Hi everyone, I wanted to share with you my experience and how I started selling products online. Perhaps you’re reading this because you’re interested in getting into e-commerce, so hopefully this can help you get inspired or get new ideas.
So to give some background information in how I started my online business, we will have to travel back to my high school days. During high school, I loved to play video games and a lot of times when a new game was released that I wanted to buy, I couldn’t afford it. So in my junior year of high school, I decided to get a job and I landed a position as a worker at a local warehouse. I had this job for almost six years, I stuck with this job all throughout college until I finished with my bachelors degree in Computer Science.
This warehouse that I worked at, they sell auto parts and accessories. My daily tasks included customer service, packing and organizing shipments, and printing out shipping labels. They sold primarily to auto shops, wholesalers, and other warehouses. Sometime while I was there was when they started to sell online on Ebay. I posted several of the listings that are now being sold daily. Now it didn’t become like that overnight, after posting some ads, working with several partners, and spending the time to build an online reputation is when these listings started to sell daily.
After the major success we got on Ebay, I asked the boss if we should start selling on Amazon. He responded by saying yes, but asked me to take charge of doing that. This is when I realized that I could work for myself instead of having to work with a company. During my time working at the warehouse, I have worked with many drop shippers and I knew that I could do the same sitting at home on my own flexible time. So, I told the boss that I wanted to start my own online dropshipping business and asked if he wanted to partner up. He was down for the idea. I would have my own business, making my own money and doing it on my own time, and my boss would have his products being sold on Amazon.
I set up my own business as an S-corp, got the business accounts set up, and filled out all the legal forms and I was ready to start. I started by creating an Amazon seller account and began posting listings. The first listings that I posted were of items that sold the most on Ebay, thinking that I would have the same outcome. It did not. It was strange some items that were selling like crazy on Ebay weren’t getting any sales on Amazon, but some items that struggled to sell on Ebay were being sold within the first day of being posted on Amazon. I was still happy nonetheless that items were being sold.
After I posted several listings, I decided to post some ads to gain more visibility and attract new potential customers. I used Amazon Advertising because it was the easiest and already integrated with the Amazon platform. Placing ads definitely helped, I could see a difference in the increase of sales and revenue. After I got settled in on Amazon, I decided to make my own personal e-commerce website using Shopify. Attracting customers to my personal website was more difficult and took a lot more time. I used Google Ads to promote my products and website, and attempted to use Facebook Ads, but decided to just settle with Google and it was much needed. Even now, I’m making more sales on Amazon by a wide margin, but items on my personal website are selling, so that’s all good.
My next steps were to find more suppliers and more products. I looked around for local warehouses and manufacturers and for wholesalers online. I am still sticking with auto parts and accessories, but that may change one day. I am currently adding new listings onto Amazon and my personal website for each new supplier I partner with or new product that I find. Every now and then my previous employer will tell me that they have a new product in stock, so I post that as well.
This was my brief overview on how I got started with my online business. Hopefully you found something interesting and this helps you out in some way. Let me know what your thoughts are. Thanks for reading.
