My dream business just became reality :)
Some of you may have wondered what happened to me and why I have not been active on WA for quite some time like I used to be.
The reason is that I have been working on another business venture that I believe will change things for me online forever and alongside this business venture the affiliate marketing aspect will not die but will still continue to bring in some residual income.
Way back in 2013/2014 I launched my own supplement brand selling on Amazon and other online platforms and was incredibly excited about this business venture. Everything started out great but unfortunately some circumstances happened that killed the dream at the time which included getting hacked, the supplement I chose initially (although trendy at the time) was not evergreen which required new investment in new product launches (which I did not have the money for at the time) as well as study obligations.
So unfortunately I had to let this dream go at the time and was thinking of making money through affiliate marketing and once I got enough capital I will rekindle this business venture establishing my own brand and not only selling online on Amazon, Shopify etc. again but will eventually get my products into chain stores too.
Unfortunately things changed a lot over the years on platforms like Amazon in terms of how competitive it is and a friend of mine that started selling on Amazon around the time when I started told me that today you need to have deep pockets in order to compete in the supplement marketing space and you will need to start out with at least $50 000 whereas back in 2013/2014 we could start out with around $2000. So I was bitterly disappointed as you need to have very deep pockets to be able to compete when it comes to paying for advertising too.
Then the lucky break came for me with an opportunity to get involved with the local distribution in the UK and expansion to Europe with a very well established supplement brand that is already doing massive sales globally. The issue for this USA brand based company is that shipping from the USA to customers in the UK and the EU is taking way too long which resulted in their need for more local distribution, hence the opportunity.
Yes it may not be the dream exactly of building my own brand, but being in a position to be the sole distributor in the UK of a very well established supplement company is a massive opportunity indeed. Advertising has already been taken care of really as traffic are redirected from the USA website to my UK website of all UK visitors to the USA website via a geolocation app and I have the opportunity to be gifted a massive email list of all UK customers too that bought from the company in the past.
I registered the company in the UK, Amazon is up and running, Shopify is up and running and Quickbooks are integrated ready to go. If all goes well and according to plan online has finally come through for me in a big way so I will hopefully never ever have to look back again and will be able to quit my job eventually and be in a position where I can spend as much time with my family as I want and travelling the world.
This has been a very long journey. I started online in 2010 with a lot of bumps along the way that made me give up on online marketing for quite some years due to being hacked etc. Got the courage some years later to start again from scratch. So it has not been an easy journey at all.
When you look at the main image at the top of the article you will see the dark circles spiralling but eventually leading to the sun. This is representative of my online journey. What it takes is patience, courage and determination. You may make many mistakes along the way but one day is one day when the right opportunity will come along for those that are determined and patient.
So my take away message to you is that just be patient, keep working hard, keep exploring/research marketing opportunities and one day is one day when it all will pay off and be so worth it.
Wishing you all the very best of success!
Schalk
Ps. It is one thing to get a great opportunity coming your way, but do remember that it is still up to you to make it happen. Success only comes from hard work and dedication and even a great opportunity can just stretch as far as you are willing to put effort into its success.
Recent Comments
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Hi there, Schalk,
Congratulations on your monumental success. It's clear that you've worked hard and put in the time to build your online presence, and I'm sure it has paid off for you.
I'm very interested in learning more about how you have grown your business so quickly. Could you tell me what strategies, tools or tips you would recommend to someone just starting out?
Thanks again for all of your hard work and dedication.
Kind Regards,
Rachele
Hi Rachele
Can you be a bit more clear on which business model you are referring to? Are you referring to affiliate marketing or to the supplement business mentioned in the article? Once I have a bit more clarity I can respond more appropriately. Thanks!
Hi there, Schalk.
A thumbnail sketch of both business strategies would be nice, both models. I am new to this world of online marketing and would like to know more about it.
Rachele
Hi
Read my reply to @Lizken here. Then I am going to inbox you some articles I wrote on various business models which you may hopefully find very interesting. These articles should give you a very good idea/basis regarding different business models.
Congrats Schalk, keep up with your optimistic attitude and all will pay off I am sure.
And your are so right having pride in being productive is always a plus!
Kind regards
Erica
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Hi Schalk!
Good to hear from you again and interesting to see everyone's path in the online business.
Can I ask how you promote your supplements online, with a blog as well?
I am asking,because there is a Dutch influencer who has a blog that writes interesting articles on her Dutch blog and in this way indirectly lives from selling her own supplements as well, more in the health niche. (probiotics, vitamines, etc.)
