$250,000 Profit in 4 Months From a Simple Physical Product

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First let me say what I'm about to describe is very simple. Seriously, it's extremely simple.

Even though it is extremely simple, there is a huge barrier to entry that will prevent most people from being able to do this.

The barrier to entry is this: it requires a large amount of capital. Specifically, it requires six figures in capital to make it work. There is no other way to make it work. Even if you don't have access to six figures in capital, I'm sure you will find this strategy very interesting to read about.

Okay let's get right to it.

Here is how I am helping a client make $250,000 in profit (not revenue) in about 4 months - selling a physical product.

What is the product? Spa gift sets.

How are we making $250k profit in 4 months selling spa gift sets?

What's crazy is that we aren't even selling the spa gift sets. We are GIVING them away! Well, sort of...

We are helping a big online retailer run a promotion where they give the spa gift sets away to their customers as a free gift with their purchase. Here is how we are making $250,000 in profit:

We are sending them 25,000 spa gift sets at NO UPFRONT COST to help them run a promotion that will generate a lot of sales. The promotion is this: Get a free spa gift set (valued at $49.95) when you spend $75 or more.

The retailer will pay us $20 for each of the 25,000 spa gift sets they give away. Our profit on each spa gift set is $10. So 25,000 x $10 = $250,000 profit.

Really simple. So how did this come about? How exactly does it work?

Let me ask you this. Have you even seen those coupon codes where you get $20 off $75 or more.... or maybe $30 off $100 or more?

Sure you have. Online retailers do this all the time. Most of us will not even shop at an online store without first looking for a coupon code. Don't you agree?

Well one day I had a bright idea. Research shows that free gifts and free premiums can perform better than discounts. If any of the ladies here shop at Sephora, you know they love to give away free gifts with your purchase, rather than a discount. It works.

So I said, why doesn't someone approach a big online retailer doing one of those $20 off $75 promotions, and say this: Rather than giving customers $20 off... let us send you these widgets. You give them away to everyone who spends $75 or more. Then pay us $20 for every sale. You make the EXACT same amount of profit on each order, though I bet you will increase your sales because free gifts work better than discounts.

There is no risk to you because we will ship you the widgets at no cost. Simply create a coupon code and promote on your website and to your email list. If any widgets are left after the promotion, simply send them back to us. Simple as that.

We chose spa gift sets as the widget because we wanted to work with an online retailer that sells products to women. And also because spa gift sets are a great free gift that naturally fits with tons of holidays and special occasions such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Store Anniversaries, etc.

So how do we guarantee we make a $250,000 profit?

Simple.

Choose a retailer big enough that has a history of running promotions where at least 25,000 customers use those $20 off $75 coupon codes. For example, if a retailer tells you they always have about 30,000 customers use that coupon code every time they run a promotion, then you know at least 25,000 customers are going to use the coupon code for the free spa gift basket.

Worse case scenario, you have some spa gift baskets left over. Guess what... that's not a problem. You can still make your $250,000 profit. All you have to do is go to another online retailer and do the same thing. Another reason we chose spa gift baskets is because almost any retailer that targets women can give them away, whether they sell shoes, handbags, clothes, jewelry, doesn't matter.

Your profit is pretty much locked in and guaranteed. I designed the strategy this way on purpose.

So what about this 4 month time period described in the title? Why 4 months?

Well it takes about 60 days to get the spa gift sets imported from China, another 15 days to get everything delivered to the retailer's warehouse, 15 days for the promotion, and 30 days to get paid from the retailer. That's about 4 months from the time we buy the spa gift sets until payday.

That's not long at all to basically double your money. Speaking of doubling your money, the key to making this work is a quality spa gift set that the retailer will agree to give away to their customers. They are not going to agree to give away some cheap, low quality, skimpy looking spa gift set with hardly anything in it.

It needs to be a high quality spa gift set with lots of stuff in it.

I have connections with a huge supplier in China for spa gift baskets and bath and body gift baskets - the exact same supplier used by Target, Walmart, and a few others. I can get $50 gift baskets from China shipped to any warehouse in the United States for about $10, including shipping, freight, taxes, etc. It was EXTREMELY HARD to find this supplier.

And you have to spend a lot of money to get a good deal, which is why this strategy requires a significant investment.

As a recap, all we are doing is spending $250,000 on the spa gift sets, and getting paid $500,000 from the retailer after the promotion, for a final profit of $250,000. Simple. Nothing complicated.

All you have to do is convince a retailer to try a free gift promotion rather than another discount promotion. Not hard, especially if you can make it zero risk for them so they don't have to spend anything upfront. Your profit is basically locked in and guaranteed if the retailer is big enough. Or you can work with two smaller retailers. Send half of the spa gift sets to one retailer, and half to another.

