Amazon, Best Posts, Blog

The Best Accounting Set Up for Amazon Seller’s Taxes

Why do all Resellers f*ckup their accounting in the first year?

My guess is that because it’s boring AF to most people, and if you’re one of the few that likes sheets and number kudos to you.

Either way, it is best to start tracking and recording everything from the beginning!

Take pics of all your receipts with an app or Evernote and track your miles with Mile IQ.

Another thing that turns people off is the excess of Amazon FBA & MF metrics.

That’s why we’ll be covering everything that you need when it comes to accounting. From when you’re starting to when it’s time to file taxes.

Disclaimer this post is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as legal, financial, or tax advice.

First Let’s Get Your Accounting Mindset Straight

Uncle Sam ain’t nothing to f*ck with, making accounting a necessary evil.

If you plan on growing your business, IRS audits are a thing in the big league.

On a more personal level, you’ll want to track everything from the beginning, to see whether you’re doing a good job or not.

Without analytics on everything, you’re Reselling business will never grow as fast as it can.

Since analytics are a bit easier to get pumped on, let’s start with that.

The Best All in One Analytics Tool

The Book Flipper has created the dopest spreadsheet for Amazon Sellers.

Don’t let the name The Book Flipper deter you inventory is inventory. If you sell anything on Amazon, you’ll love this spreadsheet.

A few of my Mastermind Ninjas who only do RA (retail arbitrage) at big box stores whip the heck out of this sheet.

On top of that, Caleb’s sheet makes quarterly sales taxes a five-minute job.

Other legit benefits include:

–        A one-time payment so you never get pimped for updates.

–        It’s super easy to read.

–        In-depth how-to videos on everything that the sheet can do.

If you’re serious about Reselling and have the capital don’t sleep on this sheet and snag it ASAP.

Inventory Lab’s Accounting Features

Yes, Inventory Lab is also a listing Software, but it does have legit accounting features.

Well TBH, it gives you everything that Caleb’s sheet does; it’s just on a better-looking interface.

The reason why I don’t mention Inventory Lab much in my videos is that when it comes to listing software, it’s nowhere near as fast as Scanlister.

Since I’m primarily a bookseller, speed is the name of the game.

I also won’t dabble with subscriptions when I can pay for both Scanlister and Caleb’s sheet once.

On the flip side, tons of people still love Inventory Lab because it is a one-stop-shop. You create your shipments, sticker, and track everything in one place.

Hardcore big box store RA sellers like @jake._diego on IG are obsessed with it.

If you want to test it out for yourself, here is a 30-day free trial. 

You Need a CPA… Ecom CPA is the Best

Don’t let Uncle Sam catch you, slippin! Always hire a CPA, unless you’re one yourself.

Check out this video so that you can see how frustrating the tax situation is:

I always recommend Ecom CPA, because they specialize in eCommerce (AKA Amazon).

Giving you peace of mind that everything is being done right by people that do this every day.

An everyday plain vanilla account won’t get the job done.

Ecom CPA has three price levels, depending on where you’re at with your business.

But still take advantage of the free consultation and negotiate a deal with them.

As a Reseller low-key, negotiate everything!

Don’t procrastinate on this one and give Ecom CPA a call today.

Amazon & Taxes 4 Things You Need to Know

  1. Always check seller central for information on Amazon seller taxes.

Amazon seller tax information can be updated at any time, like everything else in a Reseller’s day-to-day.

So, make sure to give Seller Central a quick peep every time tax season comes around.

  1. The 1099-K form will save you from gray hairs.

Your CPA will adore you if you give them a 1099-K because it has almost everything that the IRS needs from the Amazon side of things.

The only caveat is that you have to qualify to get one by:

o   Hitting more than $20,000 gross sales that year

o   Running more than 200 transactions.

Don’t worry if you’re reading this blog post; you’re already doing what others won’t. Hitting those numbers will be a walk in the park.

And please don’t let this deter you from starting your reselling journey towards the end of the year.

There is no better time than now. Know that if you have more than 50 transactions, you will have to report it to the IRS.

