Massive Scale Cross-Border Amazon Arbitrage

[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

Update​

• Avoided watching YouTube - YES
• Avoided playing chess - YES
• Get lots of products on Shopify - IN PROGRESS
• Set up initial Google Ads campaigns - NO

Again today the only time I spent on this was transactional: procurement, account health, customer service, fulfillment.

 

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[Andy Black]

Set up initial Google Ads campaigns - NO

Don't overthink it.

Get something setup with a $5/day budget. Then you're in motion.

MARKETING - The Shortest Google Ads Tutorial Ever

It took me HOURS to create this. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions. Hope it helps! View: https://youtu.be/7z7kx3kJC4M EDIT: Once you're running watch these two short videos to make sense of the metrics...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[msufan]

Don't overthink it.

Get something setup with a $5/day budget. Then you're in motion.

MARKETING - The Shortest Google Ads Tutorial Ever

It took me HOURS to create this. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions. Hope it helps! View: https://youtu.be/7z7kx3kJC4M EDIT: Once you're running watch these two short videos to make sense of the metrics...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

GoldFibre -- definitely check out Andy's resources when it come to Google Ads

 

[GoldFibre]

Don't overthink it.

Get something setup with a $5/day budget. Then you're in motion.

MARKETING - The Shortest Google Ads Tutorial Ever

It took me HOURS to create this. Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions. Hope it helps! View: https://youtu.be/7z7kx3kJC4M EDIT: Once you're running watch these two short videos to make sense of the metrics...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

GoldFibre -- definitely check out Andy's resources when it come to Google Ads

Thanks guys. I have experience with Google Ads, but I'll also check out @Andy Black's resources.

I was just waiting until I had more product selection on the store. The automation I made at the beginning of the week has been going 24/7, but it is pretty slow.

I suppose I could have started the ads anyway and checked what people search for in my site. I know that my most sophisticated competitor primarily makes money on Google Ads and they have some automated system that will create ads based on the searches made in their own store.

 

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[Andy Black]

Thanks guys. I have experience with Google Ads, but I'll also check out @Andy Black's resources.

I was just waiting until I had more product selection on the store. The automation I made at the beginning of the week has been going 24/7, but it is pretty slow.

I suppose I could have started the ads anyway and checked what people search for in my site. I know that my most sophisticated competitor primarily makes money on Google Ads and they have some automated system that will create ads based on the searches made in their own store.

Also run dynamic search ads to each page. Let Google figure out keywords and ad headlines. Have a low budget and mine for search terms.

 

[msufan]

Also run dynamic search ads to each page. Let Google figure out keywords and ad headlines. Have a low budget and mine for search terms.

Do you find that letting Google figure out keywords and ad headlines works better than trying to do it manually? Is that good advice for beginners or even for experts like yourself?

 

[Andy Black]

Do you find that letting Google figure out keywords and ad headlines works better than trying to do it manually? Is that good advice for beginners or even for experts like yourself?

I prefer to create the ad headlines. But if you're dealing with lots of pages then it can be a good tactic to let Google figure it out.

 

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[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

Update​

• Avoided watching YouTube - YES
• Avoided playing chess - YES
• Get lots of products on Shopify - YES
• Set up initial Google Ads campaigns - YES

I went to the warehouse and spent the morning there working with the team. There are so many issues since we are leading up to Christmas and we managed to work through just about all of them.

I have another account health scare going on - my account is at risk of getting deactivated by tomorrow morning unless I successfully appeal. I submitted something brief once, and that got rejected. Now I've submitted a detailed POA and am waiting on the reply.

I took @Andy Black's advice and set up a simple Google Ad with Dynamic Search Ads turned on. This will give me some base line for improvement and also start generating some data.

 

[GoldFibre]

I prefer to create the ad headlines. But if you're deaking with lots of pages then it can be a good tactic to let Google figure it out.

I already have thousands of product pages, so this is an interesting idea to help find which products are worth investing more time into.

 

[Andy Black]

I already have thousands of product pages, so this is an interesting idea to help find which products are worth investing more time into.

The simple way is to create Dynamic Search Ads pointing at a wildcard containing all your product pages. E.g. goldfibre.com/products/*

I prefer to create an ad group and ad for each dynamic ad target (page). Then I can easily see the search terms for each page, and could even amend the ad description if I wanted. It gives more control and visibility when you create campaigns more granularly.

