Mechanical Failure

My small shipment to Amazon that was delivered the 14th has still not been processed. I don't know if it's because of the holidays or not. Before I bought a lot of things, I wanted to use that as a test to see if the shipping credit offset any of the fees. If nothing happens by Monday, I might submit a help ticket, even if it is the holidays. I shipped it under the name of the company I couldn't use for legal reasons. After that I changed it to my name. Maybe that's throwing them off.

I finally found some things to sell to get the business off the ground! It's some older software. Including shipping, the cost was $45.20 for 50 pieces. If it all sells, the net profit would be in the $150 range. It depends on how much sells and whether any prices will have to be reduced and when things actually sell. I expect some items might take months. It's a mixture of educational type programs and a few games. Not the bad, violent games mothers warn about. Choosing what to sell involved moral choices.

One of the problems with building an inventory is that I'm constantly faced with moral choices. The cheapest and easiest things to sell always seem to be things I know God wouldn't want me involved in. The main one is Disney products. The people at Disney aren't known for being moral, if you know what I mean. They use lobbyists. I have to assume some of what they're lobbying for violates Biblical principals and actively fights against Christians. Supporting them is basically funding the persecution of Christians. Morally, I can't be involved in selling things from that company. The same goes for a certain type of movie or book, etc.

I had a chance to buy a 200-item lot of Christmas movies for 35 cents each. Most of it was Rudolph and Miracle on 34th Street type things. But at least one title I wasn't comfortable with. Since it was a bulk lot, I didn't have the choice of rejecting individual titles. The profit would have been enormous. Pay 35 cents. Sell for $9.98. Even after fees, it would have been awesome. Spiritually, I couldn't go there.

If you're a regular reader, you've heard me mention spiritual hindrances in my life. The inventory I was supposed to get today via UPS was delayed. The message: "A mechanical failure has delayed delivery. We're adjusting plans to deliver your package as quickly as possible. / Delivery will be rescheduled." I've never had anything delayed by mechanical failure. The truck broke down? The truck crashed? UPS delivered my barcode scanner. It's not very useful without inventory.

As I was typing, an email came in. My delivery is rescheduled for Monday. I hope my box wasn't injured.

Getting up and running and profitable looks like it's going to take longer than I'd hoped. However, I've seen a silver lining. The shipment coming in Monday took me an evening to put together. I had to go through hundreds(?) of titles, check the cost, check the profit, check the sales rank and put an order together. It took hours to get it all done. Later on, it suddenly hit me that depending on sales I was making $100 to hopefully $150ish for one evening's work. I need to build up the finances to be able to do that and more all the time. That's my goal: to duplicate that evening over and over with more profitable merchandise.