Kyle Kirshner On Making Millions on Amazon, Finding Products & Almost Getting Arrested | DSH #230

If the manufacturer says they do not do customizations, I usually say that's the first red flag.

Don't go do business with them.

You never want to deal with those manufacturers directly because you're never going to get one the best price possible because they're going to upsell you and then two you're not going to be able to customize your product the way that I usually tell people is like a net like a necessity these days.

Welcome back to the show, guys.

I'm your host as always, Sean Kelly.

We are here on the digital social hour.

Today I got with me Amazon expert Kyle Kirschner.

How's it going man?

Going great.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Man, you were just talking numbers with me and I couldn't believe some of the numbers you were saying.

Yeah, it's pretty wild.

I've been in this Amazon kind of crazy space for 13 years.

Yes, you've seen a lot.

Sure have.

Yeah.

I mean, 13 years ago, you know, when I started 2010, that's when you got to scrape all the data from your Amazon customers.

Now it's a lot more competitive and it's a lot harder because Amazon hides all their customers' data you know I used to get names addresses phone numbers emails now we don't get even a first name from our customers are you serious yeah so what do you get when an order comes in basically just an order number we get an order address we get an order number they take care of the address if it's FBA fulfilled by Amazon unless we do FBM which basically we're fulfilling from our you know warehouse or whatnot then we'll get an address but yeah they're very strict with their customers data these days yeah do you feel like that kind of hurts your chances of selling the company?

Not necessarily selling the company because, you know, Amazon's, once you have a successful Amazon business, a lot of people want it.

You know, it's pretty hands-off with the distribution, with Amazon handling, the customer service, the shipping, the storage of your products, all that stuff.

And that's what I think people love.

But it is hard trying to get a leg up from everybody else since they do hide everybody's customer data.

Because back in the day, we used to, or a lot of people, they used to actually go out and send people gift cards to hopefully get a positive review and things like that.

But now, that's one of the main reasons why they do hide everybody's customer data.

I remember that.

I used to get those.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's this thing called Insert Cards, and I actually still have one in each one of my products, but we have to word it differently now because, you know, just the...

you know, the

regulations and things like that.

But yeah, back in the day, people would be sending out, you know, $15 Amazon gift cards to try to get a five-star review, to try to get a leg up from, you know, their competitors.

And yeah, now we don't have the luxury of that anymore dang someone must have ruined that oh yeah big time you could actually get your whole account shut down

your business gone from

just from asking for a review correct yeah wow people are probably manipulating the system they are they definitely are and there's a there's trigger words um so amazon's a lot of amazon right now is ai so um you know you could leave somebody a positive review and uh for and let's say there's a trigger word that is in their positive review so like let's say somebody said oh this product's smoking like as some good, but the AI might take it negative, like, oh, the product was physically smoking.

Right.

So, uh, this company I worked for, um, they did 20 million a year on Amazon and electronic space, but they actually got their company shut down for about a week because somebody said something about one of their trigger words in the review saying, Oh, this product was smoking.

And Amazon took it as it was actually catching on fire.

So they shut down their whole business for a week and they lost.

That's from a review?

Yeah, and they lost like 500K to a million dollars.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

So

it's it's it's so it's kind of like the wild, wild west these days on Amazon, but still a great business model.

Yeah, so you've been doing it for 12 years, right?

Yeah, about 13.

But 13 years ago, I wasn't selling.

I was actually learning.

I actually fell into it when I was in high school by just getting one of my first jobs, you know, at a local warehouse just for some beer money.

And little did I know at the time, I was just one of the warehouse workers.

Little did I know at the time, this company I was working for, just a small, small small family.

They're doing 20 million a year on Amazon with their electronics brand.

And I was just so intrigued.

I mean, I didn't even really know much about Amazon.

I didn't even know that 60% of the products you buy on Amazon come from a small business owner and not Amazon themselves.

So that, you know, actually shocked me.

It was, you know, just some very new to me.

So I worked for that company for minimum wage for five years.

And I basically learned the ins and outs of how they started, scaled, launched their successful business.

Nice.

