I should preface this post with, this is speculative, so maybe the title of this post should be speculating on expected returns. In the last two weeks I have sent three boxes of books to Amazon, totaling 66 books. Here are the stats for each shipment.
Box 1
- 20 books
- Avg. Rank = 725,000
- Cost Including Shipping = $66.59
- Total Expected Revenue = $767
- Expected Profit = $457.63
- ROI = 687.24%
Box 2
- 17 books
- Avg. Rank = 1,909,360
- Cost Including Shipping = $29.44
- Total Expected Revenue = $417.10
- Expected Profit = $218.24
- ROI = 741.3%
Box 3
- 29 Books
- Avg. Rank = 1,318,000
- Cost Including Shipping = $33.35
- Total Expected Revenue = $547.84
- Expected Profit = $251.59
- ROI = 754.39%
I like to think that I have not wildly mispriced my inventory. On some books I have matched the lowest offer, on others I am around the 3rd or 4th placed FBA offer. I am still learning and working on my pricing strategy. The other thing that is impacting my profit margin is that I am still paying a $.99 per item fee because I am not on the professional seller plan. I do not sell 40 products a month (cost of plan is $40), at the moment, so it is not yet worth it to me to upgrade.
The other big question aside from pricing is turnover, how quickly can I expect this inventory to turn over. According to FBA Mastery, I should expect to sell half of a shipment’s inventory within 60 days.
Right now, I am assuming a profit of around $926 on a $128 investment. If half my inventory in fact sells in 60 days and I earn $350-450 I will be pretty jazzed.