#445 – From $1.5M to $5M in 5 Months: Palak Raniwala’s Amazon Breakthrough Strategy
Discover the riveting journey of Palak Raniwala, a remarkable entrepreneur who catapulted her Amazon sales from $1.5 million to a staggering $5 million in just five months. We trace Palak’s path from her early e-commerce missteps to her current success, all while exploring the pivotal role of storytelling in marketing. Her move from London to Austin and her immediate dive into the Market Masters event showcase her relentless commitment to her craft. Palak’s story is a powerful testament to the transformative power of resilience and learning from past mistakes, with insights that any aspiring entrepreneur would find invaluable.
In this episode, we explore the art of brand storytelling, drawing inspiration from historical diamond marketing strategies to enrich a home linen business. By forging authentic connections through influencer marketing, Palak and I emphasize the importance of community and personal narratives in elevating a product’s allure. Alongside these insights, we discuss the dynamic landscape of e-commerce and the necessity of maintaining a consistent brand voice across platforms like Amazon, Shopify, and Instagram. Through our conversation, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and strategies that define successful online ventures.
As we navigate the complexities of Amazon business growth, the episode highlights the impact of networking and strategic outsourcing. From managing inventory with Amazon to the power of virtual bundling, Palak shares her insights on leveraging industry events for breakthrough opportunities, like reinstating a suspended Amazon account. We also explore the critical nature of seasonal trends, revealing why spring and summer are prime times for home goods sales. With an eye on future aspirations, Palak discusses the potential of e-commerce and the ambitious goal of reaching $20 million in sales, showcasing the limitless possibilities when innovation, persistence, and strategic feedback converge.
In episode 445 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Palak discuss:
- 00:00 – From Retail to E-Commerce Success
- 12:41 – Building a Home Linen Business
- 13:22 – Influencer Marketing for Amazon Sellers
- 19:09 – Market Masters and Community Networking Power
- 25:36 – Business Growth and Expansion Strategies
- 34:58 – Outsourcing and Brand Building Success
- 36:28 – Expanding Product Range With Multiple Suppliers
- 43:18 – Challenges and Successes in Brand Building
- 46:18 – Seasonal Trends in Home Sales
- 47:43 – Amazon Business Pricing Multiples Setting
- 51:22 – Growing Business Through Branding Efforts
- 53:09 – Kevin King’s Parting Shot
Transcript
Kevin King:
What’s up everybody? Welcome to episode 445 of the AM/PM podcast. It’s May 1st 2025, and we’ve got an awesome episode for you today with Palak Raniwala. She’s someone who went from 1.5 million in sales on Amazon to 5 million in sales on Amazon in just five months. We talk about how she did that, some strategies and a lot more in this episode. Enjoy. Welcome to the AM PM podcast. Palak Raniwala, did I get that right?
Palak:
Yes, absolutely, in fact, one of the very few people who can. So, thank you.
Kevin King:
I try. I’m really bad with names, but sometimes I can actually get it close, so I’m glad I got that right. You’re just up the road from me in Austin, right? You’re in the Austin area, right?
Palak:
No, I’m in Round Rock.
Kevin King:
Well, that’s the Austin area, yeah.
Palak:
Yeah, like greater, but yeah.
Kevin King:
Yeah, the greater. Yeah, there you go, the greater Austin area.
Palak:
So kind of in the same vicinity, but yes.
Kevin King:
Now remember when I first met you I think you had just moved to this area you were like, I think, uh, you came to the very first Market Masters event and I remember you messaged me and, like, the moving trucks are at my house, my husband’s taking care of it, but I’m coming to the event. We just arrived yesterday, or something like that, but I’m coming to the event. I don’t care. Was that the case?
Palak:
Yes, we just moved the day before. We didn’t have any furniture, we were sleeping on the literally floor and I came directly. I came from the airport, I came, set up the little bit of food and stuff at the home and I just came in next day to the event and I stayed there for three days because I was like, no, this is not worth missing. So I wanted to be there.
Kevin King:
That was awesome. So where did you come from before that? Where were you?
Palak:
London.
Kevin King:
London.
Palak:
Oh yeah, so I was in Austin for five years and then we moved to UK for about five years and then we came back just because we had the freedom to be anywhere. So we came to Austin just because we loved it so much.
Kevin King:
You were in Austin for a while, and then was it your husband or your job or something that transferred you over to London.
Palak:
My husband. It’s been my husband. He had to move to London for a very good job opportunity. He was the managing director at a TV channel over there and then because of that, we moved again. Even at that point of time I had the freedom to work from here or there, so I didn’t mind.
Kevin King:
So what do you mean when you had the freedom? Because you haven’t been doing Amazon for five years, have you?
Palak:
No, I haven’t been doing Amazon for five years. I was trying online. I’ve had multiple businesses, not just this one. I’ve tried Amazon in the past. I’ve tried Shopify in the past. I’ve had a couple of unsuccessful stints in the past, but it just helped to know what to do, what not to do. Market Masters helped in kind of helping what to do, what not to do mostly what not to do and that’s why I was able to kind of do better at this business.
Kevin King:
So these other businesses were e-commerce businesses, or is it different types?
Palak:
Everything has been e-com. I’ve tried Amazon as well in the past, not really focusing on Amazon as such. I was trying different platforms like eBay and Shopify. Mostly I was trying to do Shopify in past in UK.
Kevin King:
Was this your own products, or were you dropshipping, or what were you doing?
Palak:
Uh, that was my own products. Everything was manufactured by myself, uh, by my family, my parents. They were dropshipping from Indiato the end consumer. I was shopping, I was selling it through Shopify, and it’s just. I don’t know if the market was smaller or it was just probably not the right fit. I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t, you know, attended any seminars or any groups, or I wasn’t part of any group. So it was just me and using my little brain to kind of figure this out. Which is why this, any sort of connections and all of this helps, because it just gets you broader and a bigger picture.
Kevin King:
So how did you first hear about e-commerce? So you’re originally from India, right?
Palak:
Yes.
