Digital Nomad Stories

Mastering Amazon Retail While Living Amongst Nature in Costa Rica

• Anne Claessen • Season 2 • Episode 171

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Today, we sit down with Rob Cosman, a Canadian CPA, entrepreneur, and digital nomad based in Costa Rica. Tune in to learn his blueprint for balancing a successful Amazon business with the demands of family life and personal well-being. 

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Speaker 1:

Hey Nomads, welcome to Digital Nomad Stories, the podcast. My name is Anna Claessen and, together with my co-host, kendra Hasse, we interview digital nomads. Why? Because we want to share stories of how they did it. We talk about remote work, online business, location and dependency, freelancing, travel and, of course, the digital nomad lifestyle. Do you want to know more about us and access all previous episodes? Visit digitalnomadsstoriesco. Alright, let's go into today's episode. Hey, hey, nomads, welcome to a new episode of Digital Nomad Stories. I'm here today with Rob Cosman. He is a Canadian CPA and entrepreneur. He has done a or is doing a bunch of different things. He's an Amazon seller, he is an author, he is an accountant so lots of different things going on and he lives currently in Costa Rica. So I'm really, really excited to have him on the show today, rob, welcome.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun. I hope I don't know where it's going to go, but there's a lot of different places we can go and a lot of different spots, so I get lots. I can chat about it. I'm pretty much an open book, so let's have at it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly because you do so many different things, maybe to kick us off. So can you tell me a little bit about what you do? What do you actually do? Do you do all these things, or do you have a full-time gig and then a more part-time side-hustle thing, or just yeah? Can you walk us through what your work life looks like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so my main business I say our, I guess because we have an accounting firm. So my wife and I just the two of us we have one employee that helps us, but it's all around Canadian Amazon sellers. So I sell on Amazon, I buy items at Walmart, target and I resell them on Amazon. I do it all remotely, but our main business is Amazon sellers. So we do accounting services, corporate taxes, we do sales taxes for people around the world that are selling on Amazonca, and then everything kind of branches out from that, like I've got a mastermind, I've got some courses, some courses about selling, some courses about taxes and selling, so it all kind of revolves around that. And so we help people to sell online. I do coaching, obviously, I sell myself and I've written a book that's basically you know, like about selling online. So it all kind of comes back. You know whether it's our newsletter, whether it's our website, but it's all focused around. You know Canadian Amazon sellers for the most part, and some American or worldwide, but that's kind of the main focus of it.

Speaker 1:

Awesome Love that. I mean. It's really good that you explained it like this, because I said like you do so many different things and you do, but it is all around Amazon selling, so I think that is what ties it all together. So that's really interesting. Can you tell me a little bit more about what life in general looks like? Like? What does your week look like? Do you work Monday or Friday, or do you have any like uncommon working hours? What do you do while you're not working?

Speaker 2:

So to kind of give you a higher level too. So I've got, I have a business with my father too. We sell products online. So he's on the Atlantic coast cause he's in New Brunswick. Still, I've got a helper in Mississauga, Ontario, so she's in Eastern Eastern Sandard. So my day starts pretty early, you know. So we live in Costa Rica, we're on the Pacific coast, Guadalajara province, we live in Reserva Conchal. I'm as we, it's my wife and my two boys, Jackson and Chase. They're 11 and nine, and we have life.

Speaker 2:

So everything kicks off here at six AM our time, and at that time other people you know that I'm dealing with are already starting to get online or have been online, cause it's eight o'clock in their time zone and stuff. But also the monkeys and the birds, and everything starts at six AM here. So I find that my bedtime is, you know, eight or nine and I'm getting up at six AM. So six AM is up, I make breakfast, get the kids up. You know they're usually up at six, six, 30. So we're doing that, and then that's my first time to kind of get caught up. I've got a virtual assistant. She lives in the Philippines. She starts at six AM my time. So she's hitting me on messenger like oh, Lesser, you know I'm starting, this is what I'm doing, and usually you know she has her tasks and everything. But it's all starting. So I'll get the first little bit of good work for maybe, you know, an hour or 45 minutes. I usually end up driving the kids to school. So that takes like 20, cause we just have life. So take them to school, come back, and you know we usually do a work day, Usually about noon my wife and I will scoot down to the gym so like we're relive, we have a beach club, We've got the gym and all that jazz, so we can sit down there on, jump on the golf cart and it's two minutes down to the gym and get in a after lunch kind of workout and kind of a mental break.

