65: Mastering Amazon: Vital Tips From A Top Seller

The side hustle that started with buying books for $1 and selling them at a big markup on eBay, morphed into a $5 million dollar brand on Amazon.

This happened through the skill and resilience of today’s guest, Annalisa DeMarta. While there are 2.7 million sellers on Amazon, her company Ridgeline Insights is in the top 0.0005% of Amazon sellers. If anybody understands selling on Amazon, it’s Annalisa.

Soak up her insights, tips, and hard-won wisdom.

In our interview Annalisa reveals,

what it really takes to be a successful seller on Amazon.
the sweet spot of how long you should give your product listing a chance
what are the most important aspects you need to pay attention to, and
so, so much more.

This content was too good not to share again in this rebroadcast episode.

What You’ll Hear:

03:10 Buying books for $1, selling them for $5, $10, $25…

05:48 A lightbulb moment: Shifting to a scalable and dependable model

07:39 BIG lesson learned: Minding cash flow

08:29 From just the two of them, to 25 employees

10:05 If we don’t try this, we’ll regret it

11:13 Set yourself up for success by being fiscally conservative in your spending

12:08 A shopping trip provides the seed for a winning business idea

14:00 So many things could have gone wrong - The first shipment of boots from China

15:05 Built Lone Cone to a $5 million brand

16:40 Where to start if you want to import products

19:32 “I’ve literally lost millions of dollars in this business”

20:34 Amazon aggregator picks up Lone Cone

23:30 Ridgeline Insights, an Amazon channel management company

24:47 3 Most common ways to sell on Amazon and pros & cons: arbitrage (a great way to learn Amazon), private labeling/black labeling, contract manufacturing

28:17 Incorrect assumptions people make about selling on Amazon

31:31 Just like MSI’s (multiple sources of income), diversification of assets is smart

32:18 A lowball offer - nothing lost if they say “no”

33:22 What it REALLY takes to be successful selling on Amazon

35:42 A “must do” for your top sellers each quarter

36:20 The sweet spot for long you should give a SKU a chance before you give up

40:42 Fear of failure - get over it because you will fail

41:35 Risk a little, learn a lot

42:33 From side hustle to multi-millionaire…you can too!

Key Takeaways:

42:48 Don’t play the “what-if” game

44:13 Work towards the first tier of financial success - having your base expenses covered