Kevin King:
And then you came to the States at some point. Was that for school or for I got married?
Palak:
Yeah, I got married.
Kevin King:
You got married and your husband was from here.
Palak:
He was also living here. He was living before me. He was living here for five, six years before. So, yeah, he was here. So I got married and I came to US and I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. That was like my end goal.
Kevin King:
Did you ever work in any kind of corporate job or anything? Have you always been an entrepreneur doing stuff all the way back to India?
Palak:
No, no, no, I was not. As soon as I came in, I was setting up my store. I did a retail store in Austin at the Lakeland Mall.
Kevin King:
Oh really.
Palak:
Yeah, I had a retail store.
Kevin King:
In the mall?
Palak:
In the mall, yeah.
Kevin King:
Okay, selling what kind of stuff?
Palak:
It was mostly fashion stuff, fashion and home decor again home linen, the kind I’m doing right now, and-
Kevin King:
Coming from it, stuff made in Indiaprimarily?
Palak:
Yes, made in India
Kevin King:
Okay.
Palak:
And, uh, it was just a way too long hours for me. it was just it didn’t work that well, probably not the best location for my kind of stuff Lakeline mall I realized that later when I did it probably not the best where, when and how is happening. So I closed that and I realized that I do need some experience of what my customer is. I need to understand how selling works in the US. In Indiait’s very different and in the US it was very different. So then I did a corporate job and we were, it was in jewelry and I started selling to these big stores like Macy’s and all these big tv channels all across the US, which is where I started understanding how the consumer works. What do they think? What do they really need? So basically, just a better understanding of US customer.
Kevin King:
And always bringing stuff from India? or did you branch out on this jewelry to like Turkey and Israel and other places too?
Palak:
Um India and China.
Kevin King:
India and China.
Palak:
Yeah, this was, yeah, this. I was working in a corporate job, so their manufacturing was in India and they were sourcing from China. They also do. They started also doing a little bit of in Bali, but it was mostly concentrated India and China.
Kevin King:
That was here in Austin? Because there’s a big jewelry tv jewelry store up there.
Palak:
Yes Let’s Shop LC. I don’t know if you know about that.
Kevin King:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s all right. I know exactly who that is. Yeah, that’s a big. It’s a big company. Uh, I do, they do some. They’re kind of like an online uh HS, uh, what live shopping basically.
Palak:
Live shopping yeah.
Kevin King:
For jewelry on cable channels.
Palak:
Now they’re doing everything under the sun, not just jewelry. But at that point of time the company that I was part of that was the sister company of the channel, so we were supplying bulk jewelry to Macy’s, QVC, all of these big channels and big stores. I don’t know if you know, Zales.
Kevin King:
Yeah.
Palak:
All of those. So, yeah, we used to have meetings with all of these buyers and kind of understood what they were thinking, kind of realized the value of storytelling from there.
Kevin King:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say, because I just learned the lesson the hard way. I always thought diamonds, because they cost so much, you buy a nice diamond engagement ring when you get engaged or you buy nice jewelry. My ex-wife used to be into really nice jewelry and so my engagement ring was like $13,000, $14,000. And I bought it from this guy called the Iceman. You know he had a house up in West Austin. He, like I, go direct and you know, save from all the market, from the jewelry stores. I think I got a better deal. But when we got divorced a couple of years ago I went to sell it and I was shocked at how little this stuff is actually worth. I’d always my wife ex-wife had always been like we had over $100,000 worth of jewelry, probably 200,000 that we spent, and she’s like that’s our rainy day fund. If we ever get a business goes bad or something, we can always sell the jewelry and have some money. And I thought it held its value. But come to find out it holds very little value unless it’s got some sentimental thing or it’s a Superbowl ring or something like that. It holds almost no value.
Kevin King:
And the ring that I looked at all these places, uh like, uh, these resale places online, some places in locally, and maybe if I would have put it in a consignment shop in Austin and waited a year or two years or three years, I probably could have got more money. I just wanted to be done with it. I didn’t want the memories. I don’t want to be hanging on to that stuff. I ended up getting about a thousand bucks for it from an online auction site out of New York that specializes in high-end jewelry.
Palak:
No way, no way, no way.
Kevin King:
That’s all that it was worth. That’s all that it was worth. And I tried a couple other places and then a lot of other stuff. Now with a, I’m drawing a complete blank on the names. It’s a company out of California. They used to have a store in the domain here in Austin that sells luxury stuff like Louis Vuitton. I’m drawing to complete blank on the name right now.
Palak:
Cartier? Cartier?
Kevin King:
No, it’s a. It’s a, it’s a resale shop, but for only luxury goods. They authenticate it. They had a storefront in the domain. They closed it last year, but they you can still send in a California. The Real, the Real real, that’s it. I think it’s the Real real. You send it to them and then they check it, authenticate it, and then they put up on their website and you can get some decent value there. But that’s because it has a brand name on it, because it’s a Louis Vuitton watch or it’s a Versace necklace or something, and then you can get about half or more, sometimes more, of the value of it, especially if it’s an out of out of print popular item. But like for a diamond ring engagement ring, there was that has not branded, um, it was a nice stone, it’s just zero value, um and uh, resale value uh, not zero, that’s the wrong thing to say. It’s a small fraction, like 10% is all it’s worth.
Palak:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
And then some of the stuff they wouldn’t take odds and then little pieces here there. I took them to a store in Lakeline mall. It’s like a, a watch repair store there and I’d taken stuff before to have like necklaces fixed and I took it, I took all the little remnant parts in there and said what can we just sell this for? Just for meltdown, for you know what’s nickel and what’s platinum and what’s this. And she bought it all off me and she was the owner and she was like she knew I did Amazon stuff because I’d been there several times before. She’s like so you’re the Amazon guy, right, you do all this Amazon stuff. She’s like I need to start doing Amazon, I need to take your course and I need to learn. So we start talking. I was like so how much? You just gave me $900 for these odds and ends pieces random, you know, it’s like one earring it’s missing the other earring and stuff you couldn’t really sell. I was like, what are you gonna sell this for meltdown? So I’ll probably double my money It’s like yeah, I told her the story about this ring and she’s like yep the market is ridiculous in these places it’s like you know, look at why they always have 46 off sales and they’re still making 10 20 x on their investment. Even at that, I’m like, yeah, I learned that the hard way, so my, if I get married again, um, she’s not getting nice jewelry.