And after five years, I started my own.

I asked them for permission because I had assigned NDAs yeah beforehand and they're like yeah man as long as you're not selling in our space go for it

so after that I never looked back and yeah I've been selling successfully for eight years nice so walk me through the revenue and the growth those eight years were you profitable from the first year no not not at all

I had to find a small investor

because you know sales were going I learned the ranking strategies from that company which is absolutely huge because if you're gonna launch your own product on Amazon, let's say you're going to launch your own Bluetooth speaker,

Amazon's going to put you on page 20 for Bluetooth speaker.

Jeez.

Yeah.

And as a consumer, there's about 68 people on the first page.

And as a consumer, if you're typing in Bluetooth speaker, you're only going to buy from one of those 68 people on the first page.

It's a very small percentage.

I think like 5% even go to page number two.

Yeah.

So, and that's what I was blessed to learn from that company is how they're ranking all their products to the first page.

And it takes us a decent amount of capital to kind of get your product there.

So I had the knowledge, but I didn't have the capital.

So I needed an investor, found an investor, got him.

He was just a silent partner.

But about year three is when I started getting profitable.

Nice.

And yeah, now we have a supplement brand.

We have 60% margins.

In our backpack lower brand, we have 30% margins, all seven figures.

And so, yeah, it's been great.

You said the supplement one did 20 million in sales.

Yeah, so that one's our eight-figure brand.

that's our, I love that company because uh the margins are fantastic.

Yeah, um, our manufacturer is in New York.

We get our pill bottles for about two dollars, and we sell them for an Amazon for $40.

Damn, that's the highest margin I've ever heard, I think.

So that's why I absolutely love the supplement space.

And if you take my program, because I coach people how to create their own Amazon brands, if you take my program, I'd say to stay away from two categories, electronics and supplements.

And I know I'm in the supplement space, however, it just there's a lot of competition out there.

It took me about a million dollars to even get my products in that business placed to where it needs to be.

Whoa.

Yeah.

So the backpack cooler company is what I started with.

That's where I got my success from.

And then I always wanted to start a supplement brand, but I knew it was just, you know, a lot of hungry capital.

So after I got my first business successful, that's when I knew, okay, I actually have some money to play around with to start something else.

And that's when I started the supplement brand.

Nice.

What are some industries, markets you see potential in coming up 2024?

So, yeah, supplements are still huge.

I do, I hate electronics.

I do, but they're very, it's still a successful niche.

The only reason why I don't mess with it is because the company that I work for that was doing eight figures selling their own electronics, they only had 3% margins.

And their margins were 3% because of all of their returns.

And not only manufacturer defects from, you know, getting electronics from China or whatever, but also user error.

So I would see a bunch of negative reviews from just people not simply knowing how to use the product.

So I like to sell products that are kind of, you know, just

dumb-friendly.

Just like that don't need a manual that, you know, don't need any kind of, you know, that's why like

my backpack coolers are about 50 different backpack coolers, but they don't come with a user manual, how to use them, and, you know, so on and so forth.

And those are the type of products that I love that, you know, don't need to be explained because if you're not there to explain it, it could kind of bite you in the

right.

Wow.

And what about like just finding products in general?

Is that hard?

So I wouldn't necessarily say it's hard.

You definitely need software.

So I have a couple different softwares I use.

One of them is my own that I white label.

It's called private label sellers.

And that's big because you need to know what product is doing what monthly revenue.

And the reason why I say that is because I don't actually look for products that are doing $5 million a month, $2 million dollars a month.

I actually teach and I look for products that are doing in between a certain revenue sweet spot I like to call it where they're doing at least $10,000 a month but they're not exceeding $200,000 a month.

And the reason for that is because of just the competition.

I mean, you know, people that are selling products doing a million dollars a month, $5 million a month, you're going to need to invest more to get your product to that first page because they're doing those numbers.

Now, if you find a product that is doing in between that revenue sweet spot, I told you, you can spend maybe three grand or two grand to get to the first page and see 15 to 20 grand in results monthly.

Right.

