Making $1200 in One Week on Amazon - My Way

 How to Have a Profitable Home Based Business - Part One

I'm sure I'm not the only person who wants to make money from home and build a successful home-based business. I've attempted several times to craft my own business model with mixed results.

This Keurig has been a very big seller

In February of this year, I started selling items on Amazon.  In a little over one week, I was able to PROFIT over $1000 but not without taking some lumps. Here's some of what I learned:

1. Amazon has "velocity limits" that, until I reached them, are not posted anywhere that I knew about. When a seller reaches a velocity limit, their account is suspended until Amazon has the time to investigate if you are delivering your sold products or just pocketing the money. There are ways to avoid the velocity limit and continue selling without getting temporarily suspended.
2. After selling 20 or so of the same item, I was contacted by a legal team for said company and asked to either prove I was a certified reseller of their product or cease and desist. Turns out I was acting legally and I can show you how I covered myself.
3. Out of 157 items sold in a very short period of time, one (ONE!) buyer contacted me to say they never received their item EVEN THOUGH the UPS tracking number shows it was not only delivered ON TIME but left on their porch and the Buyer confirmed the delivery addres on the UPS tracking receipt. Amazon does not consider this as "Proof of Delivery" and will not back me up as the seller. I had to refund the buyer in full but can tell you how to make this most unpleasant scandal as easy to handle as possible. In short, they took advantage of the system but we all know there are people like that out there. You'll need to plan for them if you attempt this type of home business.
4. Amazon suspended my account for investigation but let 34 orders pile up in the "Pending" category. After four days of those live orders sitting, Amazon released them all to me AT ONE TIME. I now had to fill 34 orders with a time clock that had begun ticking four days prior. To the Buyer, it shows they placed their orders on a Friday. The orders weren't released to me until Monday night the next week. I had to quickly cover a lot of ground and can tell you how.
5. Before suspending my account, Amazon froze the money account where all the money had been paid by the Buyer and was waiting to be transferred to my bank account. When they froze it due to velocity limits, they don't tell you for how long it is frozen. It now sits at several thousand dollars and all I've been told is that it will be released when they see that all my Buyers have received their packages and nobody needs a refund. I'll tell you how I kept selling products even though Amazon was sitting on MY money.
6. I found several sources to buy products for reselling. Once Amazon suspended my selling ability until their investigation is over, I bounced over to eBay and picked right up where I left off with Amazon. I've made $160 in one day so far. I'll tell you where I got my products to sell and the difference between selling on Amazon and eBay.

I'm not trying to sound like I'm about to sell something. There's nothing to sell. I'm just trying to put as many of my thoughts to paper right now as I can so I don't forget what's been happening. I'll cover all this stuff and more over the next several posts because I truly believe anyone can make money this way but there are several things to learn to avoid headaches.

Quickly selling 53 items caused Amazon to sit on 34

This blog has always been about sharing what I learn and making money has always been kind of a knack for me. My mom says it started when I went door to door at the age of seven trying to sell her shoes. The ACTUAL shoes from her closet. Then I filled my lunchbox full of $0.05 seed packets and sold them door to door for a quarter.

I sold on eBay for many years and did quite well. I've had numerous websites and learned a ton about eCommerce, SEO, web design, and all the other technical stuff that goes with selling products on the internet. Hopefully it will help some of you out there to start your own online venture and make a little cash on the side. In my opinion, if you can sit at home, in your pajamas and make even an extra $200 a month profit...they why not do it? Every income stream you can create gets you that much closer to financial independence.

So if you are interested in this topic, leave a comment about what interests you the most and I'll cover it. From picking a company name and URL to grab attention , how to accept money over the internet, how to advertise or where to find products to resell. Let me know and I'll share the knowledge. 

This isn't the usual prepper/homesteading stuff you're used to reading here but making an income from home is essential to becoming self sufficient. If choose not to follow this series, I'll understand. I'm still working on a rainwater collection system, upgrading my chicken coop and other fun homesteading stuff.

~OJD