Quit Her Job, Travels Full-Time in an RV, all Funded by Amazon Retail Arbitrage with Nikki Kirk

Episode 174

On today’s episode we have the privilege to interview Nikki Kirk, RA and OA expert.  Nikki is a digital nomad traveling around the United States in her RV.   Nikki runs her Amazon business from the road and teaches other sellers how they can create their own freedom through selling on Amazon.

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00;00;24;02 – 00;00;45;08
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone to the Firing Demand podcast. On today’s episode, we have the privilege to interview Nikki Kirk, who is a retail arbitrage expert. Nikki is a digital nomad, traveling the United States in her RV. Nikki runs her Amazon business from the road and teaches other sellers how they can create their own freedom through selling on Amazon. Welcome to the show, Nikki.

00;00;45;14 – 00;00;46;27
Speaker 3
Hey, thanks for having me.

00;00;46;29 – 00;00;55;12
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So to start off the episode, can you please share with our listeners a little bit about your background and your path to becoming an Amazon seller?

00;00;55;18 – 00;01;21;28
Speaker 3
I am from Oregon. Originally, I moved to California to go to school, and then after school, I college, I should say. After college I got a job in the corporate world. And so that was always kind of my goal background and my goal like I wanted to own my own boutique at some point in my life. But like my other goal that I or more probably what the world considers like what you should do is I was like, okay, I’m going to get into the company.

00;01;22;02 – 00;01;41;10
Speaker 3
I work my way up the ladder because that’s what you do. That’s what everyone you know, your dad, your grandpa did. So that’s what I was like setting out to do. But when I graduated, it was right after the recession of oh 1809. So that company went under and then I found myself unemployed. So then I, through networking with the boss, I had found another job.

00;01;41;10 – 00;02;00;11
Speaker 3
And so I’ve worked at the Virgin Megastores, I’ve worked at Mattel and I’ve worked at Belkin, which is the job that I left. And through just friends in L.A., I met my best friend, now Damian Ross. And together we were like, Well, why don’t we get an RV and hit the road? So we planned for that for about a year.

00;02;00;11 – 00;02;17;05
Speaker 3
And so I knew I was going to quit working at Belkin, which was where I was working as a eCommerce marketing manager. And after quitting, I like literally I saved up enough money, got out of debt, we bought an RV, we bought a truck. I had never read, I’ve still never pulled the RV. We hit the road in 2017.

00;02;17;05 – 00;02;35;16
Speaker 3
I quit my job, had no idea of what I was going to do. I was just over working for someone else and all that goes with that, I’m sure you guys know. And so I found out about selling on Amazon after that. And so I decided, Oh, this is cool. I love to shop. Like, if I could shop all day for work, I mean, that would be my dream job.

00;02;35;16 – 00;02;43;00
Speaker 3
And so it did end up being my dream job. So I, you know, sell on Amazon doing retail arbitrage now and it’s so much fun.

00;02;43;02 – 00;03;03;15
Speaker 4
That’s awesome. Nikki I think your story is very unique. I don’t know me, I don’t know anybody else that travels the country in an RV and works in their in their business full time. And so can you share for the listeners I’ve read your bio on your on your website. Can you share a little bit about like your experience is where how about your travel with a couple of really cool things that you’ve seen or done through your travels?

00;03;03;15 – 00;03;28;07
Speaker 3
Yeah, so I have now to date Bednar all of the Lower 48 states. That was kind of a goal, but so in 2017 we hit the road in, we say June 1st, but it was technically like May 31st or something. So we left L.A. and I had my savings that I could live off of for six months. And so I was just out like enjoying my life, traveling not totally into looking for another job at the moment.

00;03;28;07 – 00;03;44;28
Speaker 3
And then so we did really my roommate at the time did work for some money. He worked for a conference that happened every year, and so he was a salesperson and he would go to other conferences, so, you know, get those connections. So at first our schedule was kind of like where he could go for work to these conferences.