Palak:
Two things if you’re getting married again, please don’t buy retail. Tell me I’m going to hook you up with a really good value diamond ring. So tell me if you ever need something.
Kevin King:
I will do that. I will do that.
Palak:
I’ve sold a ring at Macy’s. Okay, I shouldn’t be telling all these secrets. I sold a ring at Macy’s for $100 and they sold it for like $900. So this is the kind of markup retail stores do, so you can imagine if you’re selling that ring at $1,000. If you’re trying to sell that ring at $1,000, the cost is about $100.
Kevin King:
Well, that’s about right, because I got a thousand bucks for the diamond and I paid 13,000 for it. So that’s similar, but yeah that’s. Yeah, I had no idea of the extreme markups and I thought. I thought it held its value, uh, and because it’s a precious metal and all this, and I learned my lesson. Um, so.
Palak:
Value is only going to be holding in for gold. If you’re buying gold and selling gold, that’s when it’s gonna, you know, just go up. If you’re doing diamond, you’re probably going to, just if you’re not doing retail and if you’re doing closeout, like I, buy closeout, which is really the value of the actual diamond and the gold and just a little bit of labor. Normally they don’t charge labor for in closeout stuff, so that’s when you’re going to make money selling those kinds of stuff.
Kevin King:
It’s like you just said earlier, though it’s the story, and you know, diamonds, a hundred and something years ago, were not popular. Nobody bought diamond engagement rings or bought. That wasn’t the thing to do, and De Beers, the big diamond company, is the one that started. If you look at the history of it, I think in the late 1800s maybe early 1900s, late 1800s, somewhere around in there they actually came up with this marketing campaign that made diamonds popular. They weren’t popular before and they added this inherent value to it where every woman expects a diamond ring for engagement or for marriage or whatever, and diamonds are a girl’s best friend and all these campaigns that they did. They actually made diamonds what they are, and so it’s the story. When you’re selling this kind of stuff and that’s what you said that you’ve really done well with what you learned from doing that corporate gig for a little while how are you implementing that into what you do now, like on Amazon and stuff?
Palak:
So that’s one very important key area for us is been influencer marketing is that we work with a lot of Amazon affiliates and the way I’ve realized I mean it’s not inauthentic, but we’ve always placed kind of reached out to them with our story, first saying that you know, we are not a corporate and we are a very small company and it’s just me and we’re trying to make this into something that can sustain us since we’re in the US. So kind of putting our story out there and then connecting with them. Because what I’ve realized is in the past that people do connect on a people basis and a lot of them, even though they’ve had, you know, normally they would not work on a product basis. Product collabs they normally do, knowing that it’s just one person and it’s not a corporate. So I’ve never done a paid collab, I’ve only done product-based collabs. And it’s been kind of a journey, because it’s very hard to convince anyone to do just a product collab, especially now in a day and age where corporates are ready to shell out so much money to influencers, big influencers.
Kevin King:
When you say product collab, that means just give them the product in exchange for the video no, no commissions.
Palak:
Commissions that came from Amazon, but like no extra commissions. No, nowadays they’re all asking for uh, money paid up front. So it’s like fifteen hundred dollars, two thousand dollars, just to even take the product and put it on their feed. That’s like a straight upfront cost. Um so-
Kevin King:
You’re not. You’re not paying that.
Palak:
I’m not doing any of that and I’ve realized that’s mostly because we’re kind of trying to connect with them in terms of, uh, like a story or just on people to people basis, having more of an emotional connect.
Kevin King:
So are your, is your jewelry aimed at the Indian market or is it aimed at anybody? And it just happens to be from India, or are you playing up the story? I’m an immigrant that came to America, i’m a small businesswoman, help me out, help me grow the company, or what’s your angle? What’s your avatar that you go after?
Palak:
So jewelry was what I was doing back then. Now I’m doing home linen.
Kevin King:
Okay.
Palak:
And my story is more of that. You know, I’m a mother of two kids and this is something that I’m juggling while being a mother and I’m being entrepreneur. So it’s hard for me and I’ve just recently started, so it’s hard for me to shell out multiple dollars like big bucks for advertising on Amazon. So I do need a lot of support from like-minded women to help me out here and to support the kind of product we’re doing, because it’s niche, it’s one-off, it’s not mass produced, so all my products are handmade.
Kevin King:
Oh really.
Palak:
Yeah, so my biggest thing is that I don’t want to do a lot of mass products which are made like thousands, two thousands together. So this I can only do much smaller quantities. But it’s also very niche. It’s also very special because each item is different, because handmade. Each item is different. So we kind of want to appreciate uniqueness in each of us by giving them product which is unique to them.
Kevin King:
So when you’re listing, are you doing handmade on Amazon? Are you doing regular list?
Palak:
No, no regular, uh, but I’m selling handmade product on Amazon, but regular.
Kevin King:
Say something like there’s in the listing. It says something like uh, each product slightly varies, so it’s maybe the same color pattern, but two of the two of the color strings are in a different place because it was handmade. But it’s going to look very similar, but not exactly to the tee like this.
Palak:
We have that on our listing. We have that on our marketing material in our product, because we don’t do any marketing material where we’ll add barcodes or anything, just our story, just a photo of us, our family, me and our products, just kind of trying to give them a more emotional story about us and our brand.
Kevin King:
So you said, when you started doing this Amazon stuff, it was just you. You weren’t part of any communities or you weren’t on any online stuff. You were just like did you watch a few YouTube videos, or did you just like kind of figure it out on your own? Or how did you actually get that initial ball rolling?
