Generating Passive Income Through E-Commerce with Will Basta #MakingBank #S7E16

Welcome back to Making Bank. On today's episode, we have Will Basta, CEO of Ascend Ecom.

 

If you have an e-commerce store, or if you're an Amazon or Walmart seller, you have to listen to today's episode. Will Basta runs a company that helps businesses and brands, an average everyday person like you, start and grow successful E-Commerce Online Stores. 

 

And I built their brand on Amazon. He helps. Source the products, get the discounts and start to be able to play in that marketplace. So if you ever thought about it, wanted to have your own passive income business, and start generating some side revenue, gotta check out today's episode. He's gonna drop some amazing tips if you're already an Amazon seller, as well as help you figure out how to get on Amazon and how to grow your store.

 

So check out today's episode with Will Basta on Making Bank:

 

(2:49) Will’s Background And Career Journey

 

Will started off working in the tech space and soon became an entrepreneur. Once he caught onto the entrepreneurial bug, things changed for him. There was no going back. His first venture was a digital marketing company and soon went into automation where he managed to successfully scale that company up. He also has a passion for healthcare which was what led him into the entrepreneurial life in the first place and he was also always investing in a lot of small projects on the side where he could do finance.

 

(4:28) Will’s Digital Market Agency Career: Failures and Successes

 

Will talks about how he started a digital market agency and that he has had some successes and also some failures and all the while still investing on the side. Will also talks about his other business partners, what they invested in together, the journey they took, the events, challenges they had to overcome, and everything else that they did that led them to where they are now with 400+ clients, two warehouse facilities in Dallas and an Office in Los Angeles. 

 

(7:14) Will explains about being an Automation Provider and Wholesale distributor

 

Millions of sellers on Amazon’s platforms, and also on Walmart, all with different backgrounds, could be doing business out of their garage, and could also be doing FBA FBM but all having similar problems. Lack of time, lack of manpower, lack of the right data, etc. So, Will explains that automation is essentially putting all the workload, and infrastructure on them and letting them leverage their capital for their businesses. This will accelerate them into the ecosystem of Amazon and makes them extremely competitive without having their time taken out of their days.  

(10:28) Will talks about how the company helps their clients

 

Will tells us about how many clients, from different backgrounds, some with experience and some without have reached out to them and they help them expand their businesses. They will handle all the workload for them, the infrastructure and many more so the business will be brought to the next level. 

 

(13:18) “We are not charging 2$ per package. We’re wrapping everything into one cost”

 

Will here talks about how there are lots of negative effects of using a third-party warehouse. There is zero prioritization of the products going to Amazon’s warehouse or to the end client and on top of that most charge over 3$ per package for prep work. This ends up making a huge difference hence Will says that they do not charge per package but they do it under a one-time cost policy. 

 

(14:01) Practices and Strategies used

 

Will explains how they source products, and how they use seasonal data to know what is selling at certain times of the year. He talks about how there is some slight risk involved in all the data and guesses but then they mitigate that out with stuff that they know is selling really well. He explains in detail how they undercut a lot of competitors with various strategies and skill sets. 

 

(19:05) Gating and ungating

 

Will talks about the various tips, and tricks that they use to help their clients. He also talks about how they help their clients get unrestricted to be able to sell their products on Amazon. Their company is a wholesale distributor they can accelerate the process of being a legitimate one, and help with ungating which most sellers aren’t aware of. So they help them really get into the market and be able to excel. 

 

(22:20) Private Labeling

 

Will talks about how it is a very important aspect of a long-term play. He says they have their own exclusive private label team, and they have manufacturers within the US and abroad and this helps them hold value over themselves and makes them unique.   

 

(25:11) Couple more tips and ideas

 

Will talks about how they do a hybrid model of wholesaling with private labeling. A little bit of arbitrage with FBM and FBA. He talks about how important diversity is when you are sourcing products so that you can always pump in more money whenever you need it. 

Links Mentioned:

https://www.ascendecom.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascend-ecom/

https://www.instagram.com/ascend_ecom/