you create a new listing, always set up your listing as a variation even if you start with just singles. That way, if you do include variations down the line, you won’t have to work with support to create a whole new listing.

Staying In Stock

Staying ahead of cash flow will likely be your biggest struggle when it comes to private label. Todd recommends putting purchases on a credit card with cash back. That way, if you pay off your card every month so as not to pay interest, you’ll have a built-in discount when you buy.

Boosting Sales 101

Once she had listings, how did Megan optimize them? Well, once she realized her product was a hit with a particular audience, she reworked her listings and spoke directly to them. Emailing her customers after they bought helped Megan figure out her audience. 

Quick Tip – Your products will always be more in demand when they’re for someone rather than for everyone. 

Megan’s Longterm Goals

While Megan has no aspirations to leave her full-time day job, she hopes to continue loving what she does. Her business is growing at a manageable pace and her long-term plan is to keep reinvesting and see what happens! Her hobby is profitable but, hopefully, it will always be a hobby and never a burden.

So, Is It Too Late for FBA? 

In short, no. While Amazon may be harder to enter as the years go by, through the lens of all retailers, Amazon continues to grow along with opportunities to start selling. In fact, for the first time this past year, third-party sellers sold more on Amazon than Amazon.

The only thing standing in your way of jumpstarting an Amazon business is your willingness to jump in and try.

Resources From This Interview

Outline Of This Interview

[0:00] Introduction and Megan’s story

[3:50] Steve Chou: My Wife Quite Her Job

[5:28] Megan’s first private label product

[6:45] Cash flow

[7:50] Picking a product and deciding what to sell

[9:30] Customizing and sourcing products

[11:55] Marketing

[13:13] Working with the manufactures

[14:35] Starting to sell

[17:35] Product variations

[18:40] Profitable?

[19:55] Staying in stock

[21:26] Optimizing Amazon listings and increasing sales

[22:18] Talk to your customers! 

[25:50] Megan’s longterm goals 

[28:54] The Bootstrap Boutique YouTube Channel

[30:41] Is it too late to start selling on Amazon FBA?

Transcript

Todd: Welcome to the Amazon Seller School. Megan I appreciate you coming on. You have a YouTube channel called the ‘Bootstrap Boutique’ but the big thing that we’re going to talk about with you today is that you do private label on Amazon. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into selling private label on Amazon?

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. Well first Todd thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here with you today. Yeah, so I do sell private label on Amazon and I got into it a couple of years ago just because I have wanted for a long time to have a little side business that was just my own. I work a day job and that keeps me pretty busy but I’ve just always wanted something that was kind of on the side to do some fun basically.

So I had tried a couple of different things. At one point I was gonna do like the whole Etsy maker thing, found that I’m actually not creative enough to do anything on with my hands and crafts and that kind of thing. And so eventually, I found my way to private label through two different sources. mywifequitherjob.com; his blog and then also Scott Voelker’s podcast which is the amazing seller.

So found out about this private label thing that all these guys are doing it and something about it I was just like I think I can do that and so I just really dove in. I’ve read Steve’s whole blog was she even already for like five or six years at that point I’ve read the whole thing in like three days. It was ridiculous and it really started listening to Scott’s podcast. This was about the same time that jungle scout was doing their collaborative product launch which is the one where they started selling the famous bumble bamboo jungle sticks; the marshmallow roasting.

So just really followed the process they lined out to research and bring a product to market. It took me much longer than it took them. It was really about a year before I got something actually for sale on the platform for various reasons but that is how I got started. I just decided that this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go all in and really try it.

And because I had tried other stuff before like Etsy and never been successful with it, I really took a step back and said, “Okay if I’m gonna be different this time if I’m gonna actually make it work then something has to be different. Like I have to be different.”

And that’s why I created the YouTube channel you mentioned earlier; the bootstrap boutique. When I started that, it was oh just a little bit before I found out about selling private label so the first couple of videos were like I want to start something. I don’t know what it’s gonna be but I know I need some accountability and this is gonna be my accountability. And then pretty quickly after that, started in with private label and just haven’t looked back since.

Todd: Very interesting that you had the YouTube channel before the private label.

Megan: Yeah like two or three weeks so it was crazy there how the timing worked out.

Todd: All right, interesting. So what was the original thought with the YouTube channel that you just– you knew you wanted to do something?