Speaker 2:

So we'll do that for about an hour. Then we'll come back, kind of start your second shift of okay, now back at it. You know that was kind of our way to avoid that after day and funk, you know, go into the gym and kind of revives us. But I don't like doing that necessarily in the morning, cause that's when I find I get really good work done and that's when you know I'm thinking about stuff and other people are waiting on me for a decision or you know, can we do this or whatnot. So I like to hammer out that really early, have that break, and then the afternoon come back, and then it's, you know whether the kids have after school activities or a game or something like that, then that dictates when we go pick them up or if we're going to watch them or whatnot.

Speaker 1:

So Cool, awesome. I love hearing that you really optimize your time in the way that you know that mornings are most productive and also when people need you, when people need to hear from you, to do their thing. And then in the afternoon, you also optimize your time by doing a workout before diving into work again after lunch, which is really interesting. And I also love what you said before we started recording. You said I have a boring life. You know it's just the same as what you would do in Canada or you know wherever you are, but I kind of love that you know, because I think everyone always thinks oh, you live in Costa Rica, so life must be so different. But I love hearing that you know you spend time with your kids, you bring them to school, you prepare their breakfast and you have a normal workday. You go to the gym, right. It's super important and I think it's good to have a realistic sense of what it is like to live in Costa.

Speaker 1:

Rica and or be a digital nomad. That is what life looked like.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like one of my buddies. He comes down and you know I'm doing stuff, and he's what time are we meeting? I'm going surfing, you know he's on vacation. And I tell him well, I gotta drop the kids off and we gotta pick this up and do this, and he's like oh yeah, I forgot this is your life and I'm like yeah, it's in a vacation world, but it's still life.

Speaker 2:

It's just that at night, or you know, in the evenings and afternoon, like it's just, I get better sunsets and better beach life, and you know right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly. So what do you love about living in Costa Rica?

Speaker 2:

I'm Canadian and I don't have to deal with winters. It is, I don't. It's like when we first moved. It was funny, so quick story. When we first moved, we're in our townhouse. We lived in Toronto downtown.

Speaker 2:

We started getting rid of all kinds of crap that we don't need furniture. You know, you're kind of when you go through that decluttering phase, like we're moving, we're getting rid of everything, we gotta clear it out. We put a bunch of stuff in storage that we thought we wanted and then you ship a bunch of stuff here and then, as you start to go through, you realize what you really need and what you don't need. So it took us like a year to go back to the storage unit and we went back after a year. A lot of that crap we just didn't need, right. So you just oh, I thought I needed it.

Speaker 2:

You know, like I own two pairs of jeans and maybe they fit me some days, maybe they don't. I'm always in shorts and t-shirt and you know I got a fancy shirt to go out for dinner that has a collar on it. But it's just simpler. I don't need as much stuff. You don't need as much fancy clothing. I like the fact that it's one season it's either hotter, hotter, and it's sunny, and when you wake up in the morning like that sun, it's just so energizing. It's not dark and gloomy. You know, I still have lots of friends obviously that live in Canada and clients, and it's tough in the winters and you know you're waking up and you're like I gotta get the kids dressed and which outfits you know putting on shoes and boots, and it's tough. I don't miss any of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. I am not a big fan of winter. Try to avoid an adult cause, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so when was this that you made that move to Costa Rica?

