I wrote a review of Stephen Smotherman’s ebook/video course on CamelCamelCamel and Keepa Chart (How To Keepa Camel) over 7 years ago and I am writing this post as an update.
First, CamelCamelCamel sort of died shortly after the course came out. The rumor was that something happened to all the data they had collected and stored on their servers, so a few things have changed but the concepts and thinking process is still the same even if you are just using Keepa ( CamelCamelCamel is back but not to the glory it once had)
I made the quote back then that this is the most important training I have seen come out since Chris Green’s Online Arbitrage and I still stand behind that.
I still recommend watching the videos over reading ( There are 34 videos for a total 3 ½ hours of video)
How I Am Using Keepa Charts Now
I used to do a lot of RA ( Retail Arbitrage) and OA ( Online Arbitrage) and after I learned how to really use the Keepa chart info, I had way more winners and few duds when I was sourcing.
A lot has changed since then. I have my own products that I sell now and don’t do much of RA or OA , so I don’t use this knowledge for that kind of sourcing ( well at least for products to sell on Amazon). This is not to say I won’t move back into that in the future, but I haven’t been doing that lately.
What I have been using it for is flipping from Amazon to eBay. That is what I have been doing but if you are new to selling online, you are probably going to be using it the way I did years ago, for OA and RA, and I still believe that this is the most valuable training you can get. If has made me so much money over the years by making better buying decisions and avoiding buying mistakes.
It is about knowledge. This reminds me of what my Papaw told me somewhere back in the mid 80’s, “Knowledge is the one thing they can’t take from you” . What I learned from this course years ago is still with me and while I don’t use it 24/7, when I do use that knowledge, it makes me money.
I have been around for a long time as an online seller. I started selling on Amazon in 2014 and have been a full time seller since January 2015 ( I have been on eBay since 2001 but honestly didn’t sell much there until the last few years) and I have seen a ton of sellers come and go.
The one thing I have noticed is that sellers that don’t invest in themselves (learning) didn’t seem to last long. The reason is that selling online changes constantly but if you understand the concepts, you can adapt better.
Of course you can probably find most of the information in this course out there in the millions of blog posts and YouTube videos but that would require so much time searching and trying to piece together. Plus you don’t know what you need to piece together.
This is why have an experienced seller like Steve that has taught 1000’s of sellers is so important. You are paying for all the information you need to be presented in one package, just like a college course. If you try to piece this together, you will never be able to learn what is in this course and you will most likely be wasting your time.
Also there is this crazy phenomena in which we value free info less and will not act on free resources. When you pay for something, you are more likely to complete it ( I have a hard drive for of free stuff I have never taken the time to look at) And even more surprising is that the more you pay, the more likely you are to act on it. ( Read my post on how this is a tax deduction which makes it way cheaper)
Seven years ago, my quote for what to expect from this training is still the same,
“he teaches you what a full time, seasoned reseller knows. He teaches you how to think and make better sourcing decisions.”
He mostly shows you charts of products. He goes through the charts and explains what is going on and shows you how you would make the decision to buy or not buy.
I have seen too many people totally fail on this. Without going into super detail, there is a lot at play here. A lot of time there is a seasonality to demand which causes price changes. Once you learn this, you can easily see it in the charts and know when you are getting a good buying price and when you can get a good selling price.
A lot of sellers are running programs that help them find profitable items to flip, but if they don’t understand that there might be a seasonality to the products, things might be profitable now and not a month from now and visa versa. For example, scan a Halloween product in February and it most likely is not profitable but scan it October it would be but what happens in November?
While that is an obvious example, the scanning program doesn’t know. Now add to that if you don’t know how to read the charts, you might make a bad buying decision or miss a good buying opportunity.
If you take time to learn this from the course, this will all be second nature to you and you will automatically think about this ( at least I do now) .
The information in the course is not really dated even though it was created over 7 years ago ( well besides the issue with CamelCamelCamel) and I don’t think Keepa will go away ( it is popular among consumers, not just online sellers)
After 7 years, I am still using what I learned in the How To Keepa Camel training and I still believe it is a no brainer to make this investment if you are serious about being an online seller. It will pay for itself many times over.
You can find out more about the course here