Are These Really the Reasons Why You Haven’t Started an E-commerce Business?
There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this new series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!
CapForge Founder and Owner Matt Remuzzi reacts to this creator’s opinion on why people haven’t started an Amazon business.
Video Transcript:
Business Advice Video:
Three reasons you are not selling on Amazon yet. No. 1 you don’t know where the hell to start. This is obviously the most common reason and I completely understand why that is, how it feels. Even if you have been watching endless YouTube videos and trying to put the pieces together taking that first step can be so challenging. My advice to you is to invest into a program, a mentor, and commit to actually starting the journey, okay? You will have way more confidence and you will start the right way knowing you have experts guiding you through the whole way. No. 2 You think it’s too late. Of course, this has to make my top three reasons because I hear all the freaking time but just look at the facts. The numbers speak for themselves. Every single year Amazon sets new records, sells records, and it brings them more and more prime customers. It’s literally the opposite of being too late, it’s the best time to ever launch a product on the world’s largest marketplace that just grows every year. [No.] Three you’re waiting for the right time. I made this mistake as well and honestly the right time it never ever come. It’s never gonna come you can just sit around repeating the same cycle over and over again. Waiting for the magic moment to come and change your life. And unfortunately, this is one of the biggest reasons most people just never really reach their goals in life. And eventually, life just gets too complicated and then it is too late to start.
Matt:
Okay, I can give you a reason four, you don’t wanna sell on Amazon. I mean that might be a reason you’re not selling on Amazon too. As you realize e-commerce is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s actually a lot of work. And it requires a lot of capital and requires a lot of waiting and it’s low margin. So you have to do a lot of volume before you start making any money. But that’s reason four if you’re not interested in selling e-commerce products. But let’s talk about her first three.
So reason one is you can’t find out how to start. it’s really not that hard and there are a lot of free videos. And I would say just jump in and give it a try, set up an account. And then the second part is figuring out what to sell. That is the hard part. And you can watch all the videos you want but unless you have a reason to sell something unique and different I would say don’t start in the first place. So that part is hard but her course or whatever courses she’s recommending aren’t gonna make that process any easier.
The second thing she’s talking about is people say it’s too late to start and her counterargument is every year there’s more and more sales on Amazon. That is answering a question with the wrong answer. Yes, every year there are more and more sales on Amazon. But what’s actually happening is a lot of those bigger sellers are selling more and a lot of the smaller sellers are going away. So just because there’s more sales on Amazon doesn’t mean that there’s more opportunity or more ability for people to come in and sell. It means just what she said, that there’s more sales on Amazon. But actually, there’s a lot of competition and there’s a lot of people who aren’t making it work who are dropping off. And some new people who are trying to make it work who figure out that they can’t make it work and drop off. The difference about whether or not to start is not how much competition there is. The difference about whether or not to start is whether or not in the segment that you’re gonna compete in you have the ability to beat the competition that exists in that segment, right? So who cares if people are selling tons more laundry detergent this year versus last year if you’re not in the laundry detergent segment? That doesn’t matter right if you’re selling paint brushes for artists. How many people are in the paint brushes for artist section? And you have paint brushes that for whatever reason are gonna attract customers versus the competition in that segment. If you have something different about your paint brushes, they’re higher quality, they’re easier to hold, they spread paint better, they make you look like Michelangelo even if you’ve never taken an art class. If you got some competitive differentiation then, yes, jump in start selling, and you’ll probably do pretty well. But if you’re just another product that’s just like every other paintbrush or every other laundry detergent, there’s nothing special about it. You’re gonna have a really hard time making money on Amazon. So her reason No. 2 doesn’t compute.
And 3 that’s really for any business. If you’re thinking about starting a business there is never gonna be a right time. there’s never gonna be a this is the magic moment to get in really. Just jump in get started. Make mistakes, figure out what you’re gonna do, make improvements, and on you go. There is never a great time or a terrible time to start. The time to start if you wanna do it is just now. So on that, I agree with her. Point 1, point 2 don’t agree. And reason 4, you might not be in e-commerce is because there’s lots of other businesses to get into besides e-commerce.