Megan: I wanted to do something and I just felt like I needed to build in some accountability to keep going forward. And so I told myself, “Okay I’m gonna do a video every week and I’m just gonna talk about like the progress I’m making on researching a business or whatever is and just document the process the whole way through.” So that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Todd: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, we need more people like that because it’s really helpful to be able to share the knowledge that you gain and help other people.

Megan: Yeah absolutely.

Todd: [Crosstalk] [03:48] it just comes back and helps you as well. Steve Chou – I’ve heard of him and I’ve heard of that website mywifequitherjob.com but I hadn’t really checked it out a whole lot myself. I got involved in this listening to Scott Volker so.

Megan: yep

Todd: Steve Chou, does he teach you directly about private label or what were you learning directly from him?

Megan: Steve was like my entry point. He talks more about e-commerce kind of more broadly. He does sell on Amazon but most of what he does is an e-commerce site that he has with his wife called bumblebee linens and so he also did kind of a documentary process of him and his wife starting this e-commerce business which she wanted to do because when they had their first child, she wanted to stay home.

So that’s where mywifequitherjob; the name came from. But so he talks more broadly about e-commerce and then he started talking a little bit about Amazon FBA which he knows so much by Amazon and in some of his blog posts and I think he might have mentioned Scott or did an interview with Scott which led me over to the amazing seller which is where I really started learning about private label.

Todd: Have you listened to Pat Flynn at all?

Megan: I listened to Pat Flynn. I don’t listen to every single podcast he puts out but I really like his coaching ones that he does the ask Pat coaching. But yeah, I do listen to Pat whenever there’s something in there that I think it’s gonna be interesting or helpful.

Todd: Yeah, yeah I just brought him up because he’s one of the original guys that helped.

Megan: yeah

Todd: Comes from all over the place just absorb everything. So you’re doing private label now. How many products do you have up and selling on Amazon?

Megan: Just two. Two open selling and two in development. I mean I’m just happy to say I do about $4,000 a month when my product doesn’t stock with that being the biggest caveat. I’ve had– that was my biggest issue my first year was just keeping product and stocks. I couldn’t order it fast enough and I ended up being out of stock about as much as I was in stock last year which was pretty painful for me. So that’s something I’m working on remedying this year.

Todd: I’ve done some private label as well. I’ve got a few products up on Amazon nothing that is really successful at Scott Volker would call maybe base hits or I might call bunts.

Megan: yeah

Todd: Right but I’m trying to build it more so $4,000 a month and that’s your net sales or [crosstalk] [06:22]?

Megan: Not really just one product because my second product I just launched here recently so I don’t even think I’ve been through a habit. Haven’t even been to a full month of sales with that yet so I don’t know where that will shake out but just with that first product, it was about 4,000 a month.

Todd: Well that’s not too bad at all. I mean for one product and start multiplying that, you could really make a good income off of that.

Megan: Yeah, it’s just staying ahead of the cash flow the private label that’s a hard thing because the very cash in sense of business.

Todd: Yeah that’s one thing where I’m really big in in wholesale and trying to move into private label more. But in wholesale we net 30, net 60 terms so a lot of times I can sell the products before I have to pay for them. We’re in private label, you’re having to come up with all the money ahead of time, correct?

Megan: Mm-hmm yep yeah absolutely.

Todd: You’ve paid those manufacturers before they’re gonna ship it to you.

Megan: yes

Todd: So yeah, it’s definitely something to keep in mind. You have to have that cash flow and there’s another gentleman that I listened to his podcast. I’m forgetting the name off the top of my head but he was having the same problem where he had some really successful products and didn’t have enough money to reorder because the product went really fast.

And it was gonna be like another couple weeks before the guys disbursement from Amazon and didn’t have that cash flow or had that cash flow problem. So something really important to think about. Can you tell us a little bit how you decided on the products that you went with? What led you down or led you to the products that you decided to go with?

Megan: Yeah, so the first product that I’m selling, I’m still not entirely sure why I chose it. I had been very far down the path with two or three other private label products that I ended up not bringing to market for various reasons and then I found this one and I think it was just like good enough and I was so tired. And this is why it took me a year to get my first one launched. I was so tired of just kind of playing with it you know and not feeling like I was making progress. I found something, the numbers looked okay and I was like let’s do it, right. Let’s just do that one and just kind of dove in.

The second product was much more of a methodical research process. So it was spending a lot of time clicking around on Amazon and pulling up the jungle Scout Chrome extension, looking at the numbers that they were giving us, looking at the historical data looking at trends and then looking finally– I live in near Asheville North Carolina.

My husband and I were out there. I’m in the city one night for date night and you’re walking around before our dinner reservation and all the shops and there was this product with like everywhere.