00;03;44;28 – 00;04;02;26
Speaker 3
And so we kind of rushed around the U.S. in the beginning and it was a little bit of a mad dash. And then he was like, This doesn’t make any sense. I’ll just fly wherever I need to go. And so we ended up slowing down, but I did five years. So from I think we’ve been back and crossed back and forth across the U.S. maybe three or four times that way.

00;04;02;28 – 00;04;21;11
Speaker 3
So we went from like California to Utah. I’m from Oregon, so we went up to Oregon. Then we went over and we did like Idaho, Montana and all the way over to Illinois. And then it was around the time we decided that was kind of crazy to rush across the U.S. like that, that we found some of our best sights and spots.

00;04;21;11 – 00;04;35;28
Speaker 3
So we decided to take a detour and go to West Virginia. And that’s still to this day. One of my favorite parks I’ve ever been to. It was right on the water. It was this weird, like peninsula of a island on the lake. And so it literally was like, I don’t know, what is it, 270 view of water.

00;04;35;29 – 00;04;55;04
Speaker 3
It was just it’s the best spot and we just happened to land it. And so I’ve got a couple of states that are my favorite, but I think after doing all of it and being everywhere, I think some of my favorite states are just states that people don’t even think are worth visiting, like West Virginia. I’m not sure if people really set out to go to West Virginia, but it’s one of the most beautiful states.

00;04;55;09 – 00;05;13;20
Speaker 3
I think everyone loves Utah. Utah is like our number one state, that St George area. But I am always encouraging anyone to go out and travel. I know this is not part of like my Amazon stuff, but my roommate and I actually own two magazines about RV travel. One is called RV today, which is just, you know, everyone RV and out there.

00;05;13;20 – 00;05;21;17
Speaker 3
And then one is rootless living, which is about full time nomads and digital nomads. So we’re all about the RV life. And I’m sitting in my RV right now while the record is.

00;05;21;17 – 00;05;39;03
Speaker 4
So that’s super cool. And yep, we’re going to we’re going to have this on YouTube. So for if you’re listening to the podcast, go check out the YouTube channel. The background is definitely an RV. So thanks for thanks for sharing that. I always like to listen to like cool stories and you know, people, you know, we’re always tied down to our offices or I like to, you know, live vicariously through someone else.

00;05;39;03 – 00;05;55;13
Speaker 4
And so thanks for sharing that. I did not know that about West Virginia. I think I’ve driven through there, but I’ve never experienced any of that. And so I’ll have to do a second. The trip to Washington. Awesome. So Amazon stuff, let’s get into the Amazon stock. So today we’re going to be talking about RJ and Okay. And so primarily I’m on our podcast.

00;05;55;13 – 00;06;06;01
Speaker 4
We dive into a lot of private label stuff. So today we’re going to be talking about R.A. So Nikki, can you share what the audience what is R.A. What is okay? And can you give a little bit of a couple of examples of each?

00;06;06;01 – 00;06;27;26
Speaker 3
Definitely. So R.A. It’s retail arbitrage and then always online arbitrage. And that’s interesting to know about the private label because I have a lot of people in my community online that come wanting to do private label. And I think retail, even if you want to do private label, I think retail arbitrage is a great way to just get to know Amazon in general without having all that total upfront costs of private label.

00;06;27;26 – 00;06;51;18
Speaker 3
But so for retail arbitrage, I literally go into stores like Walmart, TJ, Max Marshall and buy products. I’ll use my Amazon selling app to scan products and see what’s profitable. I buy products and then I pack them all up and I send them to Amazon, which is called Fulfilled by Amazon or FBA. So really good in an RV because obviously I don’t have a lot of room to hold products and send it.

00;06;51;18 – 00;07;11;05
Speaker 3
So the FBA model was perfect for me and it’s what I did most of the time instead of where I would send it direct out to the customer. Being in an RV and traveling all the time does make it kind of difficult to do online arbitrage, which is similar to that. So like you can I don’t know if you know this, but you can also order stuff on to max dot com or just any online website.