  1. Sales Tax is a biggie

If you don’t want to pay taxes on what you flip, you’ll need to get a tax license/certificate for your state.

When you get your tax cert, you will have to file monthly, quarterly, or yearly sales taxes.

With Caleb’s sheet, this won’t be an issue, so don’t trip.

  1. Deductibles are the best

Being self-employed means that you can write off all your business-related expenses.

Some common examples are:

o   Fees

o   Mileage

o   Courses & Training

o   Packing Supplies

You get the drift, verify all of this when you talk with Ecom CPA. 

Get it done!

The sooner that you get your accounting in check, the smoother that your reselling journey will be.

If you’re still not motivated to get it done set up a reward or punishment for not getting it done in time.

Treat yourself to a brewery tour, or a day doing your favorite hobby.

Or tell a friend that if you don’t do it by this date, you’ll donate $100 to the person that you dislike the most.

Now get out there and demolish your bookkeeping!!!

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The 5 Box Challenge & eBay Seller Crash Course – Learn How to Sell On eBay

Are you nervous about starting your own business?

What if I told you that you could test the water on eBay without leaving your house? 

You have ZERO f*cking excuses for not starting today because everyone has at least $500 to $5,000 of inventory sitting in their home and don’t even know it.

Today I want to test you with The 5 Box Challenge. 

This is where you check your home for everything that you don’t need and sell it on eBay. 

You will be amazed at how much cash you have just sitting around.

And if you list 5 boxes of stuff on eBay, I promise that you will see some sales. 

This blog post is going to be an eBay 101 Super-Fast Crash Course. 

“Let The Games Begin.”

Step 1 – Is to get everything that you don’t need in one big pile so that you can quickly check the eBay comps.

This hack is called batching. It’s where you do the same task on a bunch of items so that you process them faster.

For eBay, you would do all your picture taking, then all your listing, then all your editing.

Step 2 – Now that you have your pile start checking the sold eBay comps.

You can do this on the app or website by searching for your item, then filtering out the sold listings.

Sold will appear as green (for sold) and completed will appear as black, which means that it didn’t sell.

To keep it easy, focus on the sold listings. If the prices look good and it is at a decent size to ship, go ahead and put that item in your list pile.

If you struggle to find your item, the eBay app has a camera feature on the top right that you can use for a picture search.

List It! 

Step 1 – Try to set up an all-white background.

You can use 2 pieces of cheap poster paper from your local supermarket.

Put one against a wall and the other one on the floor to make an L shaped backdrop.

Step 2 – Try to have good lighting or set up 2 light sources; the flashlights on other cell phones will work.

Step 3 – Start taking pictures.

Most modern smartphones have legit cameras.

If you need more help, there are super cheap camera apps.

Like the Camera +2 app, which enhances your camera and gives you a leveling grid.

Step 4 – Create your eBay listings.

Since all the pics are already on your phone, listing via the eBay app will be super-fast.

When you list quickly put in the item name and create a new listing that way, eBay selects the correct categories for you. (If it is a really good condition book or disc media item, you can use an existing listing and use their pictures).

Then add your pictures.

The last three mandatory fields are the price, listing type, and shipping.

Fixed price listings will always get you market value but may take longer to sell.

Auctions are a dice roll but will sell faster.

If you want to move something fast, list it as an auction on a Sunday night between 7-9 PM EST.

**Disclaimer** – This may sell for less than market value.

But with some collectibles or rare items, you might get a bidding war and get more than market value.

Offer free shipping as much as possible and add those costs to the total listing price.

Media mail is extremely cheap for books and media discs, so take advantage of it.

Here is a legit hack for the price. As you scale, you can get a VA (virtual assistant) to edit your listings for you.

Online Jobs PH is my favorite place to source VA’s.

The best way to do this is to list your new items with a super high price like $500.

Then when you go back to active listings, filter by highest price.

Once everything is listed, you or your VA can go into active listings and finish off the listings.

Include all flaws in the description and pictures!!!

Use the top 3-5 sold listings for your title keywords.

And to determine the best price point for fixed listings.

