Shownotes
Yes, you read it correctly… 5,000 + sku’s from 140 + vendors and guess what…he manages it all himself. Oh, and he has a full time job.
Let that sink in for a moment.
All by himself.
Who doesn’t have time now?
Todd’s strategy is pretty straight forward: head down and do the work. Reach out to 10 wholesalers a day for a few months and you have a real wholesale business.
Mentioned:
Sponsors
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Stephen: [00:00:00] Wanted to take a second and recognize my sponsors this week . You know Gaye Lisby’s million dollar arbitrage as Edge and list . That’s a mouthful . It is . But guess what . It’s a great opportunity . You know you can build a big Amazon business . You don’t need a lot of capital when you start . I mean we all started you know most of us started selling books and then move into retail arbitrage . That is the place that you can turn your money . The vastness and online arbitrage . And so by having that skill set by learning those skill sets you can get the best bang for your buck . And so Gase group will help you learn online arbitrage . It’s more than just a list service they’re going to give you a whole bunch of actionable inventory every single day . Right . Monday through Friday . However there’s also a mentor ship that goes on and that mentor ship is so important because sometimes it’s great to know what to buy but it’s more important to understand why to buy it . And it’s that you know learning to fish or just getting fed . You know you really want to learn because ultimately you want to strike it on your own . And this is a great way to do it . So how about seven days free trial how about a free trial . Right . Very very cool . So it’s amazing freedom to come forward slashes a mouthful the word momentum carries a hyphen . And you put in the word arbitrage . So it’s amazing freedom does come forward slash momentum dash arbitrage and you’re going to get a free trial in Gase group . You got to tell her I sent you right . I also have the link in the episode .
Stephen: [00:01:38] But it’s such a great opportunity . She is amazing amazing I’m in that group . So you’ll see me there an amazing amazing person who’s there to answer your questions who’s there to help lead you and help guide you and that’s what Kay does . She does it every single day . The testimonials are real . Go take a look .
Stephen: [00:01:55] You will be blown away . And again it’s a free trial . I have the link on this episode . Reachin you know Sellar labs Jeff Cohen and the team they have blown me away with this scope project . We use this all the time for our business . We do a lot of private label we also do a lot of wholesale and wholesale bundles you know or multi packs that kind of thing which a lot of people do but we use scope to help us figure out what are the key words . And so it’s really simple . You basically figure out where you’re going to sell what you’re going to sell what category find that like product . Find the top couple sellers and find their keywords . Boom magic . There you go . You copy the best because it’s working . And guess what . That’s a proof of concept and scope allows you to do that . So it’s Sellar Lapps dotcom forward slash scope Sellar labs dotcom buzzword slash scope use the code word momentum and you’re going to get a couple days free trial and you’re going to save a little bit of money and you get to get some free keywords . It’s worth every penny . I’m in that group . Come and check me out . Celebes dotcom forward slash scope again use the word momentum . Solutions for e-commerce . Karen Locher great great great group .
Stephen: [00:03:11] I’ve been using them for a long time and I guess over 2 years and I’m in there and pages like everybody else . Yes she’s a sponsor of my show but she makes me pay . And I get the same 50 dollar discount that you can get . Oh by the way you’re going to get that through my link and my link only . Oh and you’re also going to get the free inventory health analysis . Great way to start 2018 get your inventory in line and Karen will help you do that . We use it for everything . I mean basically you know long term storage fees coming up . Guess what she will evaluate . She’ll make some recommendations . And also check check check take these out this return blah blah blah blah blah .
Stephen: [00:03:48] And magically it’s done . I love it . Love it . Love it . I love the fact that they take and get rid of stranded inventory for me . I see it in there . And then next time I go in and it’s gone . Love it love it love it . Got an IP infringement . She’s going to help you work your way through that . This is the kind of service that you get from Karen Locher that solutions for the number for e-commerce solutions for e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum . Right . So you got it forward slash momentum and you’re going to save 50 dollars a month six bucks a year by just clicking that link . She pays me . I want to hide that I never do . I’m always upfront about that but it doesn’t cost you anything additional . And you’re going to get that inventory Health Report the only way you get that is through mine link solutions . The number for e-commerce dotcom forward slash momentum .