So the people that are in my program, they maybe have 10 to 15 grand to play around with.

That's usually the criteria I give them.

Look for products that are doing this monthly revenue and make sure no big brands are dominating the space.

And, you know, make sure that everybody on the first page, there's at least six people with under 150 reviews.

And kind of a whole step-by-step criteria that I check off of when looking for a new product.

Nice.

So say you find a product product that meets that criteria.

How do you go about ordering them from there?

Yeah, so the two biggest ones, most people have heard of Alibaba.

The other ones that people are not that aware of is called Global Sources.

I really like Global Sources.

It's just another platform that you're not necessarily going to find the same manufacturers that you are seeing on Alibaba, which is ultimately a good thing.

Because, I mean, when I first created my backpack cooler company, I wasn't the first one to create a backpack cooler company.

But what I was doing was I tell everybody to really read upon the reviews of, you know, the companies that are out there.

So what I did is I was scrolling through all the Yeti reviews

for a while.

And a lot of people were complaining about they wanted a backpack cooler that was half backpack, half cooler, but not a backpack cooler that was just all backpack cooler.

So I actually designed one, found a manufacturer in Alibaba.

I said, hey, do you guys do customizations?

They said, yes.

yes I got with their design team and then I designed one where the bottom portion was only the cooler and the top portion was specific specifically a backpack so that the top portion you could have your dry stuff that doesn't get wet the bottom portion was you know separated and you can put your cooler stuff in and so it's also all about the you know your main picture on your listing once you get to that first page.

And so I had on my main picture, basically it showing that, you know, the bottom portion is a cooler and then an arrow to the top portion being your safe dry spot.

And so once I had learned how to get that product to the first page, it blew up.

I was doing 500K a month with that one product.

Definitely those two platforms are the ones I would go for, but you definitely want to dig into your competitors research and see what people are having issues with their product because you can go and cultivate something and you can tell a manufacturer in Alibaba or Global Sources, I want this, this, and this fixed on my product because I can see my competitors are having those issues.

That's smart.

And that's something that I actually stress, like, you know, huge.

And now you can actually put that stuff in

ChatGPT.

You can literally, you know, download the 3,000 reviews that this one seller has.

You can ask ChatGPT, what's the five main problems that people are having.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I see a lot of people using AI with new products, launches, and things like that.

That's actually so smart.

Wait, so how do you export all those reviews?

Yeah, so it's incredible.

You know, I'm not a big ChatGPT guy, but I know the power of it.

And so, yeah, my buddy tells me he just gives ChatGPT the listing or the ASIN on ChatGPT.

And then he says, comb through the 3,000 reviews and tell me the five most typical problems that are wrong with this product.

And then it'll spit them out.

And to me, that's like, that's like, wow, I mean, I could fire someone in my company just

from figuring out how to make my product better than my competitors.

Yeah.

No, that's such a cool model because you know companies like Yeti are doing over 100 million a year and you could identify some problems and then create create your own product absolutely and I usually tell people too if the if the manufacturer says they do not do customizations I usually say that's the first red flag don't go do business with them because the problem with Alibaba and those things a lot of those are what I call resellers and they're not the actual person you know sewing the products together actually manufacturing and building the products what they are is they're a warehouse that are just reselling products from other manufacturers and you never want to deal with those manufacturers directly because you're never going to get one the best price possible because they're going to upsell you and then two you're not going to be able to customize your product the way that I usually tell people is like a net like a necessity these days.

You ever have any quality control issues?

I know Amazon sellers sometimes struggle with that.

Yeah, so one of the main big things are usually ASINs, barcodes.

I mean, I don't know how many times I've had products come to my warehouse that have just been the wrong barcode, the wrong ASIN.

And I've had nightmare stories because if you do send your inventory in with the wrong barcode you'll lose your entire inventory and Amazon says they are not liable for any of it and I actually have a friend that lost million dollars worth of inventory and he didn't get anything back serious yeah so I usually tell people yes Amazon's fulfillment centers will store our product yes you know all that stuff but if you can house it for 24 to 48 hours even even you know back in the day before i had a warehouse i was doing in my garage yeah if you could house it for 24 to 48 hours to make sure that everything is correct you know, I usually test five to ten percent of the units, take them out.