Speaker 2:

We moved here in 2017, in the summer. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So already a good six plus years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, we've been. We have permanent residence and that was part of why we chose where we wanted to go. Like I know you, like I listened to your other podcast episodes, I binged a bunch of them and people are traveling all around and I'm like that's awesome, that's really cool. Like both my wife and I are still accountants and we need some planning and we need some structure. And, as much as I'd love to travel more and we're you know we work on that but we just needed, you know, like when we first decided to move here, part of that was somewhere where we could have a residency and not be kicked out and not have to worry about border runs and leaving every 90 days and that type of thing. So, you know, we put in a lot of the effort at the start, in the first couple of years, to make sure that we could get a residency and we checked all the boxes and all the bureaucracy. But that was what was important to us in choosing here and starting, so that we weren't gonna get kicked out, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely no, I absolutely understand. Especially now, after doing this NOMAD thing for a few years, can be exhausting to deal with all the visas and, like you said, border runs and all the life admin that comes with it. So I absolutely understand. When building a business, I think it's not a weird idea to just stay in one place for a little bit, and especially when it's Costa Rica and you have those that beautiful climate, the beautiful sunsets that you mentioned, and that you just have a really good life there, I think it definitely makes a lot of sense. Can you share a little bit more about what made you decide to leave Canada?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So I actually used to live in the Cayman Islands. So I was born and raised in Canada and then we moved to. I moved to Cayman after I got my CPA. I worked at KPMG, become an accountant, got a whole bunch of student debt. I'm like, okay, cool, where am I going? And I decided I'd go to Cayman. I lived there for three years. I met my now wife there. We ended up working at the same firm.

Speaker 2:

So that was kind of the first experience of being an expat and living somewhere else and I just thought it was really awesome. We moved back to Toronto. We weren't originally from Toronto, so living there in the big city it was super fun for a bit and we were chasing that corporate dream and moving up the corporate ladder and that was fun. But then after a while you're just like, okay, is this what we want? And then when we had Jackson, who's 11? Now that was kind of a okay, this is life. Now this is not just the two of us that were in charge of this human being and we're not just making decisions for us. So what did that look like? And for us we were. We missed that expat experience, that kind of a small town vibe People. We weren't from Toronto, so we had some friends. But if you're not born and raised there, you show up. You're like, hey, I'm auditioning for new friends. Anybody got any openings? Like doesn't really happen like that. And one thing that we liked about Cayman that we missed so much was that it was just open and friendly and people were all auditioning for new friends and it felt like a small town. So that's where we missed and that's part of what we wanted to do.

Speaker 2:

So we had that discussions, you know, early on, was like where else do we go? Do we really want to put down roots and stay in Toronto and raise our kids here? Like, hey, it's nothing wrong with that, but is that what we wanted to do? And at that point we had started our tax practice. We're starting to slowly build that up and we're starting, you know, these additional businesses that all started doing, you know, slowly generate some income. And you're like, okay, maybe this could be reality, even with kids.

Speaker 2:

Where we go, what would check the boxes? And like I only speak English. I took some French. I'm not very good even at English and I'm like I want my kids to have Other languages. I think it's so Good, it's such an advantage and I wish I had more of that. So it's like, okay, that is one thing we really want our kids to to learn and see and Experience different culture. Just because you're born here doesn't necessarily mean we're tied down. So then we started kind of going through okay, what are important to us in selecting a location, you know it's whether it's cost of living, whether it's health care, whether it's education, whether it's, you know, learning a second language and safety, things like that.

Speaker 2:

You know, we started to put those together and then, okay, narrow our decision down and we came to Costa Rica.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly how is that transition? Because in Costa Rica you don't live in a big city, right? It's more of a smaller, smaller town where you're staying now, right? So how was that going from Toronto, which is a huge city, obviously the ban going like quite the opposite way, almost I.

Speaker 2:

Loved it. For me it was great because I missed that smaller town. Like, as long as I can still get some of the things I want, like I did need to go to all the big fancy restaurants in Toronto and, yes, I love going to the sporting games, things. Well, those are a few things. But if the city it's busy, we I've got to plan everything about the traffic and how long it takes me to get from one side to another. Or if I've got to go on public transit, in the subway and the schedules and like just so complicated to do things, they come back is this is a little easier, at the little calmer, I don't need to overly plan. It was nice. You want to just jump in the car and zip down and meet someone, or you know, hey, let's just catch your sunset drink. Okay, cool, I don't need to plan a week, a month in advance To to meet up and will that work in your schedule? And like that's what I really liked.

