Ok, so Mindsteps is not an actual word. I made it up because I think it expresses 2 of the important keys to making progress - a right mindset and putting those new ideas and knowledge into action!

As an active member in the My Silent Team (MST) community on Facebook and the private forum, I get several private messages (PM) a day asking many questions. In fact some days I feel totally overwhelmed with over 30 messages bombarding my inbox!

I try to keep up as best I can but do apologize if I have missed your messages!

Anyway, today I just saw and replied to a PM in MST from 8 days ago. Answering the questions helped me to reflect on my own thought processes and workflow. Here's the Q&A which I think could be helpful and encouraging.

1. How did you keep yourself, motivated & not get overwhelmed? 
Just be determined to make it work. I approach this with a I HAVE to make it work, do or die mentality.

2. How did you deal with doubts or whenever you got stuck? 
Just keep moving on. It also helped tremendously to be an active member of the MST community. People like George Thompson, Barrington McIntosh, Ryan Reger, John Bullard, Trish Dickinson, Rosaline Callaghan, Jeffrey Clark, Brett Bartlett, Jim Cockrum and so many others have been sources of inspiration, encouragement and help.

3. Did you have weekly goals that kept you on track? 
Over the last 6 months, I set goals of reaching 50 SKUs, then 100, then 200. At this moment I have 278 SKUs of which 101 are active - meaning they are in stock on FBA.
The other thing I do is keep a checklist of To Do items. Almost everyday I invest at least 1 hr (and sometimes money) to watch videos, participate in spreecasts/webinars and read. From these I make notes of actionable steps to take and check them off as I complete them. I try to take action on at least 1 tip from every video I watch on the same day.

4. How much time did you devote on weekly basis/ Am assuming you are doing it part time.
Yes. I am doing it part time. I also teach English about 3x a week, lead a small church and a network of churches as well as run an local eCommerce webstore, co-direct a non-profit company and sit as president of another non-profit org. I usually spend 2-3 hours a day on FBA, usually in the early morning or late night when everyone else is asleep.

5. Finally how much did you get started with? I have limited funds, so is it possible to start of with $50? 
I started with $1200. You can start with $50 if selling in your own country where you can start with items in your home, collected from family/friends or from thrift stores. Would probably need a bit more if in a country without FBA for prep fees, etc. The important thing for me is to reinvest my profits so I can grow my capital to a point where it provides a enough for both business growth and a sustainable income.

I'll end off with the sales summary for today. 

What's your takeaway from this post? Make sure to put something into action within the next 24hrs! If you are serious about selling on Amazon, the Proven Amazon Course  (PAC) has my strongest personal recommendation. The resources are worth at least tens of thousands of dollars and are continuously being improved and expanded (Tip: PAC also includes free lifetime membership to My Silent Team).

Having been introduced to the idea of selling on Amazon through the Amazing Selling Machine (ASM) marketing videos, I had the mindset of sourcing from a private label (PL) supplier from China. So I started to look on Amazon for potential PL products and then on to Alibaba.com in search of suppliers. I even went as far as to get samples sent to me and a designer design the packaging.

Then I worked out the numbers and realized the capital required was higher than I was comfortable with, the profit margin was not great, the competition was stiff and shipping from China was pretty costly. Bummer.  Long story short, after looking around a bit more, I decided to put this the shelf and explore other options.

In the end I started off with an order from Dollar Days International (DDI) which is a middleman wholesale directory.  My first order was for 2 products - a case of 25 steak knives and a case of 30 cutting boards. Both were not listed on Amazon so I created new listings. This was a case of not looking before leaping! The result? 9 months on and the cutting boards are lost in the Amazon jungle, languishing in some corner of a warehouse. The steak knives turned out quite well though. I sold 100 sets even though they ended up with a less than 3 star rating. I have since stopped selling them because DDI and Overstock (where I bought my subsequent 75 more for less than half the price on DDI) do not carry them anymore.

At the same time, since creating and importing a PL product from China had such a steep learning curve, I decided to explore looking for a private label manufacturer in the US. I researched several product categories online and finally settled on one. The next step was to Google for private label suppliers. I found almost 20 and sent them inquiries through either their website contact form or email. About 4 responded and out of those only 1 had margins that I felt were workable and who also seemed really easy to work with.

I designed a simple label on Microsoft Word (yup - no fancy software!), explained how to bag and label the product according to Amazon specifications and had the first shipment sent directly to Amazon in Dec 2013. It's been 8 months since my first order from that one supplier (which is a small family farm-based business) and I have sold hundreds of units! Sales were not super hot at first, but a combination of several things has helped the product rank in the top 1%-3% in their category after a few months. I will discuss those strategies in a separate chapter.

