Author Topic: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?  (Read 85796 times)

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #150 on: January 29, 2018, 04:58:37 PM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #151 on: January 29, 2018, 05:09:37 PM »
While there are some serious downsides to selling on Amazon, there is also the fact that you can put a product in front of tens, if not hundreds of millions of customers. Granted, only a tiny portion of that will ever see whatever product you’re trying to sell but it’s like being able to get your product on the shelf of every Walmart and Target x10.

About 50% of product purchasing searches now start on Amazon. That’s massive. Amazon Prime members (who typically have above-average household incomes) shop on Amazon at least weekly on average with a substantial percentage shopping daily.

I’m in the process of creating a brand with a related website but I plan to sell through Amazon. The website will have information and referral links but the products will be sold through Amazon. It just doesn’t make sense to try and create an online storefront where I have to pay to drive traffic to it when Amazon traffic is already made up of people looking to buy things. I can send a box of widgets to Amazon at ridiculously low rates and they handle all the pick, pack, and shipping. Just the few items I sell now it’s a hassle to pack them up and drop them off at the post office. Not to mention anything other than a book or very small item just kills you on shipping. I sent a 30lb box into Amazon for $12 and a 15lb box for about $6. Looking at one item I’ve got that’s pretty heavy it would cost me about $12 to ship it via USPS. But, if I stick a bunch of them in a box and send it to Amazon my total shipping cost will be about $7 including inbound shipping to Amazon and then their fees for pick, pack, and shipping. Plus, my labor for packing up a single box of items is minutes compared to what could easily add up to a couple of hours if I was fulfilling a dozen orders one at a time. With my own online storefront I'd have many hours in getting it setup and maintained plus monthly costs for that shopping cart. Amazon's 15% is probably a lot less than it would cost me to try and setup my own store unless I were doing massive volume.

CareCPA

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #152 on: January 29, 2018, 05:11:27 PM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

SC93

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #153 on: January 29, 2018, 09:53:42 PM »
I opened up a topic on another site and it was about Amazon. A very wealthy person that started on Amazon wrote about it. To make a very long post of what he said, short.... he called the Amazon of today a dirty whore's market. I wouldn't have thought of those words but I think it fits perfect.

He said exactly what I thought.... big money has come in and ruined it for the little guy, as always. He did say there is money to be made, just like I figured but it's just not what people think it is. Although they have spoiled it for most, I still think that if someone buys a boatload of something little... chap stick, lip gloss.... something like that and gets it for almost nothing and sells it for $2.99..... they could make a good profit over time. I'd do it but I don't want to have $50,000 tied up in chap stick for 3-5 years trying to make $200,000. :)

I guess I should have jumped on board years ago like I started to do.... but I didn't.... my loss.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #154 on: January 30, 2018, 06:45:25 AM »
I opened up a topic on another site and it was about Amazon. A very wealthy person that started on Amazon wrote about it. To make a very long post of what he said, short.... he called the Amazon of today a dirty whore's market. I wouldn't have thought of those words but I think it fits perfect.

He said exactly what I thought.... big money has come in and ruined it for the little guy, as always. He did say there is money to be made, just like I figured but it's just not what people think it is. Although they have spoiled it for most, I still think that if someone buys a boatload of something little... chap stick, lip gloss.... something like that and gets it for almost nothing and sells it for $2.99..... they could make a good profit over time. I'd do it but I don't want to have $50,000 tied up in chap stick for 3-5 years trying to make $200,000. :)

I guess I should have jumped on board years ago like I started to do.... but I didn't.... my loss.

It would be pretty tough to make any money on a product selling for $2.99 even if you got it for practically free. The minimum cost for FBA fulfillment is a couple of dollars. Shipping it yourself might be cheaper but it probably still wouldn't be profitable which is why if you search for those little items they're generally sold as 5, 10, 20 packs so that it's not cost prohibitive on fees or shipping costs.

Just for kicks I found a single tube of chapstick selling on Amazon. At $3.99 with a COGS of $0.01 you would still lose money if you tried to sell it with Amazon FBA. Amazon does sell it themselves for $3.94 but only as an add-on item where they don't have to pay for shipping.

