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14 years ago, while he was a student without money, Trevor Chapman began working as a door-to-door pest salesman to earn a few dollars.
Subsequently, it launched its own solar panel company, which quickly expanded operations in three states. Two years after his creation, however, something is missing and it is not the lack of time he spends in the office.
"The time has come to say," I'm 30 and a few years old, do I want to wait until one of my kids leaves home to enjoy life to the extent of my dreams? "you are Chapman.
Her answer to this question gave her the impetus to spend $ 200 on LDSman.com, an online store offering a strange badortment of items from China (Kevlar trousers, activated carbon toothpaste, inflatable lounges, spinners, and Moreover). things).
After three months, Chapman spends 12 hours a day at his solar panel business at an hour and a half a week on his site, until he reaches his first million dollars in sales.
That's what Chapman is convinced that e-commerce offers everyone the best opportunity to control their time and earn money, even for novices like him who want to do something.
"In the summer, my family and I traveled for three months, which I always wanted to do, but I could never have done it before." I was chained with chains to make money, "he says.
How everything starts
Chapman was unhappy with his solar panel business and could not see a way to change it when he quoted Warren Buffett, saying, "If you can not find a way to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you get to work. To your death. "
Chapman decided that e-commerce was the best way to generate pbadive income. It's a huge deal. Online retail sales rose 20% to $ 1.9 trillion. dollar to 2.3 billion dollars. dollars in 2015, according to a 2016 Ecommerce Foundation report.
But before seriously thinking about the opportunity to quit his job, he wanted to make sure he could make a living selling things on the Internet.
"Online commerce requires work like everyone else, but you do not have to give up your other job to do business online," said Chapman, 34.
He spends several hours on his new project and the initial costs are minimal – about $ 200, he says. Chapman buys a $ 2.99 per year domain and creates a Shopify account for a $ 14 trial.
The most expensive thing was when he started spending $ 100 a day on Facebook advertising. LDSman.com opens on November 11, 2016
The first day, Chapman loses money
At first he sold the wrong product. "Originally, I would sell Mormon art online, which lasted about 10 hours," he told CNBC. "I realized that what I was offering online was not attractive enough to drive traffic to the site."
To focus again, Chapman used a lesson learned from his solar panel business: "When you sell door-to-door, the product has to be intriguing enough to invite people home," says Chapman.
"The same goes for online marketing.To extract some of what you see on Facebook, you have to offer something of interest."
Thus, Mormon artworks are abandoned and inflatable sunbeds, which are very popular in online stores, take their place. By supplying them with Chinese manufacturers from Alibaba and Aliexpress, Chapman found other products that he could buy at $ 4.99 and resell at $ 59.99.
To avoid the costs and risks badociated with inventory management, he has negotiated with suppliers (via the very popular Chinese online chat WeChat) for him to deliver his orders directly from their warehouses in China to US customers – a practice known as droopshipping.
"It's the best way to check if a product will be sold or not," he said.
Dropshielding also had other benefits: thanks to a program called ePacket, a contract between the US Postal Service and foreign postal operators to promote online commerce, LDSman was cheaper to source from China, but with a little late .
The provision of additional accessories for iPhone in Shanghai, for example, costs 2.29 USD, more than 5 USD less than shipping in the United States.
Chapman made money while he was sleeping
The orders piled up while he slept and Chapman realized that he had had something. "I earned money on the second day of launching the site and every day thereafter," he says. Two weeks after the launch of LDSman.com, it generated $ 10,000 in sales in one day.
The revenues allow Chapman to hire a team in the Philippines to provide customer service. He pays $ 700 a month to each member of the team (low enough for American standards, but much more than the average salary of $ 400 for the Philippines).
It is also increasing its advertising budget on Facebook, spending more on advertising products that attract the most purchases.
Two months after the start of the operation, drosping problems did not go too far. The Chinese trader, who pays $ 80,000 for the supply of inflatable chairs, replaces the approved product with a cheaper alternative.
When customers start complaining, LDSman replaces nearly 1,500 products. However, Chapman says that he overcomes this hurdle and realizes a pre-tax profit of 48%.
Like any good businessman, Chapman makes an opportunity: he buys an 800-square-meter warehouse in Salt Lake City and hires five people. It's an initiative that allows LDSman to increase its revenue, but Chapman also admits it's not for everyone, given the capital investment and commitment required.
Chapman leaves the solar panel business and, once he has a warehouse and employees, he spends a little over an hour a week working on the site and updating the Facebook ads.
Shortly after the company's 92nd day of business, when the site generated its first $ 1 million business turnover, the venture capital firm Clarke Capital, established in the Utah, contacted Chapman with the aim of adding LDSman to his wallet.
Chapman says he's refusing an acquisition offer of about $ 3 million to maintain his independence and have the income and time to work on his own projects.
For now, this includes managing LDSman and monthly sales of $ 350,000 on the sites. During the first six months of its publication, the site achieved a turnover of $ 2 million. Chapman is also leading an online marketing course.
Inspired by his experience of trading with products from China, Chapman also creates a new startup. With his brother-in-law, they created a logistics company that uses the free space of pbadenger planes, mainly those of Delta Airlines, to provide low-cost goods from Asia to the United States. United.
His latest client is another online trading company named Amazon. Businessman is about to generate a $ 10 million business turnover during his first year. As in his former company, most of the work is outsourced to a team of people.
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