Palak:
So it was just me when I started. I actually started in Amazon UK and that was like super tough. I was back in the UK back then. I tried to do Amazon UK and Shopify. I was not part of any community back then. It was just me trying to figure out and trying to just. It was mostly like just putting listings out there and seeing what sticks. Kind of just you know-
Kevin King:
Do you know anything about keyword research? Do you know anything about anything-
Palak:
Just doing some random YouTube videos and just literally just listing whatever I find and putting it out there. No, no detailed PPC analysis, nothing at all. Then I realized that it didn’t well, obviously didn’t work. Like I didn’t put in any work in there, so like obviously I didn’t, I shouldn’t have expected also to work. Um, then I pivoted to US and then I did a course. Uh, I thought you know, it’s better to do uh kind of a course and learn the basics first, getting into Amazon, probably anything. Uh, if you’re getting into Shopify, Amazon, whatever it is, it’s better to learn the basics. So I did a basic Amazon course and then from there it helped me because I also started building contacts. I started going to, even when I probably didn’t even make so much money. I started going to events.
Kevin King:
Have you been to a few in the States, besides Market Masters, have you been to any other?
Palak:
Nothing yet I don’t. I haven’t been to any other. I don’t think I do want to as well, cause I feel like-
Kevin King:
You’re spoiled, you’re spoiled now.
Palak:
Yeah, I’ve got a good community here. I know people like really good, helpful people, cause I, whenever I have issues and I know I can message so many people in the community and just be like I can count on them to help me out or just even guide me. Like even for Shopify, when I messaged you that I needed some help, you just right out of the bag just messaged me with names and helped me out with contact. So just stuff like that. I don’t think I need more kind of like more community as of now. I think I’m quite content with.
Kevin King:
Well, I think you did it the right way, because the thing is, with conferences and Danny, the one that you went to Seller Sessions he’s making change this year and doing it differently and you’re starting to see a few more people do this kind of like the Market Masters format. They can’t copy that because it’s going to be pretty hard for them to replicate that, but I think you’re going to see more people trying to do that because it’s so powerful, because you go to most conferences and the networking can be great and that’s where I get most of the value. It’s going to dinner with people and sitting next to someone you know talking shop and they might say some sort of cool tip or hack or technique that they’re doing. I’m like, oh wow, that was better than anything I heard on the stage today. But you’re listening to presentations and those are people are talking at you from stage and you listen to those and you might sit there for all day and listen to seven or eight presentations and maybe two of them are stuff that you can use and the others are like, yeah, that sounds cool, but that’s not really where I’m at right now.
Kevin King:
Versus, you come to Market Masters like what you did and everything is about you. We’re talking to you, not at you, and so you’ve answered some questions beforehand. Most of the people the experts are curated to help you. Seven or eight experts are curated based on what problems you’re having. So if you’re like I need to blow up my TikTok, you’re gonna have a TikTok expert on there. If you’re like I wanna sell my business, I’m gonna have someone that helps people sell businesses. And the way that works is they’re asking you specific questions. Just for the audience that hasn’t been to one. They’re asking you specific questions for about an hour. No solutions, just questions. There’s grilling and some of those are uncomfortable questions and if you don’t answer them properly you’re not going to get the help that you might need. And a lot of times that opens up blind spots that you didn’t even realize you had in your business. You thought you were trucking along doing well and you’re like actually you got this problem over here that you didn’t even realize, and then the next hour, hour and a half, is all solutions.
Kevin King:
We just did a demo of this at BDSS in Iceland a couple weeks ago and people were like holy cow because they didn’t understand what it was and that was like crazy. We did a demo on stage with seven people and someone in the hot seat, and that, I think, is much more valuable. And I think in your case didn’t you say when you came to the first one in September you’re doing about a million and a half in gross sales?
Palak:
Yes.
Kevin King:
And then you came, you paid the money to sit in the hot seat. It’s not cheap, this is an investment, and that scares a lot of people. They’re like I can’t pay that kind of money. That’s crazy, but the value that you get, if you just take yours as an example, you were doing about a million and a half. You came in there, you opened yourself up, you got grilled by seven experts and then they made a bunch of suggestions. You went back and took action. Some people like, just it goes in one ear and out the other, um, or they do a couple things, but you basically took them at heart, went back and implemented almost everything. I think you said, uh, that they said to do. And now, five months later, we did a second Market Masters in February of this year, and you messaged me like Kevin, I gotta come. Uh, is there a special price for a alumni? Like, yeah, like yeah, come on.
Palak:
I wanted to be there, irrespective of if. I’m part of the Market Masters sit down hot seat or not. But I was like, yeah, I want to be there.
Kevin King:
Yeah. So you came back as what I call an audience member, so you’re not in the hot seat, but you get to watch other ones and you get to network with the people and through that, at the end of it I sat in a hot seat me and Mark sat in a hot seat and we said what can we do better to market this? And someone said you need a case study, you need to show. And I was like I don’t know, I don’t really like case studies so much, but you need a case study to show what an impact this made. And then later that night I’m having a cigar with Norm and Norm’s like did you hear what Palak’s doing? I was like no, what? She said well, she was doing 1.5 million. And I just did an interview with her on the camera and now she’s doing 5 million. I’m like what? And in five months you’ve basically more than tripled your revenue. I was like okay, where are you at? I tracked you down. I’m like all right, we got to show this. And I asked you remember, when I called you, I said is this legit, or did you get featured on Oprah, or did some video go viral somewhere? And you’re like no, I just did what the panel said to do and I think that’s the massive value and where a lot of people, when you look at the price to do it.
Kevin King:
I don’t make money on this event. I lose the first one you came to I lost $70,000, even though the price is not cheap. But it costs a lot to put this on, to bring these people, all these experts, 26 experts together in a mansion and you know the chef and the massages and everything. It costs a lot but the impact it makes. If you do what, if you’re open and you do what you, what they suggest, is huge.
