Keep the ball moving down the field
Inputs and Outputs
“Keep the ball moving down the field”
I read this metaphor online somewhere and it has been echoing in my head.
What actions can I take right now to keep the ball moving down the field towards the end zone?
Sourcing is the lifeblood of the Amazon business. If you’re not sourcing, you’re not obtaining more inventory. If you don’t have inventory, you have nothing to sell. If you have nothing to sell, you won’t make sales. Obvious statement when written out.
Sourcing
Critical thinking has never been my strong suit. Honestly, I think I am kind of dumb. But I am ok at doing repetitive tasks.
I’ve probably looked at thousands of Keepa charts by now. Hours and hours spent going through Amazon listings at 3 am when I couldn’t sleep, 6 am when I woke up excited to find deals, and sneaking a quick sourcing session in before dinner or going to the gym.
Throughout all that time, I’ve realized I’m on the lookout for mainly one type of book.
Seasonal/cyclical textbooks.
These are textbooks that have extremely high demand during January, August, and sometimes May.
I think the life cycle for this kind of used textbook is that a student will buy this book and use it for the semester. When the semester is over they sell it back to a textbook buyback business. These businesses just care about doing volume and don’t want to hold the book until the next semester. I can buy the book from them during the offseason and hold that book until the demand comes back and sell for a profit.
The other approach to this game is to find books and textbooks that are in high demand and set tracking notifications to catch pricing errors. This is a volume game and you need to track a large number of books AND keep these tracking notifications updated.
I have struggled to keep my tracking in line, I have about 11,000 unread emails from Keepa right now. But every Keepa email notification should solicit an action: buy the book, read the new data and update tracking if needed, or delete tracking since the book is no longer profitable. This is something I need to work on in 2025.
Distractions
Refreshing my sales page does not move the ball down the field. It’s cheap dopamine and is not helping me build anything. It’s the same feeling as when I have spent a day refreshing SEO stats multiple times or refreshing stock prices multiple times.
That is just checking in on results. It’s not focusing on inputs that will give you better output.
I’m trying to expand my storefront past books now. I have a lot of sourcing to do and more inventory to buy if I want to hit my 2025 goals. I am 100% convinced they are possible and obtainable, but it’s going to require daily action and consistency.