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Selling On Amazon

Week 6 - Sales figures from 6 weeks selling books on Amazon using The Tracking Spreadsheet

Video Transcription (unedited):

Welcome to the Week Six update of the 100 book challenge is videos little bit late a couple days or so, I got to touch behind this week. But here's the update and today instead of just showing you some stuff on the board, I'm actually in take you inside my tracking spreadsheet and also the 100 book challenge weekly tracker and show you exactly where I am exactly where revenues up to this point then if I broken even with my cash flow is and we'll dive in and take a little bit deeper look at all of that. So let's go to the computer and let's see where I'm at.

Alright, so here we are and the weekly tracking calculator for the 100 book challenge.

If this is your first time looking at this sheet or you lost it want to get it again. Click on the very first link in the description below or just go to the 100 book challenge calm and there's a link there you can download the sheet

completely free. It'll take you to gum road. And then it'll say put in $1 amount to download just put in zero there unless you want to throw some extra money in there. But you can just enter zero click download. And you can get this sheet completely free for you to be able to put in your own numbers here that I'm about to show you, and figure out how much money you could be making doing the 100 book challenge. So right here, we've got the first page open of this sheet. And these are the numbers I had originally put in that I was hoping for estimating for for this challenge. So I'm going to take a look and see how close I am to these numbers. So starting inventory, of course the Venus challenge I put zero because I'm doing this starting at zero for the challenge then books per week my goal was 100 average by cost I was estimating around $2

inbound shipping costs. I was estimating about 35 cents a pound, weekly turn rage, I was estimating what I thought was a touch high at 6%

Each week 6% of inventory being sold each week that's in and even in Amazon's active inventory. And the average sales price also I thought might have been in touch I but I put $20 for that. So if we scroll down a little bit more on this first page, you can see sales and cash flow. So sales is what is estimating doing this for an entire year what the first year of sales would look like at these rates right here. Now the first year of sales would be somewhere around $73,000. And then total cash flow or mainly profit would be around $28,000.

In that year, then the second year, once you hit the equilibrium point where you're basically selling 100 books a week and your listing 100 books a week, sales would be around 102,000 and profit would be around $44,000. Now just for reference, let's change a couple of these things and see how it affects it. Let's say your average by cost

Is $1. And let's say your average sales price is actually more like 1950. And your turn rates a little less at 5%. Let's say your shipping is maybe a touch more 45 cents a pound. All these numbers down here going to be adjusted. So it's a little lower and sales and profits going to be a little lower. And if you increase this, let's say back to 6%, that actually makes a pretty big difference. Now we're back up close to 72% and $31,000 in the first year, and the bike cost made a big difference there and the cash they'll bring home because $31,000 they're back when it was a $2 buy cost, it was $26,000 profit. So of course, the cheaper you can get the books, the better, the more profit you're able to make with them. But my original numbers that I had in here was $2, a book $20, average sales price 6% and then 35 cents per book at 100 books per week. So let's go into the weekly tracker section down

here and see what's actually been happening. So the spreadsheet gives you a week of buffer since you're not actually be listing books the very first week you're going to be getting books and listing them at the end of the first week.

So the target right here is 100 books. The first week actually listed 103 books. So I'm three over what my goal was 102nd week, I lyst 201 books out of my goal of 100. So now I'm a total of four over the goal, then 114, week three 123 and week 405. And week five, and then this past week was the very first week actually did not hit 100.

I only went out and found books for about four days this past week, and got to 97. So I was negative three this week, but cumulatively, I'm still 43 books over my goal of doing 100 a week. And the funny thing is actually my profit from week six even though I only got 97 books was about $300 higher than a week five when I got 105 books, so

It's a good goal to try and get 100 books but that goes to show you even 97 books to me worth a lot more than 105 depending on what books are getting

the hearing go to actual items sold. The very first week I listed and sent these off at the end of the first week, I didn't actually get to Amazon until week three of the beginning of week three. So no books were actually sold. The tracking spreadsheet shows that things start selling and week two, which they probably won't they'll probably be actually starting selling week three. So sales was negative six then users estimating six, week two I sold 18 books, then 34 books 36 books

in this number is actually offered here, the 31 books right here. The spreadsheet,

or at least the sales numbers that I was getting these from is tracking it from Sunday, I believe through Saturday or either Monday to Sunday. So it's tracking it as 31 books as of Thursday. And it's making the week start or end I should say it

Saturday or Sunday. So this number will actually be significantly higher, hopefully be closer 40 or 45 books this week, and continue to keep climbing, keep climbing. So cumulatively, I'm 35 books over what I was expecting to be at this point in this challenge. And I've listed 46 books over so it makes sense that I'm over the amount of books that I've expected to sell as well. I've been here the sales for years I'll take a better look at this in the sales are tracking spreadsheet but zero dollar sales for the first week 387. week to technically week note. Yeah, and we do 575 850

and then 602. And again, this number is little bit lower because it's tracking it partial week, not the entire week, the way I got the sales numbers. And then over here on the spreadsheet, this is going to be tracking your cash flow, basically numbers back from Amazon, but we'll take a better look at this inside the tracking spreadsheet. So let me open up the

And we're going to go to source dashboard right here. Alright, so this is specifically all the metrics from the very beginning of this challenge up until this point from strictly the 100 book challenge. So you can see up here the top in this orange color that my total cost of inventory at this point was $1,244. And the average by cost was $1 and 97 cents. So my initial projection of $2 was pretty much spot on just a couple cents off what my average buy costs turned out to be. Then total list price up to this point is $13,000. And the average list price of a book is $20 and 76 cents, so it's also very close to that projection of an average list price of $20. A little bit over there, which is good.