 

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[GoldFibre]

Weekly Update​

• Avoided watching YouTube - YES
• Avoided playing chess - YES
• Get lots of products on Shopify - YES
• Set up initial Google Ads campaigns - YES

I replaced watching YouTube and playing chess with listening to Unscripted and The Great Rat Race Escape . I find that listening while I work helps keep my mind on the goal and destroys any temptation to waste time.

I got a Shopify store up and running with about 2k products and many more variations. Google Ads/Analytics/Search Console is set up although the ads aren't spending yet.

Fulfillment has been really time consuming, maybe more so than usual because of the holidays.

I've also been pretty busy with administrative things outside of this venture and it is going to continue to be like that for a few weeks. So I have to manage my time well.

My bot ran out of 'safe' brands to upload so this is partially why growth the slowed down. This coming week I will find a new source of 'safe' brands, iterate on my Google Ads & Shopify store funnel, and try to launch my price comparison affiliate link website in some shape or form.

Essentially I need to make sure I'm milking my current revenue stream as much as possible, while also working towards diversification, as I'm 100% dependent on Amazon and 95% dependent on one Amazon marketplace.

 

[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: NO PROGRESS
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: NO PROGRESS

I added 1,300 more brands to my bot, based on data from my number 2 competitor.

The Google Ads aren't spending yet, although my Shopify store is slowly getting indexed and I'm showing up in organic search results for a few products.

 

[Andy Black]

Today's Stats​

View attachment 53124

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: NO PROGRESS
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: NO PROGRESS

I added 1,300 more brands to my bot, based on data from my number 2 competitor.

The Google Ads aren't spending yet, although my Shopify store is slowly getting indexed and I'm showing up in organic search results for a few products.

Did you watch the video about Google Ads metrics?

 

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[GoldFibre]

Did you watch the video about Google Ads metrics?

No I haven’t. I’m pretty short on time these days.

I also have experience with Google Ads so am not a total beginner. I spend about 2,000 USD per week on B2B leadgen in my full time job. But that is only advertising a handful of services.

Now I need to figure out how to adjust the approach for a store with millions of unrelated products.

 

[Andy Black]

No I haven’t. I’m pretty short on time these days.

I also have experience with Google Ads so am not a total beginner.

It's only 5 mins. I'm curious if you learn anything.

 

[GoldFibre]

It's only 5 mins. I'm curious if you learn anything.

Thanks. Will check it out.

 

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[GoldFibre]

I was moving house today. There was not even enough time to do the procurement for the day. The bot is also not running right now. Will have to catch up tomorrow.

 

[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: NO PROGRESS
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: NO PROGRESS

I was again busy with moving house but at least did my transactional tasks today and caught up on customer service issues.

I'm curious if you learn anything.

I wasn't aware of the Search Exact Match IS column before.

 

[Andy Black]

I wasn't aware of the Search Exact Match IS column before.

Cool.

Did you know to divide impressions by impression share to get the estimated searches?

 

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[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: DONE
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: NO PROGRESS

I made a list of improvements I'm aware of and also things I should learn more about in order to make more improvements.

After reading up on Dynamic Ads I realized I was not doing it properly, and so then set everything up the correct way. I switched to manual CPC and took an extra low bid since I have an extremely wide product range.

Google Shopping rejected my listings, I think because I didn't link to an 'About' page with company information. So I went and added that and re-applied. I also set up my Google business profile and added it to Google Maps. Then I realized my policies weren't published, so I added those as well.

I had contacted one toy company that makes a product I am selling well. They referred me to a local distributor, so I emailed them and asked for a quote.

 

[Andy Black]

After reading up on Dynamic Ads I realized I was not doing it properly, and so then set everything up the correct way. I switched to manual CPC and took an extra low bid since I have an extremely wide product range.

Set a low budget too and watch as search terms start coming through. You can then create keyword driven campaigns targeting high potential search terms (and maybe add them as negatives to your DSA campaign).

 

[Andy Black]

Now I need to figure out how to adjust the approach for a store with millions of unrelated products.

Excel and Google Ads Editor.