SC93

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #155 on: January 30, 2018, 10:01:06 AM »
Now I don't know much about Amazon but I was talking to someone a month or 2 ago and that is why I used that example because she was saying she was doing what I was thinking.... did that confuse you? lol Anyway... she had bought something like that, I don't remember what it was, and is selling it for like $2.99, it might have been $3.99 but I'm thinking $2.99. She said she made a killing. She shipped it herself in a regular envelope for the cost of a stamp or 2. Dang, I'll try to remember who that was and talk to her again.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #156 on: January 31, 2018, 08:27:24 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.

L2

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #157 on: January 31, 2018, 08:55:17 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
You may not like it, but that interpretation is most definitely correct. Here is a notice I just received yesterday from a client. Also the IRS isn't involved at all. Each individual state is who will determine what they want done. I will add this client did have about 3.5m in Amazon sales (CA sales unknown at the moment), which I think might be more than most people here. But that might give you an idea of what revenue area the states might be beginning to target.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2018, 09:11:51 AM by L2 »

CareCPA

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #158 on: January 31, 2018, 10:38:31 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #159 on: January 31, 2018, 11:09:02 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.

CareCPA

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #160 on: January 31, 2018, 12:25:25 PM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.
That's the solution that everyone except Amazon is hoping for - make Amazon collect and remit on the sellers' behalf. Especially since Amazon controls every part of the process.

robartsd

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #161 on: January 31, 2018, 12:47:58 PM »
That's the solution that everyone except Amazon is hoping for - make Amazon collect and remit on the sellers' behalf. Especially since Amazon controls every part of the process.
It seems like it would be easy for Amazon to collect and remit sales tax for all FBA sales in states where there are FBA warehouses - they already must collect and remit sales tax in these locations for any items sold by Amazon.com. It would be harder, but not impossible for Amazon to track which FBA sellers have inventory in which states to track any sales tax nexus created for a seller by FBA so as to avoid collecting sales tax on behalf of FBA sellers where it is not required. The only sticky issue I see is if the FBA seller also sells across state lines through other channels and FBA inventory creates a sales tax nexus for the seller that must be accounted for in those other channels. Does Amazon already handle sales tax for FBA sellers who are in states with sales tax that Amazon itself does not have a sales tax nexus in?

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #162 on: February 02, 2018, 09:14:56 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.

No thanks. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on Taxjar on the notion of fear that the IRS will come and get me for not filing sales tax in 20 different states. It's just not worth it. I don't sell millions of dollars worth. I am a ham and egger.

I am not going to file for sales tax permits in 20 states, with fees $150/each. I'm not going to pay a service $500/month to do it for me.

I'm going to continue filing and remitting sales tax in my home state for every item sold, every month. No more, no less.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2018, 09:18:52 AM by Cwadda »

CareCPA

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #163 on: February 02, 2018, 09:52:55 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.

No thanks. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on Taxjar on the notion of fear that the IRS will come and get me for not filing sales tax in 20 different states. It's just not worth it. I don't sell millions of dollars worth. I am a ham and egger.

I am not going to file for sales tax permits in 20 states, with fees $150/each. I'm not going to pay a service $500/month to do it for me.

I'm going to continue filing and remitting sales tax in my home state for every item sold, every month. No more, no less.
That is a business decision you have made, which you are entitled to do.
It's the part where you take the decision you have made, and try to turn it into fact for everyone else, that I'm having a hard time with.

L2

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #164 on: February 02, 2018, 10:46:25 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.


I'm going to continue filing and remitting sales tax in my home state for every item sold, every month. No more, no less.

Just as an FYI, if you are doing this, then you most likely have a refund opportunity. See, accountants do have value :)

 Also, to be the bearer of bad news again, look up South Dakota vs. Wayfair. The way in that the nexus laws are shaped is most likely going to change from having to file where you have a physical requirement to having to file in a state where you have X number of sales and/or X number of transactions.

L2

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #165 on: February 02, 2018, 10:47:10 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.


I'm going to continue filing and remitting sales tax in my home state for every item sold, every month. No more, no less.

Just as an FYI, if you are doing this, then you most likely have a refund opportunity. See, accountants do have value :)

 Also, to be the bearer of bad news again, look up South Dakota vs. Wayfair. The way in that the nexus laws are shaped is most likely going to change from having to file where you have a physical presence to having to file in states where you have X number of sales and/or X number of transactions.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #166 on: February 03, 2018, 10:33:34 AM »
How do you handle taxes for this? For anyone who has been doing this for more than a year, what does Amazon send you in terms of a 1099 or other tax documents? Do they report your revenue net of any fees or shipping that you purchased through them or just your gross sales (which would presumably include any shipping credits) leaving you to explain to the IRS that your COGS and expenses accounted for much of that.

