Podcast Episode 195 – Amazon Seller Success Story – Interview with Kristy Winter

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Episode 195 Transcript:

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Full-Time FBA Show. In each episode, it’s our goal to help you turn part-time hours into a full-time income, selling almost anything on Amazon. Now, your hosts of the show, Stephen and Rebecca Smotherman.

[WELCOME]

[0:00:21.4] REBECCA: Hello there and welcome to another episode of the Full-Time FBA show. We are on episode number 195 today and we are going to be having an interview with Kristy Winter today. Stephen got to talk with Kristy about her amazing experience, completely moving her life to a new state and buying a farm with money that she made selling on Amazon. I didn’t want to give like, too big of a spoiler, so I won’t give any more details than that but Stephen and Kristy had a great conversation about how she was able to make this happen.

So without any further ado, let’s get into that interview between Stephen Smotherman and Kristy Winter.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:03.9] STEPHEN: All right, so I’m here with Kristy Winter and I’m excited to share her story. Well, actually, I’m not going to share it, she’s going to share it and just the way that she’s been able to make money selling on Amazon and experience, you know, freedom in life and just flexibility in choosing where, how she wants to live, and all that awesome stuff. So Kristy, thank you so much for joining me today.

[0:01:23.7] KRISTY: Oh, thank you for having us, thank you. We’re excited.

[0:01:26.7] STEPHEN: I’m excited too. So first, kind of tell people how you first got started selling on Amazon, how you discovered selling on Amazon, what got you in the door.

[0:01:35.6] KRISTY: Sure, I was selling on eBay and I just needed to make enough money to pay my son’s tuition, which had pretty much doubled and so I was really hoofing it, you know? Trying to make that tuition payment and my husband came to me one day and he said, “You know, maybe it’s good to have two avenues of income,” and I’m looking at him saying, “I cannot ship anymore than I am shipping now. There is no way I do not want to do it.” And he backed off, he said, “No problem.”

And then about three months later, he came back, he said, “Hey, I bought this at Lowe’s,” and it was just a drywall knife and he said, “Why don’t you see if you can try to sell it on Amazon instead of eBay?” And you know, this particular brand of drywall knife was being clearanced at Lowe’s and in fact, the entire brand was being clearance at Lowe’s and so I went ahead and I opened up an Amazon account because I thought, “You know, I’m just going to show him that this is just too much work, you know, I don’t want to do this,” you know?

[0:02:36.9] STEPHEN: Right

[0:02:37.8] KRISTY: So I basically opened up an Amazon account and did, you know, it took a little bit to get all the clearances and stuff, but I went ahead and I got on and got everything done and I listed, I went to list my first item. And so I had scanned it initially to find out what it was selling for on eBay and it was selling for basically the price that he had paid for it, and on Amazon, it was selling for three times the price that he had paid for it, and so I decided to you know, list it and seriously, within 10 minutes, it sold.

I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it, you know? And I had put to merchant fulfill it, so I went ahead and shipped it out, and in came my profit and I was really excited about it and I thought, “If this can sell, this ugly, stupid little broad knife, can sell in less than 10 minutes, how much else can I sell, you know?” I was really ecstatic. So I learned about FBA and we googled everything, you know? We Googled everything on selling on Amazon and your stuff came up and so I kid you not for like two weeks, we didn‘t watch movies, we didn’t watch anything, we watched your videos.

[0:03:54.0] STEPHEN: Oh my gosh.

[0:03:54.3] KRISTY: For like two weeks, every night, he’s come home from work, we’d get the kids to bed and then we’d learn how to sell on Amazon and so once we figured out FBA, which took us a couple of weeks, I decided to go and hit every Lowe’s store that we could get our hands on and so I took a couple of weeks and I travelled and I went and hit I think five states worth of Lowe’s and I went ahead and sent it in via FBA from the road.

And then the last truckload, I came home and went ahead and put it in through FBA and so that was our exciting start and I think the first year and we were on the out for a couple of months, this was at the end of the year but in the first – my first Q4, I think I did like, $79,000 in sales and that was just one quarter and so I was sold. I was hooked and in fact, it’s kind of funny because I stopped selling on eBay because this was just a much better use of my time.

[0:04:57.0] STEPHEN: Absolutely. So what year was that when you first got started?

[0:04:59.8] KRISTY: That was 2017.