Palak:
Also, Kevin, I want to just add to that is that if someone is thinking and if someone wants to come in and do it and they’re more like concerned about the grilling aspect of it, I just want to add that that was one of the things I was so nervous about. It’s not that they’re out there to kind of put you down, you know, it’s kind of all the experts are just there to help you. So it’s grilling, but it’s like in a positive way, where they’re just trying to get the right information out of you and help you out. So it’s not as scary as it sounds. It may sound to some people, because I met a couple of people in the second one where I was just audience member and they were telling me that you know, we were, we’re a bit nervous about being in the hot seat because it sounds like so scary, it’s a hot seat and I’m like, no, honestly, it’s not as scary as it sounds, it’s, it’s just getting. It’s like more of conversational, getting to know you, getting to know your business. So obviously that’s the only way you can get good advice and good information without. Without asking all of those tough questions, there’s no way they can help you out.
Kevin King:
And you said the value too, not only from sitting in that chair for two and a half hours, but you got to spend the rest of the weekend interacting with these people and, like someone said something in your session, you’re like you quarter them at lunch or say, hey, can I talk to you a little bit more about? About this and that people were so helpful that, yeah, let’s sit down and chat. That’s the value too, and it’s not just maybe there’s someone there because there’s the one you did. There’s 26 experts, I think, and there’s only seven, I think, maybe eight on your panel, but that means there’s 18 other ones there that were not on your panel and they might know something too. And you’re able to go and meet them and pick their brain in a comfortable, safe environment.
Kevin King:
And it’s just, it’s it, that event went so well, the first one went so well afterwards, and it wasn’t just you. I mean, there’s another guy who was from the UK, you remember, and he had his supplement brand had been suspended for eight months, millions of dollars. And someone tell him well, you need to get on a plane and go to Seattle because next week Accelerate, and you need to talk to this person to go bang on this door and go here and here. And he changed his plans and went and I remember he put a video into the WhatsApp group. He was crying and he’s like I’m here in Seattle. I just want to say thanks to everybody. I’ve only cried twice in my life when my daughter was born and today, because my account is back up now. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come there. So that’s the impact and that’s why I do these. So the next Market Masters is in November of this year. We’ll be announcing where it may be in Austin, might be in another city. We’re announcing it’ll be in the US, but we’re announcing where that’s going to be soon. But we’re cutting it from 12 people in the hot seat to nine.
Kevin King:
So it’s going to be less hot seats and a little bit longer on changing it up a little bit. But then when we came back and we did the second one that you came to as an audience member, people said that we’re at both, said that one was even better than the first. So we’re, we have our challenges ahead of us, but it’s a tough world out there and I mean, I know you haven’t been selling on Amazon, but for what? Five, six years or something like that or less. But I’ve been doing it since 2001. Doing the FBA model for 10 years and it’s changed a lot and it’s a real business now and there’s a lot of just the tariff stuff that people are dealing with right now, just all the competition. It’s a tough, tough business and margins are getting squeezed from everywhere and the only ones making money are Amazon, Amazon shareholders.
Palak:
I know, but even, uh, even if someone wants to jump in an Amazon and even wants to start now or has started, I think now the mindset is shifting more towards that people are focusing on building brands, even on Amazon, and not just-
Kevin King:
Exactly.
Palak:
I think initially it was a lot about putting a product in and just making that product go viral and that’s the end of it. You make that money and you sell your business and that’s it. But now it’s more about building that entire brand holistically, having a story in place, giving value to the end customer and not just selling one single product or two products. So I think that’s where I feel that normally, going forward, that shift is going to happen more extensively, that even Amazon will start wanting people to kind of add more value and story and product and variety in terms of because for us, I think our biggest boost of sales also comes in when we launch new products. We can’t just focus on one single or two single products. We have about 19 SKUs and we have to keep launching new stuff, new innovative stuff to be able to get incremental sales, which is one of the things that has kind of differentiated us, that we don’t just stick with one SKU or two SKU or three SKU. I know inventory management is a bit tough, but then there are good tools to do that. But it’s just. That’s the way to do incremental, to get incremental sales right now, because you’re building a brand, you’re building your portfolio and you’re getting in new and interesting stuff on there, and then, obviously, you connect with all the affiliates that you work with and hit them up the product and that’s how we’ve been focusing on our launch strategy going since last five months now.
Kevin King:
How do you choose a new product? You got 19. How do you choose a new one? Is it supplement that complements something you have? Is it feedback from your customers? Do you use tools to look for opportunities? How are you deciding what the? Is it your parents back in India saying, hey, we can make. We just got this cool seamstress that can make this kind of cool stuff? How do you decide what to do?
Palak:
So a lot of it comes from our customers as well, because sometimes our product, our customers are looking for matching products. So because it’s a typical home linen kind of product, so they’ll need, they’ll want, they’ll ask us oh, could you also make something like this? It’ll go well in my home with the product that you already have, and from there, you know, that idea clicks oh, why not? Yes, let’s try that, we’ll make for you as well, and then we’ll also send it to Amazon. So sometimes that it’s sometimes also, um, you know, looking around, keeping my eyes open, I like creating new stuff, I love creating new and innovative stuff. So just kind of looking around and seeing, oh, this uh sells well, and also just selling, what category sells the best on Amazon? So I’ll kind of look at the category categories, um, so if, if curtain is a big category, then I’ll, I’ll get into that, I’ll create my niche within that big category and then I’ll sell, I’ll make a product, um, yeah.
Kevin King:
What price point are most of your products?
Palak:
My price point is upwards of $39.
Kevin King:
Okay, so that’s a good price point and are you able since these are handmade, do you have really good margins and are you having to do much PPC to support this, or is it a lot of just organic growth?
Palak:
We do do a lot of PPC, but we try to stay within 13% TACOS.
Kevin King:
13? One, three?
Palak:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
Okay.
Palak:
Yeah, so because we do have a decent amount of margin selling our products. So that’s 13%, but we’re still mostly focusing on affiliate marketing and organic. Because of that, we get a lot of flywheel organic traffic that Amazon pushes towards us, because we are getting a lot of outside traffic for Amazon.