I don't really want to go to the trouble of filing a Schedule C just to report that I lost $5 on about $600 in sales (probably more if I accounted for some mileage, to say nothing of my time). The extra $40-50 TurboTax would charge me is obviously not worth it since even if it was pure profit I'd barely pay that much in taxes.

So far 2018 is proving to be more profitable and I'm keeping better track of my income and expenses and I plan to get a business licenses and start quarterly filings with the state (and I suppose the federal government though I need to research the thresholds on that).


Edit: I just went looking to see when Amazon would send me any tax documents and it turns out their minimum threshold to send out at 1099-K is $20,000 in gross sales or 200 transactions. Since I didn't come close on either I don't think I need to worry about reporting any of this for tax purposes.

You only need to file sales tax for states in which you have a physical presence i.e. your residence. Amazon will remit these on your behalf if you have the settings configured properly (for Amazon to collect sales tax).
Technically, you need to remit sales tax for any state you have Nexus. For many states, just having your inventory in an Amazon warehouse in that state creates Nexus.

I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. With Amazon FBA, your inventory gets automatically distributed to fulfillment centers around the country. In most cases, you have no idea where it even goes. Does this mean you need to obtain a sales tax permit for every state and file/remit 50 times per month? If the IRS expects FBA sellers to actually do this, they have a major mess on their hands.

Respectfully disagreed.
As L2 noted, this is exactly what it means. You can pull an inventory report at any time to see what warehouses your inventory is in. State and Federal governments do not accept ignorance (especially willful ignorance) as an excuse for not following the rules.
Also, I don't believe Amazon has warehouses in all 50 states. 

Not to sound like a jerk here, but you can disagree all you want - it doesn't change the technical answer. You'll notice many FBA sellers wait to see if they receive a notice from the states for exactly this reason.

I think that most sellers will continue to fly under the radar of the states. I think there are 15-20 fulfillment centers in states with sales tax. So if you have inventory in any of those and then sell to someone in that state, even if it ships from another state, you're supposed to collect sales tax and remit it to the state.

Obviously this is a pretty complicated issue to handle on your own and there is at least one company, TaxJar that specializes in this (https://www.taxjar.com/guides/sales-tax-guide-for-amazon-fba/). Frankly though, unless you're selling tens of thousands of dollars a year (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) it probably doesn't make financial sense to be the one small seller that is trying to follow all the myriad sales tax rules.


I think the states are going to start going after Amazon directly soon rather than try to track down literally hundreds of thousands of individual small sellers to get a few bucks from each one. If you're doing a million plus in sales and not following the rules on sales tax then it's just a matter of time before someone comes after you. But in the long run, I think Amazon will be forced to handle this directly.

No thanks. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on Taxjar on the notion of fear that the IRS will come and get me for not filing sales tax in 20 different states. It's just not worth it. I don't sell millions of dollars worth. I am a ham and egger.

I am not going to file for sales tax permits in 20 states, with fees $150/each. I'm not going to pay a service $500/month to do it for me.

I'm going to continue filing and remitting sales tax in my home state for every item sold, every month. No more, no less.
That is a business decision you have made, which you are entitled to do.
It's the part where you take the decision you have made, and try to turn it into fact for everyone else, that I'm having a hard time with.

Nope, people need to consult a CPA like yourself or a lawyer for counsel. Not my place to make decisions for people and spread misinformation.

doompatrol

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #167 on: February 07, 2018, 09:35:02 AM »
Amazon FBA is a great option for people who are wanting to start with e-commerce. It has definitely gotten tougher lately as more people see the "gold rush" happening, but if you have some creativity and patience it can definitely pay off.

