At one point or another, you are going to run out of sourcing money, but that does not have to mean you cannot grow your business anymore. In today’s episode, we hear about seven ways you can grow your Amazon FBA business that do not require any sourcing. From improving your product listing to advertising and spending time on your education and mindset, there are many ways to expand without additional sourcing capital. It just takes a bit of creative thinking and willingness to think outside the...
May 24, 2021•14 min•Ep. 85
Wholesale bundles have numerous benefits; to you as the seller, and to your customers. As someone who has been on the retail and online arbitrage side of things, as well as the wholesale and wholesale bundling side of things, our guest today has a lot of valuable knowledge to share when it comes to the positives and the negatives of these markets. Kristin Ostrander was once the Queen of Black Friday, until she realized the unsustainable model of business she was running and moved on to something...
May 17, 2021•19 min•Ep. 84
If you are looking for creative ways to differentiate yourself on Amazon while turning an extra profit too, think about starting to sell items in bundles! Creating bundles is all about batching items that match each other thematically, and today on the show you’ll hear all of our tips around how and why you should consider implementing this strategy. First up, we give you some definitions of what bundles are and give you pointers for how to create appealing bundles from thematically grouped item...
May 10, 2021•14 min•Ep. 83
While there are many products and services available that claim to be necessities for starting a new business, it’s hard to know if you really need them, especially when you factor in the cost. After running a successful Amazon FBA business for over a decade, we have gained a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. We do, however, have some regrets. In today’s episode, we give you a rundown of six things we wish we had done sooner to bypass unnecessary frustration and set up our business for s...
May 03, 2021•21 min•Ep. 82
Competing with Amazon as a third party seller can be a daunting task. It’s easy to feel that the odds are stacked against you. After all, it’s a huge company with tremendous resources and control over crucial elements, like who gets awarded the buy box. While it’s often wise to avoid competing with Amazon, it’s also important not to let fear blind you to potential opportunities of earning a customer's sale. In today’s episode, we outline the necessary conditions that make competing with Amazon a...
Apr 26, 2021•12 min•Ep. 81
It’s that time of year, where we spring clean various areas of our life, from our kitchens to our closets, to our computers. Just like everything else, over time our Amazon seller account can become cluttered and overwhelming for a multitude of reasons. Most of the time it’s because there are other more pressing and profitable issues vying for our attention. Today we share multiple tips and strategies for taking on all that clutter, both in your digital and physical inventory. We also discuss me...
Apr 19, 2021•22 min•Ep. 80
If you've ever tried manual online arbitrage (OA), you know that it can take up immense amounts of your time to find what you are looking for. On today’s show you’ll learn about a tool called Tactical Arbitrage which can, among other things, help you drastically reduce the amount of time you spend looking for items to resell. Rebecca has been using Tactical Arbitrage for well over four years, and her and Stephen’s FBA business has seen a great deal of success because of it. She has a lot of usef...
Apr 12, 2021•28 min•Ep. 79
Today we dive into the topic of how to profit from selling seasonal items on Amazon. You might be wondering, what are seasonal items? Well, this category includes anything that isn’t usually promoted all year-round. From Easter eggs and Mother’s Day gifts to snow boots and bathing suits and everything in between, seasonal items (if done correctly) can bring in some big time seasonal profits. In this episode you’ll learn when the best times are to stock up and sell these kinds of items, how seaso...
Apr 05, 2021•14 min•Ep. 78
A race to the bottom isn’t the kind of race you want to win. By beating your competitors' prices to the bottom, you can ruin your chances of making good ROI. In this episode, Stephen and Rebecca Smotherman go into detail about “racing to the bottom” and discuss some of the best ways to avoid it. To kick things off, we first look at how racing to the bottom is a sometimes drastic lowering of prices between two or more competitors, until nobody has any profits left on the table. Following this, we...
Mar 29, 2021•16 min•Ep. 77
When selling on Amazon, there are occasions you will struggle to move certain items from your inventory. This can happen for a multitude of reasons, and you can address this issue in a number of ways. In this episode, we share a few top tips for helping the process along and cleaning out those lingering items no one seems to want! From using Keepa for better tracking and understanding of your inventory sales velocity, to using other platforms besides Amazon, we will share with you the methods th...
