Always make the delivery – a physical product story

This story from early in my career puts the “blood” in “blood, sweat, and tears”.

🩸

Here’s what happened.

One of my first entrepreneurial endeavors was private labelling men’s fashion accessories. Hats, gloves, scarves, sunglasses, wallets, etc.

I sourced products on Alibaba, negotiated down MOQs, made some product adjustments, put my own branding on it, and placed the bulk order.

They arrived.

In the most beat-up cardboard boxes imaginable! It’s a miracle they even made it.

I’d boxcutter the boxes, unpack the product, and sell my items door-to-door.

My customer?

Independently owned brick-and-mortar men’s fashion boutiques.

For example, if a pair of my sunglasses retailed for $30 to consumers, I’d sell them to the boutique owner for $15. My landed COGS was $5. A $10 profit for me.

I’d aim for small wholesale orders of 10-50 units.

Wasn’t much but hey! I was in business.

And happy to be making any money at all.

The cool part was once the wholesale order was placed, the retailer would do all the work for me! They opened their store every day, sold product to the customer, answered customer questions, handled refunds, etc. (much like Amazon FBA would do for me a couple years later).

And, like Amazon today, my physical distribution channel would charge me 50% of my retail value.

So, I learned to budget that in. Anyway…

I promised you blood.

So here we go.

The other detail you should know about my budding brick-and-mortar empire was that I personally re-stocked inventory when a retailer sold out. In retrospect, it wasn’t the highest-leverage use of time. But, I didn’t know any better. So, I went.

All my stores (~20 of them) were concentrated in the downtown core. Cars were impractical, so my chosen mode of transport was rollerblades. The street hockey kind without the brake. Product in hand, I’d skate from store to store, restocking empty shelves. Sometimes collecting small cheques as I went along.

It’s summer.

One day, I was skating with a bundle of sunglasses in my arms. I was 10 minutes late for my restocking, as I was hustling from store to store.

Maybe the street was paved unevenly.

Maybe some gravel or something.

Maybe it’s Maybelline.

But whatever the reason, I had an almighty wipeout.

💥

I fell on the cement and scraped my knee.

But, anxious to get to the store, I stood up and kept skating.

When I arrived, the owner greeted me in his usual way, but then his eyes went wide as he stared down at my leg.

My entire right leg (from knee to shin) was red with blood.

He asked if I was OK. I repeatedly assured him I was fine, dropped off the sunglasses, and skated away (a little slower than when I arrived).

I’ve got a scar to this day.

I like to think it’s a reminder to “always make the delivery!”

A couple years later, I found Amazon FBA.

And the world’s largest digital store eclipsed my portfolio of physical stores in revenue.

But in a way, it’s the same story: source a good product, find a distribution channel, sell, and make money.

5 years ago, I dove deep into the intricacies of the Amazon Advertising platform, because I realized that’s what would be the difference between stagnation and hypergrowth Amazon FBA businesses. If you’d like a team of experts to take a look at your Amazon account (for free) and tell you what they’d do to grow it, you can book your spot here: