In this article, we’ll talk about Raiken Profit and his journey to Amazon online arbitrage and social media
Today, Steve Raiken, also known as Raiken Profit, blessed us by joining us today to learn about his journey. And right now, he is absolutely smashing it; he has systematized his business to run it only a few hours a week.
Topic Rundown:
Introduction
I want to talk about Raiken Profit’s journey because I’m still learning the Amazon business myself. He will give us a summary of what he’s doing, what kind of business model he’s doing now, and how it is all going. We all appreciate everything Raiken Profit has been doing for the community. He’s doing really fantastic, and he inspired me a lot.
Who is Raiken Profit?
If we have a look at his Raiken Profit's website, we’ll see that he started his journey because he got sick of working for other people. He wanted to start his own thing and until now; he documents his journey on his YouTube channel, Instagram, and other social media accounts.
Raiken Profit started his journey of reselling about 9 years ago. At the time, he was working at a restaurant; southern food. He was also delivering pizzas and just felt trapped, like he doesn’t have his own freedom. He wasn’t making any money, and he was miserable.
Raiken Profit’s journey
How it started
As Amazon sellers would say, we are always a hustler at heart. Raiken Profit was working out a lot of crummy jobs until 25 years old. He then learned about this crazy world of selling on eBay and Craigslist. What he did is buy items from Craigslist like bicycles, not the motor type but the type that has pedals. Raiken learned from a guy on YouTube named Bonafide Hustler, and he was absolutely hooked. Raiken Profit flipped bicycles, but the thing is, he was living in Connecticut. And for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a little state right next to New York. And when winter came, his bicycles stopped selling.
That’s when Raiken Profit learned about selling on eBay. He did that for about three or four years and was making 8,000 dollars a month. Last 2016, Amazon FBA really started to bloom, and that was the time when he started traveling the country. Mainly, going to thrift stores, selling books; doing retail arbitrage. Raiken Profit also taught his 68-year-old mom how to sell on Amazon. She’s currently doing well, getting around 3,000 to 5,000 dollars a month. With that, he’s been doing different things on Amazon. And what’s interesting is over the last year, he started doing something unique, flipping items from eBay to Amazon.
What happened to Raiken Profit?
About 13 or 14 months ago, Raiken Profit was earning 3,000 to 10,000 dollars a month just thrifting, selling books, and getting library sales. Everything is going great when Raiken got into a terrible car accident. He got smashed from behind by a gigantic commercial truck. Luckily, the smash hit him directly because, if not, it would have clipped and would have spun him out. The outcome of this tragedy is now, he’s having anxiety and depression since Raiken is out on the road most of the time.
Then, Raiken Profit found a way to source inventory without driving to auctions and flea markets. Last year, he took his business from 3,000 to 10,000 dollars a month on average to now, between 33,000 to 35,000 dollars a month with 30% profit margins. Yes, profit margins which is already a lot in the thrifting world. Once you get into wholesale, it’s a different thing, so anything above 20% is already miraculous. Also, Raiken also mentioned that before starting Amazon and reselling, he had a full set of hair.
What does a typical week look like for Raiken Profit?
To be perfectly honest, no one knows what their week will look like. It’s really different from week to week. Raiken Profit said he has built multiple income streams from Amazon FBA and still does eBay on the side. He also has a YouTube channel, aside from his social media channels, which we all know how time-consuming that is. Also, Raiken has some real estate properties and coaching services. Each week will vary depending on what he’s diving into. Over the last couple of weeks, Raiken Profit did a ton of social media because he was getting ready to travel and had to do a couple of things before doing so.
What he did was compartmentalize different time slots for each task he needs to be done. Typically, during the day, he would spend at least an hour or two, creating content and another hour doing his Amazon business. Sometimes less, sometimes more and other times, just learning.
How does Raiken Profit’s team structure work?
When Raiken Profit started selling on eBay and Amazon, he was doing everything himself. Surprisingly, he didn’t know how to do it the correct way. He did sourcing for 8 to 10 hours a day; doing all the listings and shipping.
The method he developed with his Amazon Virtual Assistants in other countries helped him list physical products, but to be truthful, he got burnt out. The biggest problem for him is himself; he has to figure out ways to be consistent. Doing the same thing over again is boring to him. Unlike in social media, wherein you’re an influencer because something is always happening. The thing is when you find something that actually works and you provide value to the market, of course; you make money.
What you want to do is systematize and create processes to take yourself out of the equation if you choose to. We are not saying to choose to get yourself out. Every single time, you would have to rely on yourself for a long period, and that is not easy.
Now, Raiken Profit has two Amazon Virtual Assistants who do the sourcing for him. He mentioned that he’s not sourcing anymore unless he wants to. One VA sources 40 to 60 hours a week, and a part-timer helps him with repricing and listing items. He has another VA who helps with all spreadsheets and stuff on his business; tracks all KPIs, and weekly and daily reports.