00;07;11;05 – 00;07;31;24
Speaker 3
You can order a product if it makes a profit. Obviously you don’t want order. Something’s not going to make you any money, but you can order stuff online, have it shipped to you or a prep center if you decide to go that route, and then you would just send it to Amazon again. And once I’ve settled down. So last year we traveled full time for five years and last year we decided to buy some land in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area.

00;07;31;24 – 00;07;47;00
Speaker 3
So I’m more settled now. I’m building a big old shop to like work out of, but I’ve more gotten into online arbitrage recently now that I’m kind of stationary because it’s hard to get mail on the road and, you know, know where you’re going to go or where it’s going to be in time with shipping and all that.

00;07;47;00 – 00;07;53;19
Speaker 3
That that is one thing about full time RV and that’s a little hard, but I love the shop so retail arbitrage is definitely my jam.

00;07;53;26 – 00;08;06;12
Speaker 2
Very nice. So when you’re looking for products to sell, are you using the RV as like, are there states that have better discounts or does that matter? Is every TJ Max kind of going to be priced around the same?

00;08;06;12 – 00;08;24;17
Speaker 3
Yeah. So national chains are going to be the same. I didn’t ever go anywhere specifically that I wanted to shop besides the West Coast because the West Coast has grocery outlet. So it’s really easy for me to go home to Oregon and shop grocery outlet, which is I think one of the best stores. But there are stores all over the country that are local.

00;08;24;17 – 00;08;51;26
Speaker 3
In fact, I’m doing really well this last year with liquidation type stores that are a mom and pop local and every you know, every state’s going to have their different stores like that. And so it’s been really good. I found a lot of stuff. There’s less competition, obviously, if there’s less stores, but the great thing and one of the things I liked about Arvin is that I could keep replanting something longer than if I was more stationary because I can buy all the make up item from TJ Max in this area.

00;08;51;26 – 00;09;07;28
Speaker 3
And the next week we’re in a different place. So now I can go get it on that area too. So it just made the the tail of it a little bit longer, which was cool. But I also have to drive now because we’re in the country here a bit and it’s like a 45 minute drive to get Tulsa an hour and a half to get to Oklahoma City.

00;09;07;28 – 00;09;24;15
Speaker 3
So I’m still driving and I think that was one aspect of RV that kind of set me up to be good with that because I think a lot of people kind of get frustrated if there’s other sellers in their market, but yet they’re not leaving their market and they can drive an hour or an hour and a half to find stuff in the city next to you maybe.

00;09;24;15 – 00;09;29;01
Speaker 3
So I’m always encouraging people to drive, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to drive all driving at the product.

00;09;29;01 – 00;09;43;16
Speaker 2
So there’s that can you walk us through what a day in the life would look like? So you walk into TJ Max, you mentioned that you have your seller app handy. What are you doing and how are you making the decision to either add it to your cart and buy it or to pass on it?

00;09;43;17 – 00;10;00;29
Speaker 3
I always say I’ve done Amazon part time because I was traveling, right? And that was like my main goal. I just needed money to be able to travel. And so I’ve only ever I source one day a week. So but it’s all day. So I just went yesterday. So I woke up at like four in the morning, got ready and headed out to Oklahoma City this week.

00;10;00;29 – 00;10;18;03
Speaker 3
And so I will go to Walmart first because they’re open first. So if I’m walking in a Walmart, I’ve got the all you need. Is this the Amazon selling app? You really don’t need anything else. I do recommend Kepa because it helps you out a lot and it tells you a lot about a product, but you don’t need any other tools besides your Amazon selling account technically.

00;10;18;04 – 00;10;37;26
Speaker 3
So I’ll go in and I like toys at Walmart, so I’ll go to the toy aisle and I’m just scanning for me. After six years of doing this, I’m just scanning anything that I either know about already or that looks new on the shelf. But when you’re starting out, I always recommend people go to the clearance aisle because there’s all different categories, and so you’ll kind of get a feel of what you can sell and what you can’t sell.