And I was like okay I think this time it’s time to strike while the iron’s hot with this because it’s not a trend like a fidgets thinner but it’s more like a home décor trend. So it’s something that is popular right now probably will be for the next few years and then like who knows, right. But so that we made it for me a little urgent. It was go ahead and take this one the market next and so that was how I made the decision on product two.

Todd: On those products; the first one and the second one that you have in there, did you make customizations to the product or did you just buy it as is from Alibaba, Aliexpress or how were you sourcing them as well?

Megan: Yeah, so I’m sourcing on Alibaba. The first product I did not do a good job of differentiating it. I just was trying to go so fast. What I actually found is interesting is that because of my follow up sequence for you know you go in and email the customer asked for a review via email.

I was specifically asking customers “in your review tell me how you use this product” because I just– I thought it was gonna be for one thing. Turns out it was overwhelmingly for this like super Nishi hobby so people what happened I was like huh I had no idea. So I went in and I kind of like read in my listing to really attract that customer and that type of person and it’s worked out really well.

So I say with product one I differentiated on the marketing side not on the product creation side. With product two, I just really looked to make improvements. I spend a lot of time reading customer reviews to see what their main complaints were. There was a couple of things that were consistent among all the top sellers. So I worked with a supplier to remedy that issue and that’s working out also.

Todd: That’s something that a lot of people might not think about is that you don’t necessarily have to really customize the product. It’s good to do that, differentiate yourself but you can also differentiate yourself by targeting a market that nobody else is doing. One thing that comes to mind for myself is one of the items that I sell wholesale is some fishing leader material.

It’s like this line and I’m finally making a lot of people who are leaving feedback and reviews on that product actually are using it for totally other purposes like hobbies or crafts or their– This one guy was using it to tie something behind his RC race car so you can kind of round it was it’s rather interesting. There’s always little things that you never think about that people might be using a product for that it wasn’t originally intended for it.

Megan: exactly

Todd: You’ve been customizing your Amazon page for that. You can grab that market.

Megan: And it also helped with knowing I wanted to do a little off Amazon marketing so I reached out to some other Youtubers because that’s a platform I’m comfortable with obviously that were in that niche and said, “Hey I have this product about people that like you love it. Would you be interested in me sending you something for free and you do a tutorial on it?” So and then they would link back to Amazon using their little Amazon affiliate links and everybody was happy. So that’s another thing it really helps to narrow in how you want to just market it. You want to go off Amazon also.

Todd: Another way that a lot of people are doing it is Facebook Ads. So having a landing page and running Facebook Ads to get people through that landing page and selling your products directly through Facebook basically and not even using Amazon at all. I’ve heard a story about a guy who bought a product to sell on Amazon and when he got it in, that market was completely saturated and he could make profit anymore.

But he ended up selling them using Facebook Ads and making a really good business out of it that way so something to think about too. Amazon’s not the only platform. It might be one of the easiest platforms to get started on. There’s tons of other ways to sell product out there as well for sure. On the second one, you made quite a few customizations. So how did that process go with the manufacturer? What were some of the hang-ups and the process of that?

Megan: So as far as– it was actually something that was fairly easy for the supplier remedy. I think nobody had just asked for it before. So I kind of got lucky with that. It really you know just a couple of emails back and forth hey can you do this to it and then they like kind of explain back to me in their own words to make sure they understand.

I was like yep that’s exactly what I want and they were just able to do it. So it really wasn’t– in that example at least I don’t know if that’s like a great case study for people because it won’t always be that easy. But in this in this scenario, they were just like yep we can do that and they did so it was good.

Todd: About how long was it from when you first contacted them to when they were able to ship the product for you?

Megan: Probably about two months of back and forth and then put– their production time was like 15 days which to me was super-fast which was nice because my other product has a really long lead time and so when they were like basically two weeks, I was like that’s great. I’m excited about that.

Todd: [Inaudible] [14:30] sounds like a pretty good timeframe.

Megan: Pretty quick, that was pretty quick.

Todd: And so now you have those products in Amazon. Did you– like for that first product, did you just list it on there and it started selling or what did you have to do to get those sales moving out of Amazon?

Megan: Yeah my first product it was weird and I didn’t know that I was kind of getting a little lucky but I was because the first product it went live on like a Wednesday and nothing happens for a few days the middle and like it’s Sunday night, it was that first Sunday night I got an email from Amazon the really fun one that you know Amazon has shipped an item you sold which is always the fun email to get.