To get more engagement, you can flap the accept offers radio button.

Then use the automatically decline radio button to filter out low ball offers.

Ship It Like A Pro

Step 1 – Get your free supplies from USPS

Other legit box sources are local stores if you’re on a budget.

If you want a quick buy, it’s The Home Depot, Lowes, and Walmart.

Don’t forget your essential shipping supplies.

Here are my favorites.

Step 2 – If you can add a thank you card to your item; you can get them printed online.

Or just do a handwritten thank you note.

Step 3 – When you’re packaging, make sure that there is no free space in your box.

If you are using a bubble mailer, make sure that the item at least has a bit of bubble wrap around it.

More importantly, make sure that the final package is waterproof.

The package will get thrown around worse than a football.

So, make sure that that bad boy is sealed tight.

Step 4 CYA – Before you print your label, make sure that the buyer paid first.

eBay will hold your first 25 payments until the package gets delivered.

So just double check that they paid first!

Step 5 – Print your label.

In the paid section of your shop, you will see a “purchase and print label” button, select it.

Fill in the package’s final dimension and weight.

Then select your shipping carrier and service.

Once you click on the final purchase and print, what you do will depend on your printer.

To keep it simple, you can save the label as a PDF.

Then take a screenshot of the label portion and print that.

On Windows, you can use the Snipping Tool and on MAC Command + Shift + 4.

Lastly, even though eBay does not support priority cubic pricing.

You can use https://www.pirateship.com/ to see which one gives you a better shipping price.

It’s time to hustle 

“Get off your *ss now!”

You will be surprised how much excess stuff you have lying around.

And how much it is worth. 

If you found value in this post, make sure to check the resources tab at the top of this page.

Along with my newsletter, for more in-depth how to’s like this one.

If you have shoes to sell on eBay check out these 2 videos:

How to Ship Shoes for Ebay – FULL WALKTHROUGH TUTORIAL

SELLING RETAIL ARBITRAGE SHOES ON EBAY | W/ KEN TheHustleBee | REEZY TALKS #45

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Amazon, Best Posts, Blog

Amazon Doesn’t Care About your Business

Amazon Doesn’t Care About Your Business!

Over the summer, Amazon purchased Whole Foods. Many waited to see how this would affect the grocery industry. However, it hit much closer to home for many grocery sellers on Amazon.

Amazon sellers, who sold items with the Whole Foods brand, recently received a letter stating that they could no longer sell those products. Almost overnight, Amazon took over the market.

While Amazon was claiming their monopoly, I was happy to hear that Amazon did compensate all of the sellers the full sale price for these items (less the FBA fees). However, many sellers were left without their bread and butter — literally.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that Amazon doesn’t care about your business. They ARE the business. Their goal is to ensure success. Owning the rights to sell Whole Foods goods is one way to achieve it.

So, where does that leave you and me? What can we learn from this?

Diversifying is key! Don’t rely on one certain type of product or purchase only from one supplier. A product line can end. A supplier can decide to sell on Amazon themselves and stop supplying to you. A whole category of items can become restricted. Diversify!

Try something new. Try private label. Try wholesale. Try online arbitrage. Try getting approval for restricted brands. Try something new. You can try something new and also continue to sell what you are good at.

Just remember, anything can happen. You don’t want to have all of your eggs in one basket.

Amazon doesn’t care about your business. That’s why YOU have to care about it. Be proactive. Diversify. Try something new!

Below is the original Video on my youtube channel that inspired this article

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How I got 20K Organic Followers on Instagram

17 months ago I started social media after learning who @garyvee was. It changed my life.

The following is the methods and tactics I used to amass 20K followers over that time.

First things first, you need to have an eye-catching bio that pops and will attract people to follow you.

Same with your profile picture. You should use a picture of your face that has the white of the eyes visible.

This is psychological, people trust people more at a close distance.

Next, you need to get some posts going. Nobody is likely to follow an account with no posts.

It’s just weird. You should make 9-18 posts before you consider amassing followers.

A note on posting: you need to use 30 relevant hashtags on every single post. I’m serious.

