We went from struggling to pay for stock to selling our Amazon FBA business for millions of dollars, in less than three months.
So, what happened?
It was 2021. Our monthly sales figures were strong but every day was a grind. You know what it’s like – logging on to Seller Central each morning and trying to figure out which fire needs to be put out first. Has that container of desperately needed stock moved or is it still sitting idly on a container ship off the coast of California? Maybe Amazon’s system has decided to suspend a product listing for no obvious reason, prompting yet another long chain of Seller Support messages to get it back online.
We dreamed of getting out of FBA but that’s all it was – a dream. In reality we were looking for loans to pay for much-needed inventory so we could keep the business going for another day. We weren’t exactly a strong target for acquisition.
At least, that’s what we thought.
But we were wrong. It was only after we were approached by a potential acquirer that we took the time to do a proper valuation of our business and realized the true value of what we were sitting on. And that’s when everything changed.
We decided we would try and sell our company. We spoke with potential buyers, negotiated term sheets, and battled our way through due diligence and rapidly expanding deal timelines. And finally, contracts were signed.
In less than three months we’d gone from our first buyer call to successfully exiting FBA.
It sounds so simple when we write it down, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. We had a fantastic outcome and managed to do a lot of things right, but with the benefit of hindsight it’s also easy to see where we went wrong. Our lack of preparation and inexperience with the business sale process slowed things down and led to some expensive mistakes.
But it wasn’t all in vain. We’re now taking our hard-earned experience and using it to help more Amazon Sellers achieve their own life-changing exits from FBA.
If you’re the owner of a successful FBA business and want to learn more about making your exit then check out our comprehensive video course. We also have some free resources for Amazon Sellers – expect to see more added soon.
