3 Reasons My Amazon Business Failed

After averaging 120k per year in sales for 3 years...

...I've shut down my e-comm store on Amazon.

Dun dun dun.

Now, don't get your panties in a wad thinking, "Wow, you shut down a biz that sells 120k per year? Are you crazy like your potty-hat wearing mother?"

"Why would you shut that down? "

To answer your question, yes I am crazy like my potty-hat wearing mother.

Because that's not why I did it.

First of all, my profits were enough to cover basic expenses for the first two years I had the store.

This past year...well, let's just say it wasn't even doing that anymore.

This year is when I decided to shut it down! Like Jess so awkwardly did on the show New Girl.

Here's why I did it:

1. I was a big fat chicken baby

I was afraid that I couldn't handle the high-volume game. I didn't believe in my ability to be able to keep up with the demands and responsibility that would come with the success of making more sales.

So I purposely slowed down my sales.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

I was scared to grow.

I was already outside of my comfort zone as it was, exploring uncharted territories in my first attempt at starting a business.

I felt like if I was going to be brave enough to explore the unknown, I should've at least had a cool pirate hat or something.

But nope.

No sweet pirate hat for me.

Just the fear that I wouldn't know what to do if I got too many sales, and that I'd immediately ruin everything and the whole thing would implode.

So when I got too many sales and started to feel uncomfortable, I raised my price.

But the sales kept coming at a fast pace.

So I raised it again.

And again.

I raised my price to triple that of my competitors (don't worry, I made sure my product was worth it).

It was the sweet spot so that I could play the "low-volume, higher margin game."

Now you might be thinking, "How the heck did you even sell your product if it was triple the price of all of your competitors?"

Ahh.

That's called "kinda sorta knowing what the heck you're doing."

Or at least, I think that's the official business term for it, anyway.

And I did know what I was doing when it came to most marketing aspects of the business, at least.

The problem is...the areas that I needed help in, I didn't get it.

Which brings me to my next point of epic failure...

2. I spread myself to thin, like a PB&J sandwich with an inadequate amount of peanut butter.

I knew I should have either partnered with someone or hired someone who could have handled the areas of the business that I was weak in.

⭐️Things like keeping track of inventory.

⭐️Doing the bookkeeping.

⭐️Keeping track of numbers/analytics/making sure that we were still profitable each month.

⭐️Analyzing which areas we could cut costs in after keeping track of numbers.

⭐️Someone who would actually follow through on doing sea shipping intead of air shipping, unlike me, who just seriously contemplated it then never took action.

⭐️Re-ordering inventory on time.

⭐️Triple crunching the numbers to make sure the profit margins were calculated correctly.

For some reason, I told myself that I couldn't afford to hire someone.

On top of that, if I did, they wouldn't care about my business as much as I do, and therefore not do the job as well as I would have, anyway.

Well, I was wrong.

The goal is to always hire someone smarter than you in the area that you're hiring for.

Then just let them do their thing.

If someone you hire is good at what they do, then they're an investment.

Not a cost.

I wasn't looking at hiring someone as an investment, and it cost me my business.

I know when you're bootstrapping, sometimes you have to wear all the hats in the beginning.

And I mean, that's fine. Wearing different hats is fun and keeps things interesting.

Plus, you kind of need to for a little while so you can figure out what the one thing is that YOU'RE really good at, and that you really enjoy most.

So that when it comes time to hire people that are strong in areas where you're weak, you can know a little about the role and help provide some guidance.

At some point, though, you realize there's just not enough hours in the day.

It's not sustainable to wear all the hats forever if you also want to grow.

3. I got lazy sorta. I quit fighting

⚔
It's extra important when you're working online to keep up with the trends. Of everything!

The first two years, I was so diligent about learning anything and everything I could about running an amazon store.

I took a course on how to do it.

I listened to podcasts every day.

I soaked up everything I could learn about marketing.

I learned how to create a sales funnel. I bought a course on facebook ads...

..then ran ads to a landing page and then got e-mails of people and marketed to them through e-mail.

I learned how to use an autoresponder.

Then, one day...

...I just stopped all that.

I got complacent.

I blamed it on the fact that I was competing against people with very deep pockets, whoc could afford to hire an entire marketing team and crush my lil' baby facebook ads like a bug.

I blamed the fact that a huge crowd of people were coming on amazon to sell the same products, and it was getting more competitive by the day.

Even Chinese suppliers were getting on the site and selling at a lower price than you could ever possibly sell for.

AND, some of them even stole my exact pictures and product description, which played a big role in my competitive advantage.

I remember feeling angry because amazon seller support didn't do anything about the listing violation for several months.

Then I just got discouraged and kind of stopped fighting.

But honestly, at the end of the day...

...it's on me.

You only fail when you quit trying, and I quit trying.

Instead of asking myself "How can I do it? How can I fix this?"

I just said, "I can't."

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Those are my 3 reasons. I know exactly what I'd do if I ever wanted to start over again to keep from failing this time. But we'll see what the future holds.

P.S. Don't forget to participate in my contest to win an alpha steem monsters card pack, and $8 worth of steem!

Just click on this picture: