Well it’s been a long time but I’m back. I never really left, however I’ve had a monumental personal crisis to deal with which made it impossible for me to post since November 2014. Anyway that’s over now and I plan to keep the updates going from now on.
I have still been operating my business, sending in stock and checking in to my account. However, I haven’t made any growth. No new ASINs or products at all. What I did notice though is that this business can run with virtually NO time spent on it at all. It’s been really great being able to pull in thousands of dollars while doing virtually nothing. This year I intend to grow. My plan outlined below.
Amazon Canada – amazon.ca
I recently received an email from an amazon.ca representative asking me to think about joining amazon.ca:
“You have provided an excellent experience for our customer base since you started with Amazon and we would like you to bring your products and your business online with Amazon Canada.”
I was pretty stoked with this comment and have since noticed the amazon.ca pulldown has been added to the top of my seller central home page (next to the flag).
Amazon Europe
I started this registration process late last year and I have to say it is taking far too long. At the moment my account is still pending validation. I’ve done everything including the address verification.
I’m really excited about starting in Europe because of the size of the market. With doing private-label it basically doubling your income with very little extra work. I already have my products, sources and listing descriptions so it really is a no-brainer.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Hopefully I can get my account activated and inventory organized in the next month. I want to be rocking in Europe by Q4!
Bad News!
Some major news late last year was that my best selling product’s listing was pulled from amazon.com without notice. I didn’t notice for awhile and when I finally got in touch with amazon they told me that an intellectual rights complaint was made. This was a blow to my sales stats and also I just had a shipment sent in and still to this day have 5141 units sitting in the warehouse unable to sell. Minimum removal fees are $771.15 ($0.15 per item).
Not taking this lying down, I pushed amazon further and asked for the patent or trademark to back up the complaint. They couldn’t produce one, which I already knew because I contacted the USPTO office and asked beforehand. In the end I just gave up. At the end of the day it’s just one product and not worth jeopardizing getting my account suspended or closed. It’s just a pity that this type of thing can happen. Your own private-label listing can get pulled from someone complaining and with no legal backing.