You can see over here my total sale so far as 119 units and total revenue up into this point as $2,413 with the average sales price being 20

dollars and 28 cents, which is actually very good since we're still kind of a little bit early on and books started getting listed a little bit later. Like I said, to be almost at this average list price is actually really good because normally cheaper books that are selling quite often are going to sell first and more expensive books and maybe sell a little less frequently or sell later on. So it's actually very good. This number is up to almost exactly what the average list price is. Because it was more expensive books are actually starting to sell quite early on. And then refunds. There's been two refunds technically I've only had one person request a refund by refunds a little bit of money myself because I might have mislabeled a book someone said there's a couple cuts on their cover of their book that I did not put in my description. So I gave them a little bit money back and they changed their feedback, which was nice of them. So $16 worth of refunds, nothing I'm worried about out of the $2,413 revenue. That if we look over here and the expenses, we can see everything laid out and

Down shipping is $315. A paid for shipping so far, Amazon's fees is 2000 or 1090. Out of the total sales that have happened so far, no inventory disposal, and then Cost of Goods Sold of the hundred 19 books. Those were worth $242 cost of goods sold. So my total expenses is $1,649. So, technically I am profitable at $747 and 66 cents with the 60% ROI, but I'm still cash flow negative. If you look right here, cash flow is still negative, it's actually catching back up this next week. It should be cash flow positive, but I think it was somewhere around $900. Last week negative cash flow now it's negative 253. So it's going up quite quickly.

But I'm still cash flow negative because every single week I'm spending more money on books. Those books haven't been listed nor active.

Yet, and so they're not selling yet. So there's always that cycle of spending more money each week until that catches up in sales and he'd be cash flow positive. x just had the biggest deposit from this challenge deposited yesterday, I believe at around $850 on Amazon.

So I am getting paid from Amazon and I will be cash flow positive very soon, technically and profitable. But as I said, I still haven't recouped everything up to this point. And I'm still spending every single week, but this coming week that should happen.

So a total of 631 units listed. I have a couple more units this last week, there's about eight or nine books that got taken off or branched off that I decided to wait to send until next week. So 631 books I've actually been listed to Amazon 119 books have sold 514 of them are still in stock. Now here's where we can see the momentum in the sales. And you can see all of the month of March the total sales was 961

dollars. And just the first two weeks of April is that $1,452. So the momentum of the listing of books and more books becoming active, more and more going to start selling and this number should continue to climb to get us closer to that goal of the $10,000.

And also begin to the average sales price here in March, the cheaper books were selling first. So the average sales price is about $18 and 49 cents.

And then $21 and 67 cents is actually the average sales price for the month of April so far.

Scroll down a little more

436 books were listed in March of your thinking somewhere in four weeks. hundred books a week that looks about right, and then we're two weeks into April at 195 books listed 32 books were sold in March and then 67 have been sold so far in April.

This is just tracking total inventory. And then let's look

Look at this turn right right here, because that's something we projected, that has a big effect. And what we're actually going to make for this challenge and what you'll make in your challenge, depending what your turn rate is. So let's disregard this number right here, it's very high. The reason this number is high is because up until March, we had zero inventory for this specific source for the hundred book challenge. So what the spreadsheet is doing is it's taking zero starting inventory, and 400 whoever we ended with in March inventory, dividing it by two and then figuring out the turn rate based the number of units sold. So it's actually higher this month is going to be spot on centers taking actual inventory of whatever the 430 was, and then as didn't take that number divided by what I've done so far to give me this turn right. So 14.9% turn rate so far for the month of April, that's somewhere around seven little over 7% turn rate, which is better than I was expecting. And that is the biggest effect on what the profitability is and how

Much, we're going to be able to turn up this inventory, how quickly we can go through it. So I'm very happy with the over 7% turn rate of April. And we'll see if it keeps that up especially since April tends to be more of a slow month for most people, March April, May ish tends to be more of a slower months. So to have the better than average turn rate. I'm very happy with that. And then here, just our cash flow numbers, you can take a look at that inventory snapshot and committed items sold. We're going to take a look at that. So that's the biggest thing I want to keep track of is the turn rate right here, how many inventory how many units I'm listing every single week, average sales price, and then what our actual sales are. So the $2,413 now I didn't mention this before I kind of did this right here that I'm looking at is the tracking spreadsheet is the tracking spreadsheet that Caleb made.