 

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[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: DONE
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: NO PROGRESS

My Google Shopping account got approved after the changes I made yesterday. I couldn't find a way to automatically add all Shopify products to this sales channel, so I did the first thousand in bulk and later I need to add this product editing into my bot.

I started to do some tax registration because my business now has enough revenue that I am required to do this. I'm not fully clear on the tax applicability yet, but most likely this will eat into the profits once it goes into effect. I also need to start doing proper accounting. This should be easier if I collapse my sales into just biweekly payouts from Amazon.

Recently in part due to moving house, I've been looking at how to find more time to work on the business. These days I am generally busy until late at night and then am fully occupied with transactional work until I'm too sleepy to continue. I have a bit of an extreme idea to give myself as much time as I had during the summer when I did the vast majority of the system work on this business.

Also I'm listening to the Great Rat Race Escape and so many of the plot points mirror my own experience. I hope that the resulting success will also be similar!

 

[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: DONE
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: WIP

I've got so many tasks each day that I have been feeling very disorganized. So this morning I made time slots for everything, including making some little quality-of-life improvements that take almost no time, but which should either make me more productive or reduce errors and revenue leakage:

• Updated tracking
• Created a new 'exceptions' worksheet to track any orders that need special attention. These are sometimes falling through the cracks and resulting in unhappy customers, so having a central place to check everything should reduce errors.
• I added bookmarks for all the different sites I use when I work on this business
• Daily procurement

After that I did some system improvement by working on my affiliate site. I decided to try to publish it in the current state, but it wasn't so simple. Since I need to connect to my local database to build the pages, I needed to do the full build locally and then upload to Vercel. In the past I always used CI with GitHub to deploy, so I read the documentation on local deployment and set it up.

I've been trying to buy one product wholesale to sell via FBA, but wasn't getting any replies. So I reached out to my friend that does a lot of wholesale buying and he happened to know someone at the local distributor. I messaged her and inquired about buying this toy.

I continued with my tax registration and really want to complete it before January 1, in case there are any penalties. There are two type of tax and I read in detail one of the laws, and it looks like it doesn't apply to my imported goods. However, everyone has to register for the second type of tax even if you won't be taxed. So I submitted the application for that form of tax and will wait on the tax authority to review it.

The dynamic google ad wasn't spending, so I increased the bid in case that was the problem.

I created a working capital spreadsheet, because it's hard for me to know how much money I owe and is owed to me by Amazon. By my calculations I am +6k USD in working capital (more assets than liabilities), but at the same time I haven't received the invoice from November or December for international logistics. This number is also skewed because of the timing of some of the accounting from Amazon and that I was previously moving the cash into my personal accounts to pay things off and didn't really distinguish between business and personal money.

I finished listening to the Great Rat Race Escape today. I'm starting over with listening to TMFL again.

 

[GoldFibre]

• Find new source of 'safe' brands: DONE
• Iterate on GA/Shopify setup: DONE
• Launch price comparison affiliate site: WIP

I spent the morning in the warehouse dealing with problematic orders. We found a number of things we need to fix in the process. A few of these things were expensive lessons to learn!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Your consistency in approach reminds me of this thread...

GOLD! - EXECUTION - NEWSLETTER - Still not rich? Here's why you aren't, and what to do about it.

Do you think becoming a millionaire, or better, 8-figure+ multimillionaire, is just a fantasy? Impossibly difficult? It isn't when you change your perspective from years to days. These four charts are the most profound understanding you can give your future self. If only someone had given me...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

You're on a path to wealth. $650/day in profit is $225K a year.

 

[GoldFibre]

You're on a path to wealth.

Thank you for the supportive comment.

There is still a long way to go on this path.

 

[GoldFibre]

2023 Recap​

I ended the year with record weekly orders and profit.

I started the year with no personally owned business and high hopes for my full time job. I have a senior position in a medium sized company and I have an incentive scheme which is something like stock options. The company’s January results were great but after that the company performed poorly.

Over the course of the year it became clear that my three year incentive plan that I worked so hard for would be worth absolutely nothing. What’s more is that the company was not pursuing a strategy in line with my incentive structure, so I was stuck with just my salary and potentially an outsized share of the blame if the shareholders ever decided that enough was enough.