I think the main difference now is you have to do some sort of alteration/branding on a product to make it stand out. Before you could go to alibaba, find a product for cheap, and essentially flip it on Amazon, but that is no longer the case. Now it requires having your own design, putting branding, or finding a separate use for a product in a new niche.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #168 on: February 08, 2018, 10:34:39 AM »
Well I found some Yankee Candles at Walmart that were only $1.70 as they were from last season (normally $20+). Looks like they still sell a few everyday even during the rest of the year. I was only able to find a couple in-stock after checking a few stores but my net margin should be about $11 on each, depending on shipping costs (edit: shipping turned out to be about $13 thus reducing actual profit to about $6). Another Walmart 50 miles away supposedly has 39 in stock but I'm not sure I want to risk driving all the way there only to find out they have none. www.brickseek.com is a neat resource for checking inventory at Walmart (and a few other stores) but so far it's been pretty hit or miss on accuracy. It's pretty nice seeing an item that's still marked $15.87 ring up as just $1.70. I'd never know that it was marked down so much without that resource.

Also picked up some 8-packs of Gillette Razors for $5.00 that are normally $25-30 but I'll have to sell those on eBay or maybe just use them myself. Too many counterfeits for Amazon to even allow you to request approval to list them.

Finally, purchased some bags that cost $85 but are selling for $150 on Amazon. I couldn't determine the exact sales rank because it was only showing the rank within a subcategory but they're also selling on eBay for about the same so I don't think I'm in any danger of having to sell at a loss. Judging by the number of reviews they must be selling a decent amount and Amazon isn't one of the sellers. The online retailer had 31 in stock but I decided 7 was enough. $2,635 is a bit more than I'm willing to tie up in inventory on a single item I'm not too familiar with. With shipping and fees I figure I should make about $30-35 on each one.

I've since bought about 10 of those candles at various Walmart's though I haven't made the hour-trip to try and buy another 30+ that are in-stock at another one. So far I've sold 6 of them for about $25 each including four to one buyer. That was really nice as it cost $12 to ship one but only $20 to ship four. I guess someone really liked that particular candle and wanted to stock up since it's seasonal and now out of stock. I could increase my profit margin by sending it in to FBA but I would need to buy some cardboard boxes to fit them, plus labels and get everything packed up nice and neat so Amazon doesn't break them. Buying the boxes would only be cost effective if I went to that other store and they actually had 30+ in stock. A 50-pack of boxes that would fit them would work out to about $0.80 each with shipping (plus I'd need a lot more bubble wrap). I know that based on the last few years history from CamelCamelCamel that sales drop off to just a few per month around April/May and there's already several FBA sellers that have a total of 10-15 in stock. The might decided to drop the price from $25 to $15-20 to get rid of their inventory and I'd be stuck with some storage costs waiting for them to sell. Still, if I have any reason to head up that way soon I'll definitely buy whatever's left. At $2 each when they sell for $25+ new it's hard not to make money.

Those razors sure sold nice and quick on eBay and shipping is a lot easier, just pop it in envelop with a bit of bubble wrap for good measure. I'd forgot that Paypal takes about a 5% cut in addition to the eBay fee. Still, works out to a bit less than Amazon.

Sent 4 bags into FBA and already have two pending sales. They're all still in reserved status as I sent all of them to a warehouse in TX and now they're being redistributed around the country. I just sent the other 3 in this morning. It was pretty nice that they came in the original boxes straight from the manufacturer so I didn't have to do any prep at all, they even had barcode stickers on the outside of the boxes. I wish I had known they shipped four to a box I would have just order 8 instead of 7. I can tell the online seller I purchased them from simply opened the box, took out one of the boxes inside and resealed it. Shipping an 18lbs box vs a 14lbs one to Amazon would have been basically the same cost and I calculate I'll make about $42 on each one after all fees.

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #169 on: February 13, 2018, 07:56:49 PM »
I am trying Amazon FBA, not going so great. Mostly I am buying things on clearance at Walmart. It seems that by the time my items ship to Amazon the price has dropped by 1/3. I am thinking maybe the same items are being clearanced at multiple stores and it drives the price down. Any idea if I should leave the price higher in hopes that it will rise in the future?

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #170 on: February 13, 2018, 08:34:33 PM »
I think that ship has sailed.....

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #171 on: February 13, 2018, 09:31:54 PM »
I am trying Amazon FBA, not going so great. Mostly I am buying things on clearance at Walmart. It seems that by the time my items ship to Amazon the price has dropped by 1/3. I am thinking maybe the same items are being clearanced at multiple stores and it drives the price down. Any idea if I should leave the price higher in hopes that it will rise in the future?

