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Bookseller's Business Poised For Growth

Published June 27, 2021

Eric Wulterkens, owner of Kings Ridge Media in Appleton, didn't plan to quit his day job in sales when he started buying and reselling books.

'It all started as a side hustle in 2006,' Wulterkens explained. 'I was working full time and had a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) that allowed me to scan a book and it would tell me the Amazon stats on the book. I found that I could buy books that were selling for more on Amazon and resell them. I traveled around the Midwest hitting all the bookstores I could find to buy books.'

The original business was set up with his brother as a partner. Wulterkens asked his brother to come up with a name and he recommended 'Extreme Media,' but that name was quickly deserted.

Wulterkens laughed, 'It's a funny story. After coming up with that name, we were playing volleyball and someone came up and asked if the business was a porn shop. At that point, we decided we better change the name.'

Kings Ridge Media was born, and his inventory of books grew. Sales were good until Amazon changed its fee structure in 2012 and Wulterkens said it was impossible to make a profit. Now working alone, he found a niche.

'I looked at the data and started forming relationships with book distributors and created a business with two aspects,' he noted.

The first aspect is selling directly to customers on the amazon.com platform. He gets his inventory from suppliers that are priced so that he can make a profit.

The second aspect is wholesale, and he is able to help other businesses find materials that they can sell in their stores at a profit. This is now the core of the business.

'My niche is being the best at finding profitable books and other media,' he said. 'Amazon doesn't let you become much different so you need to find the books others are missing. I have quick access to Amazon data plus unique suppliers to get the books.'

To be successful, Wulterkens had software created that includes a spreadsheet of books and can run data on 3 million books and store the information on a server. Since 2019, his business has grown and is now his full-time job. He credits the business classes he took at the Venture Center at Fox Valley Technical College as being a big part of that success.

At FVTC, he took a class for veterans where he blueprinted the concept of the business and then wrote an entire business plan.

'The biggest, biggest thing that I wish is that I had gotten the education I got in 2019 back when I started in 2006,' Wulterkens said. 'Those classes got me connected with other people who were designing businesses with a system in mind. Before that, there were tons of things that only I could do, and those things would pile up and overwhelm me. I now create systems that everyone can use.'

He has two employees who fill orders and do miscellaneous jobs. They were especially busy during the pandemic as his business is one of those that benefitted from people being shut up in their homes.

'There was a huge spike in everything. Amazon was so far behind that people started looking at third-party sellers to pick up the slack, he said. 'In April of last year, Amazon shut down the ability for people to send anything to their warehouses because they were so busy. Three to four weeks after that, my business started to explode.

Kings Ridge Media has continued to grow, and Wulterkens says his goal is simple. He wants to increase sales every year and provide inventory for customers in an easy, streamlined process that will save them time and money. By creating relationships with large suppliers of used books and using his proprietary software, he can scan his inventory for books that have a high probability of being profitable.

'Over the years, I have tried a lot of different things and I have had failures, but when I am successful at something, I really go for it. Anyone starting a business needs to be willing to do that and give it at least a year. If they don't do that, they will likely fail,' Wulterkens advised.

Along with his wife, Traci, his 'go-to person,' he continues to look at other opportunities. In addition to the current business, he is drawing up plans for an e-commerce store selling pet food. It is definitely a different market, but Wulterkens has learned that business skills can be applied across the spectrum. He says it's all about looking at the possibilities.

'When I was growing up, my mother said I was always looking for something on the Internet,' he said. 'Everything I've done has been computer-related. I just kind of found this thing and I knew I wanted to do something for myself.'

Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and Past District Director for SCORE, Wisconsin.

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Green Bay Press-Gazette

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