Speaker 2:

And my kids They've spent more time now here than they did in Canada, so for them it was just like cool, another adventure. They know the kids are so adaptable at that young age and our kids were there, just like what we have a pool, though, there's a beach, there's all this. You know that we didn't have before. It's amazing. You know they thought that pools only before. If you had a pool, it was only in your condo building. So if somebody said they had a pool, it was because they lived in a condo and the pool was there. And I'm like, don't, we're renting a house, it is a pool, is our pool, no one else's pool. They just blows their mind. But then you think back to. You know how they're right, where they're born and where they're raised and you know Kind of their, their thoughts. It was kind of was eye-opening. So for us it was. It was good.

Speaker 2:

I mean, like anywhere you just got a back off a bit and be like, okay, everything's not gonna be easy. You know, like we joke sometimes everything here takes two times to do it or three times to do it. So you know there's that pain factor, but I mean, as long as you're not, she learned to take it down a level and, okay, we're probably gonna end up having to do this twice. You know, especially when we're doing a residency, we go somewhere They'd be like, oh, this is the wrong building, okay, now we got the right building. Yes, and they only do that on Mondays from seven till eight. Oh, okay, okay, we're here on Tuesday. You know things like that, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, some patients is needed. They'd like it. Yeah, definitely. Can you talk a little bit more about what, what some of the challenges was that you, that you had when you moved to Costa Rica? Because I think it's also really interesting to hear a little bit more about that, because it's not all unicorns and rainbows, right. I mean, there will be challenges when you move abroad or when you move around as a digital nomad.

Speaker 2:

So for us, we wanted to get the residency thing sorted out right away, so my wife did an amazing job beforehand of going through all the documentation what do we need? And going and getting that from a bunch of government agencies in Canada and aligning up as much as we can in Costa Rica. The other thing we did was make sure that we you know we hired a consultant and we hired a lawyer, so we've got those professionals that are on the boot, you know on the ground, understand it and even so, like we had a consultant who was helping us go through the residency, but then things are changing and they're like oh well, that's the way we always did it, you know, two or three months ago, and now it's going to a different building, or now you got to go over here.

Speaker 2:

So I felt like the first year, year and a half, we were always had something we were trying to do for the residency, whether it was drive an hour, go to this police station, get your fingerprints, and of course we don't speak Spanish. So we're kind of muddling through and trying it and things aren't as organized. You're just like is this the building? Is this, is not?

Speaker 2:

really like there's no signs up and you're knocking and you're going random. You know it's just like no, okay, those things are difficult and it can be frustrating and you know it just felt like there was always another step, another step, another step. But we also were trying to fast-track and get as much done as we can. So that that was. That was a little difficult. And then it just as you start to go and you know you're trying to figure out, okay, like when we first moved here when we lived, is this where we want to? You know, really settle down? Do we like this little neighborhood? You don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 2:

So you start trying to explore and you know, get a feeling about, you know other places we could live or what other people are like, and you're just kind of. You know, trying to figure that out is a little Challenging at the start because you know when you show up you know like, well, is this the best? And then you're always wondering Is there another place that's better that I could go, or move over here at this little town? So trying to figure that out is a little bit of a challenge. So trying to figure that out, but I mean most of it like it was. Fairly as long as you have patience and just expect that you're gonna do things you know Two or three times and not get super frustrated, it's easy for me to say now, but at the time I'd be like flip the table. This is, you know, like how are we doing this again? And then every once in a while something goes really easy and we just kind of look at each other my wife and I, like that was actually easy.

Speaker 2:

Whoa, you know fantastic right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that sounds like you have an optimistic mindset. But if it goes easy then it's a win. If it doesn't go easy, it's expected.

Speaker 2:

Exactly right.

