Sales: 2,383
Revenue: $44,352.67
Profit: $347.33
Gross Margin: 0.78%
2018 💰 Profit to Date: $80,797.12
* sales data from JungleScout Sales AlayticsThis may sound like deja vu, but Amazon again completely owned me with the new Q4 inventory storage fees.
I generated $44,352.67 in revenue, netting me a laughable $347.33 in profits.
It seems like the restructured fees really caught some sellers (like myself) off guard. What's funny is whenever I'm feeling down about my Q4 FBA performance, I seemingly find someone on /r/FulfillmentByAmazon who's having an even worse time.
Check out this seller's Q4 story: How Amazon stole $80,000 from my business in 2018 - absolutely brutal.
Selling on Amazon is a ruthless game and if you're caught slipping, you'll pay.
That said, I've been saving up money and placing less re-orders than normal, building up my bankroll in preparation for tax season. My plan is to begin launching new SKUs in January once the finances are all in order.
Here's a breakdown of my most profitable SKUs (Product names omitted) from my favorite profit analytics software, Fetcher:
My goal for 2019 is to launch ~1-2 new SKUs per month and change how this chart looks, in order to better protect my profits for the long-term.
Here's a glimpse into my Advertising Campaign Manager for December:
- Spend: $2,522.83
- Sales: $11,477.64
- ACoS: 21.98%
I saw my month-over-month Average Cost of Sale (ACoS) jump by 0.97% which is to be expected during the holiday season.
One of biggest takeaways from 2018:
Pay close attention to new sellers launching SKUs in your space while you place re-orders (especially heading into Q4). With storage fees increasing gradually over time, you don't want to be caught with more inventory than you need, as the fees could potentially cut deep into your profit margins.
Also, seasonal & "trending" products can see demand fluctuate highly. I had a product that was absolutely crushing in mid-2018, but sales slowed down quite a bit as the trend slowed amongst the public. It went from at one point being my most profitable SKU to being a liability.
Sales: 890
Revenue: $19,069.90
Royalty: $3,996.02
Avg. Royalty: $4.49
2018 💰 Profit to Date: $21,970.81
* sales data from PrettyMerch ProThis is kind of crazy I earned almost the exact same royalty from Merch in December 2018 ($3,996.02) as I did in December 2017 ($3,985.35).
Don't forget about the January 2018 royalty change that made it harder on sellers to keep their numbers consistent.
Take a closer look at 2018 vs 2017:
December 2017:
- Revenue: $13,396.58
- Royalty: $3,985.35
- Avg. Royalty: $5.30
- Amazon's Cut: $9,411.23
December 2018:
- Revenue: $19,069.90 (+5673.32)
- Royalty: $3,996.02 (+$10.67)
- Avg. Royalty: $4.49 (-$0.81)
- Amazon's Cut: $15,073.88 (+$5,662.65)
In summary: Amazon was the real winner (as usual) 🙃
My biggest takeaway:
I spent most of my Q4 uploading my pre-existing designs to websites like Etsy & Redbubble, which ended up netting me some decent sales on those platforms.
But I should have been paying more attention to the writing on the wall: When Amazon introduced PopSockets for Merch sellers, I should have focused my efforts on converting & uploading those old designs to PopSockets.
People who took advantage of this opportunity were posting massive numbers in Merch Facebook Groups, and were vocal about their PopSocket sales. They were so successful this holiday season, Amazon even sold out of them at one point.
Sales: 657
Profit: $4,821.46
2018 💰 Profit to Date: $30,088.35
Dropshipped print on demand sales just barely surpassed the $30,000 profit mark for the year, which is AWESOME considering I wasn't really invested in Etsy or Redbubble until about August. Way to finish strong!
That said, it was a great lesson learned. I had been spending so much time designing, but not uploading them enough places. Not all customers go to Amazon, so it's important to diversify where you offer your products.
My Etsy sales jumped from 196 in November to 261 in December, and Redbubble jumped from 81 to 128.
Surprisingly, my fulfilled by merchant (FBM) sales fell on Amazon from 316 to 262.
If you guys are having success on eBay, please reach out & share your secret(s)!, I'm beginning to despise it that platform (I still love it as a buyer!).
My Etsy advertising analytics were similar to November, with a minor uptick in ad spend (likely correlated to an increase in web traffic):
- Spend: $306.10
- Revenue: $2,677.63
- ACoS: 11.4%
- CPC: 0.12 (avg bid: $0.16)
- CTR: 0.73%
Selling $7,123.77 in December via Printful integrations earned me a 5% volume discount towards my January 2019 sales.
One of my goals for 2019 will be to regularly hit at least a 6% volume discount.
My 128 Redbubble sales netted me a $473.01 royalty, and if you're wondering - I had all product types set to a 30% profit margin.
I'm going to experiment with various profit margin settings in 2019 for the various product types. For one, I'm definitely going to charge more for stickers.
I continue to post new FBM products to Amazon every day, from sun-up to sun-down, both the Printful or Gearbubble integrations. My catalog currently stands at 12,075 products (35 of them FBA, the rest FBM).
More products = more money, so get to designing & uploading!
LETS CRUSH 2019!.
Google Ads
Earnings: $302.96
Page Views: 484,284
Ad Impressions: 1,848,105
2018 💰 Profit to Date: $2,732.52
* data from Google AdsI run a few popular websites where I collect advertising revenue via Google Ads (formerly Google AdSense). I also collect revenue via direct partnerships with advertisers & from affiliate links, but for times sake, I'm going to omit those deals.
I won't be doing month-to-month write ups here because I don't spend much time maintaining these websites. They started out as passion projects that allowed me to become a better web developer, but today I spend very little time working on them.