Especially the first time you know I think you never forget your first time. But I didn’t even know could emit wait I didn’t buy anything on Amazon and then it’s like oh they shipped. Oh they should my products like oh my gosh you know I woke my husband up he’s asleep on the couch and I sold something. And it just kind of built from there like my first week was like one sale and then three and then five and then eight and then eleven. There might have been a day or two lower in there but it’s kind of like that and I was just like this is amazing I didn’t say it like 11 sales a day.

Unfortunately, the whole way through but it was still it really took off fast and I got reviews and really quickly on that first product also which was really exciting. The second product though that has not been like that at all. With the launch it took a couple of days to get first sale than I had maybe like a day with nothing and then two and then nothing and then one and then three and then nothing. It’s just been much slower and I was talking to a friend of mine Kevin Sanderson who also has a YouTube channel called ‘Maximizing E-commerce’.

And I was like, “I’m freaking out. I don’t know what’s going on. This is nothing like the last product.” And he’s like, “I’ve never had a product launch the way your first product did.” And I was like, “Are you telling me to chill out?” He’s like, “No, I’m telling you to chill out.” It’s like okay I’ll do it. The Amazon algorithm just takes a little while to start picking up your keywords to start ranking you. I always turn PPC pay per click on like right away I don’t some people used to say wait for reviews to come in. I don’t think that advice is as effective now that you can’t like offer a discount in exchange for a review. I can see how before that would have been really helpful but now, you can’t do that. So I just turned pay-per-click on right away and let it run.

Todd: I’ve done the same thing with the private label that I’ve got turning on the PPC right away. I know there’s a varying opinions on there but I think it the sooner you can get that traffic going, the better. I mean you’re gonna lose money up front.

Get the velocity going as Scott Volker likes to talk about if you open a brick-and-mortar store, you wouldn’t just put up a sign, open the door, expect people start flowing in. You gotta spend some money. You wanna get the advertisement and things flowing for sure. Now on those products is it– do you have multiple versions of each product like different colors or sizes or anything like that or just a single item for each?

Megan: Yep for both products right now, it’s just a single one SKU. I’m planning on four product two and three there’s going to be some variations in there of color but I haven’t had to do with that yet. So I don’t know a lot about that yet.

Todd: It’s pretty easy that you’re hopefully you set your listings up already as variation listings.

Megan: We haven’t done the far down the process yet so I haven’t gotten there yet.

Todd: All right, well I’ll throw one tip to keep in mind for future products is when you create your listing originally, always set it up as a variation listing from the start even if you’re only going to have one. Because if you didn’t do that, what’s gonna happen now is they’re gonna have to basically you’re have to work with support to create a whole new listing and then have them move your product over to that new listing.

Megan: Okay good to know. I didn’t know that.

Todd: For the second product, you’re spending money on PPC. Are you profitable on that product yet?

Megan: No, I’m not yet when you count on PPC which you should so not yet because I am spending a little bit more on pay-per-click than I normally would once the product is established. But trying to like you– we talked about trying to get that velocity going and driving just impressions to the listing so people will see it so they will hopefully buy it. You do have to spend a little on PPC to start. But the margins on it are really good. So as soon as I can rant those down; once sales have kind of steadied out to wherever they’re gonna fall then yeah, it won’t take long toward that turn it back to profitable but right now it’s not.

Todd: Now are using any kind of launch service or anything?

Megan: Not currently. I’m talking to the people at IRA launched about using them. I just wanted a little bit thereof you love what they do. So I haven’t turned that on yet but it’s certainly something that I’m looking into.

Todd: Now your products when you’re ordering them, what kind of quantity volume are you order.

Megan: The lowest amount don’t let me just you know 250/500 units somewhere in that neighborhood.

Todd: Okay and you mentioned earlier that you’re having trouble staying in stock on your product, what are you trying to do to remedy that?

Megan: Well I’m trying to– I mean obviously I’d like to just order more at one time. The problem is and the reason that my channel is called the Bootstrap Boutique, I knew that whatever I was gonna do, I wanted to just put like X amount of dollars in and just reinvest rate and not be continuously adding money.

So then I’d pick those cash in sense of business of course just to do that with. And I could have done it this time I could have ordered more a product one but I really wanted to start on my second product. So I pulled out a lot of the profit that I made on top one its invest in a different product instead of upping my order quantity on product one.