[0:05:01.3] STEPHEN: Yeah, 2017 and so you were able to get – have a huge Q4 and then continue on as you grew your Amazon business. What would you say was like one of the hardest things about selling on Amazon as a beginner?

[0:05:13.8] KRISTY: As a beginner, it was just figuring out the process because there’s a process to selling on Amazon and you either understand it or you don’t, and if you don’t understand it, then you’re going to get into a lot of trouble.

[0:05:25.1] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:05:25.6] KRISTY: So I really researched and you know, really figured out how to do what I was doing and then I read the terms of service and then I, you know, I went on Seller Central and did Amazon Seller Central stuff. So you know, it was just an incredible amount of research, there is a huge learning curve just selling on Amazon. So we were grateful that we had stumbled upon your videos because seriously, I think you saved us five years in this process.

[0:05:53.4] STEPHEN: Wow, that’s awesome. I love hearing that, that’s why we put that information out to help people. Yeah, definitely save time, save money, help them avoid common pitfalls that most sellers experience along the way and it’s awesome to hear your story about getting started. So do you specialize in drywall knives or do you like try to sell or what are the kind of things that you enjoy selling on Amazon?

[0:06:17.1] KRISTY: We do primarily clothing items, children’s items. Initially, you know, we have been through the whole gamut of items. You know, initially, for my first Q4, it was getting through the tools that we had bought from Lowe’s and then also we did quite a bit in toys and you know, it was just – it’s just been an evolution of things that we’ve sold.

Initially, I said, “I am never selling clothes, I hate packaging clothes.” You know, it’s just – it is such a time suck but then if you compare your time to your profit margin, that’s what really counts, you know? And so we were making as much higher profit margin selling clothes and I’m like, “Okay, I guess we’re going to be selling clothes” you know? And shoes and stuff like that. We don’t do any kind of jewelry or you know, it’s just useful things basically. Useful things.

[0:07:06.0] STEPHEN: Yeah, I found that when you first start selling on Amazon, there’s usually one category that you hit and you like, really enjoy and you can start expanding from there. Some people start like just books or toys and expand. You know, we pretty much – if it’s profitable, we’ll sell it on Amazon. So we sell almost every category.

[0:07:23.0] KRISTY: Exactly.

[0:07:23.6] STEPHEN: That’s out there. You know, we do a little bit of clothing, we did shoes for like, I guess, five or six years in the past, we did shoes for a while. We’ve kind of gone away from that but we’re always open to going back and finding profitable opportunities because they’re out there.

I’ve discovered that basically, profitable inventory comes in waves and as long as you’re kind of paying attention to those waves, you can kind of see when things are going, when things are dying off when to pivot but there’s always a new place to pivot.

[0:07:51.8] KRISTY: Absolutely, always.

[0:07:53.3] STEPHEN: Yes. So what would you say is a very important part of your success? If you did not have this one thing, you probably would not be as successful or maybe not just one or some of the top things that have been the most important things along the way for your success.

[0:08:10.0] KRISTY: Well, initially, it was having the right equipment and then once we had the right equipment and we were rocking, then it was, how to avoid losing money, you know? Because everybody makes mistakes on product. Like you cannot avoid, you are going to buy something and then you’re going to have 50 people on the same listing that’s going to tank it and you’re going to be holding.

Either you’re going to be selling out of loss or you’re just going to hold it until everybody’s off the listing, you know? And that’s two ways, you know when you make a mistake and so you need to figure out how not to lose money.

[0:08:44.8] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:08:46.2] KRISTY: And so the thing that has helped me the most in that is that I have a group of people around me, they’re all Amazon sellers. You can’t go into the normal world and talk to somebody about Amazon because they look at you like you’re crazy, they don’t understand what you’re talking about. Even if they’re business owners, they’re still – this is a niche and you know, most of the world around us does not understand what it is to be an Amazon seller.

However, if you find other Amazon sellers who are successful and are willing to help and be helped, which is I’m very fortunate. I found a great group of women who you know, were all female sellers. This is our only job, we wanted to do this to be home with our families. So I have a great group of women around me and we mentor each other, you know?

If I have an issue, I will put out on our message board, and at least, one or two are going to message me back and say, “Oh, this is what I did” or you know, if I have a question about a product I really am on that, you know, were you on the hair-trigger between pulling the trigger on it or just backing off and say, “Maybe I’ll just wait.”