You know, I

actually use the products, make sure they're good, check the markings, check the barcodes.

Um, but after that, yeah, that scare from my friend, I always get everything sent to me first, make sure warehouse worker, whatever, doubles checks it, and then sends it off to Amazon's film center.

So, you eat into your margin a little bit just to be safe, correct?

Yeah, because yeah, I don't want to lose the whole inventory million dollars, so they just kept it like, yeah, so they did.

And the thing that's the worst is dealing with Amazon support.

You're always dealing with somebody from you know

Just a rural country

Yeah, exactly.

So they'll just give you the run around all day long Yeah, so that's basically how they lost inventories They're just getting the runaway or you know the run around all day long Nobody's there to help them So you definitely got to do your own quality control.

Yeah, so as an Amazon seller, do you see any other sellers eating into their share Etsy eBay Walmart any of those guys coming in?

Yeah, so I actually love a couple of those platforms big fan of Etsy.

I have a client doing a hundred grand a month on Etsy, selling pompous grass.

What's that?

Basically, the fake grass that you put in your living room for like decor.

No, not the green grass.

It's like stuff that you put in,

just like something like that.

Yeah,

it's just kind of like a home decor product.

And yeah, she's doing 100 grand a month selling

this grass.

But the thing that I love about Etsy and those platforms is we could actually still have Amazon store and house our inventory.

And if we get an order through Etsy or Walmart, we can have them take one from our Amazon stock and have one of the Amazon warehouse workers ship our Etsy order.

So that's big.

So if I put my product on Etsy Group on Walmart, I'm having my home of Amazon's fulfillment centers ship out all of my other orders.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, if you don't want to just be, you know, one trick pony on one platform, you can have your inventory in Amazon being held and still have these other platforms getting sales, and Amazon's still doing the fulfillment.

Oh, wow.

So, they could ship to, if you get a sale on eBay, correct?

They'll ship it from Amazon?

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, so that's what I do a lot for my Etsy orders and things like that.

You have to manually do it.

So, you know, it's called creating a fulfillment order through Amazon.

But, you know, I have just somebody day-to-day checks my other platform orders, and then they'll go on Amazon, they'll create a fulfillment order, and they'll ship them out to the Etsy customer.

What's the most you've seen someone make selling on Amazon?

Well, I have a friend that does about a hundred million a year.

Jesus.

Yeah,

he's in the supplement space as well.

Great margins.

Not sure what those margins are for him, but if I have 60% in my

eight-figure brand, I'm sure he does as well, or even better.

So I'd have to say that one.

But the reason why I tell people to stay away from electronics and stuff is, yeah, margin-focused.

It was a great brand.

It was a very fulfilling business, and I learned a lot from them.

But even the CEO told me, Col, if you're going to get into this, stay away from electronics because you know just the amount of time and money it takes from every return because every return they get they have somebody in their warehouse testing every return because they're trying to put them on use for eBay or another platform just to soak up as much profit as they can oh yeah

so yeah I would stay away from that but yeah 100 million is probably the most a year now when someone returns a product do you get charged a fee or something so we don't get charged a fee however you can return anything you want on amazon um amazon Amazon will give you your money back 100%.

And that's why actually it's big that you do go through your returns because you have to say your product is defective in order to go through that return.

However, 50 to 60% of the times, the product is 100% working order.

Oh, they're just lying.

Yeah, so they just, you know, obviously want their money back.

They didn't want the product.

They got it for gift.

Whatever the reason is, I have also a warehouse worker that goes.

and checks all my returns because most of the time every other one is you know not even out of of the packaging.

So, again, I'm trying to squeeze my margins as well.

So I'll either put them back into another stock that I'm shipping out to Amazon, or I'll put them on eBay, Walmart, or one of those other platforms.

Wow.

That's crazy that that number is so high.

It makes sense.

Yeah, it's extremely high, but that's why Amazon kind of is always catering towards the customer.

Yeah.