Reordering is real simple, I just drop them an email and say, "Hi, I would like to reorder 2 more boxes." They manufacture, prep, label and ship to Amazon, then send me an invoice which I pay by Paypal or Square. And I always pay asap - it's the way I like to do business and helps build a happy and solid relationship with those I work with.

In January, I finally started to pour into the Proven Amazon Course (PAC) materials before my next leap.  I spent about 2 weeks studying. The things that jumped out at me were Jim Cockrum's advice to go wide not deep, meaning buy a few units of many different products rather than a large quantity of a few. This is great advice for new sellers to minimize risks until you get a better feel for the market and what sells or does not sell. The other things were understanding categories, selling price, sourcing costs, sales rank and how to apply all that info into making purchasing decisions. From Feb-April, my sales were made up of 85% retail arbitrage items and grew from just over $1000 to $6000 a month.

So you've heard about selling on Amazon and are wondering where and how to start.

If you plow through the materials for selling on Amazon, you'll probably feel quite overwhelmed. There is just so much info and seemingly endless requirements and fees.

I will be using amazon.com as the example since it is the biggest and most used of Amazon's marketplaces.  However you should be aware that Amazon also operates in many other countries such as Canada (amazon.ca), the UK and other European countries, Japan, China, India, etc.

The main things you need to do are:
1.  Get a bank account in a country so you can receive payouts from Amazon. 
"To receive funds, you must provide a U.S. checking account or a bank account located in the U.K. or any country in the eurozone (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain), Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong or Canada" (From http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_ac?ie=UTF8&nodeId=1161250).

If you don't have a bank account in any of these countries, then sign up with Payoneer to receive payments. This is what I'm using from Singapore. (Update, March 2016:  Amazon can now payout directly into many more countries, however their currency conversion will cost you 4%-5%. It is much better to use WorldFirst and Payoneer to minimize foreign currency costs and maximize profits. I explain how to do that in this review: Payoneer vs WorldFirst.

2. A US address for Amazon.com. This was a requirement when I registered an Amazon Seller Account in 2013, but it is no longer required to open an Amazon Seller account. If you need one, there are numerous mail forwarding services which provide a free US mailing address such as Viabox.

3. This is especially for non-US based sellers - sign up for a free account with My Inventory Team (MIT). MIT provides receiving, prep and forwarding of products for Amazon FBA. I currently send a couple of hundred items every week to MIT

Now comes the REAL work - sourcing. Sourcing is the key to a successful retail business on Amazon and involves lots of research. It would be way too much try to explain product research, Amazon category sales ranks, Amazon fee calculations, retail arbitrage, wholesale buying, private labeling, thrifting, shipping estimations, prep requirements, costs and processes, labeling, poly bagging, shrink wrapping, shipping domestically and internationally, customs, import regulations, inventory management and taxes here.

There's lots of free information all over the web, but if you don't want to spend the next 12 months reading theory and would rather get selling asap, I highly recommend the Proven Amazon Course (PAC). I bought it at the end of Oct 2013, sold my first 3 products in Nov.  The materials (videos, eguides, free books) are all fantastic resources, but the greatest thing about PAC is the amazing community that helps each other in the Facebook group and forum.

Here's some proof that the Proven Amazon Course works! Below are my sales figures from Feb-Jul 2014. My goal is $20,000 in 30 Days Sales by end Dec 2014. The reason I post these figures is to encourage you that if this is possible for someone living on the other side of the world, who has never physically seen or touched 99% of the products I sell, you can do it too!

PS. You can also have a look at my Proven Amazon Course review.

Yesterday I took the first little step into what I hope will be a mighty gushing river! I sent my first test shipment of 13 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) or 13 different products to the UK.

This first shipment has taken me much longer than I had anticipated for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have never labeled or prepped anything for Amazon so this was a huge learning curve for me! This is probably strange for many of you who have sold anything through FBA. However in my case, I have sold over 1000 units by FBA but never printed a single product label myself, let alone poly bagged anything!

For shipping, I used EMS which is a global mail system linking the national postal services in most countries such as USPS in the US and Singpost in Singapore. The one risk with EMS is that if my parcel is stopped by UK customs for duties, it will not make it to the Amazon Fulfillment Center and will be returned at my expense. This is because the EMS postal service does not act as a customs broker to pay duties unlike courier services like DHL, UPS or FedEx. However it seems that small shipments of less 20lb or 10kg are seldom subject to customs duties...will have to see what happens!

So why didn' I use DHL? I went to their website and used their rate calculator which came up with a sum of over USD500 to send 10kg (22lb)! However I have opened a corporate account with DHL and received a corporate rate chart  with rates that are about 1/3 of the published rates or almost 70% off. This will probably be a better option in future, plus DHL should provide free boxes.

