Hope everyone’s month of May is off to a great start! I have been slow getting my April results put together, but better late than never, so we’ll get right to it today.  If you missed any of my past financial results posts, you can find them HERE.

We’ll get started with how my time was spent during April. I only worked on weekdays on the amazon business for the most part, and only took 2.5 days off from working which was related to going to a friend’s wedding, and going home for my sister’s birthday.  In addition to the time off, the launch of www.yoursourcedinventory.com took up some of my working hours as well.  Overall, I would estimate I averaged around 40 hours per week in April on activities directly related to the amazon business.

Before we get to the numbers, there is one more topic to discuss.  My goal with sharing my financial results is to show what can be done, and is not meant to be seen as bragging or anything of the sort.  I want to show that working hard and sticking with your plan can pay off.  If the results turn out to be poor at any time I will share that too.

With that said, let’s get into the numbers for April.  I want to provide as much clarity as possible into what I am doing on a month to month basis (if you have suggestions for additions to these posts, please let me know!).  The format will be the same as last month and I will be sharing numbers exported directly from my InventoryLab account.  The numbers below will NOT be the exact numbers that go on my tax returns as there will be additional deductions not included here.  It’s also possible that I missed a receipt or 2 and the spending numbers may be updated slightly.  Also for clarity, this does not include any income from any other sources, it is simply my income from amazon and eBay.

April 2015 Financial Results

The first screenshot will be of the revenues. To get a better look, click on this image (or any others in the post) to enlarge.

Now, the expenses:

These are screenshots of excel files exported directly from my InventoryLab account, which is the main accounting tool that I am using.  A couple of notes are that certain items will only show up in one of the time periods even though they occurred over the course of the month, in these instances look at the total number for the month.

April was another step in the right direction.  Profits were just over $19K compared to $16K in March or an increase of just over 17.5%.  This continued increase has been due to continually sourcing large amounts of high quality inventory by following an aggressive cash flow strategy.  By reinvesting almost every dollar back into the business it allows me to continually compound my results.   As you can see from above I paid almost $5,500 in wages and commissions.  Outsourcing Sourcing shares the details of the arrangements that I am using for these individuals.

Here are the current services that I am using that make up the above numbers for the subscription expenses (note that some of these I paid for on an annual basis to obtain a discount):

InventoryLab – I use their service for listing all of my products for sale on amazon, as well as the majority of my accounting. I use their scanning app, Scoutify, as my main scanning app.  Current cost is $49.99/month, you can sign up for a 30 day free trial with no credit card required.

Shoeboxed– This is a service that I use to manage my receipts.  I send my receipts off to them in an envelope, they scan them into an online filling system, and mail them back to me.  If you sign up through this link you can receive a 1 month free trial, and a 20% discount on your first 6 months if you become a paying user.  Current cost for the plan I am using is $29.99/month.

Appeagle– This is the repricer I am using.  It has been saving me significant amounts of time manually repricing.  In addition, it reprices items up as well as down, so I have sold many items already for more than I have listed them for.  They have a 14 day free trial, and if you enter coupon code “RYAN_G” you will receive 50% off your first month’s subscription if you elect to become a paying user.  The current cost for this service is $50/mo.

Feedback Genius – This service automatically sends out emails when items are out for delivery to the customer, as well as 4 days after the item has been delivered.  I tried out the free trial of this service, and it nearly doubled the percentage of orders on which I receive feedback without adding negative/neutral feedback, so I am now a paying customer.

Now let’s take a look at cash flow for the month:

Cash flow for April was just barely positive.  I am continuing to run a fairly aggressive cash flow strategy to allow me to continually grow my inventory, and as a result of that my future monthly results.   It was good to see the cash flow be significantly better than the prior month with close to the same amount of spending on inventory, as this provides further assurance that cash flow will catch up when buying high quality inventory.    My plan is to continue to run an aggressive cash flow strategy for the foreseeable future.

Now I will share some screenshots to provide some support for the above numbers I am sharing.  Please note that the amazon sales number will not be exactly the same as what is shown above, as the screenshot below shows all orders that have been placed (but not necessarily shipped), while the above numbers are only for items that actually shipped during the month.  Due to this the variance is to be expected:

Now, for eBay:

Overall, I am very happy with how the month of April went.  The results turned out well, and I have been investing time into creating systems that will pay off in the future.  My goal for May is to keep a similar level of inventory purchases this month, and to get my first private label product live on amazon.  My product should be arriving within the next week, so I am looking forward to seeing how it will do.

That’s all I have for today.  What are your goals for May 2015? Let me know in the comments below.  Also if you have any other questions or comments, please let me know below!

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