Keep them in a notepad, and you should have at least 3 sets of them and rotate which one you use.

The algorithm penalizes you if you use the same 30 every time.

When you post hashtags, do not post them in the caption, it’s spammy.

Instead, post them in the first comment.

This means you select your media, write your caption and before you post, you go copy your hashtags, and then once it’s posted, you drop them in the first comment.

There’s a trick to this, you can post them in a way to overload the comment field and instead of showing your hashtags to users in the feed, they will see this instead […] – The key is doing PERIOD RETURN 5x – THEN adding your hashtags

Below is one of my actual blocks of hashtags I use (COPY IT AND ADD YOUR HASHTAGS)…..#followthehustle #reezyresells #rezzyresells #2017flipchallenge #entrepreneur #hustle #garyvee #contentoncontent #documentdontcreate #followthehustle #reseller #sellshit #resale #amazonfba #ebayseller #amazonseller #fulfilledbyamazon #getmoneyonline2017 #theysaid #hustler #selfmade #onlinesales #makemoneyonline #howtosell #sellstuff #sellbooks #bookseller #getmoney

How do you know what hashtags to use? It’s a bit of an art.

You can use a source like tagsforlikes, but it’s really just popular ones, not super specific to your niche.

A combination of that plus stealing them from other influencers in your niche.

The next thing I did was follow everyone in my niche. Thousands of people. Including bigger names.

I found them in 2 ways; one by their name, meaning they had words associated w my niche in their name (seller, selling, Reseller, thrift, thrifting, eBay, amazon, fba etc).

If you wanted to do this in the crypto niche you would use; crypto, ethereum, Bitcoin, etc… forgive me, I’m a crypto newb so I don’t even know what words to use, but if this was your niche, you would know.

The other way I found people to follow was by following the followers and followings of other people in your niche. Stealing them.

If you can use an automated service to help with following people that can make it a bit easier.

I use to use instagress but that’s gone now. There’s others but I haven’t kept up with it.

If you’re doing your job, some of these people you follow will follow you back.

Most importantly you need to start providing value in your niche. Posting awesome content that people value.

When I say post I mean post. A lot. Not one wall post a day, 4-8 posts. And even more importantly use the story.

Post 10+ clips a day to the story. And show your face!

I can’t emphasize the face part enough, people identify with faces and it helps people to trust you.

The story adds another element which is your voice and it can’t be faked, you have to film story content yourself, usually at arms length,holding your phone.

Now you need to get people’s attention, especially big name people but anybody in your niche is a good.

Start by liking 100 posts a day and commenting on 100 posts.

Don’t be spammy with your comments, be genuine and try an add value or unique viewpoints.

You want to interact with people that don’t follow you already so you can convert them to followers.

Dig into hashtags, locations of conventions in your niche, and thought leaders in your niche.

There’s really only a few ways to get people’s attention, which is your goal.

-Following them-Liking their posts-Liking their comments (on other people’s posts)-Commenting on their posts-Replying to their story (huge)-Tagging them (this one is kind of spammy and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you were actually providing value that you think that person would appreciate)

The other big one is making yourself available, and engaging. Make posts encouraging your audience to ask you questions, and ask your audience questions.

If people send you DM’s answer them as quick as possible and be thorough and help them, even if it is a dumb question.

When you give a random person your attention on demand, you will certainly gain a follower for life.

They might even extol your virtues elsewhere and even in a post with a shout out, which will validate you to others and gain you more followers.

What to post? Let your questions be content. Let the audience do the work.

When people ask you questions on your posts or DM’s, that’s a good idea to create content around that.

Chances are, that they aren’t the only one that has that question.

Also one major thing: build a social presence around something you’re extremely knowledgeable about 5,000 hours experience level or greater.

This will make it much easier as you will actually be able to provide solid value and usually have some sort of verifiable proof of your expertise.

For me it was sales numbers.

If you were a stock trader, you could show your portfolio and or your biggest recent trades, etc.

There’s some more nuances to it, but really that’s mostly it.

I hope some of you find value in this.

Please check my youtube for additional information:

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