Even with the corporate rates, it still costs almost $200 to send 10kg which is very expensive. To make this work, what I will really be looking into is ocean freight. Of course this will take much longer from Singapore to the UK. 45-70 days instead of 2-5 days by air. Also I have zero experience with shipping by sea which is a whole lot more complicated with all kinds of technical terms and it's own set of regulations.

Another related milestone is that I received my VAT and EORI numbers on May 1, 2014. This will make it possible to clear all my imports safely through UK customs! The application process took just over a month and was submitted by Accordance who will also be handling my quarterly VAT returns. This also means I HAVE to make enough of a profit in the UK to cover their accounting fees!

VAT compliance is necessary to sell in the UK and while registration is free, filing the returns can be complicated and I really should be focusing on sourcing and selling rather than tax matters which would take up all my time if I tried to do it myself.

This post started as some observations about online selling. But as I wrote, it morphed into an article which I will use to help establish relationships with traditional manufacturers and distributors. You'll probably find it interesting if you're an Amazon, eBay or online seller.

Online sales statistics send a clear message, online shopping is increasing rapidly and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. You only have to observe the new generations of young people to realize they are growing up in a world where you no longer go online but rather live online. Everything is done through a smartphone, tablet and computer. This is the new normal where being offline for even 5 minutes is unthinkable. It's no wonder then that Internet Retail is primed to boom for many more years.

Source :Internet Retailer. 

According to these forecasts, online retail spending will grow from 2012 to 2017 by 92.5% in the US and 70% in Europe. The annual growth rates of about 14% and 11% respectively are much higher than the tepid GDP rates in those markets. 

The weekend after Thanksgiving saw a 34% increase in e-commerce transactions from 2012. The following weekend was even better with ComScore measuring a 71% jump in those transactions. On the other hand, brick-and-mortar stores have seen sales decline. ShopperTrak, which measures retail shopping, found that during the first week of December 2013, in-store retail sales fell 2.9% and traffic plunged 21.6%. In the second week, sales declined almost 0.8% from the same week in 2012, while store traffic dropped 19.9 percent. Analysts tracking holiday sales say online sales accounted for nearly 40 percent of all spending in 2013, well ahead of expectations.

What does this mean for smart manufacturers, distributors and retailers? They need to be finding ways to get their products online. For most businesses, this means investing in an e-commerce platform. But things aren't as simple as they seem. Setting up a functional, secure and good-looking website is hard enough. But e-commerce also means businesses need to think about fulfillment services which can present all kinds of headaches - working with multiple courier companies, delays resulting in unhappy customers, returns, refunds - in other words a whole new ball game most businesses are not equipped and would rather not deal with.

While overall online sales figures are growing rapidly, most online stores are not having much success. Why is this so? There is one Godzilla-sized reason - Amazon. According to Internet Retailer, the Amazonian giant sells more online than its next 12 biggest competitors combined, including big names like Staples, Target and Wal-Mart! The millions of other businesses hoping to muscle in on the online retail boom are left to fight over scraps. A testament to Amazon's global e-commerce domination is that even in Singapore, which is literally on the other side of the world from Amazon's US-based fulfillment centers, Amazon is the number 1 e-tailer, commanding a 23% market share.

The key to riding this wave is clear. You have to leverage on Amazon. Not many people understand Amazon's business model - that it is not a single retail entity like Wal-Mart, but a hybrid of an online store and a Google like search engine platform.

This is where Super Havens comes in. With a network of several hundred members who specialize in selling professionally on Amazon, we can help manufacturers and distributors tap into the power of the Amazon river. Contact us to explore how your brand and products can grow their online retail presence internationally in the US, Canada and the 27 countries of the EU with minimal risk and time while protecting your brand reputation. (This paragraph is a pitch I used at my first trade show to great effect last week! I had a great time working the trade show thanks to one of Jim Cockrum's mastermind members, Ryan Reger, who called to help with some advice and the book How to be a "Trade Show No Show" by Jim Peterson and Jim Cockrum which I read 3 times. The book costs $24.97, but is included in the Proven Amazon Course if you have that!)

On Feb 12, 2014, I made the following post on My Silent Team's (MST) Facebook Group:

"A little something to encourage newbies like me. I'm just into my third month since joining PAC and selling through FBA. So far today has marked 2 milestones:
1) I have just received my 11th "Amazon has shipped your item" email. Totalling 12 sales for today.
2) My only PL product just crossed into the top 1% in Beauty.