Speaker 1:

That is how it is. Yeah, Did you visit Costa Rica before you moved there with kids and everything.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So when I used to live in Cayman back in 2004, 2005, a big thing on Easter weekend they had direct charters from Cayman Islands to Costa Rica. So we used to come over there with some friends and just vacation and we did air and all and that kind of thing. We were like, oh, this is nice, this is fun, so that was cool. Then when I was in Toronto, we were looking at some places to vacation with a friend and we ended up renting a house. We said, hey, let's go back to I've been there a couple times, you want to come, let's go to Costa Rica. So we rented a house, actually in the big gated community that I'm living in now. So that kind of was our first introduction, like, oh, this is really fun.

Speaker 2:

So then a few years later, when we were looking at getting married, we wanted a destination wedding. Obviously, we looked here, the prices didn't make sense. We looked at a bunch of other places and then finally, for some reason, we looked back at Costa Rica again and the prices had come down and it just worked. So we actually got married here. So literally the beach club that I go to for the gym is where we got married. It's like in all full circle. So sometimes it just kind of works or things just kind of line up and you're like, okay, this isn't bad.

Speaker 2:

So, should I have tried other places maybe, but just kind of felt right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's never too late, right? Maybe you can if you want to. What are your thoughts? Do you always see yourself living in Costa Rica? Is that the way you see yourself forever, or is there anything that you have in mind, like maybe to check out another country? In their foreseeable future.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So, yes, we're totally open. I'm good here, we're good right now. But now my kid's like Jackson is 11, he's going to be turning 12, chase is nine and they want to travel. They're like we want to go more places. They're like no, no, we're good travelers now. We're not going to bar from the airplane.

Speaker 1:

You know they want to go and explore more, which is great.

Speaker 2:

They're learning about other countries. Yeah, exactly right. I remember having a bar following my shirt, sometimes carrying them, but anyhow they're better now, they say, and sometimes they take the medicines. Sometimes they don't, but at least now they want to go and explore and we're all about that and I find like hats off to. You know, I see people like your other guests. They're traveling with these two or three year old and I'm like amazing, you are a trooper and a legend. But you know, that's that's not what I want. Now I'm good because my kids are sustainable. They've got their device, they've got some snacks. You know they're at that stage. So we're definitely exploring more.

Speaker 2:

We want to travel, especially in the summers. You know I read this book called 18 summers. You basically only have 18 summers with your, with your child, until they're, you know, an adult and kind of gone. So right now I'm on summer 12 with Jackson. You know I've only got six left, so I got to make sure that you know those really count.

Speaker 2:

You know, whether or not we're going to totally move or anything, no, I don't. I don't think that would probably happen soon. But then once they get to that university stage, that's a whole different world. I mean, you know we're talking about do they go away to college, university, do they not, do they? You know we debate about that. You know, should they go to university? But I mean they can go anywhere in the world that they want. And that, to me, would definitely be a big switching point for for my wife and I, because then, yeah, maybe they decided they're going to school in Spain and one's going in Paris and we're like fine, let's just peace out of here and we'll go live in a house somewhere in the middle. And as long as you guys come every single holiday, then you know who knows right.

Speaker 2:

I'm not adverse to it, but it's also let's see where it goes, where they go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's definitely. It will be a new chapter no matter what. So that's that's pretty interesting to see where we're life will take you. I also want to talk a little bit more about Amazon selling and your experience there, because I know a lot of our listeners will be thinking about starting a business or growing a business, and everyone wants to work remotely and travel or live in Costa Rica, right? So what advice do you have from your years and years of experience working with Amazon sellers and selling on Amazon yourself? Where should people start? Is it still a thing Like can you, can you talk a little bit more about that?

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

So what I do? My main? There's all kinds of different ways you can make money on Amazon right, like right now big thing is influencer videos, where you can just basically get paid an affiliate fee for hey look, this mug is awesome. I bought it on Amazon and you know these are the features that I like. And people go to that listing. You upload it on their listing. If they click on it, you get a percentage, like people do that. But you know, my main thing is what they call online arbitrage.

