September 2024 Income Report: $275 Net Profit

Dip after busy season

The hangover from the back to school season is here. I still made some sales and found a few A2A arbitrage opportunities that weren’t books. 

Here are the numbers.

Profit and Revenue for September 2024

Total Revenue: $1,493.71

Items Sold: 15

COGS: $807.27

Biz Expense + AMZ Fees: $410.41

Net Profit: $275.32

2024 Net Profit: $4,539.80

Back to school was a rush. And to fall off the cliff like this is disappointing. You see a number like $1,400 revenue and think you’re a big shot but it’s a reality check when your net profit is only $275. 

That puts me at ~34% ROI on what I paid for inventory. When I first started doing this, I was aiming for 50% ROI. But I started to slowly drop that target number to 30%. 

I don’t know where I pulled 30% from. Spend $100 and get back $130. 

Millionaires are built by 30 dollar bills at a time right?

Winter Busy Season

Deploying all my capital for the winter busy season has been looming over me. I’m nervous I won’t be able to buy enough inventory and my Jan numbers will be a bust. I can’t let these feelings convince me to make bad buys though. Patience is key.

I want to start 2025 off with a strong month. And then spend the rest of the year playing faster flips that have a lower ROI. Then hit the 2025 Fall semester with everything I got. 

Seasonality

If you are playing the seasonal textbook game you need to be tracking seasonal books on a spreadsheet. It’s simple:

Create a google doc. As you look at keepa charts and see seasonality, add the ASIN (from the url amazon.com/dp/<ASIN-TO_COPY> to a page within the sheet. 

When it’s time to source, open the keepa data tab, click product viewer and copy the ASIN’s into the input.  Find the columns that show the sales drops by 1,30,90 days and sort by those to check in on how the price is doing. 

You still add your tracking notifications, but I think this is a good way to do larger buys for seasonal books.

When the month is over, you go back through each ASIN and add it to a new page in the sheet if it’s still a good buy. If it’s no longer a good buy, remove it.

Day by day

The prep center has been a great addition so far. 

I’ve bought close to 100 books since the middle of September. Going to have them send off my first shipment to FBA once the PC has received 40-50. I think that will be within the next week.

Other than that it’s just sourcing a bit every day. Within the next week or two I will strike on winter busy season books. I don’t wait to buy too soon and get bad buys. But don’t want to wait too long and miss out on all the deals & inventory.  

Just have to keep living and learning.