Kevin King:
So when this growth where you went from on pace to do a million and a half and then five months later you’re on pace to do 5 million, that’s a big inventory. That means you’re having to buy more, get more stuff shipped in and pay more, how did you, did you have that? Did you were you able to do that from cashflow? Or did you work out terms with your parents or whoever’s supplying you? Or did you have to go out and get one of these Amazon type of loans? Or how did you handle that, that massive growth?
Palak:
No, it was all through our own cashflow. We put in a little bit of our own money as well, our personal savings, but it was mostly cash flow, just better cash management, because we started putting PPC funds on our credit cards. So that’s when we started saving a lot of money for giving it to the vendor we did have. We also had like two months of pay period that I set up with my parents that you know I will pay after two months. So we had that wiggle room, um, in terms of paying them money and also putting a lot of uh, I mean PPC cost on our cards, which is where we got like a really good wiggle room, uh for managing our cash and which is why we’ve been mostly are like mostly it’s been through our own cash. We’ve not taken any loan. We’ve not taken any money out from outside any of these lenders or et cetera. We are now trying to get a line of credit with our bank just because we’d rather get it when they’re in positive cash flow.
Kevin King:
Right.
Palak:
When we, so that we can use it when we do need it. It’s something that we just want to do it now, if, whenever we’re struggling, then it’s hard to get a line of credit.
Kevin King:
Yeah, you always want to get money when you’re in the best place. You always want to apply for a new credit card when you got all your other credit cards paid off. Even though you know that next week I’m going to spend $50,000 on this credit card because I got to buy it. But apply now. What so zero?
Palak:
That’s what my banker said. He said you know what, when you are before you’re paying your vendor and you have like this good chunk in your bank, that’s when you apply for a line of credit, so you get a bigger line of credit when applying for it. So, uh, yeah. So that’s what we’re doing now. We’re in the process, even though we don’t need it, we’re just gonna apply for it. So that’s one thing I would suggest anyone who has, who does not need it right now, get it.
Kevin King:
Josh Hadley just did a presentation, or a smart showdown presentation at BDSS about using Plastique and Melio to pay your suppliers by credit card, and then he showed a way to actually get basically up to 180 day terms without paying any interest, like by timing the exact payment dates and timing the exact statement dates and all this kind of stuff to actually really extend, the get really creative with extending your cashflow cycles and not having to pay a lot of interest on it. It was, it was pretty cool, pretty cool stuff.
Palak:
All of that. I know, for me it’s one of the boring things to look into the finances and to do all of that. But yeah, it’s, it’s necessary.
Kevin King:
Do you use a 3PL or does everything come to your garage? How do you?
Palak:
All in Amazon warehouse right now.
Kevin King:
So you ship straight to Amazon.
Palak:
To Amazon. Yes, everything is just there. We do get returns here, so we try to just reuse our returns and we ship them back to Amazon itself, so we’re not wasting literally any inventory now.
Kevin King:
So this is mostly like table setting type of stuff or stuff for like around the house.
Palak:
Yeah. All like cushions and tablecloths et cetera, that kind of stuff. Home linen.
Kevin King:
Okay, all right, so it’s like it might be. If it it’s a cushion, it’s just the case. It’s not. They gotta go down the fabric store or go down a hobby lobby or whatever and buy the insert to put inside it, for example.
Palak:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
So a lot of your stuff ships flat and it doesn’t take a lot of space.
Palak:
Yes, but I was talking about incremental adding, incremental products. So, uh, that’s what we’re going to launch now, just because we’ve been doing cases till now, we are going to launch an insert. Just because people buy a lot of inserts when they’re buying cushion covers. So we saw that in our brand analytics, all of that, and then we saw that our biggest bundling was with inserts. So now we’re going to launch inserts just so that we can do a lot of. We can do virtual bundling on our listings high, high traffic listings, and we can add that as one of our. You know, it just helps in incremental sales. I would rather have buy our inserts rather than Utopia’s.
Kevin King:
You can do that with that special vacuum ceiling where you can take a big insert that’s 12 by 12 and it’s really small. And when you, it’s a really tight bag. And when you open the bag, 12 and it’s really small.
Palak:
Exactly. in India it’s like this big, and then after vacuuming it becomes so tiny. Sell everything now, everything that people want.
Kevin King:
So your parents, your main supplier? Do you have other suppliers too, or is it everything pretty much goes through your parents?
Palak:
No, no, we have other suppliers. Now we’re not just doing this, we’re also doing different products. We’re doing jute products, and you know different categories as well.
Kevin King:
Okay.
Palak:
So we have three brands right now. So-
Kevin King:
Oh okay.
Palak:
Yeah, so we are doing. Uh, we have about four vendors as of now.
Kevin King:
What would you say was the biggest thing that moved the needle after Market Master? What’s someone that’s listening to this like something you were doing and maybe weren’t doing it quite right, or that you changed after Market Master that’s made this big difference? Was it something you did with the story, or something you did with the images? Something you did with keywords? What do you feel? I know you did a lot of different little things and they all add up. But if you had to pick a couple of the bigger needle movers, what would you say those were?
Palak:
A couple of things that I do remember was, first of all, was outsourcing. I was trying to do everything myself and I got myself stretched too thin and I couldn’t do like multiple things that really needed my attention because I was stuck doing PPC and like the smaller things. So one thing that I love the advice of people saying that try to start outsourcing, don’t try to do everything yourself and I started doing that. I gave out my PPC, I gave out, uh, influencer outreach, I outsourced all of that and I realized I started having more time to figure out the strategy of what we need to do going forward. So that was one thing. The other thing was, uh, brand building. Um, which a lot, of, a lot of amazing people said that I needed to work on my brand a bit more, make it more high-end, because my product is high end and it’s a bit high price point. So, uh, my images on my listings needed to show that the product was expensive, the reason, and kind of also needed to show why the product was expensive. So I did change all of my images after that. I kind of revamped the images. I revamped the uh A plus content, especially the premium A plus content with the brand, the branding details. I changed all I again. I hired, outsource that to someone as well, because I realized that if I knew that I would have done that already, but I realized that I did not. I needed help. So I outsourced that as well and got that rebranded and that was one of the biggest needle movers as well. Conversions got way better after I revamped the branding and the images. So I think these two things were very helpful in trying to, you know, move that needle in like in a faster way. I would say in a faster. I mean I know growth would happen, but it would be a slower growth compared to just listening to all the good feedback and implementing that.
