I myself have done done a bit of business, importing from china and selling here in the US and the premise is simple. I would buy the product in bulk at 4$ then at 40$ dollars, subtracting the distributors cut, cost of advertising, shipping, I would left with a profit of around 25 dollars. Now I did do some work myself such as the original packaging, set up the business infrastructure I did all the marketing and I took the initial risk in investing my own money as there is no guarantee it would sell. So during the initial investment I do feel that the amount of work I put in justified my profit.
However my next investment was not the same thing, I already set the business up, I already knew how much to expect in conjunction to how much I would spend on advertising and I am never guaranteed to make the same or have the same success, but it doesn't matter, it's simply a numbers game of averages, I don't require a guarantee, only requires you to not be completely reckless and it is as good as any guarantee. My profits will continue to return 5x the amount I'd invest and I would continue to pay the people in china 4$. The work I would do from here on out is barely anything, So does that justify the amount of money I'm making, considering I already set up a business and the risk was no longer even existent? Honestly no, I really don't think so.
However this did not continue, and there's a reason why. I had been sent a letter from Amazon that said they were no longer going to be selling my product because there was a claim by another company that I have been selling their product. A claim which was false, but the distributor (Amazon) is a billion dollar company so they would not risk any entanglement and their own company. This happened really close to Christmas season which every seller would know this is where you make the most money. Now I could pursue legal action and go through this giant process with the company who just made a false claim, That would cost me money to ultimately rectify. Not only that but that meant I could potentially do this to my competition, and I have to continue business knowing that this would always be a thing, It is very much dog eat dog. Now I could have continued and honestly, Im sure I could have done very well but this wasn't the only reason that I stopped doing it.
Even when selling the products I noticed that my competition would blatantly lie about the products. Since we were all getting it from the same source pretty much I knew the true specifications of these products we were selling. I was selling stun guns and they would have a power rating based on voltage. The reality is that a stun gun is realistically putting out maybe 100,000 volts However when testing these stun guns there is the possibility that you might get a sudden spike in voltage and it could reach potentially in the millions. This spike in voltage is "technically" measured, thus you could technically say that the voltage output was measured at 4 million. Now for me this was difficult because my competition was saying that their stun guns were 250 million volts and the consumers would buy the stun gun that was advertised as the most powerful, and neither were they aware that these people were lying or the truth of how these measurements are made. The way I managed to succeed was simply by because I understand human psychology enough and took an educated bet. I sold my products as more expensive than my competition and I made sure to give the most appealing presentation. I bet on a few things, I knew that when people see more expensive things they automatically assume that it's better quality, I also knew based on my experience from buying headphones, I never go through the warranty process they give out and simply end up buying new ones and realistically any warranty or insurance on anything is only profitable because in the end the customers are losing money and it's technically never to the customer's benefit in the long run. So I also offered a lifetime warranty on the product to further convince the buyer that mine was of greater quality.
I was right and managed to succeed without blatantly lying, however as to not be completely overshadowed by my competition I still put the 4 million volt measurement given to me officially by Chinese sellers. Compared to my competition you could say I did not lie based on all the information I was given, However I also knew that this 4 million rating was most likely a technicality.
In the end all business preys on human psychology and exploits our weaknesses. I already had felt uncomfortable going down this business road with the things I was required to do to succeed. Now with the whole lawsuit thing the future I had to look forward to as a business owner started to look a bit bleak, I would have to continue taking advantage of people, bending the rules, and playing this stupid game of trying to take down my competitors of shady ways.
When I began the business I envisioned a business I could be proud of and the picture that was being painted and the type of person I would have to be wasn't very appealing aside from the money I would be making. Honestly It kinda killed my ambition and momentum I had so I just continued to sell my remaining inventory and let it fade away.
However there are things like creating something like a song, and the song later selling millions of copies. In this case you would have made your millions without using any backhanded tactics to make this money and it's legitimate, but then the question becomes how wealth does one need to be really?
When there are people dying of starvation, and people just living crappy lives because of wage difference what is the purpose of a Ferrari when we currently live in that world? The plan was that even if I did make enough money I would reinvest the excess money that I had into improving the state of world somehow. That really I only needed enough money to be able to live nice and you know buy a house buy a car and maybe the occasional vacation. However why on earth would I need a multi-million dollar house or a quarter million dollar car, when was that money I could literally have prevented people from dying or enabled a better future for them. Really the only reason we don't see this as a reality in our daily lives, It's because the same people who are so good at selling you the products that you buy everyday, are the same people who sold us the idea of the current world and to be content with it, and they are very good at it. The reality is actually outrageous. It's cooler to be the guy with the ferrari, then it is to buy a standard 30k car and save actual lives.
Interestingly enough superheroes are cool, But apparently it's not because they save lives, power is cool. We don't live in a society that values lives, we value power over people. Even some of the most noble sounding things that we fight for are really more the love of power than the love of people, when I mention this topic on more popular spaces like reddit people rarely seem to read it first off, but even when they do its rarely taken seriously by the common folk or sabotaged by the rich who know damn well what they are doing and try to put a spin on it to making it seem like the pittance we pay overseas is a good thing and negate all the good that I'm trying to do with this topic because people are easily sold on things and manipulated since our youth. Even so I'm trying to to a good service to humanity, I am limited by the potential good I am able to do, because of the ideas we've been sold on that hurts us as a people we currently buy into. I have to sell the idea of humanity carefully In the same way its taken away.