Mar 22, 2021•16 min•Ep. 76
In today’s episode, we are going to blow your mind with some incredible Amazon stats. Not only are they wildly impressive, but these facts and figures actually impact you as an Amazon seller and could get you excited about continuing to sell on Amazon. We start off by sharing some of the stats around Amazon’s popularity and supplement them with some of the many reasons why so many people shop there. Next we dive into Amazon’s sales and boil the numbers down to how much the online shopper sells e...
Mar 15, 2021•14 min•Ep. 75
Whether it is a business partner or your significant other, working with a partner can have a hugely positive impact on your Amazon business. In today’s episode, you’ll hear our advice for successfully working with a business partner, from communicating risk tolerance and prioritizing the personal relationship over the business relationship to managing your time together and scheduling regular meetings to make sure everyone is on the same page. Working with a partner or spouse can really help gr...
Mar 08, 2021•16 min•Ep. 74
One thing you can never get back is time. You need to manage your time wisely so that you can follow the quickest, most efficient path to success. Welcome back to another episode of the Full-Time FBA Show! We are excited about today’s episode, where we will be diving into some really nerdy stuff like time management, how to better use your time in your Amazon business, and make the most of your time. As we discuss today’s conversation, we answer some basic time management questions as they relat...
Mar 01, 2021•15 min•Ep. 73
Today we sit with Ian Bower, who has been selling items on Amazon that he sourced via wholesale companies for over five years. In the time that has passed, Ian has managed to scale his business and averages around $40,000 in sales a month. In this episode, we start off learning Ian’s professional history and what he was doing before he got into wholesale. From there, we hear about his first mistakes in FBA wholesale and what he learned from the experience. Since then, Ian has honed his skills wi...
Feb 22, 2021•40 min•Ep. 72
Selling products wholesale on Amazon can seem like a daunting undertaking -- not only because it seems like there are so many people who are already doing it, but because there are pervasive myths around aspects of the wholesaling industry that make it seem almost impossible to get started. Dan Meadors joins us on today’s show to debunk five of the most common myths and to offer advice and encouragement to those who want to start their own wholesale business. Among other topics, we discuss the b...
Feb 15, 2021•39 min•Ep. 71
Wholesale is a great sourcing strategy to add to your FBA business. Kicking off our month-long wholesale series, today’s episode dives into some of the reasons you should add wholesale sourcing to your business. We talk about the tremendous return on investment wholesale provides, some of the advantages it has over online and retail arbitrage, and ways that wholesaling will save you time (you won’t have to drive around or repackage products, for example). We could not have scaled our business wi...
Feb 08, 2021•16 min•Ep. 70
Returns are the worst. But did you know it can still be possible to make nice profits from your returned items? Today, we want to help you make the most of those items that get returned, and then share some of the different ways you can make a profit in these scenarios. Just because something has been returned by a customer, for one of many possible reasons, does not mean you have to bear that cost – you can still find ways to make all (or at least some) of the money you originally planned on. T...
Feb 01, 2021•15 min•Ep. 69
Most Amazon sellers know that when you run an FBA business there will always be periodic times when sales are slow. This is inevitable, no matter what your strategy is, but there are definitely a few practices and habits to employ that will help you keep sales more consistent, as well as be less emotionally affected by slower periods. We decided to dedicate today’s show to dealing with slow sales on Amazon. In today’s episode, you will hear multiple success strategies of ways you can increase yo...
Jan 25, 2021•17 min•Ep. 68
The relationship between time and money is always changing, especially in an Amazon FBA business. In the beginning, time seems to be more expendable than money, but as your business grows and becomes more successful, your end goal becomes finding more time so that you can focus on the most important tasks of growing your business. We’ve been there, and today we share how to achieve the delicate balance of finding easy and creative ways to find more time. We kick off the show by diving into the n...
Jan 18, 2021•15 min•Ep. 67
There are many ingredients to becoming a successful Amazon seller. You need to buy the right products to sell, price your items competitively, learn and execute different sourcing strategies, and the list goes on… but today, we’re going to be discussing the one essential success strategy that nobody seems to talk about: Focus. By eliminating the noise and focusing on what truly needs your attention, you can finally transform your FBA business into a successful one. We open the show by taking a l...