So far the only things I've had success with have been very deep discounts.

Check camelcamelcamel.com to see the price history. If you buy something for $10 and it normally sells for $25-30 you're probably ok. If it fluctuates from $15-30 then you may end up selling it at a loss or minimal profit or holding it for a few months.

The only stuff I've bought at Walmart that's been profitable was some candles that were still labeled as being $15 but rang up as $2 or less. Same with some razor blades that were at a very deep discount of $5 vs. a normal price of $20+.

Monthly storage fees and eventually long-term storage fees might eat up any potential profits from keeping the price high. Also it ties up your cash if you've got inventory sitting there for months hoping to get full price rather than discounting it to sell quickly and buy new inventory. Once again, camelcamelcamel can help you determine if there are recent or seasonal trends in pricing and sales.

L2

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #172 on: February 14, 2018, 08:06:38 AM »
I'm sure most of you received the email mentioned here. Protip: Do not listen to Funky Monkey. RI isn't inquiring for no reason.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/sales-tax-rhode-island/359506

Hopefully you all are under a lot of these thresholds being set by states. RI is 5k and CA is 10k FYI. The client whose notice from CA I shared on here a few weeks ago might end up having to go out of business because he can't afford to pay the tax he owes. There is no statute of limitations for failure to file. Charging and remitting sales tax in some of your higher-risk states (if your accountant deems you have any) isn't really an additional cost to you. It might result in a little bit lower sales, but the cost is being passed on to the customer. Monthly sales tax returns in a few states really isn't really some big burden. It can be done in a half hour. If you get caught, you can't go back and charge it to the customer retroactively, its gotta come out of your own pocket.

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #173 on: February 18, 2018, 11:08:29 PM »
Hello all!

I just want to say thank you for the wealth of information that I have found in this forum, but thank you also for this specific topic. Recently (about 3 weeks) I started looking into FBA and noticed that most people in FB groups all they talk about is PL. For me I believe plunging 3-4K into a product that already sells by different brands is not feasable, all your doing is adding your logo. I think that if you were to have something unique, then yes, but because of this I think that wholesale is a great option to start.

My question is, is it still worth it in 2018 to start with FBA? I've read tons of people around the web where they are leaving the platform, saying is saturated etc etc.. Also I've noticed that some other programs have come to light to offer something thaat IL offers, such as fetcher (same people from JS) and I was looking to see if some of you can do an updated post with the software that you guys use.

@RFord617  Can you tell us what software/tools are you using to make it efficient?

@hodedofome  PriceMaster is very close to where I live, so I could probably save the shipping part. Can you tell me if its still worth purchasing from them? Can they provide you with a spreadsheet with the UPC?? Would their invoice still ungate me to some of the sections if I am starting? Is it possible to make between 20-30% ROI? I will be doing this with a LLC and resale certificates.

Thank you.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2018, 11:10:44 PM by nyorker »

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #174 on: February 19, 2018, 09:33:15 AM »
Year to date my sales have been about $1,100 with most of that through Amazon but maybe 10-15% through eBay when something was a good deal but restricted on Amazon. My initial cost of goods sold (COGS) was a bit of $400 but once I add in selling fees and shipping my total COGS was about $750. So my gross profit has been $350 for an average gross margin of about 32%. If I look at my return on investment for just the purchase price, not including the fees and shipping which are almost entirely incurred when something sells, it's 84%.

I've got three higher-priced items that are just about to come in stock through FBA and I have the buy box already. The first four sold in less than a week and though there's no sales ranking, I'd estimate monthly sales at about 10-15 based on what I've seen the other few sellers doing plus myself. So, likely I'll sell through those by the end of the month which will bump up my gross profit to $470 while lowering my profit margin slightly to about 30%.

Out of that $470 though I've probably spent another $30-40 in shipping supplies and if I were tracking my mileage I'd probably have some additional expenses there (not much though as I can mail things by just going slightly out of my way to work, same with most sourcing trips). Not to mention quite a few hours here and there either looking through stores or online and then the time spent actually packaging and shipping things either individually or to FBA.