00;10;37;26 – 00;10;55;12
Speaker 3
What categories might be worth looking at in the wider of the store. So if I go to the clearance, I’ll I’ll scan like my first shipment had odor eater insoles and when you scan a barcode out on the Amazon app, it will tell you what it signed for on Amazon. And then you obviously know what you could buy it for at Walmart on the shelf price.

00;10;55;12 – 00;11;16;17
Speaker 3
And you can enter that cost right in the app and it will tell you how much profit it’ll make. There’s two different ways, like I mentioned earlier. So there’s FBA where you send it to Amazon and then once it gets to Amazon’s warehouse, it’ll sit there and then it will once it sells, Amazon ships it out to the customer or there’s FBA and fulfilled by merchant or as I like to call it, fulfilled by me where I’m sending it out to the customer.

00;11;16;17 – 00;11;38;09
Speaker 3
There’s pros and cons to each. And so if I’m going to do an SBM, you get a you’ll pay less fees to Amazon because you’re not paying for that pick and pack FBA fee. And I actually list a lot of stuff in store. So like right now I’m buying Squishmallows Squishmallows on an I say it, but anyways, I’m buying those things anytime they make money and I list a right in the store from the Amazon app because you can see how much money you’re going to make.

00;11;38;09 – 00;11;52;11
Speaker 3
And like yesterday I sold I think four or five items that are still in the truck that I have to go pack up today and send out to the customer. So I’m literally just using the app to see what’s the price, what are the fees from Amazon and how much am I going to make if I sell this thing?

00;11;52;11 – 00;12;08;21
Speaker 3
And then I will pack my car up. So I got home yesterday, so I left at like five in the morning and got home at 730. I just do loops around whatever city I’m in. I use Google Maps to like plot out my path of the stores. I want to go and it’s an all day event, but I like it.

00;12;08;22 – 00;12;19;17
Speaker 3
I enjoy it. And that way you don’t have to do. I mean, people can source however and whenever they want to, but this way you don’t have to like due to hours here and there. I just like to get it all done. All in one.

00;12;19;23 – 00;12;23;01
Speaker 2
Very nice night in on a typical shopping day. How much money are you spending?

00;12;23;08 – 00;12;47;24
Speaker 3
It varies. So I think I spent 3000, maybe 3500 yesterday during Q4. There’s like one liquidation store that last year I spent 13,000 and then I went to the other look and location in multiple locations and I got a spot in that 8000 because this one store had these high end beauty products that I guess there was like a Nordstrom warehouse fire.

00;12;47;24 – 00;13;05;02
Speaker 3
And so they got all the stuff, which was perfectly fine, but Nordstrom canceled anymore. And so I was buying all of this beauty products there. So I spending a lot of money and that’s definitely not how I it’s not normal for me. I mean, I will it’s normal for me to spend anywhere from, you know, 2 to 3000 a week sourcing.

00;13;05;02 – 00;13;12;06
Speaker 3
But definitely that was a crazy Q4 is always crazy, but that was crazy that I couldn’t pass up. You know, once they’re going to be gone there, God. So I had to go to.

00;13;12;06 – 00;13;26;28
Speaker 4
One quick question on whenever you’re scanning, do you look for a specific margin? Are you looking to say like, if I can buy something for five, it sells on Amazon for 15 and there’s 33% left. Are you looking for that range and what is that?

00;13;26;29 – 00;13;46;29
Speaker 3
Yeah, So for me I always am looking for $5 minimum profit and then 50% ROI. So I don’t want to spend $50 and only make $10 back. So I want it to kind of make sense, be worth their money. But overall, $5 is my minimum because if you know anything about selling on Amazon, you know that the prices fluctuate a lot.

00;13;47;00 – 00;14;06;02
Speaker 3
And so I want to have that buffer room to not end up losing money on something. So I’m always doing $5 minimum and then I also encourage everyone to just start out with that. At the end of the day, you can do your business however you want to, but that way you’re not getting frustrated or losing money. If you have that kind of $5 50% ROIC.

