{"id":118,"date":"2016-11-28T22:32:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T06:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedombyamazon.com\/?p=118"},"modified":"2016-11-28T22:32:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T06:32:03","slug":"brief-story-of-our-online-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/brief-story-of-our-online-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Brief Story of Our Online Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

To give some perspective to some of the big sales numbers you might be seeing that might discourage you.<\/p>\n

Sandi<\/a> and I started selling on eBay in 2002. We did a few hundred $ the first couple years – total, then sales grew. We were unemployed and close to retirement.<\/p>\n

The earliest year I have handy figures for, is 2008. We did $53k. 2009 & 2010, we did $30-ish k each year. We were doing this by buying wholesale and closeout, and shipping everything ourselves every day.<\/p>\n

2011 turned around with $46k. 2012 was $82k on eBay.<\/p>\n

2012 was also the first year we started selling on AZ in Feb. The first 3 months, we averaged $35 a month. 35 Dollars! The next 5 months, we averaged $400. The 4th Qtr, we started FBA and averaged $3,000 per month with Dec @ $7,500.<\/p>\n

2013, I only have the first 9 months handy, and we averaged just under $6k on eBay, and $6.3k on Amazon. That was about the time we decided FBA was a better business model for us than shipping every order on eBay.<\/p>\n

We did $220k on AZ last year, and will do $250k this year. We hired our first helper about a month ago to ramp for Q4. Other than that, we do it ourselves in 2-3 hours a day.<\/p>\n

Slow and steady worked for us. It can work for you. This year closes soon, but next year stretches out ahead of us all.<\/p>\n

We did it. You can do it, too!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To give some perspective to some of the big sales numbers you might be seeing that might discourage you. Sandi and I started selling on eBay in 2002. We did a few hundred $ the first couple years – total, then sales grew. We were unemployed and close to retirement. The earliest year I have … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enjoying","category-success"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6aoKM-1U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wuhan-woo-hoo\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":0},"title":"Wuhan Woo-Hoo!","author":"John Larson","date":"May 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"What-the! I am not cheering the virus and its devastation, deaths, illness, or economic disaster. Fortunately, Sandi and I are still personally unaffected by the virus. The farm routines, the dogs and walking them, the limited shopping -- nothing really different despite Oregon's lock-down policies. I am woo-hoo-ing our Amazon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Improving"","block_context":{"text":"Improving","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/improving\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":241,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/sales-have-slowed-down-after-q4-what-do-i-do-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":1},"title":"Sales Have Slowed Down After Q4. What Do I Do Now?","author":"John Larson","date":"February 14, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"We, like most of you, had a pretty outstanding Q4 sales. We beat last year and for the whole year beat last year by 20% or better. Profitble? Yes. But here comes February and the inevitable sales slowdown after Q4. What should you do to boost sales? Do what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Improving"","block_context":{"text":"Improving","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/improving\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/how-to-ship-amazon-merchant-fulfilled-ebay-and-etsy-orders\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":2},"title":"How to Ship Amazon Merchant Fulfilled, eBay, and Etsy Orders","author":"John Larson","date":"February 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling on eBay, Etsy, or on Amazon as Merchant Fulfilled (MF or FBM) is an easy way to add additional revenue to your business. But, it means that you have to ship all the individual orders to the customer. It isn't hard, but can appear intimidating. I can show it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Shipping"","block_context":{"text":"Shipping","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/shipping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/gearing-up-for-q4\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":3},"title":"Gearing Up for Q4","author":"John Larson","date":"October 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Q4 - 4th Quarter - The Big Party - Saving the Year... Whatever you call it, the final 3 months of a calendar year are the best part of selling. You'll Sell a Ton! Retailers have long relied on this final quarter to bolster their sales, and provide profits that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Inventory"","block_context":{"text":"Inventory","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/inventory\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":160,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/how-we-lost-40000-so-far-this-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":4},"title":"How We Lost $40,000 So Far This Year","author":"John Larson","date":"April 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's what's happening with our Amazon sales right now. So far in 2018, we are about 33% DOWN from last year. This is about $40,000 less than the same time a year ago. What happened? Long ago, when we were getting our eBay business up and running, we found a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Buying Right"","block_context":{"text":"Buying Right","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/buying-right\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/covid-19-and-amazon-fba-shutdown\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":5},"title":"Covid-19 and Amazon FBA Shutdown","author":"John Larson","date":"March 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"We've all been dealing with the Wuhan Virus in various ways. I hope you are all in good health. Sandi and I are hunkered down on the farm and limiting our travels and shopping. We were content to rely on Amazon FBA to supplement income, reduced, maybe, but steady. To\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedombyamazon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}