Speaker 2:

So I just I'm buying brand name products and items that already exist. I'm either buying them at a discount so that I can sell them at a normal price on Amazon, or, if it's a hard to find item or something that I'm buying in that whatever, and I'm going to sell it at an increased price. So I'm going to buy, like, a Lego set. I'm going to buy Nike shoes. So I'm not creating a brand. I'm not on TikTok. I'm not doing any of that. All I'm doing is using the data and the tools that I have on Amazon to show me what this normally sells at, how often it sells and, after the fees, could I purchase this at this amount and make a profit and to me and I do it all remotely, I have a helper, but there's companies out there that that will do it for you. So what you do is I purchase the item, so I actually am putting my credit card in, so you get lots of credit card points to travel, so you put your credit card in, I buy the item, I have it shipped to my helper, or you ship it to a prep center is what they're called. So, for instance, I have a prep center in New Hampshire. There's no sales tax in New Hampshire, so I buy the item for $100, I send it to them. They slap my label on it, they send it into Amazon's warehouse. It sits there until a customer buys it on Amazon. Amazon box it up, ships it out to them. Then I get paid. I can do that from anywhere in the world. I don't need to create.

Speaker 2:

You know, you see, a lot of times when you start going down, the Amazon rabbit hole is you see people that are like oh, buy this garlic press, buy this bamboo pillow on Alibaba for a dollar, two dollars, and then sell it on Amazon. Well, you're creating your own brand. You've gotta create the name. You gotta spend a ton on advertising. You know it's hard work because no one knows whose pillow that is and there's 18 other pillows, including the guy who made you the pillow. He's also selling it on Amazon. So that's not. That is a good business.

Speaker 2:

Later on, I think if you have the right skill set, you wanna get into that. But for the average person just starting out, either doing online arbitrage or we call retail arbitrage where you go into the store you see some non-clerence and all you do is you scan a barcode. You take your phone, scan a barcode, you pull it up on Amazon. It tells you what the fees are. You type in how much it costs and it'll tell you if you can make money on it or not. Right, like how simple is that? To me that is the easiest way. Like that's how I started. That's when I see. You know, I get to see a lot of clients and how they make money and the people that continue to make money and low barrier entry.

Speaker 2:

Something that you could scale up is online arbitrage or retail arbitrage.

Speaker 2:

Now, retail arbitrage, you gotta go in the store and scan stuff. I ain't going to no stores, I'm doing it all online and to me that is just a very simple, easy way for people to start get a taste very low cost, very low risk. I mean you scan, you set up an account cost you like 30 bucks a month and you upload your documents, you get approved and you just look to see if you can buy some stuff and sell it and make a profit. Maybe you buy $200 or $300, test it out, put the labels on, learn how to do it. If that works and you kind of like it, okay, start to grow your business, buy more stuff. Then you start to outsource it. You know, maybe get a virtual assistant to help you find deals. You know, maybe then you use the prep center and you just have stuff sent to them. I think it's a very easy. You can start from the kitchen table kind of deal and if it's something you like, you can continue to grow and expand it okay.

Speaker 1:

I really like what you said, that you only need a few hundred dollars to get started, for that initial inventory, to test it. Because I thought immediately, oh, I probably need some budget for inventory to get started. I was thinking, oh, maybe I need a few thousand dollars to get this all started and test it, and then you know it might not work and I might lose that. But it's really good to hear that actually, that it's not the case at all and that you can also start with literally a few hundred dollars, right?

Speaker 2:

You could start with nothing. There's a lot of people that start with used books. They literally go to their bookshelf and start scanning books. Amazon started as a book company. They still sell a lot of books, textbooks, cookbooks, things like that. And it's weird, like the common novels, the popular novels you're not gonna make any money on, but textbooks and niche cookbooks and things like that you can. They've already got them there. They cost you nothing. Now you can start scanning those and see if you can make money. You know you start looking at kid stories like remember rock band when you used to play that with the guitar and that kind of thing. All those old controllers are all worth like 70, 80 bucks now because they don't make them anymore. So things like that. You might not even know what's around your house, that you probably start selling and make a few dollars and build up some cash flow.

