Welcome back! It's been less than a month since the last issue. I'm counting this as a win.

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Fooled By Pompousness

Have you ever read something interesting from someone you don't like?

(If that's what you're currently doing, don't answer that. I'm fragile.)

I'm almost finished reading Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

I've heard so many good things about his Incerto series. The reviews are great. Other books and people that I read have referenced it. It's described as a "landmark" series.

However, on a human level, I can't stand the guy. He's smug. He's arrogant. He always seems to talk as if he thinks he's the smartest person in the room. Some of my least favorite qualities in a person.

The version I'm listening to on Audible is an anniversary edition with a new preface added that talks about the reception to the book and stories of him refusing to do TV interviews because the host "didn't get it". Ugh.

I got through the first half hour while mowing the grass and seriously questioned whether I would be able to finish it.

Taleb doesn't narrate it himself, I assume because he probably looks down on consuming literature in anything other than a smoking jacket by a roaring fire, but even the narrator sounds self-important reading the words.

It pains me to admit that it's an interesting book. Once I got through the preface and introduction, it has more than held my interest.

Lessons from the Stock Market

The book uses Taleb's years as a trader to anchor the concepts he's explaining, namely the human inability to properly gauge the role of luck or randomness in our lives and careers.

He makes a point about trends in the stock market that I thought applied very well to our Amazon businesses.

He says that once a trend becomes easy to spot, it is no longer a valuable trend.

For example,if a stock price continuously opens up on Monday mornings and always goes down on Thursdays, the trend will be spotted and the stock will see higher volumes of trading activity on Fridays, in anticipation of Monday's opening, and Wednesdays, before it's anticipated drop the next day.

It won't take long before the increased buying and selling causes the price of the stock to move in the opposite direction. This is a principle called market efficiency. The principle holds that all available information is already reflected in the price of the asset.

Sounds a lot like the behavior of a profitable ASIN as more sellers jump on a listing, no?

It makes sense looking at it through the lens of competition. If a product is consistently profitable and sells well, sellers will find it. If the product is easily found, offers will increase and the profitability trend will end.

I think the key is how easily the product is found. There will always be profitable products on Amazon. The question of how long they remain profitable is likely answered by how obvious the source is.

What are obvious sources?

If you found it on sale at Target, so did a whole bunch of other sellers. That's a pretty obvious source. Almost anything at Walmart is obvious.

I'm not saying you can't get in and out quickly with money in your pocket sourcing from big box retailers, but there's probably not too many long-term replenishable items on their shelves if you're not using sourcing methods that insulate you from being obvious.

How do we insulate ourselves from obvious sourcing?

Where you source

This is just a guess on my part, but I'm betting the full priced stuff in the dark corners of a big box store will be profitable longer than the stuff in the clearance aisle.

The vast majority of sellers will, and are, looking in the clearance aisle. Far less are digging through the dusty bottles of barbecue seasoning out in the garden section.

There's an advantage to be gained by browsing the less crowded aisles, manually sourcing the less popular/less well-known stores, scanning less obvious stores with your OA scanning programs.

How you source

You can also build a moat around your catalog by taking every step possible to reduce your buy cost as much as you can.

Other ways to insulate your sourcing:

• Discount gift cards
• Cash back shopping extensions
• Coupon codes
• Loyalty reward points redemptions
• Learning sales cycles
• Credit card rewards
• New email signup welcome discounts

Stack as many discounts and perks that you can no matter how small. They all add up. And the lower you can get your buy cost, the more competing sellers you are removing from the equation.

You'll become the offer that other sellers see, shake their heads, and say "I don't know HOW they're making any money".

I have one more thought to share with you about insulating your sourcing, but I'm going to drop the podcast promo here first because the podcast ties into what I want to tell you. Keep reading...

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Want to Know One of the Best Moats You Can Build Around Your Business?

Get your products the same way that the retail stores you source from get them. I'll explain:

We had a run of about three episodes on the podcast that revolved around wholesale.

The first one in the batch was an interview with Corey Ganim and it was awesome.

There are only a few episodes that I have marked as "must watch again" and Corey's episode is one of them.

The guy has built a 7 figure business through wholesale and explained in a simple way that had me revving my engines wanting to get in on it.

The Wholesale Challenge

In case you haven't heard me say it before, I give a massive amount of credit for my success in the Amazon space to Chris Grant and his OA Challenge.

The format, length, and full access features of how he structured it was just what I needed to make everything click for me.

Well, Chris and Corey have teamed up for the Wholesale Challenge.

It's 7 days of full access to a successful wholesaler willing to show and explain everything under the hood in a proven format that thousands of sellers rave about.

There's a ton of bonuses that come along with it: email templates, SOPs, action plans, etc.

I won't list everything here. If it's got Chris Grant's name on it, you know he's going to overdeliver on value. If you know, you know. That's just how he rolls.

Also, there are advantages to getting in on the ground floor with these things, so if you're even the slightest bit interested in wholesale, you should reserve your spot now.

They even offer a money back guarantee. Take a look around here. Signup ends in just a few days. There's no way I'm missing it and I hope you join me.

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Sometimes I Think I'm Funny

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Have a great week,

Chris

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