Jessica and Cliff Larrew​
, a married couple, have decided a few years ago to walk
away from the 9 to 5 lifestyle and instead build a business on Amazon.
When Jessica got let go from her job in 2008, she knew that was going to be the
last time someone else would be able to determine her “financial value”. A few
years later, Cliff was tired and frustrated from a job that was draining him. It was
then that they took a decision that changed their life forever…
They decided to build an online business and make money on Amazon so they
could work from home and spend time with their family.
The first year that they ran the Amazon business together, working less than 20
hours a week total, they made over 6 figures profit. Since then, they have decreased
their average work time and increased their profits.
To know how they did it, I asked them 8 questions. I think you’re going to love their
answers!
1) How did you start on Amazon and why? Jessica started selling on Amazon after realizing that selling on ebay was not going
to be scalable into a bigger business, without devoting more time and energy into
packing and shipping orders every day. What we really wanted was a lifestyle
business that would make it so that I didn’t have to go back to work and would
eventually bring Cliff home. It was about a year later than Cliff was able to leave his
job as well and sell on Amazon.
The basics of how Amazon FBA works is that we find the products to sell either
locally or online, then we list the product on Amazon and send them into their
fulfillment centers. From there, Amazon will process any orders, ship them to the
customer and handle customer inquiries.
We have 3 free videos that explains the process more in detail here:
3 Videos For Starting Your FBA Business On The Right Foot
2) How much do you make from Amazon now? We are in our 5th year and still making $100,000 a year on Amazon.​
We really
hustle during the fourth quarter so that we can make a bulk of that money leaving
us free to work much less during the rest of the year. Our average month of sales on
Amazon is between $10,000-$15,000 and during fourth quarter we are between
$75,000-$100,000 for November and December.
After our expenses of selling on Amazon and inventory costs, we are netting around
$100,000 from around $275,000 in sales for a year.
3) How long did it take you to make that much? We reached six figures in profit the first full year of selling on Amazon full time.
4) How many hours do you spend every week running your business? Right now, it’s honestly not very much. We spend less than 10 hours a week each
on the business. During the fourth quarter we will spend around 30 hours a week
each on the business.
5) What’s your lifestyle like today? Today we have truly gotten to the point where we are running a lifestyle business.
We get to be really picky on the items that we buy/sell because we are at a point
where sales are so consistent and our income is steady.
When we source it is for the fun of sourcing. We love to shop at liquidation stores
and spend $1,000’s of dollars at a time. If we can spend $2500 at a liquidation
place at once that means we can take the rest of the month off if we want to
because the margins are so high there. The other way we source that is so
enjoyable is by purchasing inventory online while doing things like watching a movie
or tv with our son.
We have truly built our business around the lifestyle that we wanted so we are free
to pick and choose when we want to work.
6) Could you guide us through the step­by­step process to make money with Amazon? I absolutely could, just not in writing. I have taken the full process and added it into
the Amazon Boot Camp. We have just updated all of the videos and are on version
2.0. We offer 3 of the videos for free to anyone who wants to understand the
business model better, set up their seller account and even find some profitable
products. This is almost an hour of video that will really help anyone who wants to
consider this business model.
Here is the link again ​
3 Videos For Starting Your FBA Business On The Right Foot
7) Do you use any special tools? Of course, I think any business is built around awesome tools that make yourself
more efficient. We use ​
scanning apps ​
on our phones for when we are sourcing in
store as well as some plugins that make sourcing online much quicker to make
decisions on if an item is worth buying or not. I am sort of a tool junkie, when
something comes out specifically for Amazon sellers, I always want to test it out. I
even have an electric box cutter!
8) What is something you would recommend someone do that wants to start an Amazon FBA Business? I think the most important thing to do when deciding to try a business is really give it
a go. I see a lot of people going from business to business online. No business can
be built overnight. So, ​
it is really hard to know if something is going to work if
you only spend a few weeks on it​
. Most of my students don’t turn an official profit
for about 3 months because they are reinvesting so much money into the business.
If you think that Amazon is a get rich business, then it definitely won’t work. We are
at a point now where we are able to work very little during the bulk of the year, while
bringing in a comfortable living. There are also people who work 40+ hours a week
and are making millions a year. No matter what your income goal, there will be work
associated with it.
There is so much information available when it comes to Amazon now, I really
recommend that someone pick someone they really relate to and stick with them.
Whether that is their blog or paid course. For example, our course has over 10
hours worth of training. To go and find all of that information on your own going
from site to site, would take 40-100 hours. One of the things people tell me OVER
AND OVER is that they wish they would have just taken the Amazon Boot Camp
from the beginning instead of wasting time trying to figure it all out on their own.
Interview - Simon Cave - ​
The Becomer