Speaker 1:

Very cool, awesome. So I also would love to know what are some common mistakes, though, because, of course, it sounds super easy, but I also know that you have a ton of experience and you work with clients on this, so what do you see that people do? That you think no, like don't do this. That's definitely a mistake, something that we need to avoid.

Speaker 2:

So, starting with private label and that's what I talked about, where you're buying these items from overseas you're trying to create your own band. You're getting this software that tells you that you know this sells 3000 items a month. You should make a bamboo pillowcase cover and that will make you a bunch of money. And you go to that manufacturer Like that's fine later on if you went into that and there's lots of people that make good money on that. But if you're brand new, starting out, you wanna take little risks, you wanna make a few dollars. You wanna then build up that profit so that you can start to expand. So when I say like, buy two of an item, buy like three of an item, and people get excited and they're like, oh, look at this Barbie, it's on sale in Walmart and I'm gonna buy three of them. And you're like no, just buy two, because you know what it's in every single Walmart across America and everybody else is going to get that deal and the price is going to tank. But maybe it's something that was unique and only on sale in your Walmart and do and it would do.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but early on, just take small risks If I screw up and you know I bought these two Barbies and the price tanks and I don't make any money on it. Okay, I'm out 20 bucks, but if I bought 30 or 40 of them, I'm out a whole lot of money, right, and you're like, well, that's all really well and that was great. Okay, cool, I should have bought more, but I didn't. But that's okay, because now I've got a little bit more profit and as you start to go, you're training yourself. You know, you're looking at the data, you're looking at sales ranks, your gut is getting better.

Speaker 2:

So as you get more experience, then you can start taking a little bit more risk. You can go a little bit more deeper. You've also got a little bit bigger bankroll, right. So instead of putting all your money into you know one item, then you know like two of these two, of these two of this, you kind of spread it out and then, when something works really well, do more of that. So just take small risks at the start. Don't be like, oh great, I found this great deal and I need to buy 30. Well, if it worked out and you didn't get on it, so be it. You didn't get on it, but I'd rather you have missed out than tanked it. It sucked. You lost a whole bunch of money that you're discouraged. You don't have that cash flow now to keep going and then you quit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So start small and start slowly and see what works and what doesn't work. Small risks I love that. I think that is great advice and that is absolutely not what I did when I started my business. So do what Rob says, Don't do what I did. Yeah no.

Speaker 1:

I think that's absolutely good advice. Awesome Well, rob, thank you so much for sharing your experience and all that. I'm super excited for our audience to hear this, because I know that so many people are interested in this. Can you also tell everyone how you can help them if they want to get started as a seller on Amazon?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so selling from the beachcom. That's my main website. I've got a newsletter there. We send it out every other week. It's packed with a bunch of information. I've got a free Facebook group. I've got a free course on there that takes you through just videos of how to set up your account, how to get started. Some of the software the free ones, the paid ones, all that You're brand new to it, obviously. I've got a book too. It's available on Amazon or you get it on my site, but everything is there. Just check it out, take a look, watch some of the videos and get a flavor Like, oh, is this something that might interest me?

Speaker 2:

I hear lots of people are like, oh, I love to shop and it's like, well, that's cool, you shop a bit, but it's also got a certain element of analysis and stats and math and a little bit of gambling in there, all kind of mixed in. So, depending on your personality, I've got a little bit of that gambler and mathematics and trends and things like that in me and, yeah, I could shop too, but I'm more into that. So, yeah, I'd just say, start there, see if it's something that interests you, take small risks and learn.

Speaker 1:

Cool, awesome. Well, we'll also make sure to add all the links to the show notes so you can click all the links there. Definitely check out World's Content, because I think it's awesome and very interesting. Like I said, rob, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was awesome.

Speaker 2:

I shall be super fun.

Speaker 1:

Yay, I'm glad it was fun. Mad expectations, I'm glad I did it Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, thank you also for listening. See you next week. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it very, very much. I would appreciate it even more if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts for me. That way, more people can find this podcast, more people can hear the inspiring stories that we're sharing, and the more people we can impact for the better. So, thank you so much if you are going to leave a review, I really appreciate you and I will see you in the next episode.