September 2022 FBA Profit and Loss Report

How much did I actually make?

Welcome back! Another month has passed, which means it’s time to give the people an update on how my business is performing. This month I was once again faced with the harsh reality that improvement is not linear - while it was fun having several 20-30% growth months earlier this year, looking back now I realize that it wasn’t sustainable and I won’t be increasing my inventory spend in such large intervals as I was back then (e.g $800 daily spend —> $1300 daily spend in one month).

While there’s certainly still improvements to be made, I think I need to stop having such unrealistic expectations for myself.

The Numbers

NOTE: These numbers come from InventoryLab which only counts shipped orders:

Revenue: $82,576.87

Cost of Goods Sold: $42,396.26

Amazon Fees: $26,632.67 (includes shipping costs, fulfillment fees, storage, etc.)

Other Expenses: $4,611 (See list below)

Net Profit: $8,936.94

Other Expenses:

• Tactical Arbitrage (OA Package) - $89

• SellerAmp - $23

• Profit Protector Pro - $60

• Keepa - $22

• Quickbooks - $80

• Cheddarsoft - $50

• Virtual Assistant Salary - $1300 (includes bonuses)

• eCommerce Insurance - $51

• Legal Retainer - $89

• Prep Center Fees - $2847

Even though revenue is down from last month, the profit margin is actually higher. This is because I liquidated a lot of bad inventory last month, which in hindsight inflated my numbers and gave me unrealistic expectations going into September.

The new expenses this month are my third VA getting her first salary payments (shoutout to PHP for continuing to crash), as well as signing up for a legal retainer. This lawyer will help you fight IP claims for a very reasonable monthly fee, and while I haven’t used his services yet I feel like it could be a useful service as I continue to scale - I’ll write about it more in detail when I have an opportunity to use his help.

I also have my friend in Brazil helping me with admin tasks for ~$300/mo, but I’m paying him out of my own pocket so I’m not classifying it as part of the other expenses. This was a great decision, as I now have more time during the day to focus on other tasks (and just more time to relax in general).

Category Breakdown

Clothing / apparel has taken the #1 spot on my list, which I wasn’t expecting. Other than that, I’m still selling the same kinds of items.

What’s Next?

I’ll continue to slightly increase my spend (especially since Q4 is coming), but the only real goal I have at the moment is to get a $100,000 sales month by the end of the year, which I think is more than doable at my current rate of growth.

Until next time.