And because, yeah, no matter what product it is, even if it's in working condition, they'll take the refund.

Absolutely.

Have you ever had to deal with any payment holds?

Yeah, so definitely when you're a first seller, it's going to be kind of your biggest bottleneck because they're going to keep a couple months worth of your sales in their store just to make sure chargebacks, things like that.

So yeah, you never get your full payout in the beginning,

but usually after that, it's pretty smooth sailing.

What do they pay out?

Is it like a weekly thing?

Every two weeks.

Every two weeks.

Yeah.

So every two weeks, kind of like, yeah, most normal jobs or whatnot.

Yeah.

How are you investing all this money you're making just back in the business?

Actually, not really.

I'm actually

putting a bunch of offers out right now and just other kind of absentee owner businesses.

So a couple laundry mats, a couple car washes.

Old school stuff.

Yeah, I'm kind of, you know, I'm a big advocate for putting your online money into physical assets.

Right.

So that's basically kind of the transition I'm going through right now.

I'm starting to automate my businesses and I'm kind of trying to go towards more of the investing side.

Yeah, because now you're on the safer side.

You made your millions.

You're just chilling now.

You're happy with 10% a year.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

What did you do before Amazon?

Were you doing business?

Well, before Amazon, I was actually working for that company that it was doing 20 million a year selling their own electronics brands.

And so they were the biggest competitors with Mophi.

You know, the Mophi company?

I've heard of that, yeah.

Yeah, so they were the battering charging cases in the back of your iPhone.

Anchor,

big Bluetooth speaker company.

I have one of those.

Yeah, so I was working for one of their big competitors for five years, just

trying to get my normal beer money throughout the weekend, just get the normal fit.

So you were in college during that?

I was in high school.

Oh, in high school.

Yeah, I was 15 years old, and I worked for that company from 15 to 20.

And then, yeah, now I'm 28.

And so I've been selling for the eight years, but I was learning for the other five.

So that's why I've been in for 13.

Wow.

Wait, so what age were you drinking at?

I was drinking at.

You're trying to do the math right now.

Dude, I was

11.

What?

Yeah, I started drinking at 12.

I was an early bloomer, you could say, because, I mean, when I was like 16, all my friends were in their 20s.

So, yeah.

You were trying to fit in with them.

Yeah, I guess.

Did you make it through high school?

I did, yeah.

Passed high school, did a little bit of college.

But during that college thing, I actually wanted to go for art because I was a painter.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, that's how I got into tattoos and stuff.

I was getting tattooed at 14.

Damn.

So you needed your parents' signature for those.

Well, I did not know, but because, you know, my friends are all getting stuff in their garages and whatnot.

But yeah.

So I was an early bloomer with that stuff.

And then surprisingly, that's why I say that business kind of saved me because I was going down a pretty crazy path, gotten arrested a lot of times.

And then I just this whole Amazon thing working for this company, I was just, I was wired in.

Dang.

What did you get arrested for?

Well, I've been arrested for a few times.

But one of my favorites, favorite stories was I was about 16 years old.

It was my first time ever going to Lake Habasu.

At the time, like I said,

my friends were in their 20s, but not 21 yet, so just 20.

My buddy, his dad, said, yeah, you could take our new boat out on Havasu.

Just, you know, be smart.

So my first time in Havasu, my friend's 20.

He's got another buddy who's 20, and these other two girls are 20 as well.

We're all just drinking on the boat.

And then before you know it, you know, see a sheriff, you know, pulling us over because I guess he was like doing wake in like the no wake zone or whatever.

Um, the sheriff, you know, checks everybody's IDs.

I had a fake ID while I was, you know, at that age or whatever.

Sheriff's checking everybody's IDs.

He's like, oh, tell my friends, like, you're 20, you're operating this boat, you're drinking, you know, that's not allowed.

I'm going to take over this boat and I'm going to take you guys to the drunk tank.

Damn.

So the sheriffs hop on the boat.

My buddy's freaking out.

It's like, you know, it's my dad's new boat.

Yeah.

I'm about to get a BUI because he's.