I'll also include a link to this right below the other link in the description below. This is a paid tracking spreadsheet

It does a lot of things in it. As you can see down here you can see all the metrics from a single source just by typing your source name up here, you can see your weekly dashboard, sales dashboard, sales, data sold items, turn rates, yellow, huge profit and loss statement, income statement. Everything you can pretty much imagine all broken down so you can see if you're actually being profitable, you can know your numbers, know what's working, know which books maybe you should stop buying, which books you should buy more of. The cool thing is you can also see based on sales rank, which books are selling, let's say you list a book at a sales rank of over 2 million, you can see what percentage of those books sell that you've listed that are over 2 million sales rank. And you can see maybes is a good investment to keep buying books at a higher sales rank or most of those ending up not selling maybe shy cut back a little bit. So this spreadsheet gives a really good overview of the health of your Amazon account and basically the health of your business overall. So you

You can see what to do more what to do less of, etc. So I'm happy where I am in the challenge so far, I think all my numbers I'm a little bit ahead of where I was projecting. I should be happy with that and we'll see if it keeps going that way. But almost 20 $500 sales in the first month and a half is good. The average sales price is above what I was expecting turn rates and everything else. And so it's pretty accurate actually, with here so we put in, let's see, actually, let's go back.

Here the average list price is 2076. Let's say that happened to us the challenge of 2076 average by cost is 197. Turn rate was a little bit higher at like 7.4% is what it actually came out to be so far.

Inbound shipping, inbound shipping has been some around this is probably that's probably pretty accurate. Still about 35 cents per book

and I

Average, I think I've been averaging somewhere close to bleep 108 books a week. So let's put 108 books a week and then see what happens here.

So if things keep trending the way they are now, sales for the first year be around 89,000 cash flow back from Amazon for the first year would be about 37,000 or cash flow minus the cost of goods sold to $37,000 and basically profit. And if you did this for entire two years, the second year would be closer to $52,000 profit and then $116,000 in sales, which is a pretty nice

like I said last week, or the week before only spend about 10 hours to do the hundred books.

This past week is probably pretty similar actually. Because I was only out for four days and I didn't have a ton of time I happened to still get close to the hundred didn't get all the way there 97 bucks, but it was probably around 10 hours. Well I didn't track my time.

as close to the last week,

and I'll get into this current week, one to the next update video, but it's going very well so far. And I imagine I'll be even doing less time this week. So to be able to have a business, that theoretically, you could be making around $52,000 a year spending, I'm spending on 10 hours a week doing this and the side. That's very good. That's more than just a simple side income. That's a full time income for a lot of people.

And I'm not doing anything extra special. I don't have any special sources. As I've said before, and these videos I'm literally just going to libraries and thrift stores. I'm keeping extra close attention to when I'm going to resource how often I'm repeating a source. I talked to the employees and figure out when they put their books out. Like I said, I'm looking at the labels and the tags to know if I've already scanned the books in the past or their new books, old books, etc. So I am doing everything I can to make it more efficient. And hopefully we'll build some relationships where I can actually get these books a lot easier than

I currently am but even at the current pace even doing I'm currently doing

this has some very good returns to it even already in the challenge. But just imagine doing this consistently every week for a year. How much that extra income could do for you can do for your family. For those of you still in it, maybe you're not getting 100 books a week, maybe your goal was 50 books a week. Maybe you get them a touch cheaper. Maybe your average sales price is about the same. Let's say you have a normal turn rate of like 5.5%, something like that.

Even doing 50 books a week, which hopefully take around half the time, five hours spent a week doing books, and you can get $15,000 more in profit for that year. That's definitely more than a vacation. That's a couple of vacations for you. That could be a new car. That could be $15,000 of student loans or any other type of debt you have paid off $15,000 in savings a down payment or partial down payment for a home. So even doing 50 bucks. Don't think you have

Do 100 books to be successful at this challenge, figure out what's possible for you what's available time wise in your schedule. And commit to maybe just doing 50 books a week, if 100 sounds too much even, let's say 25 books a week, all of the variables staying the same 7000 extra dollars and that year again, that's multiple vacations, a lot of debt paid off. You can put that towards a lot of things, just spending a couple hours a week doing 25 books a week going out once a day, or you can find 25 books in a week. So don't just think of this challenge is you have to do 100 books a week, you can change it. If you happen to get last don't think you fail that you're still moving forward. You're still being consistent and listing things to Amazon. And that profit can still be there at the end of the year for you to do what you need to do with so I hope everything is going well and your guys's challenge I hope this was maybe helpful. I know there's probably some things I got wrong in this overview. I probably misinterpreted some things but

Hopefully you got a better understanding of where I am. So you can kind of put it up against to where you are right now and see how the numbers compare where they're different, where they're better where they're worse, and maybe improve your sourcing based on it. So I will give you guys a better update next week and I'll hit that hundred bookmark this coming week and hopefully go a lot over that.

But keep up the work, keep up the scouting and I'll talk to you next week.

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Matthew Osborn
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