This is a very simple way to make a lot of money for anyone that has a lot of capital to invest. When I actually have six figures of MY OWN money to invest again, this is EXACTLY what I am going to do. I will do it for myself instead of helping someone else do it.
#$250 #months #physical #product #profit #simple
  • Profile picture of the author Hippos
    Isn't this basically selling 25000 sets of your product to the store though? The wording is a bit different, but that's what it is.

    What stops them from just giving away the items they already have? Why would they not buy these gifts from their usual suppliers?

    You sell an idea + your products and hope they won't just take the idea and use their own products.
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  • Profile picture of the author rushindo
    Yes, it is essentially selling 25,000 sets of the product to the store. The approach is what makes it work beautifully.

    I don't have to "hope" they won't just take the idea and use their own products. First, I don't really care if they decide to use their own products. That is fine, though highly unlikely and unrealistic.

    Here is why it is highly unlikely they will use their own products:

    1) They are not going to have 25,000 of a single sku in stock. That may have 1,200 of this, 2,000 of that, 900 of this, 4,000 of that.

    2) With clothing stores, it would be almost impossible because of so many size and color variations. Just wouldn't work.

    3) Even if they could find a good product they could possibly give to everyone, they are not going to invest in 25,000 units of something to do this. They don't want to risk having 25,000 of something left over that they can't do anything with. Plus they want to preserve their cash.

    4) We sell them on why it is beneficial to give away the spa gift sets as opposed to a shirt, dress, whatever. Just any product is not going to work. For example, if it is Mother's Day, it is more effective to say here is a free $50 spa gift set for yourself or your mother... than to say you can get a free dress, pair a shoes, etc.

    5) Regarding buying from their normal suppliers, a shoe supplier or lady's apparel supplier does not supply spa gift sets. And sourcing as not easy - at all. Suppliers in the U.S. are charging $20+ per unit after shipping for a good quality spa set. And again, they would have to buy these upfront, or be required to pay in full within 30 days - without knowing if this is going to work or not.

    We on the other hand, don't mind taking any left over units back.

    Lastly, even if the chances were high that a retailer would try it with their own products, we could care less. That's not a potential issue or potential problem. You just approach a different retailer. There are a tons of retailers to work with. I'm not talking about approaching billion dollar corporations by the way. I'm talking about companies doing maybe $20 million a year. Big enough to move a lot of units, though not as big as the huge national brands that everyone knows about. It can work for the giant companies them too. I just don't like dealing with companies that big. Too much red tape.

    By the way, here is an example of a spa gift set that we source: https://www.overstock.com/Food-Gifts...0,839&recidx=3

    Most of these retailers are sourcing from wholesales, distributors, and middle men. The only way to get these gift sets for the price we get them is to go overseas directly to the manufacturer. We actually only pay about $7 per unit, though we still have to pay for freight, customs, taxes, etc, which comes to about $10 per unit after it is all said and done
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  • Profile picture of the author William Waltham
    It's an interesting idea. It seems like you would need to have an established marketing company and a good reputation among local and/or national retailers in addition to the large amount of start-up capital to make this work for you, though. Did you have those things when you did this promotion?
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    • Profile picture of the author rushindo
      Originally Posted by William Waltham View Post

      It's an interesting idea. It seems like you would need to have an established marketing company and a good reputation among local and/or national retailers in addition to the large amount of start-up capital to make this work for you, though. Did you have those things when you did this promotion?
      It does not require an established marketing company or a reputation. You are sending them a bunch of product at no cost and basically saying pay me for them later. They could care less about your reputation.

      So no, I didn't have a reputation when I first started this. Technically, I have a marketing company, but I don't have a client portfolio or anything like that on my website. I'm just financing a marketing promotion for them. Never had a single conversation about my track record or anything like that. No one cares.

      If I was the person running one of the retail companies, I wouldn't care either about someone's track record. All I care about is if they send me all of this inventory at no upfront cost and we have make room for it in our warehouse, do I believe it is actually going to help us increase sales? That's all they care about.

      There is plenty of research that says a free premium is better than a discount, so it's not hard to convince them. But companies too large have too much red tape and are less nimble than smaller companies. For example, one of the first brands I approached was Charlotte Russe, a huge national brand in shopping malls across the country. They told me, "this does not fit within their current ecom model."

      They are so big, they are not really open to doing anything different or outside the norm. Plus it would probably take forever to get it "approved."

      You are definitely accurate when you say it takes a large amount of start-up capital, which I highlighted several times in the initial post. No I didn't have the capital, but my clients did.
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  • Profile picture of the author joelraitt
    I like the thinking behind this - it's a 'can't refuse' angle to some extent and it's thinking outside the box. We've worked with B2B before and basically you need to do 100% of the work and take 100% of the risk and they might say yes. Cool thinking.

