Where to put your energy

I have had this question on my mind recently: “Am I wasting my time on some of my business activities?” Some of them seem to go nowhere. How long it will take for them to take off? I have wasted a lot of energy on new products and marketing them on various social media. The results are highly unsatisfying. I did a few courses and I listened religiously to some industry gurus. So I decided to do some digging myself. I know the approach may not be the most scientific but at least it is based on tangible data.

My hope is that it will steer me in the right direction and I will not be wasting as much energy as in the past few months. Here is some data I looked at and it might help you as well, although I am aware that people are different and everyone has their own unique needs and goals.

1. Amazon – 9.7 million sellers worldwide but only 1.9 million are actively selling, Less than one in ten active Amazon sellers generated over $100,000 in annual sales, and 1% of the sellers hit the $1 million sales mark this source: Oberlo.com. My questions – Why are there so few active sellers? What happened to the rest? What to think about the odds 1:10? What is the 1% of 1.9 million?

2. Etsy revealed it had a $349.25 million net income in 2020 and there were 4.1 million active Etsy sellers in 2020. A really nice and comprehensive breakdown can be found here. My question – If I divide the total by the number of sellers, I get 85 USD on average per seller!

3. Red Bubble – revenue of artists 67.4 million and 700 000 artists and designers are currently on the platform. source for more details can be found here. Again, if I divide the total numbers, I get 96 USD per seller.

O.K., I know I am not a math wizard and this is not, how you do a market analysis – but I did need a quick glimpse. According to my humble maths, Amazon still comes on top for sure. Now the question is, do I view the odds 1:10 as good or bad odds…As I am an optimist, I would say, it is still worth a try but I am not so starry-eyed as before, realising it might be a longer journey than I originally thought.

By the way, I will continue my ventures with Etsy and other platforms but looking at it differently now. And please, carry on with yours as well. Remember, I am not an analyst, and it is your business after all.

2024 update:

1. Amazon – did not work for me, good as a starting point to learn the skills, need to invest in the ads, your product has to be cheap, dirt cheap and you will shine only until the competitors take you down. Not for me but I am grateful for the learning curve.
2. Etsy – is good as a starting point, learn what sells and what does not, and learn how to attract your buyers, earnings go mainly to big sellers with large inventory or to those who invest in the ads, competition is fierce, and Etsy will promote you only a tiny tiny little bit, biggest sellers are based in the U.S, only some in Canada and U.K., other countries do not seem to be represented at the top
3. Red Bubble – low earnings but good as a lesson one learns when you are starting or when you want to see and test how your designs look on different products, not a big market share, the buyers are spending more on low-cost items i.e. stickers