Can a 14-year-old really sell on Amazon? In 2022, I decided to find out. What started as curiosity turned into a journey of challenges, lessons, and small victories that I’ll never forget.
Behind every small dreamer, there’s often a big support system — mine was my parents.
Ahmad Fiaz
In this article, I’ll share where and how I learned to sell on Amazon. I’ll also explain the strategy I accidentally used that seemed to break Amazon’s algorithm, bringing me around $1,500 in sales within the first week — though my actual profit was only about $200. For some, this may look small, but for me, it was a huge source of happiness.
How I Discovered Amazon
I’m from Pakistan, where Amazon isn’t available. In fact, Amazon rejected working in Pakistan because of a large number of scams by people with poor ethics, which unfortunately ruined the reputation of the whole country.
— My Intro
I didn’t discover Amazon at first. Instead, I went into the field of web development. Since childhood, I had the dream of becoming a “cool hacker,” randomly diving into systems and breaking them — it looked exciting to me. Later, I learned from a video that hacking required coding skills.
Before that, I had already created a website when I was about 12. I copied each part of the HTML code exactly from a video. That’s how I built the navbar and other elements, and I hosted the site on ahmadfiaz.atspace.tv. I picked the subdomain with my name because it looked cool in front of my friends 😅. Sadly, the domain later expired due to inactivity.
One of my friends preferred to learn coding from an institute during the 3-month summer vacation. While scrolling through Google Maps, I found Career Institute, gave them a call, and went there the next day. Enrolling in the Web Development course became a turning point in my whole life.
— Enrollment in Amazon Batch
When I joined the web development course, I heard teachers whispering that I looked like Salman Ghauri — the self-made millionaire who started his journey at 15. That’s when I first came to know about Amazon. With just one request, my father enrolled me into an Amazon batch, and that’s how I dived straight into the sea of e-commerce.
Learning to Sell on Amazon
— Basics of Amazon
I was lucky to have a great teacher (name kept private). The first week felt awful — I was being taught the very basics: what Amazon is, how to search on it, how to find well-rated products. It all seemed boring to me, because at 13–14 the thrill in me just wanted to start selling, earning, and giving money to my parents. Still, it took me over a month to properly learn the basics.
Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons.
Truth By Unknown
— Waiting Impatiently to Sell on Amazon
The course lasted 3 months, and my teacher didn’t let me create a Seller account right at the very start. For the next 2 months, I just focused on finding products for FBA with at least $5 profit, since I couldn’t do FBM on Amazon (USA) while sitting in Pakistan. One option was a Pakistani living in the USA who could pack and ship for merchants outside the US, but it was too expensive. FBA was tough because Amazon takes a huge cut, and FBM wasn’t an option. The idea that popped into my head was dropshipping, which later turned out to be the heroic-villain of my Amazon journey.
Started to Sell on Amazon
— Account Creation
After three months of product hunting filled with fear, excitement, curiosity, and some hard work, I finally created my Amazon account under my father’s name. My father is well educated and was once a computer master, but with age he left tech behind and focused on physical business.
The funny part was during verification—a Russian officer checked the ID over a video call and spoke English, which neither my father nor a clueless 13–14-year-old boy like me could understand. Thankfully, the guy was lenient, used hand gestures to guide us, and whoop—we passed! My account was activated within two days.
— Spamming Products on Account
Since I had already spent three months on product hunting, I had a full Excel sheet ready. Most products couldn’t pass the “Me 2” step, as the brands didn’t allow other sellers to list under them. But that didn’t stop a boy full of thrill.
I kept searching, finding products, and adding them to my Amazon account. Yup—while America was asleep at night, in Pakistan I was awake (Because when it’s daytime in Pakistan, it’s nighttime in America.), I woke up early to see if someone had ordered. Sadly, no one did. Two days passed… still no orders.
— Getting an Order
Those two days felt like decades to me. And I know most people won’t believe what happened next.
The next day, after offering Fajar prayer, I broke down in tears and remember saying to Allah, “Isn’t there any rizq written in my fate?” Around 5:00 a.m., I went back to sleep without checking anything. When I woke up at 9:00 a.m., I saw that an order had been placed at about 6:32 a.m. I was completely shocked. My parents were happy, but I couldn’t utter a single word about what had just happened. I was stunned beyond belief. Spiritualism is real!
The order was for an unusual product—a TIKI torch—priced at around $54 back then. It gave me a margin of about $10–15, though I had forgotten about the taxes that would be deducted once I withdrew the money after four long months (that part I’ll explain later).