Cool voice guy: [00:04:39] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people the products and the process of e-commerce selling today . Here’s your host Stephen Peterson .
Stephen: [00:04:52] Welcome back to the e-commerce Money podcast . This is episode 277 Todd Lammie . Todd is back . And man oh man it’s so great to have him back and he just blows me away . In this episode because you’re going to hear how much his business has changed it’s been almost three years since I last interviewed him his original episode was number 41 and guess what . Todd still has a head down doing the work . If you go back and listen to that episode he talks about it blows my mind . I still think about this that he was wholesale for years before he ever heard the were these things called Facebook groups . He just had his head down doing the work . And that’s his suggestion to you . One of the most plain speaking plain vanilla vanilla Snowball I think was the term we came up with just rolling downhill growing bigger and bigger because he’s so consistent . So even in a positive way what a great guy . Let’s get into the podcast .
Stephen: [00:05:57] Murray welcome back to the e-commerce MMN and podcast very excited to have tonight’s guest back and he’s back after a long hiatus . I mean this is about three years almost since we last talked . Todd Lammie welcome back to thank you Steve .
Todd: [00:06:14] I appreciate you having me on again . I appreciate you coming on .
Stephen: [00:06:18] You are a busy busy busy guy you know in our preco always you know talk about different things . One of the coolest things for talk . First off his episode original episode number 41 . You were one of the early one of my early under 50s and now you’re in the 70s . I mean it’s incredible to think it’s been that long but you haven’t been sitting there bored to death twiddle and your thumbs you’ve been busy for the last couple of years haven’t you .
Todd: [00:06:46] Yeah .
Todd: [00:06:48] I think the interesting thing with the whole cell Marla’s you know it just continues to scale and grow and so you just become more busy more busy you find more accounts and it just keeps growing that snowball effect is it just picks up speed as you get into year three four five and six in your business and pretty soon it’s this big gorilla of products and accounts that becomes more account management at that point than really finding new accounts eventually so .
Todd: [00:07:19] Well I mean does it happen this way .
Stephen: [00:07:21] Todd you must fire some customers right or some vendors buy you to decide hey I’m not going to carry your product anymore Steve . And you just vote with your feet right .
Todd: [00:07:31] Yes . I think that’s the interesting thing I was looking at my vendor list and at the end of last year I think we were ordering from like hundred and forty different wholesale accounts .
Stephen: [00:07:42] Which is is way too many minutes . Wait wait wait . This is a giant company right . You’ve got this whole team right this is you’ve got a staff of what 20 30 40 people doing this now in just me and my wife . This is your I mean being funny about it . That’s amazing 140 can’t wait . Let’s just qualify this people understand Todd as a full time job . This Amazon is not a full time job . I mean if become that but that is not your full time job and you know it’s funny you still have the same job you had three years ago . Correct . Correct .
Stephen: [00:08:21] Same job same company plodding along and you’ve grown this giant wholesale business .
Todd: [00:08:30] Despite that pretty yes a lot of a lot of multitasking and juggling and extra hours working . But definitely worth it . We see in the business continue to grow but yeah hundred forty so we’re definitely white . And so you know we tried a lot of new accounts and there are some that you know are job often add . But to me it’s it’s everything is a data point . Everything is you know collecting data collecting information and then using that going forward . So they’ll try some accounts he’ll drop them was like hey this maybe didn’t sell well but it had a lot of traction . So let me go find another wholesale account just like that that maybe has a better a better product that’ll sell and so it’s constantly testing evolving tweaking using the data that Amazon so graciously provides you know free of charge .
Todd: [00:09:23] Well we let nature to hear that you just said something so you’re selling this class Steve’s class it’s sitting on his desk and it was selling well it just wasn’t profitable enough for you . But it was a great product or it was or it was it was good . You then say Okay there’s proof of concept . Now let me go source it at a better price so I can make it profitable . Is that what you said .
Stephen: [00:09:48] Right .
Todd: [00:09:48] So once I mean I used everything from my Amazon seller reports drives like every one of my decisions . I mean sales rank doesn’t matter to me whatsoever at all is based off whatever is in my hand was on reports and data . So yeah .