All this while living on the other side of the world and doing everything through my laptop 

I left my salaried position in a big ministry more than a year ago and it has been tough (trying to sell the house to clear the mortgage, etc. while planting a couple of house churches for people who would never step into a typical church service and training others in India and Cambodia to do the same AND fundraising for the orphanage and school my wife and I started there!), but at this rate I just have to triple my current sales for the profit to match my previous salary 

Many thanks to Jim, Barrington, Duane Malek and so many of you who have availed yourselves and helped tremendously in this adventure!"

Since that time, the thread has generated questions and discussions beyond what I had ever imagined (190 comments at the time of this writing). After some thought and encouragement from members of the MST group, I have finally decided to roll up my sleeves and journal the journey. The beauty of this journey is that it is not made alone, but is an adventure with a community of wonderful, like-minded and humble people who go the extra mile to help each other surmount new peaks everyday.

Special thanks must go to Jim Cockrum and the team he has assembled, who provide not just a course but an environment for the incubation and nurture of ideas that translate into action and life-change.

I invite you to join me in this journey!

On September 24, 2013 I received the first in a chain of emails promoting the Amazing Selling Machine (ASM). In fact I received multiple emails from various "Internet gurus" promoting the $3500 course.

I did watch the promo videos and must give the producers credit for quite a bit of useful content.  However the price being so high, I decided to do some online research to find some ASM reviews. Every site I found on the ASM was an affiliate marketing site. I could not find one with a real review by anyone. There were several posts in the Warrior Forum, which is an Internet marketers forum where I am a member, but still there wasn't much useful insight.

More Googling led to the discovery of another Amazon course which did have a more reviews and testimonials. The Proven Amazon Course (PAC).  More importantly, PAC was by Jim Cockrum who has a great reputation for honesty and integrity in the Internet marketing world...which is a rarity.

What I did not like about the ASM was that the money-back period ended just as what looked like the really good modules would begin, so I figured I would not get much more out of it than the free videos during the refundable window. The Proven Amazon Course on the other hand has a no questions asked, lifetime money-back guarantee. 

"If you aren't entirely satisfied with your purchase please call, or drop us an email and we'll quickly issue a no questions asked refund of your entire purchase amount. Take your time, check it out, and more importantly put this powerful information to work for you, but if you find it's just not for you we don't want to keep your money"


So the PAC was a no-brainer! 100% risk-free opportunity to learn EVERYTHING that the course had - which is a whole lot, covering everything from private labeling to wholesale to retail arbitrage to outsourcing aspects of the business. But there was something even better than all this, which I did not realize when I joined PAC...the incredible community that is My Silent Team (MST). PAC comes with free lifetime membership to MST which is Jim's community of online and offline entrepreneurs. This is no flash in the pan network, but a community with a great sharing culture that has been cultivated for many years. In fact as I write this, I have learnt many things from more experienced member that have allowed me to create a PL product that ranks in the top 3% of beauty, sell over $5000 of retail arbitrage products in the last 2 months, expanded my Amazon sales channels to the UK and joined Brett's Buying Network where our first product with a cost of $25 sold for $179!

I could have learnt how to sell on Amazon on my own, but it would have taken much longer to learn the ropes and there are many strategies I would have never known about that have helped my sales hit almost $6000 monthly in just 4 months with a product that net a profit margin of 30% - 150% (Mostly in the 50%-100% range).

Even more incredibly, I'm now working with 2 of the coaches/moderators on PAC to bring a private label brand to market which makes over 130% in net profit and could easily rank in the top 1000 or even top 100 in its category!

The point of all this? Invest in PAC, not just for the great equipping resources, but be an active part in the community.

I ALWAYS tell people, the couple of hundred dollars I spent on PAC is the best investment I've ever made, far better than what I paid for my Master's degree course!

Check out The Proven Amazon Course

I left the apparent security of life as an employee at the end of 2012. Just 2 months before that, my wife had also left her position and to this day, my father thinks we are crazy!

Thankfully we both had some financial prudence and had accumulated 3 years of savings when we stepped out of the boat. Our main focus has been planting authentic church communities and bringing positive transformation in society. This involves quite a bit of time meeting people daily and traveling to other countries to train others. On top of that, we also had a home and school for children at risk in rural India. At the same time we wanted to be self-sustaining to model that you can make a living while changing the world.

There's a song from when our daughter was little that goes, "If your output exceeds your input, then your upkeep will be your downfall." Thus began the journey to create an income stream that would allow us to do what we needed. Having previously been in charge of the web and IT departments in my previous jobs, I started looking at Internet Marketing and the world of niche site creation, SEO, PPC, Adsense, affiliate marketing and SPAM! I found a small measure of success with Amazon affiliate sites,  but it was just not my cup of tea.

Then on September 24, 2013, I received my first email about the Amazing Selling Machine...(which I decided against buying after thorough research for alternatives).