I'd definitely like to move into wholesale but I've been trying to bootstrap with about $500 to start so I'm sticking with retail and online arbitrage for the time being to build up a bit more capital and experience before trying to start setting up manufacturer or wholesale sourcing relationships. I think there's still plenty of opportunity. Keep in mind that Amazon sales totaled almost $200 billion last year and roughly half of that was from third-party sellers. So yes, there's still plenty of room in a market with close to $100 billion in sales, even with millions of sellers operating. The sooner you get started the sooner you can start building up experience and are more likely to get access to restricted brands and categories. I've been approved for a few random brands just by requesting it without needing an invoice or letter from the manufacturer. The bottom line is that Amazon wants customers to have a good experience. If you do a good job they will let you sell more things. They don't want to let everyone start selling everything right away because there's too much risk of fraud and counterfeiting.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #175 on: February 19, 2018, 12:06:56 PM »
I'm sure most of you received the email mentioned here. Protip: Do not listen to Funky Monkey. RI isn't inquiring for no reason.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/sales-tax-rhode-island/359506

Hopefully you all are under a lot of these thresholds being set by states. RI is 5k and CA is 10k FYI. The client whose notice from CA I shared on here a few weeks ago might end up having to go out of business because he can't afford to pay the tax he owes. There is no statute of limitations for failure to file. Charging and remitting sales tax in some of your higher-risk states (if your accountant deems you have any) isn't really an additional cost to you. It might result in a little bit lower sales, but the cost is being passed on to the customer. Monthly sales tax returns in a few states really isn't really some big burden. It can be done in a half hour. If you get caught, you can't go back and charge it to the customer retroactively, its gotta come out of your own pocket.

I asked my accountant, btw.  His response:

Quote
My understanding about the "sales tax" issue - you only have to collect and remit sales taxes to the State of CT for State of CT residents.

Please note - The Supreme Court is relooking into this issue and they may decide that all sales regardless what state they are from sales taxes will have to be collected.

My guess is that if the SC decides that Amazon sellers need to file and remit in all states, I see Amazon collecting and remitting on behalf of 3rd party. Amazon already does this for itself, and certainly has the resources to easily do it for others. Too many resellers would leave the platform, and with 3rd parties making up half of all Amazon revenue, it'd be quite a bit to lose.

L2

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #176 on: February 19, 2018, 06:01:04 PM »
I'm sure most of you received the email mentioned here. Protip: Do not listen to Funky Monkey. RI isn't inquiring for no reason.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/sales-tax-rhode-island/359506

Hopefully you all are under a lot of these thresholds being set by states. RI is 5k and CA is 10k FYI. The client whose notice from CA I shared on here a few weeks ago might end up having to go out of business because he can't afford to pay the tax he owes. There is no statute of limitations for failure to file. Charging and remitting sales tax in some of your higher-risk states (if your accountant deems you have any) isn't really an additional cost to you. It might result in a little bit lower sales, but the cost is being passed on to the customer. Monthly sales tax returns in a few states really isn't really some big burden. It can be done in a half hour. If you get caught, you can't go back and charge it to the customer retroactively, its gotta come out of your own pocket.

I asked my accountant, btw.  His response:

Quote
My understanding about the "sales tax" issue - you only have to collect and remit sales taxes to the State of CT for State of CT residents.

Please note - The Supreme Court is relooking into this issue and they may decide that all sales regardless what state they are from sales taxes will have to be collected.

That's correct and maybe something I should have clarified. *IF* you have nexus in a state, you should be collecting and remitting sales tax to the state that the customer resides in. Thats why I said you probably have a refund opportunity if you are paying sales tax to Ohio for all of your sales.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #177 on: February 22, 2018, 12:51:08 PM »
Hello all!

I just want to say thank you for the wealth of information that I have found in this forum, but thank you also for this specific topic. Recently (about 3 weeks) I started looking into FBA and noticed that most people in FB groups all they talk about is PL. For me I believe plunging 3-4K into a product that already sells by different brands is not feasable, all your doing is adding your logo. I think that if you were to have something unique, then yes, but because of this I think that wholesale is a great option to start.

My question is, is it still worth it in 2018 to start with FBA? I've read tons of people around the web where they are leaving the platform, saying is saturated etc etc.. Also I've noticed that some other programs have come to light to offer something thaat IL offers, such as fetcher (same people from JS) and I was looking to see if some of you can do an updated post with the software that you guys use.

@RFord617  Can you tell us what software/tools are you using to make it efficient?