He has a third VA that works with spreadsheets and another one that does all things Raiken Profit hates, like stranded inventory and fair market pricing. And as Amazon seller scales their business, those kinds of issues become prominent. So that’s when you need people on your staff, so they can help you out. It may cost a little, but Amazon Virtual Assistants are so fairly priced and well worth it as per Raiken Profit.
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How many hours does Raiken Profit spend on his Amazon business?
One thing Raiken Profit learned from Tony Robbins is that you’re only able to make decisions in your business. A really excellent decision is based on optics, what you can actually see in your business. When Raiken was a thrifter, he didn’t have to worry about cash flow. He would spend a buck or two on an item and flip it for 40 dollars.
When someone asks, what do you pay for yourself? The answer is everything. It comes and goes out of the account, but when you’re doing online arbitrage, especially when you get into wholesale and private labels; you really need to know your numbers.
Raiken Profit is now doing three to five hours a week on average, but some weeks, it could be more. Especially when hiring someone or when he’s learning some new systems for reprices and maybe setting some automation. While that sounds easy, he spends an hour and learns the simplest thing. Sometimes, it could take 5 to 10 hours that week to implement and save a couple of hundred dollars a week. And over time, of course, it will be worth it.
What Raiken Profit is focusing on now is trying to figure out how can he grow his business. Building out new systems in terms of actually doing the operations. One thing he is doing now is labeling items and shipping them out, which is three hours a week.
How long does it take Raiken Profit to prep items?
He is hoping that things with his long-term girlfriend work out because she’s doing all the packages, prepping, and labeling for Raiken. All he is doing now is boxing the items up.
She is doing six to eight hours a week and they batch the items once or twice a week. They open everything and get everything prepped up.
Raiken Profit said that the items they are getting are around 200 to 350 items shipped to his house every week. Take pictures of everything and put them into batches. Upload the photos to Google Drive, and then Raiken’s VA will list, condition, and price all items. They have an entire system that they’ve been doing for 3 to 4 months that works and saves about 60% to 70% of the time.
8 Things I Learnt About Reselling On Amazon from Raiken Profit
Raiken Profit, is the not so “average guy” who is crushing it on Amazon! Having figured out how to make money on Amazon by flipping products from eBay to Amazon.
Advise on people starting on Amazon online arbitrage
If you’re new to selling to Amazon, new to social media, or new to creating programs or services; it would take a lot of upfront work. Raiken has been doing this for a long time now, so don’t think that you’re going to just spend an hour or two working on these platforms. Imagine your business when you first started Amazon, like your specific model. Now, you’re probably spending five to ten hours a day trying to get that up off the ground and figure out the recipe for how to get it to work. Learning from your mistakes.
For everyone, whatever business it is. Get an event for every business and, with Raiken’s knowledge, with flipping from eBay to Amazon or go to thrift stores, garage sales, and auctions. Your biggest scale is getting hit with counterfeit claims or IP complaints. That’s why you should take a lot of extra steps and procedures to avoid them. Raiken Profit doesn’t use a prep center, and they use an IP alert. They also make sure that the brand is not on the listing. Also, they inspect items well.
The truth is, there are probably still items that are falling underneath the crack in terms of counterfeit. We will not act like we got the perfect system, but everything is good now.
Another tip is don’t mess with DVDs. Raiken Profit said that they are really picky about DVDs. They don’t like to deal with any DVDs that are under 10,000 rank. Anything newer, anything current, anything that’s a complete series or season, stay away from those. Usually, those are the ones that counterfeiters and bootleggers are targeting. They are targeting fast-selling items.
They usually go after a lot of older, discontinued items. If you’re going to get into this, stay away from popular textbooks or media items. Anything that is ranked and is improving quickly. Raiken Profit would even go a step further to say, anything that is too good to be true might not be true at all.
What’s next for Raiken Profit?
One thing that was on Raiken Profit’s board is to go to Colorado, where the mountains were. He just accomplished that and moving forward this year, and into next year, is being healthy. It is a big thing for Raiken to work more on his mental and physical health. Probably not being out thrifting as much, he gained weight and wants to focus more on his health next year.
He is going to keep growing his business. They just launched a master class that’s been helping a lot of people. They got about 500 new students over the last couple of weeks, getting results and just growing his business.
When he created his vision board at the beginning of the year, the goal was 40,000 a month. Right now, they are spending everything that they make because he wants to hit that goal and kick his feet up for a little and see where things would go.
Time to start your journey like Raiken Profit?
Your journey from where you start and where you will go will take a very long time, but if you start today with the knowledge you’re getting now, you’ll do everything quicker and it will be incredible.
If you want to reach out to Raiken Profit, you can follow him on Instagram and send him a DM. His other social media accounts are @RaikenProfit. He shares everything from his journey and, of course, his lessons. He spends a couple of hours a day doing his social network and would love to talk to you.
You can also learn a lot from Romer the Roamer, if you're interested in what he has to say read it here.