So that’s like a kind of decision you have to weigh out; which one you want to do. I’m not against at this point taking on some outside financing to allow me to increase all the quantities because clearly, if you don’t have any inventory, you cannot have any sale, you cannot make any money. So that’s the biggest bottleneck in the business but I just haven’t gotten there quite yet.

Todd: One tip would be what I do is I put all of my purchases on credit card that gives me 2% cash back.

Megan: nice

Todd: But then I pay the credit card off. You don’t get any interest but you’re automatically getting basically a 2% discount on everything you buy and that can add up real quick when you start spending a lot of money for sure. What have you done as far as like optimizing your listings? What do you think is the most important things you’ve done to increase your sales or your listings?

Megan: I think– I mean certainly for product one it was figuring out that there’s a certain market of people that are buying; working, reworking, massaging the listing copy to really fit that group of people to try and speak specifically to them and really that is at the expense of everybody else in the general market. You have to– I think you’re always going to be more in demand when you’re for something instead of just like for anybody. And so I think that’s been the biggest driver for one for sure has been really just targeting in on that one market and just trying to talk specifically to them.

Todd: You mentioned earlier you kind of felt out that audience just by asking them through the emails after people bought the product, right?

Megan: Yep, absolutely.

Todd: Yeah, I think that’s probably a good tip that some people might not think about is that’s actually gets me thinking that I should maybe ask that on some of my products too because I’m thinking they’re in use for one thing, they could be used for something completely different. Right now I’m just using those emails to ask for feedback on product but I could maybe swap out one of those emails here and there and ask what they’re using a product for.

Megan: I mean that’s exactly what I do. It’s like leave a review and the review I’d love to know how you’re using the product. It’s like that simple and they have told me so far.

Todd: Which service are you using to send out those emails or are you doing that manually?

Megan: I’m still doing it manually right now. I’ve looked at some of the softwares that do it for you but right now with Amazon you know, they’ve what customers opt out of getting those messages. So you might send ten and four of them might not be delivered and with all those services, you’re still charged for those four that didn’t get delivered; as far as I know anyways that they’re also like that and that adds up over time too.

So I just [inaudible] [23:39]. It’s just part of my twice a week routine when I sit down to have like business time, that’s one of the things I do so it hasn’t– you know I’m not selling like four hundred units a day or something like that. So it doesn’t take me that long but I could definitely see myself hitting a tipping point where I was like okay this isn’t worth it anymore. I’ll just go pay somebody else to do it.

Todd: Now are you also asking for feedback or are you just asking for reviews?

Megan: I only ask for product reviews but I get a surprising amount of customer or seller feedback also. So I just don’t feel like I need to specifically ask for that because it’s been coming in fairly regularly anyway.

Todd: Okay, all right, very good. Yeah and a lot of people ask for the reviews and maybe not the feedback. I ask for both. So my first email is asking for feedback and then when they leave a feedback that’s when I ask for a review. And I found with my account that as that feedback has grown I think I have like over 800 positive feedback now. When I’m talking with Amazon support, they treat me completely differently than what they used to.

Megan: interesting

Todd: Where I can get changes to listings and different things a lot easier than what I used to be able to do. So I think it’s definitely a good thing to push that feedback and then get the reviews as well of course.

Megan: That’s interesting, so you’re not finding that that confuses customers because that’s always my concern is if I asked for feedback and then I ask for review, people are gonna be like you already did that and just delete your email. But you’re not finding that happens?

Todd: I’m sure it can happen because a lot of people leave reviews in the feedback. That’s when I go and I message them and let them know that reviews are different than feedback, could you leave this over on the item? And I have not tested it as to which way is better if I was only doing the reviews versus only getting the feedback. But I get a fair amount of reviews from asking it and going that route and asking them to leave a review after they leave a feedback. What are your long-term goals when it comes to the selling on Amazon? What are you trying to achieve?

Megan: I’m just trying right now to have a really fun profitable hobby. I mentioned earlier I have a day job, got a young family at home and that keeps me plenty busy. I’m not really trying to quit my job and do this full-time which is a little different than a lot of people in the space. A lot of people either this is what they do full-time or it’s what they want to do full-time so that’s different. I kind of bring the perspective of somebody that’s just working on this an hour or two at night after the kid is in bed.

So that I’m– right now my goal is to continue that. To just grow it but at a really manageable pace, to not get ahead of myself with that and to just keep it really fun. I was at a meet-up one time in Charlotte and I was talking to Kai and I was saying something about how this is fun and he does sell full-time on Amazon. And he looked at me like I was crazy and he’s like Amazon is not fun so just like well I want to keep it fun. So that’s my goal right now.