— Fulfilling First Order on Amazon
I received my first order and felt a mix of shock and happiness. But the game changed when I opened the source website—the place where I was supposed to buy the product for drop-shipping. The product was Out of Stock. I couldn’t believe it—wtf just happened?
Luckily, the same product was sold by another seller and yoo its pricce was even 5$ less i.e. more profit
After every difficulty, there is ease.
Qur’an 94:6
But how did I make $1,500 in sales in just one week? Well, that’s another story—read on below.
Sudden Sales of 1500$
Just as I was processing my first order, I received another—this time for Public Seating Tables, which I think were around $250 each. There were many sellers offering the same tables, but I got orders for not one, but six pieces, totaling approximately $1,400!
— The Accidental Trick That Boosted My Sales
To get a quick order, I lowered the prices of most products, which meant sacrificing some profit. For the Public Seating Tables, my price was the lowest. I still wasn’t getting orders because in FBM (which I selected on Amazon but planned to dropship), the default shipping setting was 20 days. Huh! That’s why no orders.
It made me so angry that I changed the shipping time to the next day (this mistake actually changed my fate). What would you do if you found a product with a $20 price difference and next-day shipping? You’d order it, right? That’s exactly what happened to me—someone bought about 6 pieces!
That’s how I got sales—but they came at a very high cost.
— Next-Day Shipping Issue Resolved
I was also confused about how to ship them next day, as my dropshipper (Walmart) wasn’t able to send the product across the country in a single day!
So, the second mistake I made was generating a fake shipping receipt through a website. It actually sent a shipping query to the courier and gave me a legit tracking number, but the parcel hadn’t even been dispatched yet. The tracking number was generated in advance, even before the parcel was dispatched. Hope you understand.
After getting that tracking number, I pasted it on Amazon. Providing a tracking number on time wasn’t strictly required, but if I didn’t, it would negatively affect my account.
— Completing Orders
The orders I got in just two days made everyone shocked, but the time came to process them. In my currency, this money totaled over 290k, which was too much for us, but:
Restricted to Sell on Amazon
— A Shock for Me
Just after processing the orders, the next day I was emailed the following:
BULLSH*T!! Why the fu*k didn’t this happen one day earlier, before I spent 290k PKR processing orders? That was my father’s earnings for almost a month—SH*T, SH*T, SH*T!
Yeeeaaah! That was my reaction. I hadn’t even seen the email yet when my father rushed up to my floor, telling me to check if it was true. Pure disappointment stared back at me from my father’s eyes.
This was the reason:
Amazon Has Suspended Over 13,000 Pakistani Seller Accounts Due To Fraud — Tech Juice 3 Years Ago
And huh, I got stuck right in the middle of all this mess.
- That was my mistake—I… I shouldn’t have hurried to sell on Amazon.
- Maybe I’m too young for this.
- Maybe I’m stupid.
- Maybe I’m being tested by higher powers.
- Maybe I didn’t learn well enough.
- Maybe I shouldn’t have spent such a large amount at the start.
An yeah a long list of thoughts start popping into my mind.
Such bad luck! If I had delayed the process by just two or three days, my account wouldn’t have been banned, since it wouldn’t have existed when Amazon took action.
Money Recover
How could I let Amazon keep my father’s money. With all my anger, my hands trembling with rage , and an urge to break Amazon, finally finally and finally “I wrote a kind and polite request to them release my account“. Huh… what else could I do?
Now, to make a long story short, I kept pleading with them for about four months. Due to Section 3, my payment was held for three months. Finally, they released the funds, and I got my money back—with only about 20k PKR profit (around $90). My original profit should have been about $200, but that’s how it got reduced:
- When I processed the order, $1 was about 247 PKR (approximately, as I remember).
- By the time my funds were released, $1 had dropped to about 225 PKR (approximately).
- So my earnings were reduced significantly.
The funny thing was, when I finally got my funds, $1 was equal to 225 PKR. But just two days later, $1 shot up to 278 PKR! That would have given me a profit of about 90k PKR—around $400. AHH! What is God trying to test in me?
Conclusion
The story may be sad, but it’s worth remembering as it reminds me of my early days. Those days won’t come back. I wish I could live my childhood again, but that’s impossible—and I sometimes cry thinking about it.
What happened next? I no longer sell on Amazon i order to focus on my studies since I was in 9th grade. Now, I’m fully focused on blogging and also have my own e-commerce site, Alpha Kart, still in its very early stages. My studies continue alongside it.
Thanks for reading!
One day, I will achieve something amazing, DADDIEE—a feat that will make you proud of me—I promise!
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