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RVF Location Independents
#1

RVF Location Independents

First off, let me premise this thread with an apology if something similar already exists. I thought it would be great if the location independent RVF members could post what they do to live an international playboy lifestyle.

This is not a thread asking you to expose trade secrets but more of a motivational, reference guide, where others can learn and receive information about specific avenues of income.

I'll kick it off:

Source of income

I have an wholesale e-commerce business where I have a mailing list of clients that I supply.

Time spent

I have been doing e-commerce for a long time but it became my main source of income 2 years ago.

Income (optional)

I'm currently grossing around 5 figures a month USD.

How I started

Like I previously stated, I've dabbled in e-commerce for a long time. I started on eBay and throughout the years have tried Amazon, Etsy and other platforms. After discovering a niche market I started focusing more energy towards improving my sales volume. It eventually led to me developing clients that wished to work with me directly. At first I had one client but I soon realized that it was easier and more profitable to work directly with clients. I turned my focus towards obtaining more clients and though it took some time, I was able to develop a list big enough to not only sustain my business but actually allow it to grow.

Industry specific advice

-Provide the best customer service you can and push for referrals.

-Don't be afraid to lose a bit of profit in the beginning, if you feel the client has legitimate long term potential.

-Develop a brand and push hard to have a positive image.

-Attention to detail. You have no idea how many clients I poached through superior communication, meticulous packaging, a handwritten note during holidays, and a multitude of minute details that at first glance seem insignificant.

-Stay in the loop. Don't fall behind the trends and current info of your industry. Nobody wants to work with someone that's behind the times. This can be accomplished through researching blogs, YouTube, participating in forums and so on.

Future

As of right now I'm working on an ebook, planning on doing seminars, and have 2 clients whom I provide consulting services to. I am a firm believer of diversifying because all things eventually come to an end and I feel this is the best way to protect myself from eventually becoming irrelevant.

Hope this thread is useful/motivating to someone. I don't know how fast I can reply to PMs but I will try to keep my eye on this post.
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#2

RVF Location Independents

I'm thinking of getting into the e-commerce biz myself but Im employed full time. Im thinking of selling shirts or merchandise on amazon or etsy to get my feet wet. Is that a good starting point? Im a programmer but Im looking to get out of the service/consulting biz into a products biz
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#3

RVF Location Independents

@Sigma

Can you explain your inventory management, shipping, & customer service? How about website management?
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#4

RVF Location Independents

So I've received a few questions about e-commerce and I thought it'd be good to answer them here.

@Turbo

If you're looking to dip your toes into e-commerce then it doesn't matter what you sell, as long as it isn't putting you too far into the red. A small loss is not a big deal and you can chalk it up to "paying for experience" but if you're taking huge hits and losing an unnecessary amount of money then you need to rethink your product. I always worked backwards when I was searching for products to sell. Most people Google "hot items to sell online" or some other nonsense but if it's at the top of your Google search then it obviously isn't hot anymore. I look for suppliers (alibaba, acquaintances, friends doing business, storage sales, auctions, inventory dumping, etc. From there I research what sells at what price then calculate my expenses; shipping cost, packaging costs, fees (PayPal, Amazon, eBay, etc), if it's a viable product then I try my best to find more or a stable supplier. Rinse and repeat.

@ Cameltoe
I used to rely on a third-party distribution company that would hold and ship my products for me but I stopped because I got tired of having no control and paying them for something I could do. You can get a cheap storage unit for $80 a month that you can store and ship your merchandise from. As far as customer service, it's too broad a topic for me to cover in a post but if I had to stress on a few points it would be:

-Reply ASAP
-Pack your items like your life depends on it.
-Don't be afraid to take a bit of a loss if it means your customer will be happy and provide you with good feedback, referrals, etc.

There's so much more but obviously those are good general rules to go by. Maybe I'll make a e-commerce data sheet later on when I have some time.
As far as website management, I ran a website for a few years and did the whole ad sense, SEO key words, blogs, social media, and so on but I got tired of it and felt I built up my client list big enough to where I could stop. It's been fine and I still have more demand than I can supply but before summer of next year I planning on opening a site again. So I won't say it's absolutely necessary but after you have a decent following of buyers through the third party platforms, I would strongly recommend considering it.

Oh and some people asked me about Amazons FBA and it isn't bad and had it existed 10 years ago when I was first starting out, I would have definitely used it. But I already have a good system set up and I don't want to pay their fees for something I or a part timer I hire can do. If you're profit margin is decent enough where the expense of FBA fees is negligible then definitely go for it. Also in my particular case the merchandise I deal in is decently expensive so I want to handle the packing as opposed to some dude in a warehouse that most likely doesn't give a shit about what he's doing. Hope I was able to answer some questions.
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#5

RVF Location Independents

Oh and if I were to go into detail of my storage system:

I got a nice, swanky, high rise office that I share with a few handpicked people. The criteria of joining the office were;

1. I like you, because I can't stay in an office for extended periods of time with someone I want to kill.

2. You have a skill set that I feel is useful to me. So in my office I've got 3 guys with me; a graphic designer, photographer, and fellow entrepreneur.

I charge these guys a small fee that basically brings down the cost of this nice office to something I wouldn't mind paying on my own plus I have the added benefit of having a group of guys that I like and can help when with certain things I'm clueless about.

