I Lost £10K+ Selling on Amazon. Seven Years Later, We’ve Scaled Millions. Here’s Everything I Wish I Knew.
When I first started selling on Amazon, I thought it was just going to be a side hustle.
A simple way to earn some passive income.
At the time, I was delivering pizzas and saving every penny I could. I’d spend my evenings watching YouTube videos, especially Jungle Scout’s “Million Dollar Case Study,” trying to figure out how people were building businesses on Amazon.
I eventually found my first product.
Ordered samples.
Got excited.
Then… it failed.
I lost around **£10,000** between bad product decisions, inventory, and mistakes. I genuinely considered quitting.
Thankfully, my wife convinced me to give it one more shot.
That decision changed my life.
My next product was a banneton basket for making sourdough bread.
It started slowly—around three sales a day—but I couldn’t make it profitable.
I reached out to a mentor who helped me make a few key changes.
My partner completely transformed our product photography and listing, and at one point we were converting nearly **30% of visitors into customers**.
We became profitable.
Then the pandemic came.
Sourdough exploded in popularity, and suddenly we were doing around **£10,000 per month** in sales. I quit my job and went all in.
But I made another mistake…
I became obsessed with maximizing profit margins.
While competitors were paying more to fly stock into Amazon, I kept shipping by sea because it was cheaper.
Eventually we ran out of stock.
We lost our Best Seller position.
And despite rebuilding the business and launching more products, we never fully regained that ranking.
That lesson alone probably cost me more than anything else.
A few years later, I joined an Amazon agency.
That’s when my mindset completely changed.
I stopped seeing Amazon as a “side hustle” and started seeing it for what it really is:
A serious business.
Over the last seven years, I’ve had the opportunity to help brands generate millions in revenue. One of my favourite projects was helping a men’s hair-loss brand grow from **£0 to £1 million in just 12 months**.
TLDR; Looking back, these are the lessons I wish someone had told me on day one:
- Treat Amazon like a business, not a side hustle.
- Expect to lose before you win. Mistakes are part of the process.
- Find a mentor. The right advice can save you months (or years).
- Invest in great product images and listings—they make a huge difference.
- Don’t chase the highest profit margin if it means running out of stock.
- Inventory management matters just as much as marketing.
- Build a brand, not just another product.
- Learn marketing. Sales don’t happen by accident.
- Obsess over creating a great customer experience.
- Think in years, not months.
Amazon gave me far more than an income.
It taught me how to build businesses.
It introduced me to incredible founders.
It opened doors I never imagined when I was delivering pizzas.
If you’re just getting started, don’t focus on getting rich quickly.
Focus on becoming someone who knows how to build something valuable.
The results tend to follow.