Kevin King:
Do you hope to sell this business one day, or do you want to keep running it for a while and grow it, or do you have any plans along that? Or are you just happy with what you’re doing right now and you have this freedom to take care of your children and do what you want?
Palak:
I don’t think we’re thinking of selling at all right now. We’re targeting a 20 million number by five years, so I think we should be good to reach there. And no, I don’t think we’re planning to sell it at all. For me doing e-comm, the biggest reason is that I needed to always have the freedom to do anything, to go anywhere same with my husband. He left his position he was a managing director of the TV channel that I was talking about and he quit his job because he saw the potential that there was in selling on Amazon and just you know, e-commerce. He always saw the potential and then we started working together and then kind of joined our brains together and realized like really the world is the limit here. So we just wanted to have the freedom of not having a nine to five corporate job. Uh, just because we have two kids we wanted to have, we wanted to be there with them, we wanted to have time so and have the flexibility. We have no plans to sell right now or even like five years in the future.
Kevin King:
How big is your team? Is it just you and your husband or do you have some other? I know you outsource, like PPC and some of the design stuff, but do you have anybody else that works for you regularly? Or is it just the two of you and you just hire as needed?
Palak:
No, it’s two of us, and we’ve done agencies mostly. So we’ve done agency for PPC. Uh, we did an agency for image optimization. Um, we did someone for our Shopify building website. So we have only about two more people working for us full-time.
Kevin King:
And you’ll do so four, four people, five million dollars, so it’s over a million. It’s $1.25 million per person. That’s almost up there in Facebook numbers what Facebook does per person.
Palak:
Honestly, we’re working with a lot of agencies. I wouldn’t say that we’re doing everything ourselves. Just working with a lot of different good people helps us save our time. We are able to give that direction to people that are helping us out, because doing everything myself, or if just two of us were trying to do everything, I think we would pull each other and our own hair out.
Kevin King:
What’s the hardest challenge you’ve had in growing this business? What’s the biggest thing that you’ve got you guys had to overcome
Palak:
I think one of the biggest thing was inventory management, because I always kept running out of stock always. You know, one good season comes and you’re like back to square one because you have no inventory and my priority takes about two months to make and finally come to Amazon. So good inventory management, um, regular uh, I would say. Also like consistent numbers. I’ve always had like a very fluctuating uh number pattern throughout the months that I’ve done this business. It’s never been very consistent. Um, and that was because my PPC was not very consistent. I used to always do PPC myself and I realized that doing everything manual is not the way to go with so many SKUs. So PPC was one of our biggest challenges, which now we’ve figured out how to outsource and give it out to someone who’s able to do it more in an automated statistical manner. So these are a couple of things that we really struggled with and also, I think, brand building how to portray your brand and have the same brand voice throughout, not just Amazon, but even Google or even Shopify, even for Instagram. It’s always better to do consistent brand voice, so that is something-
Kevin King:
That came from Market Masters, right, someone I think.
Palak:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you remember that right?
Kevin King:
I think that came from Facebook. And looking at something else, like these are like two different designs and there’s no.
Palak:
Yeah, you remember that, right, that was one of the biggest things in my Market Master which I really understood and I think I implemented that. And you know, you know, one of the um, one of my coaches did compliment me recently on my Instagram. She was like Mary reached out and I really appreciated that she reached out and she told me that it’s looking nice now yey!
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. Yeah, Mary’s big on the branding stuff.
Palak:
Yeah I know, I know.
Kevin King:
She’s a really sweet lady. She’s really really sweet.
Palak:
Oh she’s amazing. I’ve got so much help from her. That’s the biggest thing that you get. So many help, so much help, so many contacts, good contacts with references from people that you know, so that really helped.
Kevin King:
That was good. So what’s next? How many products do you plan to launch the rest of this year?
Palak:
Yeah, so we’re planning to do one product in each brand each month, so it’s going to be.
Kevin King:
Oh, that’s busy.
Palak:
I know, I know.
Kevin King:
It is busy, but again, that’s how we’ve seen consistent growth. Because I feel that, just because my time is not so big, it’s such a niche product I do hit a ceiling with each of my listings. After a point there’s only so much I can do with it. It’s not a very generic product which is like a $20 price point. It’s not that. So there is going to be some sort of ceiling for my product. So I have to add incremental listings.
Kevin King:
Do you see them die off? Do some of the older products die off or are they maintaining?
Palak:
They don’t die off, but they do reach a plateau.
Kevin King:
Okay, yeah, they can’t. It’s hard to grow them any further on Amazon. Yeah, unless you go to Amazon UK or Europe or Canada or something like that.
Palak:
Not really. We’re really focusing on single thing, right? Not single thing. We’re focusing on two things only Amazon US and Shopify only US market. I’ve realized in past trying to do a lot of different things is that you lose your focus, because it’s just we’re a very small team and as much as we try to do different things, it’s very hard for us to, you know, diversify and focus on different things and still try to be good at one good thing, one thing. And I think Amazon has so much potential for us we’re, you know, we’ve not even scratched the surface, so there’s so much potential out there. On Amazon, it’s just that you have to keep at it, stick to it. I’ve tried doing it for now. Amazon, it’s just that you have to keep at it, stick to it. Just not lose hope.
Kevin King:
Do you see seasonality in what you do? You said you had some ups and downs. Maybe when people move in the summer they want to buy new stuff for the house, or maybe holidays or entertaining people. Do you see that kind of seasonality, or is it different?
Palak:
Yes, for us spring is bigger spring and summer is actually bigger than the Thanksgiving season actually.
Kevin King:
That’s probably because people are moving. That’s when a lot of people move.
