Welcome to my second income report in a row!
I write these posts for 2 reasons: first, to hopefully educate and inspire you for what is working in my business. And second, to help me reflect on what I've accomplished or what I should be doing better.
I'll be quite honest with you, I get nervous about publishing these income reports each month. All month, I get a little anxious that my income will go down and I'll have to face the collective disappointment of the Niche Pursuits community.
Looking Longingly to the Future! “The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent It”
Since I started the tradition of taking a “selfie” right before I publish my income report last month, above you will find my deep in thought picture for the month. You can slowly watch me age each month.
Anyway, let's dive into what happened in March!
Business Conferences and Hiring!
During the month of March, I had the chance to attend not one, but 2 different business conferences. The first conference was Traffic and Conversion summit in San Diego put on my Ryan Deiss and the crew at DigitalMarketer.com.
This is my 3rd year in a row to attend, and I really enjoy it. There are some high quality content sessions, and as far as networking with great attendees, the conference can't be beat.
I brought my employees along with me; Jake Cain and Jason Wilson (more on Jason in a minute). We had a great time hanging out and chatting business for a few days. I also got to meet up with Jon Haws (my cousin), Chris Guthrie, Steve Scott (we did a Saturday morning run together), Nick Loper, Matt Paulson, and tons of other great people.
Then at the end of March, I attended a much smaller event down in Valle de Bravo, Mexico with the Wired Investors team. This was a much more laid back event with a session or two in the morning and then the rest of the day to explore Mexico.
We played paintball, went mountain bike riding, and played sports. And of course I was able to get up early each morning and get my running in. I had a blast!
I mentioned in my last income report that I had hired a part time brand manager for my home goods brand. Well, that part-timer is now a full-time employee and he just quit his corporate job of 14 years!
Everyone please give a warm welcome to Jason Wilson, the newest full-time member of the Niche Pursuits Team! Jason will also be working alongside Jake regarding some things for Niche Pursuits as well.
So, you can expect to hear more from Jason on podcasts and in a blog posts every now and again here on NichePursuits.com.
Jason is actually someone that I worked with at Wells Fargo over 10 years ago. We've stayed in touch, and I introduced him to niche sites a few years ago. He's built a few sites and currently has one monster site earning between $3,000 and $4,000 a month!
So, not only is Jason an incredibly hard worker, he's also someone that is now very knowledgeable when it comes to niche sites.
Jason is also a family man, so I'm super thrilled to give him the opportunity to quit his corporate job, work his own schedule, and have the chance to see his wife and kids much more often.
Income Report
Like last month, I'm starting with the income report for this very site, NichePursuits.com! This is only the second month that I've ever revealed the income that I derive directly from this site.
Please note: *Gross Profit is the profit after all costs of good sold. So, for any Amazon FBA product sales, I've already subtracted the manufacturing costs, returns, shipping costs etc. However, this is not a net profit number…to get that, I'd need to subtract out salaries, software expenses, etc.
NichePursuits.com - March 2017 Income
As you can see, the income for Niche Pursuits increased by about 1,200 this month! The biggest increases came from Bluehost, Jungle Scout, and Thrive Themes.
I'm happy to have an increase, but the potential for Niche Pursuits is significantly higher. I've already started a plan to increase the earnings of this site and Jake and Jason are helping me out.
This includes better tracking of where clicks and sales are coming from, more in-depth blog posts, and overall optimization of the site. I'll share more details in future months as some of the experiments get implemented and we see real progress.
Home Goods Brand Income - March 2017
| Income Source | Gross Profit | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|
| Google Adsense | $681.11 | $139.25 |
| Amazon Associates | $1,797.57 | $239.71 |
| Ebay sales* | 765.81 | $765.81 |
| UK sales* | $2,860.69 | $2,860.69 |
| Amazon Product 1 | $10,821.55 | $563.03 |
| Amazon Product 2 | $2,643.77 | $229.23 |
| Amazon Product 3 | $45.82 | ($1,035.62) |
| Amazon Product 4 | $169.10 | ($110.04) |
| Amazon Product 5 | $34.80 | ($46.82) |
| Amazon Product 6 | ($421.26) | ($413.80) |
| Amazon Product 7 | ($137.60) | $13.05 |
| Amazon Product 8 | $0.00 | $281.61 |
| Total | $19,261.36 | $3,486.10 |
*The Ebay and Amazon UK sales are new figures. Even though we have been selling on those platforms previously, I neglected to report those last month. So, while these are the revenue numbers for these categories, they didn't actually increase as much as it would seem.
Overall, it was another solid month for the Home goods brand! I'm very happy with a business that does over $19,000 a month in gross profit.
This is the brand that Jason manages, and he's been busy at work. The traffic had taken a small dip a couple of months ago, but through some optimization, new content, and outreach, the site is now essentially back to where it was before.
The increased traffic has lead to a nice bump in both Amazon associates earnings and Google Adsense earnings.
The other thing of note is the change in Amazon associates commission does not seem to have effected this site much at all. The earnings are actually up for this site, and so with the first full month in the books for the new payout structure, I'm happy to report almost no impact.