00;14;06;05 – 00;14;24;17
Speaker 4
Yeah, fair enough. I like that. It’s a safety net for mistakes and for anything that you know that well, we don’t call them mistakes. We called lessons learned, anything that pops up, there’s a buffer there. So that’s awesome. My next question is and so I think I shared with you an email I used to do retail arbitrage when I first started Amazon back 2016, 2017.

00;14;24;17 – 00;14;39;21
Speaker 4
And whenever I did that, I did a prior for like six months to a year. And to me it always felt like I don’t like shopping, but it felt like treasure hunting, like I would race in there and like I would go to specific sections and look around. Does that is that how does it make you feel like treasure hunting at this point or.

00;14;39;22 – 00;15;05;09
Speaker 3
No, It does feel like that because you’re like, you never know what’s going to be new there or what you’re going to find. So it’s kind of funny. The liquidation store and all that beauty stuff. I actually only went in there because I was filming a YouTube video to encourage people to go to liquidation stores, mom and pop stores, different things, and I ended up finding this item that was it cost me $189 and it was selling for 1300 dollars on Amazon.

00;15;05;09 – 00;15;23;28
Speaker 3
I literally sent it to my friend. I was like, Look at this, That’s crazy. And we’re like laughing, Oh my gosh, what is that thing? Like, what are people using it for? And then I decided to take a chance on it and I ended up selling five of them, I think total and made like $5,000. So it was it’s funny because I would just think it’s so random that I was like, Oh, I’m going to tell people you should go shop.

00;15;23;28 – 00;15;40;15
Speaker 3
These are that I ended up making like a ton of money there and it worked out full circle. But my favorite things about it are chases like when you find that product that’s really good and then you go chase it down to every other source. So there was an item last year that we were all hunting down. It was a detergent.

00;15;40;15 – 00;15;58;02
Speaker 3
So our that I guess they said they weren’t going to make. And there’s like this whole years long history of people using it. So now everyone was freaking out that they couldn’t get it and the price went up. And so we were chasing down this bar of detergent soap at Walmart’s. And it’s just so much fun when you know how much money that you have sitting in your car.

00;15;58;02 – 00;16;07;24
Speaker 3
So we I had it I have it sitting in my truck because again, RV not a total lots of room and my roommate was driving going what is that smell? And I was like, Money. It’s the soap in the car. It’s money.

00;16;07;29 – 00;16;21;20
Speaker 4
Yes, that’s awesome. Last follow up and then I’ll kick it back as David. So you had mentioned the you know, you randomly popped in that story. You’re doing a YouTube video and you found some really good finds. What are some other ones where out of the blue you scan something and you’re like, Oh, wow, this is really cool.

00;16;21;20 – 00;16;23;08
Speaker 4
What are some of your like best finds?

00;16;23;08 – 00;16;37;24
Speaker 3
The one is so funny. It was a grocery outlet again. So if your listeners are listening, that’s grocery on the West Coast, this Google, there are some in the South but there are different chain of grocery outlet and then the grocery outlet I’m talking about they also have in Pennsylvania. I wish it was nationwide because it’s so good.

00;16;37;24 – 00;16;57;25
Speaker 3
But they had it was like an I think it takes your face, your hair off your face or something for ladies. And so that was selling for a lot of money. I can’t remember exactly. There was also like a Navy skin firming cream that grocery outlet had and some YouTuber was talking about it. And so it was selling for like $80.

00;16;57;25 – 00;17;18;24
Speaker 3
But Nivea had discontinued it and I was getting it for $8 at Grocery Outlet, another grocery outlet find. So sorry for everyone if you don’t have one near you, but it is a good store, it might be worth traveling to. So there was a Lori’s garlic. It was like roasted garlic seasoning that I got for $0.99 and was selling for like $20 or something just for a little, you know, I don’t know, three ounce bottle.

00;17;18;24 – 00;17;24;14
Speaker 3
And my grandma was like, Have you tried it? And I was like, Are you kidding me? No, I don’t care what it tastes like and everyone else wants it.