I really don't need to be going to an office anymore since I've got staff and a system set up where I can sit back and just deal with client relations but I enjoy working and hustling so I still put in hours.
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#6

RVF Location Independents

Thanks for the info but I fail to see how this makes you location independent? You have an office, storage unit, and you are either shipping/packaging yourself or having an employee do it.
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#7

RVF Location Independents

I thought I stated in the last post, I have my system set where I could go around and do whatever I want and never step foot in the office except for a few times a year.

Which I did for about 2 years but I felt I was stagnated so I came back and now I'm hustling to be a multimillionaire. It's fully automated; my staff takes care of all the packaging and delivering and I just check to make sure everything is copacetic, which I could do online if I wished. I felt it's relate to since I have the choice but choose not to. I do fuck off and travel for 3 months at a time when the mood strikes me.

If you still feel it's irrelevant, no worries.
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#8

RVF Location Independents

Quote: (12-13-2015 02:06 PM)Sigma Wrote:  

I thought I stated in the last post, I have my system set where I could go around and do whatever I want and never step foot in the office except for a few times a year.

Which I did for about 2 years but I felt I was stagnated so I came back and now I'm hustling to be a multimillionaire. It's fully automated; my staff takes care of all the packaging and delivering and I just check to make sure everything is copacetic, which I could do online if I wished. I felt it's relate to since I have the choice but choose not to. I do fuck off and travel for 3 months at a time when the mood strikes me.

If you still feel it's irrelevant, no worries.

Sounds like a great business you've got there. Whether or not it fits the definition of location independence is not really important in my view. Being able to travel for three or more months at a time and still have income rolling in is very cool. Some other businesses like programming, teaching, stock trading, etc. may technically be more location independent, but you certainly have a lot more freedom.

How do you keep control while you're away? Do you have managers whom you trust? What about CRM and stock keeping software - how do you monitor response times?

I'm very interested because, to be honest, I never thought a 'box moving' business could provide that kind of freedom.
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#9

RVF Location Independents

@DaveR

Thank you, honestly it took some time and a lot of trial and error to get where I am.

As far as control goes, I trusted someone too much in the beginning and got burned badly. I realized you shouldn't tempt human beings by putting them in situations like that. My solution for this was compartmentalization to the umpteenth degree. Every employee has a job that does not overlap with another's, they don't know each other's job because I want the guy that packs to just pack.

I think of them as drones with a set of instructions they follow and then go home. No thinking allowed. As far as stock goes, it's a bit of a special case because in my current business I work with high value merchandise so it's not an incredible volume. I have used tracking software before but another low tech way I've tried and had success with was just have my employee attach a tag with a serial number to received merchandise and upload said numbers and item description to a shared google docs, which I would confirm on my phone. Then I would send the serial number +bag description to the person doing the packaging/shipping, who would in turn find the matching item and do their thing.

Oh and I almost always use part time employees so they can go home when their done, I don't want people who have nothing to do sitting in the office twiddling their thumbs. I honestly don't see who that benefits. As far as security goes, I have a live feed to my office that I can view from my phone and also I have my buddies that I trust sharing an office with me.

This post might sound a bit strange because I keep jumping from what I do now and methods employed in the past. I hope I didn't make a mess.

An e-commerce business with tangible products can be location independent if you can just set up a fluid system that works and leaves no significant amount of power in any 1 persons hands. The main reason I came back can be summed up neatly with John Goodmans monologue about "Fuck you money" in the movie "The Gambler". I wish I could upload a YouTube clip but I'm on my mobile.
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#10

RVF Location Independents

Here you go:





It's a classic and everyone should watch it. Although I think two and a half million dollars is way too much. Using the 4% safe withdrawal rate (here, here, here and here) it provides you with a disposable income of $100k/year. You could live like a king on much less if you're not in the most expensive cities in the world. Bottom line is: although it's nice to have a shitload of money, after a while you start experiencing the law of diminishing returns. Simply put this means your first dollar is much more valuable than the one you make after you've already acquired a million. So somewhere comes a point where making more money isn't worth your time. Of course it depends on the individual, there are folks who want to buy jets, others who feel like they need a solid gold bathtub. I'd say becoming a multimillionaire requires too much sacrifice for little benefit. The only exception would be if your investments make more per annum than you spend. In that case it's only a question of time before you become one. The magic of compound interest.
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#11

RVF Location Independents

I've gotten a few more pm's so I thought by posting here I would give this thread a little bump for guys that are interested and answer some questions.

@Marty

Thanks for posting that video, it's one of the few monologues from a movie these days that I really connected with.

Onto to the goodies:

So I'll start with the question:

"I want to accept credit card payments but I'm not based in the US"

There are two basic methods for accepting credit card payments online;
1. Aggregated merchant account
2. Dedicated merchant account

1. The aggregated merchant account is an account that is offered for multiple sites/businesses i.e. PayPal. The benefits of these are low startup costs because they charge fees per transaction. Paypal is the biggest third party merchant platform and it's good for people just starting out since it's fairly easy and you won't be doing insane volume anyway.

2. Dedicated merchant accounts are accounts that are solely for your business. They take some time to start up and depending on the country can cost more to start and your credit may be scrutinized. Benefits are; you'll be able to negotiate rates and fees, you have a lot of control, and funds will be deposited directly into your account .

If you're not doing insane volume/revenue I'd stick to aggregated merchant services. PayPal and Amazon webpay are two that I like. Amazon has really low fees and PayPal is too widely used for me to not use.

To the person who pm'd me (I won't mention your name since I don't know if you want to remain anonymous) check out Payoneer you get a virtual US bank account which should help with your problem.

I was going to answer a few more questions here but I'm on my mobile and a girls coming over soon so I will update again as soon as I have a chance.
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