Stephen Smotherman, Author at Full-Time FBA

Seller Central Tip #4 – How to Check for Reimbursable Lost Items

March 12, 2014 By Stephen Smotherman 31 Comments

Recently we’ve been running a blog series called Seller Central Tips, including posts on the following topics: Tip #1: How to Check if “Returned” Items are Actually Returned to FBA Tip #2: How to Get Reimbursed for Unfulfillable Inventory Tip #3: How to Handle FBA Inbound Shipment Problems Today we’ll look at Tip #4: How to Check

Seller Central Tip #3 – How to Handle FBA Inbound Shipment Problems

February 17, 2014 By Stephen Smotherman 28 Comments

Does this look familiar? Hello (AMAZON USER NAME), We discovered a problem while we were receiving your inbound shipment (SHIPMENT ID). We are taking the necessary steps to remedy the situation and receive your inventory. Please note that select problems may result in an unplanned service fee. The problem

Seller Central Tip #2 – How to Get Reimbursed for Unfulfillable Inventory

January 30, 2014 By Stephen Smotherman 43 Comments

This post comes from Stephen’s wife, Rebecca, who helps him make full-time selling on FBA a reality. The further you get into selling through FBA, the more you’ll see that Amazon’s inventory system doesn’t always, um, work just like expected. When I started working with Stephen on his FBA business, I would look at our

App Review: Shopkick

January 14, 2014 By Stephen Smotherman 25 Comments

Today’s post comes from Stephen’s wife, Rebecca, who works alongside Stephen in their full-time FBA business. We’ve posted in the past about ways to get “free money” to use for sourcing, and I’ve also posted about how I incorporate sourcing into my day-to-day schedule running a household with four kids. Today I want to share

To Share or Not to Share a BOLO

November 18, 2013 By Stephen Smotherman 9 Comments

In our last blog post, we talked about how to capitalize on a BOLO. We shared many ideas of how to make the most out of both your time and your money when it comes to a BOLO. Note: In today’s blog, we’ll be discussing retail store BOLOs (not garage sale, thrift store, or other

How to Capitalize on a BOLO (Be On the Lookout)

November 12, 2013 By Stephen Smotherman 6 Comments

Last week we talked about how to have a highly profitable Q4, and this week we’ll talk about another timely topic: how to capitalize on a BOLO. What is a BOLO? It’s an acronym for “Be On the Look Out” and generally refers to a product that a reseller should be looking for to buy

A Case Study in Sales Rank

October 17, 2013 By Stephen Smotherman Leave a Comment

Today we’re going to look at the sales rank history of a specific book I’ve been following for over seven months. I first found The Boy Captives at a thrift store near my home and quickly bought it. The book had a rank of about 1 million and was being sold as used on Amazon

Garage Sale Tip #3 – Turn $2.50 into $20 Over and Over

October 7, 2013 By Stephen Smotherman 10 Comments

Almost every time I go out to source at garage sales, I see a certain item that I can buy for next to nothing and easily use to turn a few quarters into $20. What am I talking about? Expired printer ink cartridges. If you have a Staples office store nearby, then you can take advantage

Lowering Prices vs. Pulling Items From Amazon Inventory

September 17, 2013 By Stephen Smotherman 3 Comments

I have totally updated my views on this topic. Back in 2013, this was a good strategy, but now it’s totally outdated. Here my my most up to date teaching on this topic: How to Decide if You Should Lower Your Price (or Hold Your Price) Sometimes it’s inevitable. You’re not going to get the