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With 2018 over and Valentine’s Day just around the bend, I thought I’d do a review of how last year went and how I’m going to prep for the next upcoming sales spike.
I know many people like viewing these posts and glean some useful information from them.
In this post, I’m going to be completely transparent about…
- My sales numbers for Amazon and Etsy
- Which products sold best
- And how I’m preparing to make 2019 even better.
This post is specifically about Amazon and Etsy, not my other things like marketing courses, eBay income, warehouse, stocks, etc.
Time sensitive: If you want to supercharge your holiday season sales, click here to watch the Jumpstart webinar replay.
That said, let’s jump into the review…
Here are my 2018 sales details
In 2018 I earned $438,052.93 on Amazon.
This could have been a bit higher but the FBM portion of my account was turned off from August through the end of December, where income peaks the highest.
Either way, considering this is highly passive — I’ll take it.
For Etsy, stats have been thus far:
Store #1: $30,365.25
Store #2: $15,652.47
Store #3: $5,789.86
Store #4 – $1,960.59
Store #5 – $16.95
Store #6: $177.90
Store #7: $17,258.71
That’s a total of $71,221.73.
My Amazon + Etsy income for 2018 was $509,274.66. Not bad!
I feel like I’ve figured out a good formula for how to do this (more on this later on) and I’m excited to share with you the 20% of actions that get the 80% of the results.
Before that, let’s dig into my bestsellers:
For Amazon, my best-sellers are:
Best-seller #1 – 15oz white mug (1770 orders)
Best-seller #2 – 11oz white mug (1731 orders)
Best-seller #3 -15oz white mug (968 orders)
Best-seller #4 – Travel mug (924 orders)
Best-seller #5 – Travel mug (911 orders)
Best-seller #6 -11oz white mug (683 orders)
Best-seller #7 -11oz white mug (557 orders)
Best-seller #8 -11oz black mug (518 orders)
Best-seller #9 -11oz white mug (456 orders)
Best-seller #10 -11oz black mug (445 orders)
There were 26,707 orders on Amazon total and these top 10 make up 33.56% of all orders (or 8963 sales).
I was selling thousands of items until August, but in Quarter 4 I was *only* selling FBA. At that point I had 146 items in Amazon and made 39.7% of my total sales for the year.
That is VERY promising actually, because it means the other 60% were spread throughout the year. And it tells me there’s a lot of opportunity for Valentine’s Day!
Here’s how Valentine’s Day went last year
Last year, from January 1st 2018 through February 14, I grossed $35,405.80 on Amazon.
As you can see, sales took a big jump up as we got closer and closer to Valentine’s Day.
I’m *very* glad I had FBA (items pre-sent to Amazon) available on February 12th, which was a peak day where FBM (items printed on demand) wouldn’t have cut it.
Here’s what I’m doing to make 2019 Valentine’s Day Season even stronger
Last year was great, but I think this year can be better. I’ve been doing this long enough to know the 80/20 rule, or what 20% of actions yield 80% of results.
I’ve distilled down to the top 3 actions I’ll be taking this season:
#1: Send more items to FBA.
You saw the graph – sales jumped up that last week. On Feb 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 – all the Prime Eligible Days – there were 626 orders.
More than 1/3 of my total February sales were made in that 7 day period – and the bulk was sent with FBA.
When you send items into Amazon, they store them in their warehouses and make them eligible for “Prime” shipping. Having this label means shoppers can wait until the last minute to shop – and they definitely do.
That’s why in my Jumpstart Program one of the components is giving you 5 boxes of mugs to send to Amazon. The Jumpstart was set up to give you as much success as possible, and I believe this is a big piece of it.
That part alone can pay off Jumpstart, by the way.
#2: Make more designs.
Designs are always helpful. The more you have, the more opportunity you have to make sales.
Designs don’t need to be Valentine’s Day specific. People still shop things like “gift for accountant”, “gift for engineer” on Valentine’s Day. It’s just that the more buy buttons you have available, the more chances people have to buy from you.
In the Jumpstart Program we give you 200 done-for-you designs (100 designs in both black and white text) to get you started. You can put these designs on mugs, shirts, and whatever else you want, and they are all crafted the same way my bestsellers work.
#3: Make the RIGHT designs.
When I say the “right” designs, I mean… you want to go after the niches that people are actively searching for.
A big mistake I see people make is that they make designs that they think are clever versus designs that people are actively searching for.
Remember – people are actively typing in what they want to buy:
All you have to do is give it to them.
In the Jumpstart Program we give you access to SpotNiches. This tool has 3 components:
a) It looks at how many monthly searches there are for each phrase
b) It shows you how many results there are on Amazon, Etsy, and eBay for those phrases
c) It gives you an “opportunity” score that shows you the “money” niches with the most searches and the fewest results
This tool is GLORIOUS – and a major help.
If I had to add any other actions, I would say:
#4: Make things as simple as possible.
The easier you make things on yourself, the more likely it is that you’ll succeed.
Having integrations, while not necessary, are wildly helpful.
They allow you to create a product, hit the “upload” button, then get items sent over to Amazon, Etsy, and eBay on your behalf. Whenever you make a new sale, the customer information gets sent back into GearBubble’s warehouses. The warehouses create and ship the order for you, then GearBubble sends the tracking number to your customers. These are meant to help you have passive hands-off sales (though I recommend still checking up on your orders to make sure all is good).
This simplifies things and makes the entire process easier (and – surprise, they’re also included in the Jumpstart Program).
The more you can simplify overall, the better your likelihood of things working.
#5: Learn from people who know how to do things well.
Personally, I have purchased several tools and invested in courses to learn how to do things better.
I now pay $2500/month for an Amazon rep (started recently), bought courses on Etsy, etc, so I could learn for myself as well as give you the best info possible.
I would much rather save time by learning from people who know how to do things, or using processes that make things easier, than wasting time with trial and error.
This is part of the reason I think our LHS Facebook group is so helpful. People can talk with like-minded folks and get help from people who have been there, done that.
That’s why in the Jumpstart Program we offer weekly coaching where you can ask me as many questions as you want.
This program was 100% designed to help you jumpstart your success and start doing really well.
What about you? How would you like to do this Valentine’s Day?
As you see, I’m re-launching my Jumpstart Coaching Program this week. Jumpstart is a high-end package that gives you everything you need to make your fourth quarter a success. The package includes…
- 200 done-for-you designs
- free mugs shipped to Amazon for you
- SpotNiches software (!)
- GearBubble credits
- planning resources
- laser coaching
- accountability
- and some behind-the-scenes looks at advanced strategies I’m testing out.
If you’d like to get a lot more sales this Valentine’s Day, I highly recommend you click here to learn more.
Jumpstart is available for a limited-time only, so I’d recommend you go through that replay ASAP — even if you’re just a little bit curious.
