RMRB 1380 – Building an Amazon FBA Business Making $57K per Year in the Apparel & Accessories Niche

In this episode, Lauren talks to the seller of an Amazon FBA, eCommerce, and Amazon FBM business created in January 2021 in the apparel & accessories and home niches. Listen in to find out how the business makes an average of $57,056.00 per year in net profit, why the seller has decided to sell, the lessons learned from running the business, and much more.

Visit https://empireflippers.com/listing/97637 to learn more about this business.

Listen to this episode

Transcript

Forget gurus. Forget anyone claiming to be an online business expert without going through the challenges of entrepreneurship themselves. The Real Money, Real Business Podcast is here to prove the best insights in online business come from your fellow online business builders.

We dig into stories of entrepreneurs selling their businesses on the Empire Flippers Marketplace so that you can learn how they made their businesses profitable, how they overcame obstacles, and what lessons they learned in their online journey. If you want to take your business and your knowledge to the next level, you've come to the right podcast. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Real Money, Real Business Podcast. We record these interviews so that potential buyers can learn more about the business and the seller to help them make an informed buying decision.

If you would like to learn more about this business, including details like what type of business it is, how much revenue and profit it makes, and all of the assets included with the business, simply visit empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and in the description.

Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can click the link in the description to go straight to the listing. So, without further ado, let's get into this interview.

First up, let's learn a little bit about you. Can you tell us about your background in building and running online businesses?

Hello, my name is Chris. I'm 32 years old, and I've been involved in various online business projects for about 10 years now. Over the years, I have built and managed several side projects, ranging from Instagram pages to online stores, which has given me valuable experience in e-commerce and digital marketing.

I acquired this business from a friend of mine in November 2024. Unfortunately, he was no longer able to continue running it due to health issues. When I took over the brand, it was purely an Amazon-based business. Since then, I've focused on expanding its sales channels and making the business less dependent on Amazon.

One of my biggest achievements has been building a solid Shopify store from scratch, which now only needs to be marketed to get some traffic. I've also successfully expanded the brand to Otto Marketplace. That's Germany's second-largest online marketplace, where we have been selling for almost a year now and are seeing consistent growth.

This has helped us diversify our revenue streams and reduce our reliance on Amazon as our main sales channel. Another exciting milestone was securing our first B2B orders without any significant advertising efforts. I believe this shows that there is still a lot of untapped potential to grow the brand further, especially in the B2B sector.

Overall, I can say I'm really proud of what I've achieved with this business so far, and I believe it's now in a great position for someone to take it to the next level.

Why are you selling the business now instead of keeping it and growing it further?

The main reason I'm selling this business is that I took over as CEO of our family-owned company earlier this year. I've been working in the family business for several years, but in my previous role, I had more time to focus on my e-commerce projects and this site.

Since taking over as CEO, my responsibilities have increased significantly. I now need to dedicate most of my time and energy to growing our family business and taking it to the next level. Unfortunately, this means I no longer have enough time to give this e-commerce business the attention it deserves.

I still see a lot of potential in the brand, especially with the additional sales channels we have established and the opportunities in the B2B sector. However, I believe that someone who can dedicate more time and resources to the business will be in a much better position to unlock its full potential. That's why I have decided that now is the right time to sell.

Can you describe the amount and the type of work that you do on this business to maintain it?

To maintain the business and keep everything running smoothly, I would estimate that you need around five to seven hours per week, depending on how efficiently you organize your work.

The main tasks involve checking the different sales channels on a daily basis, making sure everything's running properly, and handling any issues that might come up. Another important part is inventory management, which means keeping an eye on stock levels, making sure products are reordered in time, and avoiding running out of stock.

Overall, the day-to-day operations are quite manageable. I believe there is also potential to reduce the workload even further, for example, by implementing additional automations and AI-powered workflows. Further, the owner might be able to bring the weekly workload down to around three to four hours. Of course, this would depend on how the new owner chooses to organize and optimize the business.

