Aussie mum makes $8000 a day on Amazon

Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce founder Renae Bunster. Picture / news.com.au

A Perth mum who makes nearly A$8000 a day selling hot sauce on Amazon has welcomed the Australian launch of the e-commerce giant.

Renae Bunster, creator of Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce, said the cult favourite had this week finally hit number one on Amazon's top-selling hot sauces ahead of Sriracha and Tabasco, after first being listed six months ago.

"We entered the top 10 about 10 days ago and have slowly been stalking our way to the top," the 39-year-old said.

"Sales have been going up and up, we're selling hundreds of bottles a day now, as opposed to 10 or 20 when we first listed — $US4000 to $US6000 [$8720] a day."

Sh*t the Bed Hot Sauce, at the "luxury" price of $US18, is six times more expensive than Sriracha. "They were selling six times more than us to hold that spot, but now we've overtaken them in dollars," she said.

Bunster said with a 50-50 split between Australian distributors and American sales, the business would turn over A$1 million ($1.1m) this year — and no thanks to supermarkets Coles or Woolworths, which she says refused to stock the product due to its name.

"The money we're making through Amazon is the exact same we'd make through Woolworths, [if we were] selling the minimum amount just to stay on the shelf," she said. "So we're like, f*** you, Woolworths."

Bunster said even though she didn't have a choice, she wanted to "stay away from the duopoly".

"If you lose a contract with them you've lost half of your stores, but if you're with the independents and you lose two stores, it doesn't affect your bottom line," she said.

While she was "absolutely" planning to list on Amazon Australia, Bunster said supermarket sales were "where our bread is going to be buttered".

"We're picking up more and more distributors," she said.

"Absolutely we will list ourselves on Amazon [Australia] and expect to be number one instantly. But the Australian e-commerce market isn't as sophisticated, Americans have been buying online for so long, they expect things instantly.

"We're already in lots of stores here and people are just used to going to the shops rather than shopping online — but we'll be there."