Palak:
A lot of events. So there’s a lot of weddings. There are a lot of events that people want to buy products for. So we do get a lot of. You know, the reason AOV gets good is because we get multiples in one order. We’ve got multiple items going in one order, like you know, someone will get like six tablecloths for that matter, because they have an event. So there are a lot of weddings in summers. There are a lot of corporate events in summer. So that’s when we see a huge jump in Easter, we’ll see a huge jump in Valentine’s, we’ll see a jump in Mother’s day. We’ll see a jump in these kind of events when people are doing a lot of specific events as such, and then, based on that, we’ll see jumps in colors as well. Like valentine’s we’ll see a jump in pinks and reds, and Easter we’ll see a jump in greens. For Mother’s Day as well it’s going to be summer is going to be mostly greens and blues. So we do a lot of color analysis as well to see what color is going to really work for which season.
Kevin King:
Well, since people are buying multiples, do you have business pricing too? Are you set up in the Amazon business or you set up on?
Palak:
Yeah. We always do business pricing because we do get a lot of multiples in business as business orders yeah.
Kevin King:
So that’s cool, so it sounds like things are going really well for you.
Palak:
Knock on wood.
Kevin King:
Knock on wood.
Palak:
I’m Indian. I believe in all of that.
Kevin King:
There you go and, speaking of Indian, you said the next Market Masters. You said you’re coming. That’s what you just said a minute ago you said that we have to do something at Market Masters. You said-
Palak:
Yes.
Kevin King:
You told Norm that you know we do a party one night and the first one we did a casino party, because the mansion had like a nice casino area with tables and everything. The second one we did like more like kids games.
Palak:
Oh, my god, the excitement was through the roof. Everyone’s screaming at the top of their lungs.
Kevin King:
It was crazy, it was fun with gambling real money for the little we had a little. Just for those listening, we had a those little uh roomba robots and we put knives on the top of it and then everybody bought a balloon for US $20. You got a balloon, you blow it up and write your name on it and drop it in this dog pen. We had a big, huge dog pen and then we’d turn the Roomba on. It would just randomly go around this pen popping balloons and the last balloon standing got the entire pot of money, which sometimes was like $300 or $400.
Palak:
I know there was a lot of opportunity to earn money.
Kevin King:
Yeah, there was a lot of opportunity to get some money, um, but you said the next one we have to do something. Uh, I forgot what that was. What was that you said? It was something like go like, go like this, and go like this, and like.
Palak:
I said I said to Norm that we need to do like a Indian Diwali party next time when we do a Market Masters. And I was trying to convince everyone, I was trying to convince you. Can you please let us let me do like Mehendi on hands and let everyone come in Indian event. And I was trying. I taught Norm some Indian steps as well. You know the whole Indian steps as well. He tried I. The only thing I can say is he tried.
Kevin King:
I wish I had video of that, to see Norm doing that. That would be hilarious.
Palak:
Oh yes, that would be so much, so much fun. I wish we recorded that.
Kevin King:
Well, next time I’ll make sure we do.
Palak:
Yeah, it depends on you, Kevin.
Kevin King:
We’ll have to see. I’ll talk to Mark and say, look, we gotta do, we gotta do this this uh, Indian, uh and Bollywood party. So, uh, make it, make it really fun. Because you know those what I’ve been, I’ve been to India couple times and I’ve I use I’ve watched a lot of Bollywood movies in the past, uh, and I always like, uh, you know, those musicals and stuff, and I always liked that, that Bollywood dance, and so it’s, it’s, it’s actually really cool.
Palak:
It’s going to be fun. Mark looked at me like I was crazy. It’s like I don’t know what he, what she’s talking about. But I will convince you till the end of my breath. Till November comes in I will till try to convince you guys.
Kevin King:
All right. All right, that’s a deal. That’s a deal. Well, Palak, it’s really been great to chatting with you today. Thanks for coming on If someone wanted to. I guess you’re not. You’re not here selling anything or pitching anything, but if someone wanted to check you out, are you on social media somewhere, or are you just like, want to remain a private and behind the scenes?
Palak:
No, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m there on Instagram, I’m there on all social medias. I just keep low key, I’m not very active, but yeah, I’m there. If someone-
Kevin King:
You’re in the Billion Dollar Sellers WhatsApp group. That group is very active.
Palak:
Oh yes.
Kevin King:
Yyou’re in that group. That group is actually you know, that started after one of the events several years ago and it’s just, it’s grown and there’s like six, seven. You have to have been to a BDSS event to get into it, but there’s seven, eight hundred people in there and it’s really active. There’s a lot of helpful stuff going on.
Palak:
That is really good because I don’t think anyone has that, but it helps out because it helps out with real life problems, like anytime I’m stuck with something, I will message on there and I’m 100 percent, I will get some response. So it’s really helpful. And even if it’s not in the group, a lot of people who know the solution will message me directly and say that you know what? Do this, do this, do this. Recently I just got help with creator connections on there and it just helped me out a lot. So, yeah, that’s so much value. Just come to an event, just to get part of the group.
Kevin King:
I like that. Well awesome. Thanks again for taking some time today and chatting. This has been great.
Palak:
Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun to chat with you, as always.
Kevin King:
Always fun speaking with Palak. That was a great little episode about how she’s actually changed her business to grow it to more than 3x in a short amount of time and what she’s doing now, focusing on the branding side of things that she really wasn’t focusing on before and that’s really helping her grow. We’ll be back again next week with another episode. We’ll have Danny McMillan on from Seller Sessions. Danny’s got an event coming up and he’s also been diving deep into the A9 algorithm and all the latest changes with Rufus and Cosmo and all the stuff that Amazon’s doing. He’s on top of that game. We’ll be talking some cool stuff about what’s going on there to help you out so that you can rank better and sell more on Amazon. So until next week, I hope you have a great rest of this week and just to leave you with some parting shots remember, branding is not about a logo or a name or necessarily even just a design. It’s about a feeling. A brand is how you make someone feel about your product or service that you sell, and that’s what Palak has doubled down on and you’ve seen what it’s done for her more than three extra sales. Take care, we’ll see you again next week.
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