The five to seven hours I mentioned are mainly for maintaining the current operations. So, if someone wants to actively grow the business, they would obviously invest additional time in expanding the sales channels, developing new products, building up the B2B side of the business, or optimizing the Amazon ads.

So, if you were to keep this business, what are some of the ways you would try to grow it?

If I were to keep the business, there are four main areas I would focus on to grow it.

The first one is optimizing Amazon advertising campaigns. To be honest, I haven't been able to give this area as much attention as I would have liked over the past few months. I believe there is significant potential to improve advertising efficiency, increase sales, and achieve better profit margins.

The second point is expanding the product portfolio. I already have several new product ideas in the pipeline. The next step would be to place the initial orders and bring these products to market.

Third, I would invest more in marketing our Shopify store. So far, we haven't really focused on paid advertising for the store, which means there's still a lot of untapped potential. I would start by testing different marketing channels, such as Meta, Google Ads, and potentially TikTok, to attract new customers and grow our direct-to-consumer sales.

Finally, I see an exciting opportunity in expanding the B2B side of the business. I would actively reach out to potential wholesale customers, such as shoe stores and fashion retailers across Germany and Europe, because one of our product ranges includes premium shoehorns in different colors made from stainless steel.

From what I have seen, the traditional B2B market in this category is mainly focused on basic metal and plastic shoehorns, while premium products like ours are much less common. So, I believe this gives us an interesting opportunity to position the brand in a premium segment and offer retailers something different from the standard products currently available.

I've already secured our first B2B order without any significant advertising effort, which gives me confidence that there's real potential to develop this sales channel further.

Overall, I believe these four areas offer several opportunities for a new owner to continue growing the business and take the brand to the next level.

Right. And what would you say are the biggest risks with this business that buyers should be aware of?

In my opinion, the biggest risk is the typical platform dependency that comes with running an Amazon FBA business. So, there's always a possibility that your Amazon seller account could be suspended or that changes to Amazon's policies could negatively affect your sales.

However, by following Amazon's guidelines and maintaining the account, you can reduce these risks. That's also one of the reasons why I've been focusing on expanding the business beyond Amazon through our Shopify store, Otto, and the potential B2B side of the business.

We are already taking steps to reduce our dependency on Amazon and make the business more diversified and resilient.

How much support are you willing to offer the buyer who acquires this business?

I am happy to offer the new owner three months of support to ensure a smooth transition. This includes everything from daily operations and managing the different sales channels to bringing new products to market.

As I mentioned earlier, I already have several new products in the pipeline, and I'd be happy to support a new owner in launching them after the initial three months. I'm also open to providing ongoing support on a consulting basis, whether it's helping with daily operations, product development, or any other questions that might come up.

My goal is to make the transition as smooth as possible and give the new owner everything they need to successfully take over and grow the business.

Are you open to negotiating something like an earn-out agreement?

My preference would be a cash deal at closing. However, I'm open to discussing an earn-out structure for a smaller portion of the purchase price, depending on the overall terms of the deal.

Ideally, I would like to receive the majority of the purchase price upfront, but I'm happy to explore different options with a serious buyer.

Okay, final question. If you had to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer, why is your business worth buying?

I believe this business is a great opportunity because it already generates consistent revenue and profits and can be taken over and operated from day one. At the same time, there is still significant potential for growth and optimization through the opportunities we discussed earlier, such as improving Amazon advertising, launching new products, expanding the Shopify store, and growing the B2B side of the business.

I would honestly love to continue running and growing the business myself, but unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to give it the attention it deserves. So, to put it another way, if I had a younger brother, I would definitely recommend that he take over this business. I think that says a lot about how much I believe in its potential.

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening. To learn more and see if this business is still for sale, head over to empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and description.

Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, click the link in the description to go straight to the listing. Once you've unlocked this listing, you'll find everything you need to know about this business.

So, thanks for joining us. See you next time, Sam.