Todd: [00:10:05] So that’s why they vary category specific . So we have two Amazon accounts . One’s focus specifically on clothing and shoes . And then we have a second account that’s like HomeGoods and that’s it . We don’t sell like in every category because I’m focused on using that data and then going out and finding different companies within that category so inside of you know clothing you’ll have socks shoes you’ll have scarves you’ll have hats you’ll have winter gloves you’ll have shirts long pants yellers 20 different subcategories inside that main category . So we’re working on exploring every one of those subcategories using the data that Amazon provides from all the different accounts we kind of get . Test see what works what doesn’t . Go find more accounts . And it just kind of continues to evolve that way .
Todd: [00:11:05] Well I want to get to specific because I don’t want to mess up anything but let’s go . Let’s just say you were in the home and garden set of clothing or whatever .
Stephen: [00:11:12] So in Home and Garden we see there’s lawnmowers and there’s weed eaters and snowblowers and blah blah blah blah blah . So you then draw down into the lawnmower category . I’m trying to make this make sense . And then you get in there and you say hey lawnmower sell and they seem to sell this time of year . What other ancillary products are related to lawnmowers and then therefore let’s try that because we know Lohm are going to sell therefore people are going to have to buy oil or they’re gonna have to buy blades or they’re going to have to buy . I mean is that kind of the thinking is that is that what you’re suggesting .
Todd: [00:11:47] Right . It’s just yeah it’s thinking about the main product and then every type of kind of like accessory extra part peripheral whatever you can kind of tack onto that that you could possibly sell because you know they’re going to sell those accounts because you know you don’t have to worry about rank .
Stephen: [00:12:03] You know that if somebody is buying Aloma or they’re going to have to buy a blade or a bandage or a weedeater they’re going to have to buy string . That’s a better example . Right . So that’s the logic . So therefore the sales rank isn’t as important . Just want to make sure that you have a good product . And so what differentiates you then so when using my Weedeater and string . Right because everybody needs string right they got Wieters because we know they’re going to be Wieters they’ve got to get Streng .
Todd: [00:12:27] How do you stand out then as the string seller so for us we really focus on smaller companies where there’s not a lot of sellers on the listings so it’s just a matter of choice . I mean if there’s you know 10 string sellers and we’re one of the 10 that’s all we need we’re just looking for you know a piece of the pie we’re not looking for the whole pie . So you’re going to get X amount of sales and by having quite a few accounts stretching out over those X amount of sales that just you know adds up at the end of the year once you you know put all the money in the bank .
Todd: [00:13:05] So is that I guess I guess this is going to be like .
Stephen: [00:13:09] Steve but like if you sold those weed eaters you sell them for enough years . You see the other things that you know they sell along with it . Right . You see customers also bought this . You see that over time your sales reps do they help you develop products to like hape this is hot Todd to people are buying this too .
Todd: [00:13:30] Yeah I tend to just ignore the health reps though . I mean to me it’s just I did I just I was like Amazon will tell me what to sell . That’s mine . You are a democracy now .
Todd: [00:13:40] Todd dare we say is in the computer world . So I just want to let people know that this was episode you’ll understand that he is a computer .
Stephen: [00:13:50] I call him a nerd . You know what you’re doing there don’t you .
Todd: [00:13:54] Yeah . Everything is computer driven . Like this salesperson wants to sell me best sellers and it’s like you know their best seller list is not geared toward the online space in most cases it’s a lot of times geared toward brick and mortar so you know that you know Sallie’s more shop down the street is selling lawnmowers and in Texas maybe they sell . But online you know they don’t sell the same . So having that best seller list from them really does me no good . So that’s why it’s like we get the account . We’ll try you know minimum quantities of each . We still even order you know three units six so you know we don’t go crazy the first survey we test out see what the Amazon data tells us no matter what you don’t order you know no matter what .
Todd: [00:14:38] I mean that’s the kind of a rule you order . Just a couple of each . No matter what .
Todd: [00:14:43] Yeah I mean if it’s a if it’s a case pack of six will try to get the case pack just swing and ship it to Amazon as a case study of how it’s split into four warehouses so some of those bought even if it has even if we think it has it’s going to sell super fast we don’t order like 100 of them we’ll just order three . And then the next of will maybe do six or maybe 12 and then we just kind of scale up from there . So this is kind of like . If you think about like steps you just climb up the step set up...