I’ll message and say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” you know? And it’s not like we are in competition with each other, don’t get me wrong. You know, a lot of us are on the same listings, not all of our listings are the same but you know what we have understood is, our helping each other makes us money, you know?

So that’s why we can – although we’re competitors, we can pull together and have this group that help each other and sometimes, we get annoyed with each other and that’s part of being friends, you know?

[0:10:31.6] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:10:32.3] KRISTY: And sometimes, our programs are not doing what they should be doing, you know? So we work it out.

[0:10:38.9] STEPHEN: Yeah. That’s awesome.

[0:10:40.2] KRISTY: But at the end of the day, it’s that.

[0:10:41.4] STEPHEN: Yeah, definitely.

[0:10:42.6] KRISTY: I would not be successful without this group.

[0:10:44.7] STEPHEN: Yeah and I know if our listeners are listening and they’re like, “Well, I want to be in a group like that” well, we’ve got like a starter group for you with our Full-Time FBA Facebook group that you know, you can go in there, hang out, you can post questions, you can get support. You can find that at fulltimefba.com/Facebook but if you’re really wanting a tight-knit group of people to help you with that we also have our coaching program.

Our coaching program is a 12-month-long coaching program that gets you from wherever you are in your Amazon business to making a full-time income within that 12-month time period and so what would you say to people who are like, “Well, I can do this on my own by myself, I don’t need coaching, I don’t need accountability, I don’t need anybody else” what would you say to them if they’re thinking of maybe joining our coaching program?

[0:11:26.6] KRISTY: I’m not going to lie, this business is hard. It’s hard on a good day and there are a lot of mistakes to make and there are a lot of places to fall into. You know, a pitfall, you don’t even know that you’re falling into a pitfall and that can cost you your Amazon account and it’s not worth it.

Sure, you know, I figured it out but I had help. I mean, unbeknownst to you, you helped me but I honestly think that there’s so much specialized information that you need to have to even be able to sell on Amazon that you really have to have a group of people around you. You know, you can try to figure it out, is it going to cost you your account?

How many years is it going to take for you to figure it out? How much money are you going to lose to be able to figure it out? I don’t know, I would rather have a group of people around me and you know, take the shortcut. I mean, it’s still not a shortcut but it sure is easier doing it that way than figuring it out on your own.

[0:12:25.5] STEPHEN: Yeah, yeah. 100%.

[0:12:27.4] KRISTY: That’s just my opinion.

[0:12:28.9] STEPHEN: Yeah and I agree, I share that opinion with you as well. So when it comes to selling on Amazon, you told me some stories, some things that making money on Amazon has opened up for you, places for you to move to, and experiences to have. What are some of the things that your Amazon profits have helped you experience in life?

[0:12:48.3] KRISTY: Well, you know, I’ll go back a lot of ways. In 2008, we did not do well in 2008 through the financial crisis and I lost my home. My husband, we had not gotten married at the time, we had not met until 2011 but in 2007, he bought his house at the low point of the market and so by the time we got married in 2011, he was underwater I think $97,000 on his mortgage.

[0:13:16.2] STEPHEN: Wow.

[0:13:17.0] KRISTY: That hurts, that hurts, you know? And so we went from having a negative equity of $97,000 to being able to not only afford the payment but afford the payment, afford to buy a rental property that you know, we fixed up and you know, I’m fast forwarding several years but we were in California, in Bakersfield, California and in 2021 we decided that you know, things were just getting a little nutso in California with the homeless problem and we just didn’t feel safe in our community.

So we decided to make a leap and we sold our house, we sold our rental and we were able to buy for cash a farm here in Texas and so we have 10 acres. We have a farm, we have chickens, we have cows, we are doing what we want to do. We have three little boys that we are raising and they love this lifestyle. I’m able to stay home with them, I’m able to home-school them. They’re having the time of their life. I mean, farming, don’t get me wrong, is a lot of work on a good day.

[0:14:30.7] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:14:32.1] KRISTY: But it’s the kind of work that I want to do. I don’t have to do this and that is something that having Amazon has afforded us to be able to do.

[0:14:41.9] STEPHEN: That and also –

[0:14:43.1] KRISTY: We can go anywhere we want to do. If we wanted to stop, I’d have to find somebody for the cows of course but if we wanted to stop and take a 10-day vacation in Europe, no problem, we can take a 10-day vacation in Europe. We don’t because we have cows, you know?