I certainly want to make money with it and I don’t have any plans this year or probably next year even to pull money out of the business. I just want to reinvest it and let it grow and see what can happen because I really do enjoy working on it. It really amuses a different part of the brain for me than what I do during the day so I just want to keep it like it is right now. I mean I’ve really enjoyed working on it and want that to continue.

Todd: Okay that’s really important. I love what you’re doing. So if you love your full-time job and you’re learning this and figuring it out to be able to put all the profit back in the business it’s just gonna help you grow faster and you’re gonna be able to make those mistakes. You mentioned Amazon being difficult platform to work on.

Personally, I went full-time in January and I’ve been loving every minute of it doing it full time. There’s certain parts that can make you want to pull your hair out especially working with Amazon’s support can be rather frustrating. Because you can get a hundred different answers to your questions and let me tell you that they can’t do something when you know that they can because they’ve done it before yada, yada, yada but–

Megan: yeah

Todd: An important thing that I’ve done anyways when you do decide to go full-time is you really have to– you want to learn everything, you figure out how to do everything. But then understand what you’re not good at or what you don’t like doing and outsourcing it to other people. Like I have an assistant who does a lot of the day-to-day tasks on Amazon that then frees me up to focus on higher level things like finding more wholesale suppliers and things like that. I think if you’re not having fun, then you may just have to make some changes in your business so that can have more fun.

Megan: Right well and nobody makes us do this, right? So we choose to do it so you should enjoy it while you’re working on it.

Todd: A little bit more about your YouTube channel. What do you have going on over there?

Megan: Yeah well like I said I totally started it as an accountability thing for myself and it’s been really fun over the past couple years to watch it grow into this larger community of people mostly made up of new Amazon sellers or people that are aspiring to be Amazon sellers. And so I’m doing something right now in the month of April.

It’s called BEDA which is blog every day in April. So typically I still alright post one video a week on Wednesdays which is maybe like 7 to 12 minute video and then I go live on the channel once a week. But in BEDA, I’m posting a video every single day for the month of April. Which has been a lot of fun because I had a long list of things that I really wanted to put out there, but none of them really wanted their own video on the Wednesdays.

And so I just fill them all and I’m uploading them every day and it’s just been a lot of fun to get all that out there and to get all the interaction with everybody that you know, they’re like oh I was looking for a way to do this one little– Some of these videos are very in the weeds. Very in the weeds of [inaudible] [30:02] and how to do stuff and it’s just been a lot of fun to work on that project here recently.

Todd: Yeah blogging every day; that’s got to take a little bit of work to come up with what you’re gonna talk about and get that content out there every day.

Megan: Yeah, it’s been a project.

Todd: Yeah that’s cool. I need to do more posting on my YouTube channel as well and get more content out there like I see. Some of your latest ones here is is it too late for Amazon FBA what worries me about Amazon FBA. Why more is more on Amazon FBA. So looks like lots of good stuff. So I guess my question would be is it too late for new people to start selling on Amazon FBA?

Megan: No, I don’t think so at all. In that video that you just mentioned actually give some facts about just the growth of Amazon and how when you think about it in the e-commerce space, it’s like okay I don’t know how much bigger they can get. But when you take it step back and you will get Amazon in the wins of like all retail in the US at least, it’s you realize that there’s a ton of room for them to continue to grow.

And certainly I think the leadership team of Amazon is very interested in continuing to capture more and more ways to celebrate people quite frankly. So I think there’s still a ton of opportunity left on the platform and the only thing that makes it too late is your willingness and readiness to jump in. It’s certainly not as easy as it was maybe three years ago but it’s still one of the best places to start an e-commerce business for sure.

Todd: I agree 100% and one of the most surprising things that you’ve mentioned in that video is that this last year was the first time that third-party sellers like you and I sold more on Amazon than Amazon did themselves.

Megan: Pretty cool, yeah.

Todd: Yeah, I really think it’s still the Wild West out there. A wild frontier that there’s a ton of opportunity for anybody who wants to take advantage of it. Well I think that about wraps it up here Megan. I would like to again recommend everybody go check out your YouTube channel the Bootstrap Boutique. A lot of great content I’ve been following down there for a little while. I love the videos so keep up when moving that and keep up the great work on Amazon. I’m sure you’re gonna be highly successful.

Megan: Well good. We’re working on it Todd. I appreciate your encouragement and thanks for having me on again today. I really, really appreciate it.

Todd: Yep thank you, have a good run.

Megan: Yep, you too.