Jan 11, 2021•16 min•Ep. 66
As we stand at the beginning of the new year, you might be asking the same question many others are: Is Amazon trying to get rid of third-party sellers? Spoiler alert: The answer is "no." While common frustrations like increasing Amazon fees, storage limits, and brand restrictions seem to make it harder and harder to sell on Amazon, there are actually a multitude of solid reasons why Amazon needs third party sellers like you and me in order to be successful. In this episode, we explain why Amazo...
Jan 04, 2021•21 min•Ep. 65
If you want to create success for your full-time FBA business, then setting goals should be your first step. Today we sit with full-time FBA seller Jo Ann Zimmerman to hear her secrets behind effective goal-setting. We open the show by talking about how Jo Ann sets goals for herself, first by looking at where she is in the present moment, assessing the past year, and then ultimately deciding where she’d like to be in the future. She complements this process by working backward, taking into accou...
Dec 28, 2020•30 min•Ep. 64
We have so many great guests join us on The Full-Time FBA show to share their wisdom but the person who joins us today is extra special because he is Stephen and Rebecca’s son, Peter Smotherman! Peter is here for a "snack-sized" episode to share some of the pieces of wisdom he has been learning in his 8th-grade class called ‘Skills for Success,’ along with a little help from Dad to apply these skills to Amazon FBA sellers.
Dec 21, 2020•7 min•Ep. 63
During the most lucrative part of the sales year, many sellers leave Q4 with high profits but without a clear plan on how to spend them. Today we give you our top tips on making the most of your Q4 profits. Early in our conversation, we highlight how investing in time-saving tools and software can unlock greater productivity and profit. After touching on how you can save money by switching from monthly to annual plans, we talk about what you should look for when buying new inventory. From purcha...
Dec 14, 2020•14 min•Ep. 62
Since December is one of our most lucrative sales months, today’s episode is devoted to helping your business end the year with a bang and not a whimper. We open by exploring why you should reprice your items, with host Stephen Smotherman sharing his liquidation repricing rules for offloading gift items and decorations. After touching on the benefits of using automatic pricers like BQool, we talk about why you may want to expand your business to include Amazon merchant fulfillment. Focusing on h...
Dec 07, 2020•23 min•Ep. 61
Many Amazon sellers avoid deal lists for the well-founded fear that items appearing on these lists will soon flood the market, leading to inflated competition and price drops. Today we dive into the issue and show listeners how, with the right list, they can make healthy profits with little to no competition. We open our conversation by exploring what deal lists are and why people use them. We then discuss the many forms that deal lists can take, how they’re structured, and how you can look for ...
Nov 30, 2020•23 min•Ep. 60
There are a lot of factors that can make your full-time FBA business successful, but sometimes it’s the simple things that can have the biggest impact. In today’s episode, we talk about how gratitude can help your bottom line and why you should make it a pillar of your FBA business. As we discuss, by expressing this attitude, you have the opportunity to maintain and build connections with others, create loyalty, and open up opportunities for yourself. Stay tuned and you will hear about the four ...
Nov 23, 2020•20 min•Ep. 59
Here are our best sourcing strategies you can use to turn bigger profits in your FBA business, specifically at this time of year. Christmas is just around the corner, and we all know how well toys sell this time of year, but today we will be casting our net wider and covering eight strategies you can use to help you capitalize in the second month of Q4: November. During the show we talk about how you can take advantage of limited-time clearance sales, getting out of your sourcing rut, and the be...
Nov 16, 2020•16 min•Ep. 58
Many successful Amazon resellers are studying and strategizing for Black Friday sourcing weeks in advance, but many people don’t realize how profitable Black Friday can be by just sitting on your couch at home with your computer. In this episode, Stephen interviews Rebecca about some profitable strategies for Black Friday via online arbitrage (OA). Not only does Black Friday sourcing online help you avoid all the crazy crowds, but it offers up so many other benefits as well. From avoiding purcha...
Nov 09, 2020•24 min•Ep. 57
A great way to make money through reselling on Amazon is to source clearance items for your business. But how do you make the most of this strategy and what are the things to keep in mind as you go about it? Never fear, we have you covered! In this episode, we give you all the best tips for sourcing clearance items in both retail and online stores. We look at four tips for finding more items on clearance, things to be wary of when sourcing, maximizing your profits, and more! There are a few tric...
Nov 02, 2020•15 min•Ep. 56