I didn't even know that was a thing.

It is.

Because he got one.

Yeah, he's about to get a BUI boating under the influence.

He's 20 years old.

So we're all, they all dock us at, and in Lake Habasu, there's a place to jail people, like on the water.

Really?

Yeah, so they dock us on the dock to where they're about to walk us to basically the cell where you wait.

And, you know, your drunk tank or whatnot.

So we're all, the sheriffs are walking us to the drunk tank.

And I actually, there's, you know, the water's still next to me.

I throw out my real ID in the water.

I was like, I'm just going to act like I am this person in my fake ID.

I throw the other one out.

It floats.

I'm in the drunk tank.

And then little, like an hour goes by.

They call me out.

I'm like, why are you in here?

I was like, you guys threw me in here.

They're like, yeah, but your ID says you're 24.

I was like, yeah, but you guys put me in here.

So that's why I'm in here.

So he's like, all right, well, are you okay to drive?

I was like, yeah.

I was not.

And he's like, okay, I'll let you go with your friend's boat.

So I've never been to Habsu before, never driven a boat before.

And my friend and these two girls are watching me.

They're crying.

They're bowling their eyes out because they're like on the phone with their parents like well you gotta come get me and you know

and they give me the keys to my friend's dad's boat and i'm just again never driven a boat nothing take the boat i'm driving around for hours just like okay how do i park this thing just got a park on it like what do i do so i see a beach pull up to the beach and i'm just chilling in the boat and I see a trash can nearby and I tie it to the trash can.

It's a little trash can tie this like a couple hundred hundred thousand dollar bugs.

This trash can, and then I'm just in there drinking, waiting for my buddies to get you're still drinking, yeah, just waiting for my buddies to get launched out of the drunk tank.

And uh, their parents all pick them up.

I'm on my phone, I'm on the phone.

My mom's saying, I gotta jump my Fank ID.

I'm okay.

There's a crazy story I'll tell you when I get home.

I want to super cool, whatever.

But they all come, their parents bail them out of the drunk tank.

I'm sitting there drinking, drunk, with a boat tied to a trash can.

How heavy was the trash can?

I'm trying to picture this.

It wasn't that heavy, but it was in the very kind of beginning of where

the beach starts.

So I'm sure it's sunk into the beach.

Oh, God.

Yeah, man.

It was.

They didn't run your ID in the system?

They ran my fake ID in the system.

And you were in it?

And then, no, I just portrayed myself as the guy in the fake ID.

So they let me go.

All the friends they got, one of them got a BUI.

The girls got like drunk in public.

And I was just chilling.

That's ballsy, bro.

Because I think if you get caught with the fake felony, right?

Sure, absolutely.

was it your real name on it or a different name oh no different person oh that's a felony yeah one of my buddies bro that's ballsy yeah i was i was smashing what's going on so what do all your old friends and parents think of what you're doing now because it's a totally different life that you lived in the past sure well back in the day i was the bad kid uh you know people yeah don't hang out with kyle whatever but now that's kind of different they all want them to uh learn from kyle Wow total 180.

Yeah, definitely 180.

But I guess that's what happens.

We start making money.

Yeah.

So you would attribute that to getting that first job and seeing your eyes to that world?

I literally, I even still, when I go back home to California, because that's where I'm from,

and my parents and everybody.

So when I go down there, I go to that company because they're still active today, and I bring them the whole company food.

I usually tell them, like, I don't know how many times I have told them, I, I literally, you know, if it wasn't for you guys, I give my success to you guys because, you know, I was going through such a crazy path that

this crazy Amazon game changed my life.

Damn, I love that, man.

What's next for you?

Where can people find you?

Anything you want to promote?

Yeah, so definitely find me on Instagram.

I've been doing heavy in my coaching.

I got people doing six to seven figures monthly in my coaching program.

Kyle, K-Y-L-E, period, Kirshner, K-I-R-S-H-N-E-R.

And send me a DM.

You're not dealing with anybody else on my page but me, so I'll contact you.

Love it.

Thanks for coming on, Kyle.

Of course, man.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you next time.