Since my anticipated windfall was out the window I looked for a way to supplement my income. I had an idea about automated product scraping plus dropshipping. My first attempt was a Shopify store selling beauty products. I had it up and running for a few months with zero sales and a few hundred dollars in ad spend. This was all before I started posting here.

Later I heard about this Amazon business model from a friend, and the very same day I dropped the Shopify store and started building the Amazon bot. Even though there were already established competitors in the field, I thought that I could carve out some of the market for myself through superior software and processes.

The bulk of the development work happened during six weeks over the summer when by chance I was living alone rather than with my family. Especially with development projects, extended periods of focus are great for productivity and I made the most of mine.

This business draws on several skills I have gained during my slowlane career: software development, logistics, and vendor/partner relationship management. These saved me some time on the learning curve, but I think that anybody could accomplish the same as me, regardless of past experience.

There were also many new things to learn, especially the peculiarities of working with Amazon, which is something like driving a clown car through a minefield with a blindfold on and a demon on your shoulder that only whispers lies. That’s not a complaint at all — it’s a level playing field since all my competitors have to deal with the same environment. But the environment itself is ridiculous in many ways.

The business is scalable to maybe an additional 5x in its current Amazon-only form, but this form violates the C in CENTS. One change of policy from Amazon could completely eliminate my business. One mistake in my product filters could trigger some automatic block of my account. One lost consol from my vendor could get me de-listed for not fulfilling on time.

So I’m often thinking about how to allocate my limited time to invest: either grow the existing revenue stream, which is easier but doesn’t mitigate my risk, or grow a new revenue stream which is much harder but does mitigate my risk.

But binary choices like these are often just delusions we create to discourage ourselves from taking action. There are infinite possibilities in the world, infinite ways to make money, and infinite ways to look at the same situation. I need to accomplish both goals: to grow the business and to mitigate the risks. There is a way, and I can find it if I make the effort.

My main perceived challenge is finding the time to devote to improving my systems considering I also have a full time job and a family, much like the main characters in the Great Rat Race Escape . I’ve already made adjustments in both of those spheres to try to free up time, but it is never enough and I never run out of things to work on. Again I am probably delusional and need to take an objective look at things to achieve what I want.

I want to move at 10x speed and I have full confidence that with that speed I can make 10x profit and even structure the company for a sale. This is all possible in the span of one year, in 2024. If it doesn’t happen then it is only because I chose the slowlane out of fear. And if it does happen then it is because I manifested it through directed effort.

Happy New Year.

 

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[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

Weekly Goals​

• MOST IMPORTANT Source more 'safe' brands to list: DONE
• Make at least 7 software improvements: 2 / 7
• Implement two process improvements with vendor: 0 / 2
• Figure out how to get documents approved for new marketplaces: NOT YET
• Get rates for other countries: NOT YET

I ran a query on brands sold by Amazon US and Amazon UK, but which my bot has not yet profiled. Then I added those brands to my processor. There is some risk that they are selling things which are not risky to Amazon but are risky to me, but I'll have to manage that risk and send the list to my account manager for verification.

I improved the order page on my web app to make procurement easier. Each improvement reduces the number of clicks I need to make to procure an order, which should reduce the chance of a mistake and make the process go faster. After using this improved page to procure some orders, I came up with several more improvements to implement soon.

 

[GoldFibre]

Today's Stats​

Weekly Goals​

• MOST IMPORTANT Source more 'safe' brands to list: DONE
• Make at least 7 software improvements: 6 / 7
• Implement two process improvements with vendor: 0 / 2
• Figure out how to get documents approved for new marketplaces: NOT YET
• Get rates for other countries: NOT YET

I started the application process for access to the Amazon Business API (AB API), which requires a couple of emails and some manual activation from Amazon's side. Access to this API will allow me to automate more of the tracking and possibly even the procurement. I suppose this application process could take a week or more depending on how organized Amazon is.

I made a list of improvements I could implement to reduce manual work or improve customer service:


I fixed the destination shipping calculation and the duty calculation for country 1. Then I fixed the date columns in the Google Sheet. Then I added the attributes in the order page of the web app. This required some broader refactoring of how I import new orders.

While working on these issues I thought of even more things that I could fix. Here is the updated list: