Having worked in telephone construction (including on a Centurylink contract), your next step after customer service fails should be your state's public utility commission. PUC complaints light fires under asses. Dead phone lines were not tolerated for us (due to, obviously, customers can't call for help if something happens), and you don't need a bonafide copper splicer to make a temporary repair to get customers back in service.
I once got in an argument with a Puerto Rican coworker when I told him Spanish people are white. He genuinely could not fathom it, and was very pissed off about it. I guess he thought Latinos are direct descendants of Spaniards?
Nevermind the Cheddar News of the pump, that's its own separate nightmare, but I just want gas. I put my card in, you give me gas. Skip the receipt prompt, skip the carwash prompt, and no I don't have a rewards card.
It was helpful in my truck driving days when going to customers I'd never been to before, and it was absolutely a daily tool in telecom construction/maintenance.
Example - random sheriff's office calls in a phone line ripped down when I've got one foot out the door for the day. I pulled up the address on Streetview while she was explaining the scene to me, and it sure looked like coax on that side of the street, our lines were on the other side. Sure enough, 45 minute drive later I called the sheriff and told them to call the cable company.
When you cover an area hundreds of square miles you can't go look at every job before sending a crew out. Pull it up on Streetview, even if the images are 10 years old it's probably still the same.
I grew up in a house of at least a dozen cats. All had names. Our very first one, Lightning (who was seemingly very intelligent and lived to his late teens), did not know his name as Lightning. For all he knew, his name was Puss-Puss, because he had been called that a lot when he was younger, and responded extremely well to it throughout his life.
As a fedex driver I always dreaded delivering those. Not because of the possibility of unfortunate outcomes such as yours (never crossed my mind), but because I knew they were unsolicited "gifts" that came from big data schemes like this. Just like how marketing companies know that you're pregnant even before you do.
Selling existing products would be the smarter way to go at the beginning. Less risk that your unique product doesn't catch on, and just focus on procurement and sale pricing (as well as learning the process and policy expectations).
I did just a bit over $1 million in sales over two years of my Amazon business and it was 99% existing major brand lines. Some I bought direct from manufacturer, some from other suppliers.
Do you pick a niche or just look for any products which has good margin? Also, do you use any tools to identify products or categories which are top selling? Appreciate any information
I did have a very specific niche in the industrial categories. It was a business that I used to work for a supplier for, so I was familiar with products and manufacturers and distributors.
For me, it wasn't so much identifying top selling products, but rather ones that I could compete on price. I did use a good many tools for all aspects of the business, but couldn't really share them now as I've basically shut all that out of memory.
On individual sales including all fees, 20-25%. I currently owe the IRS roughly 20k or so from 2015, and I just started a new job at $16/hr. Guess how well that's working out for me.
Combination of spending too much money on myself and taking too many short term loans. Eventually I needed more loans to stay afloat, and then when my settlements were going entirely to loan payments, I knew I was done. Well before that point I tried refinancing through a traditional bank/credit union and nobody would touch me.
The night of that worthless settlement I started looking for a job back in trucking, there was a job fair for a local company the next morning, and I ended up there for 1.5yrs.