It is very intriguing to see how she balances between correct information and "fake " news on certain supplements (not saying that you do the same of course haha), but she is very successful by means of her blog, with her own writing style.
She doesn't do affiliate marketing or ads either, just the sales of her supplements and her own store, not through Amazon or anything.
I would think that it is very competitive as well these days.
Lizzy
Hi, yes I got very lucky as just did a lack luster general enquiry whether I can become an affiliate for a specific supplement company. I say lack luster as I was not very seriously thinking about it at the time, I just put it out there to see what comes back out of interest.
How I came across this company is more because I was doing my own research on health and came across Dr David Sinclair. He is a professor (scientist) at Harvard University specialising in longevity and gerontology. I found it super interesting and when I did a search for more of his content an ad came up with a supplement company that combines many of the supplements Dr David Sinclair takes daily into one product.
As these ingredients are backed by actual research I don't really have to do much promotion as customers that buy are customers that are already informed because of their own research on the topic.
Over the years the USA company established themselves and already sells globally and have a lot of customers all over the world, also via subscriptions. It is just difficult for them to do timely deliveries to customers in the UK and the EU so they had to make a plan to get local distribution sorted.
So when I did my enquiry to ask if I could become an affiliate, I got offered instead to do local distribution here in the UK with the possibility to expand into Europe.
So I got permission to register the company here in the UK and I pretty much buy stock from the US in wholesale and then distribute it via Amazon FBA in the UK.
Although the product is listed on Amazon UK, I don't rely on Amazon for the majority of the sales. Amazon will take a big cut as a referral fee for direct sales happening on Amazon itself. So I try to drive most of my sales via Shopify. I have Shopify and Amazon integrated so any sales happening on Shopify is automatically fulfilled by Amazon.
So I basically mostly use Amazon for quick delivery of my products and use their storage facility for my stock as such from where distribution takes place.
Shopify got so many ways to drive traffic, it is pretty insane. So one way for example is the relationship between Shopify and TikTok where clickable buttons can come up inside of your TikToks taking TikTok viewers directly to your Shopify store from your TikToks.
You have a collaboration app where you can see influencers with massive channels whether Instagram, TikTok, YouTube etc. and you can send them a collaboration request or they can send you one. So in exchange for sponsoring them (providing them with free products) or even providing them with an affiliate commission incentive you can get big influencers to market your products for you.
The USA based company already pay for Google ads etc. and they also sell via Shopify. They have a geolocation app installed which redirect everyone that visits their website from the UK to my UK Shopify website for the company so that customers can buy directly from me (The UK store).
Also I will be provided with a big email list of all customers that bought from the UK in the past, so here email marketing will come into play.
So honestly, there is not much that I need to do to generate traffic as the US company is already doing that for me pretty much.
So not sure if I will bother writing articles etc. I think may be more effective to market via TikTok and get influencers to promote my products for an incentive than trying to generate traffic via blog articles. It does not mean I cannot also write blog articles.
Saying all of this, I literally opened the doors three days ago, so also good to remember that although a lot of the groundwork been done for me already, Rome was not built in a day. I have not been given the email list for the UK yet and the redirected traffic I got told will be happening from next week. So let's see what happens. As things stands right now though today I don't believe anyone knows I opened shop yet here in the UK haha.
The US website will also link from next week to my Amazon UK as well as my UK website.
So in a nutshell, that is it, but there was a lot of groundwork I had to do to get everything up and running with Amazon compliance (which was a real pain in the backside) and getting the Shopify, Getresponse, Reviews App, Subscription App, Amazon FBA and Quickbooks integrations setup properly so everything works as it should as well as the setting up of the company etc. and all the paperwork that goes along with that. Business bank account, business forwarding address setup, EORI compliance, VAT compliance, getting an accountant etc.
So I think anyone thinking of starting up a business like this really needs to be sure what they about to attempt are going to be successful or need to have some spare cash to play around with as there are probably 7 things I can quickly think of I literally cannot go without that I need to pay for on a monthly basis. For example the subscription app, the Reviews app, Shopify, Amazon, Quickbooks, Getresponse etc.
I hope that gives a bit of clarity. But thanks for commenting about some of those strategies she is using. Will be interesting to see more closely what she is doing in this regard. But that is more or less where I am at, at this point in time.
I see,thanks for the insights, interesting!
Lizzy