00;17;24;14 – 00;17;26;27
Speaker 4
Awesome. Now let’s call it over to you. Yeah.

00;17;26;27 – 00;17;32;22
Speaker 2
So you mentioned Keeper. Can you explain what that is, what that tool is and, and how you use it in your business?

00;17;32;25 – 00;17;50;13
Speaker 3
Kepa is a at the end of the day it’s just a data tracking software, but it pulls into Amazon. So there’s a you can have a free account with it. It’s a Chrome extension. They also have an app and so on every Amazon product page, it’ll tell you the history of the products. So was Amazon ever selling it?

00;17;50;13 – 00;18;14;16
Speaker 3
What was the seller’s rank yesterday versus a month ago? How many sellers are on the listing? A lot of the stuff you can’t see with the free one anymore. When I first started, all of it was free, and then they realized what they had and they started charging. I think it’s $19 a month now. It is absolutely worth it, and I think it helps you not make bad buys because sometimes when you’re scanning a product, the best seller rank, which is how I know if it’s going to be good, right?

00;18;14;16 – 00;18;31;10
Speaker 3
It might be, you know, 100,000 and toys, which is awesome. But that also might mean that it just sold. And so if you’re looking at Cuba, you can see actually the rank is usually 500,000 and you just happened to scan it when it was low. So it can kind of help you not make bad buys. I also use it.

00;18;31;10 – 00;18;47;12
Speaker 3
I don’t typically sell if Amazon’s on the listing just because I don’t want to compete with them. There’s plenty of other products out there, so I use it to see of Amazon was ever selling it. Basically anytime a product seems too good to be true, I go to Cuba to see like the history of it and a lot of people ask like, what?

00;18;47;12 – 00;19;04;06
Speaker 3
Those triangle squares, all those different things mean. And nothing on Cuba means that something has sold. It just means something changed. So that’s what the price was when that kippah web crawler grabs the price and then they’ll do a couple of hours later. And so it might have gone down, which is a drop, or it might have gone up.

00;19;04;06 – 00;19;10;07
Speaker 3
And so it really is just telling you the history of a product and you can learn to use it to help you with your business.

00;19;10;07 – 00;19;22;27
Speaker 2
One specific detail you said, and I want to dive a little deeper on that. You said When I look at the BSR, I know whether it’s going to be a good product or not. One. Can you explain what is BSR into? How are you identifying what’s good and what’s bad?

00;19;22;28 – 00;19;45;24
Speaker 3
BSR is the best seller rank on Amazon and every like main level category has a bunch of different subcategories. But for us as retail arbitrage sellers, we only care about the men top level. So toys and games, grocery, gourmet food, health and personal care. And that rank is telling you like one is the best selling products. So that’s selling a lot every day and then it goes down from there.

00;19;45;24 – 00;20;04;14
Speaker 3
So 100,000 toys is not obviously the best seller, but it’s still pretty good. And I have a little chart that I have gone off of in the beginning when I first started selling and I actually have one that I give away for free on my website, but it’s just tells you like if you see the category of health and personal and it’s 50,000, that’s really great.

00;20;04;14 – 00;20;20;29
Speaker 3
But if we’re getting up to 300,000, that product’s moving a little bit slower. And so maybe you want to take a risk on it. Like that beauty item that I was talking about that I sold, it was 500,000, I think best Rank and Beauty, which is not great at all. But I was like, that’s probably because the price point, right?

00;20;20;29 – 00;20;38;18
Speaker 3
Not a lot of people are paying 3000 dollars for something on Amazon, so it’s not going to sell as much. And actually I usually stick to really low ranks and in their category, so I don’t think I would like home. You can go pretty high end. So I’ve got two 300,000 at home and know that it will comfortably sell within 1 to 3 months.

00;20;38;18 – 00;20;58;27
Speaker 3
That’s kind of what I’m looking for with that best seller rank. And so whenever I saw that that item sold at 500,000 rank, I was like, Oh, okay. So I’m way more open now to going up into higher ranks. But that being said, I’m also more comfortable sitting on items and I know a lot of people want to flip their stuff fast and that’s not the model that I do.