Amazon Product 3 is down because we ran out of stock. We will have it back in stock hopefully by the end of April.
Fitness Brand - March 2017 Income
| Income Source | Gross Profit | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $474.58 | ($747.13) |
| Google Adsense | $36.46 | $11.26 |
| Amazon Associates | $451.28 | ($102.52) |
| Amazon Product 1 | $548.27 | ($147.09) |
| Amazon Product 2 | ($275.48) | ($280.09) |
| Amazon Product 3 | ($203.66) | ($183.84) |
| Amazon Product 4 | ($82.29) | ($44.85) |
I wish I could somehow sugar coat the performance of this brand in March; unfortunately, it just wasn't a good month. The only thing that increased was Google Adsense by $11, ouch!
However, I can explain the decline in the 4 Amazon products…giveaways (using Jumpsend). At the beginning of March we gave away a ton of product at a discount, which obviously we take losses on.
So, I fully expect that April will look better because we won't be doing any giveaways. However, the products are not exactly flying off the shelves either.
The good news is that I'm excited about 2 new products that we are launching for this brand. It's possible that they will be shipped to us before the end of April, but May will really be the month where we hope to see some big improvements with these new products.
Music Brand Income - March 2017
| Income Source | Gross Profit | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $844.98 | $63.71 |
| Amazon FBA | $558.28 | ($162.27) |
| Shopify Sales | $268.00 | $268.00 |
| Amazon Associates | $18.70 | ($42.02) |
During the month of March, we made significant changes to this website. During February, we were testing sending all our traffic to our Amazon listings to see if it improved conversions. It did not appear to help at all.
So, we updated our Shopify theme and put together what I think is an amazing looking ecommerce site. We still have the products listed on Amazon; however, for all visitors to our site, they purchase right on our ship through Shopify.
So, even though the results in total earnings is not drastic, you will see that we finally got some Shopify sales, and we are geared up for a good April.
I have a part time brand manager working here, and we are going to start doing more Facebook advertising. I expect good things in future months with this paid traffic.
Amazon FBA Incubator Income - March 2017
| Income Source | Gross Profit | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $3,378.79 | $853.08 |
| Amazon Product 1 | $242.88 | $27.13 |
| Amazon Product 2 | $413.10 | ($177.68) |
| Amazon Product 3 | $140.00 | $32.95 |
| Amazon Product 4 | ($13.23) | ($19.78) |
| Amazon Product 5 | $3.80 | $2.92 |
| Amazon Product 6 | $0.00 | ($19.79) |
| Amazon Product 7 | $745.06 | $202.27 |
| Amazon Product 8 | $74.06 | $44.31 |
| Amazon Product 9 | $8.34 | $8.34 |
| Amazon Product 10 | $249.48 | $73.84 |
| Amazon Product 11 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Amazon Product 12 | $1,075.68 | $483.96 |
| Amazon Product 13 | $357.34 | $155.19 |
| Amazon Product 14 | $0.00 | ($6.68) |
| Amazon Product 15 | $82.28 | $46.10 |
Jake continues to manage the “Amazon Incubator”, what I call all of our random products that we sell on Amazon that don't fit into any of the above niches.
Overall, the earnings here are up by $853, so I'm happy with that. This is primarily due to “Product 13” finally getting back in stock during March and doing well. We do have one other product currently out of stock, that should be back in stock soon.
For the “incubator” we don't have any plans to launch a bunch of new products in the near future. We are mostly going to focus on what we already have and try to grow those individual products or brands.
Total Income for All Brands – $29,126 (Last Month $24,254 / +$4,872)
I also sold a website that I was a 33% owner of. This website was one of the “Investment websites” in my Undisclosed Income below. The total sale was $30,000, so my take home portion of that sale was $10,000.
So, if I add in this one-time revenue, then the total income is $39,126.
Overall, I'm satisfied with how March went.
Undisclosed Income
I've been quite detailed in the income listed above. However, I also have several other sites or income sources that I prefer not to be as detailed with. I hope you don't mind.
Here's some additional sources of income that I won't reveal the exact amount of:
- Small niche sites making less than $500/month.
- Long Tail Pro Ownership. I still own a portion of the Long Tail Pro business and receive quarterly distributions based on net profits.
- Investment websites. I have invested in several other websites. For most of these I own anywhere from 5% to 33% of the business.
- Jake FBA Business Partnership. I invested in an Amazon FBA brand that Jake runs personally.
Your Thoughts
Overall, March was a good month with some nice increases for some brands, but also some road bumps for others. Some days I feel like dealing with Amazon is a complete nightmare. We get hijakers, or product titles that randomly change, or listings closed temporarily…it's a headache! On the other hand, the traffic and sales are tough to argue with.
In addition, I have a couple of projects in the works that are taking up some of my time. I hope to reveal at least one of these projects in the next couple of months.
Have questions? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
The post Niche Pursuits Income Report for March 2017 appeared first on Niche Pursuits.
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