    I'm trynig to find a way to apply this on our own store online.
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    • Profile picture of the author rushindo
      Originally Posted by joelraitt View Post

      I like the thinking behind this - it's a 'can't refuse' angle to some extent and it's thinking outside the box. We've worked with B2B before and basically you need to do 100% of the work and take 100% of the risk and they might say yes. Cool thinking.

      I'm trynig to find a way to apply this on our own store online.
      Exactly. What kind of online store do you have?
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      • Profile picture of the author joelraitt
        Originally Posted by rushindo View Post

        Exactly. What kind of online store do you have?
        Ecommerce gift store for grandparents
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        Work smart, work hard, never give up. Learn with me here: http://www.joelraitt.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Meaney
    Inspiring story Rushindo..

    A great lesson here is to reinvest back into your business.
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  • Profile picture of the author Importexport
    Ideas are sometimes stolen after the promoter has done a lot of work. Here is just one example:

    I know of a large organization that often gives away free premiums to customers.

    They were approached by a promotional products company that had developed an amazingly novel idea. Unfortunately for the promotional company, the potential customer ran the idea past their regular premium supplier who said they could do it for a lot less money, although no prices had been quoted by the promoter at this stage.

    Quite soon the product and it's related materials appeared in their prospect's stores all over the country.

    The moral of the story is to research and know how the prospective customer sources their premiums. If they exclusively use only the one premiums supply company - don't bother.

    Walter Hay
    Provenchinasourcing

    P.S. I guarantee that I could find your spa gift set supplier in a few minutes. I teach safe sourcing as my specialty.
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    Use emotions and perceptions to build a great brand. Ask me about my book LabelsThatExploit. For safe sourcing and easy importing from 41 countries globally, see https://provenglobalsourcing.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Importexport
    You're quite right on both points.

    In the premiums game, like many others, you have to make the calls to get the sales, so if one steals your idea you move on to the next.

    Your other point about zero risk for the customer is true too. If you can finance that, few potential customers would be inclined to refuse.

    As for finding your supplier, I haven't even looked and don't intend to. I just added that as a reminder that some things are better kept to oneself. I have no doubt that with my lifetime of experience in exporting and importing plus my knowledge of sources used by the big retailers, I could quickly locate them.

    In your position I would edit out that part of your original post.

    Walter Hay
    Provenchinasourcing
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    Use emotions and perceptions to build a great brand. Ask me about my book LabelsThatExploit. For safe sourcing and easy importing from 41 countries globally, see https://provenglobalsourcing.com
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    • Profile picture of the author rushindo
      @Walter

      Gotcha. What part exactly are you saying you would edit out?
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      • Profile picture of the author Importexport
        Originally Posted by rushindo View Post

        @Walter

        Gotcha. What part exactly are you saying you would edit out?
        I would have replied sooner, but the WF site was down again.

        I would leave out the names of the big retailers. I doubt that many people would have the same access that I have to all the supplier details, but those names would give me a leg up if I chose to search.

        Walter Hay
        Provenchinasourcing
        Signature
        Use emotions and perceptions to build a great brand. Ask me about my book LabelsThatExploit. For safe sourcing and easy importing from 41 countries globally, see https://provenglobalsourcing.com
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  • Profile picture of the author aizaku
    awesome share.

    nice one Rushindo!


    approach the vendor and make it a dead simple choice for him or her..

    -Ike Paz
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  • Profile picture of the author discrat
    Thanks Rushindo. Although this is unrealisitc for most here, it's always good to hear different profitable angles to approach business. And you have a great angle here. Interested to see how it goes in the future. Where are you at as far as Account Receivables and break even. Have they paid you ? How many units have they given away as free gifts??

    Thnx again


    - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author nicoli
    Great post. I am doing something similar in the SEA markets. Once you are in, you're golden!
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  • Profile picture of the author himanuzo
    $250,000 profit in 4 months... is great!

    Do you become a distributor for supplying stuff to many stores?
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    • Profile picture of the author rushindo
      Originally Posted by himanuzo View Post

      $250,000 profit in 4 months... is great!

      Do you become a distributor for supplying stuff to many stores?
      No, only one or two stores at a time. It takes a lot of capital, as I described.
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  • Profile picture of the author maxsi
    GREAT post! ..... I always say: "Think outside the box makes MILLIONS" :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author rushindo
      Originally Posted by maxsi View Post

      GREAT post! ..... I always say: "Think outside the box makes MILLIONS" :-)
      Yes, it does. Honestly, its not all that innovative or creative in my opinion. I simply saw a away to take the risk away from this type of deal.
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  • Profile picture of the author velvetcake
    excellent summary of your approach where you assume the financial risk. thank you for this writing especially the idea of leveraging free premiums. it's very cool. glad you helped your clients.
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