[0:14:57.2] STEPHEN: Right.

[0:14:57.8] KRISTY: But it’s the tradeoff.

[0:14:59.5] STEPHEN: Yeah, and it’s nice to have that option.

[0:14:59.7] KRISTY: But the opportunity is there. Yeah, exactly.

[0:15:04.4] STEPHEN: That is so awesome and I see that as a possibility for others when they’re just starting off with Amazon. I know for us, that we were able to, thanks to Amazon, get out of debt and pay off vehicles and more things that have just allowed us to live a life of freedom, be able to start saving for retirement, and have that just peace.

Knowing that you know, our financial future is secure and it’s just really helped us and that’s one of the reasons why. You know since we just spend part-time hours working on our Amazon business, we’re spending our other hours putting together these coaching programs and videos and blog posts and podcasts and all sorts of stuff to help people get started and get moving in their Amazon business.

[0:15:44.1] KRISTY: A lot of people ask me how and I don’t even answer that question anymore. I know that’s rude but I don’t. What I will do is say, “Hey, if you’re really interested in selling on Amazon, here’s a website for you” and I’ll send them to your website.

[0:15:57.9] STEPHEN: Thank you.

[0:15:58.6] KRISTY: You know, because that’s how I did it and I don’t know, I probably referred 50, 60 people to you, people just asking me, “Hey, how do you do it?” “Hey, watch this guy and he’ll teach you what you need to know to do it if you’re serious about it.” You know, a lot of people want a shortcut. There’s not a sort cut, there’s learning what you don’t know.

Some people don’t know what they don’t know and some people, you know, the wise people know that they don’t know what they’re doing and seek help and so you know, that’s frankly my perspective on it. I’m glad you’re there.

I really am, I’m glad you do what you do. Not only that you helped me, there’s got to be tons of other people that you just haven’t heard from that you have helped, you know? So I am thankful that you do what you do.

[0:16:43.0] STEPHEN: Well, thank you for those, those really kind words, I really appreciate that. I guess I’ll close up this interview with this question. If there’s anybody who is on the fence because we have people who listen to our podcast for years and never open an Amazon account because they’re scared or they’re just – they don’t want to take that risk or that first step, what would you say to them, for those who have been doing all the research for months or years and just haven’t taken that first step yet, what would you say to them?

[0:17:10.6] KRISTY: You know, you can research something to death, absolutely, to death and you’re not going to help yourself unless you take the step of faith and you just do it. I started my account, I kid you not, I had $500 to my name but you know, you have to have faith in yourself, you know?

You have to take action, nothing is going to happen if you don’t take action. So go open up that Amazon account. Both figure it out. Go through your videos, you have so many videos, it’s not even funny. Go through the seller’s central information. For the love of God, please, please read the terms of service of Amazon so you don’t mess up.

There are so many things that change all the time with Amazon that sometimes, even I don’t know which policy is in effect now. You have to go back and keep reading and keep reading but you got to take action because without action, none of this happens, none of this.

[0:18:03.2] STEPHEN: Yup, that’s perfectly summed up. Absolutely, take action and so we’re going to end this podcast interview so everyone can go off and take the action that they’ve been putting off.

So thank you Kristy again, for hanging out with me and talking to me and inspiring so many people with your story, of your success, you put in the hard work, you saw the success, and others can do the same. So thank you so much.

[0:18:23.0] KRISTY: Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:18:28.6] REBECCA: Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Full-Time FBA Show. This episode was 195. If you’re interested in seeing the show notes and the transcript, be sure and check that out as always at fulltimefba.com/195.

[0:18:41.7] STEPHEN: And next week on the show, we’ll be talking about what is stopping you from making a full-time income on Amazon FBA. There are some things that you might not know about that might be stopping you. We’re going to help you overcome those things next week on the show. So we’ll see you then.

[OUTRO]

[0:18:58.7] ANNOUNCER: That is all for this episode of The Full-Time FBA Show. So head over to fulltimefba.com/podcast, where you will find the show notes and links from this episode. While you’re there, subscribe to our newsletter where you’ll get several free downloads of our popular and helpful Amazon FBA resources. Now, take action on what you have learned today, so you can find success at turning part-time hours into a full-time income with Amazon FBA.

[END]