00;20;58;27 – 00;21;08;04
Speaker 3
I like to make money and make my life easier so I am okay sitting on stuff for a month, two months, three months, just waiting for it to move at the price that’s going to make money.

00;21;08;04 – 00;21;22;03
Speaker 4
Yeah, fair enough. So, Nikki, what if if someone when someone comes to you and is like, hey, I, you know, read your story or I heard about your story and and they have a say, they have a full time job and they’re like, well, you know, how can I start? Like what? Where should I start? Should I do retail arbitrage?

00;21;22;03 – 00;21;25;25
Speaker 4
I do online arbitrage. Like what? What advice do you give people that come to you like that?

00;21;25;27 – 00;21;45;07
Speaker 3
I typically just say, obviously I started in a weird where I didn’t have a job when I found out about this, but I always tell everyone, if you have a job, do this on the side, like don’t quit your job and do this because it does take a long time to build up and it will take probably six months before you ever feel like you’re really making any money on it.

00;21;45;07 – 00;22;04;18
Speaker 3
But I would keep your job and start it on the side. And I always recommend I like retail arbitrage, but people a lot of people don’t like shopping or maybe they don’t have the time to. So I have a lot of like single moms or stay at home moms with their kids. They’re just doing online arbitrage and they find great products doing online arbitrage.

00;22;04;19 – 00;22;20;29
Speaker 3
Online arbitrage is still kind of new to me. I’m still kind of learning how to do it, but they have it down. And I know a lot of people who just do online arbitrage. So it’s kind of what you prefer and what you like. But my main advice to anyone who wants to start is to this is not going to get you rich quick.

00;22;20;29 – 00;22;39;01
Speaker 3
It might not ever get you rich, period. But it is something that you can build into a income, a steady income, and something you enjoy doing. So if you’re going to give it, you have to give it time. You can expect to be knowing it and have it working in like 1 to 2 months. It might take you 3 to 4 months before you have it turn a profit.

00;22;39;01 – 00;22;57;00
Speaker 3
And so you just have to know going into it that it’s going to take time and I also say it’s like learning a language. It’s so foreign to everyone, especially if you’ve never owned a business. But just selling on Amazon is totally foreign. So just like you wouldn’t learn a language in a month, you know, it’s going to take you a little bit of time just to understand how Amazon work for.

00;22;57;00 – 00;23;03;14
Speaker 2
Somebody getting started, either through online arbitrage or retail arbitrage. What amount of money would they need?

00;23;03;14 – 00;23;23;09
Speaker 3
You can start with as much or as little money as you want to. So I know people who started with $40. I know of people who started with, you know, a couple thousand. I personally sorry, was only $500. And then I also bought a training. So there’s I think between the training and supplies, I had maybe $1,000 total because I was on a fixed budget.

00;23;23;09 – 00;23;42;15
Speaker 3
I had my six months of savings, so I wasn’t ready to just drop a bunch of money in this without knowing it. So I started with $500 for inventory and that’s how I went. So you can really start as much or as little, but just know obviously the less you start with, the more that snowball, the longer that snowball is going to take to really build because you have less inventory.

00;23;42;15 – 00;24;02;27
Speaker 3
And I also just encourage everyone to set out to not expect to take any money out of your business, any profit you make. Just continue to roll it over into more inventory because you’ll if you start pulling money out of it, you’re just hindering the growth of your business. So if you can just get your mindset right from the beginning that you’re not going to pull any money out and you know it’s going to take a while.

00;24;02;27 – 00;24;05;03
Speaker 3
But yeah, you can start with as much or as little as you want.

00;24;05;04 – 00;24;14;14
Speaker 4
Awesome. Let’s pivot in a little bit. Talk about your your main website, your selling guide e-comm, who just a website serve and who might be a good fit to go and take a peek at it.

