How Amazon Put My First Company Out of Business. . .

In September 2015, I was running a robust business selling niche items and doing retail arbitrage on eBay, grossing around $6,000 a month. By October 2015 – in the space of only a couple dozen days – I was grossing around $600-$700 a month – about an 87% overall drop in month-to-month sales that persisted from there on out. I went from enjoying strong sales to considering a part-time job to fund new inventory. What happened?

Hi Steemians, I'm @holsturr.

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I spent two years enjoying great success selling in a niche field – airgun pellets and supplies – and doing a little clearance isle arbitrage on eBay.

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TLDR: Many successful businesspeople understand the importance of multiple income sources. Multiple income streams protect from catastrophic loss, allow entrepreneurs to enjoy the benefits of exposure to more than one niche, and provides depth of knowledge and experience.

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Although I’d found some other niche fields that looked attractive, such as commercial and home appliance water filters, I wasn’t able to diversify into other niches, much less expand my business off it’s sole reliance on the eBay marketplace. So, when Amazon started selling airgun pellets eligible for Prime benefits in late 2015, it became impossible for me to compete in my bread-and-butter field. Later, with post office rate increases and changes in eBay’s policy, the marketplace became an unattractive option for myself and many other sellers, and I began seeking more profitable options.

My problem was borne out of a common mistake many entrepreneurs make, and my situation was a textbook case.

A critically important event in my life was picking up and reading a copy of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad at age 15. What seems like elementary knowledge now was fascinating to me in my teenage years; a well-written and easily understandable guide to money, wealth and success, complete with helpful pictures and diagrams.

A central theme of Kiyosaki’s book is cash flow and how the wealthy handle it (and how the less successful don’t). It’s smart to reinvest your cashflow into building yourself and your business, but it’s brilliant to have that cash coming from several different sources.

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I was making a majority of my sales in a single niche field - airguns pellets and supplies - and selling on a single platform, eBay.

So, when Amazon stepped into my niche, my sales saw a singular catastrophic crash, not a smooth fading away and profitable reemergence in another niche.

Jim Rohn taught that honing multiple skills is essential to living a rich life. Robert Kiyosaki taught that cultivating multiple income streams is essential to living a wealthy life. Both of these great teachers are correct – I can tell you first-hand!

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This has been @holsturr, thank you for reading!

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• This is my introduceyourself post
• These are things I recommend to friends and loved ones in 2018
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