00;24;14;14 – 00;24;44;20
Speaker 3
So my website is catered to beginning Amazon sellers just interested in Amazon retail arbitrage. SBA FBA, online arbitrage, that model of selling on Amazon. So I have a beginner FBA course, but then I also have if you’re already selling, I have on dating guides. If you need help getting unguided in different categories or brands. And then my retail arbitrage Polo group, which is a lead list group on Facebook where we are all sharing leads of what we’re buying in store that month so that you can kind of know what you’re looking out for.

00;24;44;20 – 00;25;00;28
Speaker 3
I have a ton of free videos on YouTube and then I also have a lot of blogs on my website that are kind of go hand in hand with the videos to explain different things. So if you’re just interested in knowing more about it, you can definitely find out all of that information on the website.

00;25;00;28 – 00;25;03;24
Speaker 4
Do we want to cover anything else before we get into the fire around?

00;25;03;24 – 00;25;13;16
Speaker 2
David Just wanted to point out that Nikki set up a 20% promo code, firing the man, all one word for her website. And this is for all firing me and listeners, let’s get in the fire.

00;25;13;23 – 00;25;17;05
Speaker 4
Awesome. Nikki, are you ready? Yeah. All right. What is your favorite book?

00;25;17;08 – 00;25;33;12
Speaker 3
I would have to say that my favorite book, if I have to pick only one, is the one that kind of helps me out the most. And it is. You’re a badass at Making Money by Jen. S.R.O., I think is how you say her name, but I read a lot of books, so I read like 40 plus books a year, so I can’t pinpoint one.

00;25;33;12 – 00;25;37;05
Speaker 3
But if you want one that I would recommend everyone read, it’s that book.

00;25;37;05 – 00;25;40;09
Speaker 4
Awesome. Thank you. That’s a new one. I haven’t heard of that one. What are your hobbies?

00;25;40;09 – 00;25;50;10
Speaker 3
Well, definitely reading. I actually have taken up pottery this year. I paint. I like to cook. Kind of just I’m a little bit of an introvert. So those kind of like solo projects.

00;25;50;17 – 00;25;55;09
Speaker 4
Okay, sounds good. What is one thing that you do not miss about working for the man?

00;25;55;10 – 00;26;08;09
Speaker 3
The politics and having to clock in and out all the time and then working hard and you don’t really get I mean, you don’t get paid for all your art. You get paid, right? But you’re not like you’re making money for someone else at the end of the day. So there’s that last one.

00;26;08;12 – 00;26;13;21
Speaker 4
What do you think sets apart successful ecommerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?

00;26;13;23 – 00;26;35;07
Speaker 3
Perseverance. Anytime you own a business or just do anything, it’s going to be Garry and if you don’t know anything about it, you’re going to be have a lot of fear and holding back. And so if you are not able to just keep pushing forward when things get hard or are tough or you don’t understand it, then you’re not really ever going to make it work.

00;26;35;10 – 00;26;42;20
Speaker 3
But you can get in your own way a lot. And so just kind of getting out of your way and doing it anyway, doing it afraid, doing it, thinking you’re not good enough, just do it.

00;26;42;22 – 00;26;45;11
Speaker 4
Excellent advice. David, over to you to close out the show.

00;26;45;11 – 00;26;51;06
Speaker 2
Nikki, I want to thank you for being a guest on the firing main podcast. If people are interested in getting in touch with you, what would be the best.

00;26;51;06 – 00;27;15;23
Speaker 3
Way you can go to the website, your selling icon? I have all my YouTube videos are on my YouTube, obviously, which is just my name, Nikki Kirk. So Nikki Cake. And then on Instagram, I have my I have your signed podcast and your selling guide where you can find out more or follow me there on Instagram. I share stories of like what’s going on that week and all that kind of stuff, so definitely can reach out there.

00;27;15;23 – 00;27;21;24
Speaker 2
Awesome. Well, thank you so much and we’ll post links to all of that in the show notes. All right. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in and we’ll see you next week.

00;27;22;01 – 00;27;22;21
Speaker 3
Thanks, guys.