@hodedofome  PriceMaster is very close to where I live, so I could probably save the shipping part. Can you tell me if its still worth purchasing from them? Can they provide you with a spreadsheet with the UPC?? Would their invoice still ungate me to some of the sections if I am starting? Is it possible to make between 20-30% ROI? I will be doing this with a LLC and resale certificates.

Thank you.

I started in March of 2017 with $300 in mostly bad clearance items. A few worked out, a few I still have in my garage waiting to be sold on eBay lol. I didn't know anything about restrictions so I bought Lego, Little Tykes, etc.

I read everything I could, got involved with some facebook groups, scanned like crazy, signed up for Tactical Arbitrage, paid $2k for The Wholesale Formula class which I haven't used yet, worked as much as I could with 3 little kids and a full time job. I eventually invested $12k from my savings and I believe my total profit for 2017 is around $25k. Peak sales I've done for a 30 day period is $28k in the 4th quarter of 2017. Right now my sales are around $12-15k per month, with profit being around $3-5k per month. My sales didn't really ramp up until mid summer/early fall of 2017. Getting ungated in as many categories and brands as possible is essential.

I'd say my sales are about 50% coming from OA. I haven't really used Tactical Arbitrage lately, but I need to get back into it. I found an online brand that had some decent selling already going on at Amazon, but the few sellers who sold the product didn't keep it in stock. They'd buy 3 at a time and sell out quick. I could tell this from the Keepa graphs. So I started with 3, then bought 5, then bought 10, then 25, and finally settled on 50-75 per month from 1 item. This item largely has no competition. Had they just ordered enough to test the market, they would have found it was far deeper than they ever imagined. I buy it for $15, sell it for $35, make $9 on each item for a 60% ROI. It sells 50-75 per month so I'm making about $500 a month just from 1 item. All of the ranks for each variation are over 100k in home & kitchen, and some are over 1 million in rank. You can't always trust the rank, and if you're the only seller it can still be worth it.

Since the fall I decided to list all the different variations of this item, as well as similar items from the same website. So I'm moving away from just selling items that are already listed, to creating my own listings for items that haven't been sold before. Although the other variations don't sell as well, when you combine the other colors and sizes I figure I'm making about $1,500 in profit each month. So I setup the inventory alerts in seller central, and when I get to a 2 week supply I place an order for more. It comes to my house, I prep it and send it off. Replens are awesome. As time allows I'm ordering test buys for other products from this website, and creating new listings.

I found another product, in the beauty category, selling brand new on the shelf at a grocery store for $10. It sells (well) on Amazon for $30-45, depending on the competition. ROI can be anywhere from 70-170%. Rank is 25-40k in beauty. This product is apparently difficult to find these days, but it still sold in some stores and more can be ordered. At first I was clearing the shelf, but then eventually spoke to the manager about buying in bulk. She can order as much as I want. One of the orders accidentally included the invoice from the distributor in the box. I was super excited and called the distributor about opening up an account. They said they weren't interested. I don't know why people don't like taking other people's money sometimes. In any case, even paying retail price this one product is responsible for 20% of my sales and at least 25% of my profits.

So 1 RA replen and 1 OA replen website are bringing in $8k in sales and $2-3k in profit per month. Any clearance items I find are gravy after that. I've got basically a 'floor' of replens I can count on to make at least $2k per month. At this point I'm listing new products from that website, and slowly working on opening up wholesale accounts. Wholesale is going slower than I'd like, but I'm not giving up. There's a guy locally who knew my dad and got me to sell his bbq spices on Amazon. They are starting out slow but I'm running ads on them and trying to get reviews.

From the start I imagined me learning the business doing RA and OA, using the profits from that to get into wholesale, and finally using the profits from wholesale to get into private label. Once you know how to get a product ranked high on Amazon, PL offers the best profit opportunities IMO. Even if there's already competition, if you can figure out the listing, advertising and brand awareness/brand building part, you can get stuff to sell.

I do RA shopping during lunch during the week, prep 2 evenings per week and on Saturday. All in all probably putting in 10-20 hours per week.

In answer to your question, Pricemaster and EE Distribution is still good for getting ungated in grocery and toys. They don't provide an excel spreadsheet. Don't expect to make any money, just hope you can break-even. Consider it an investment so you can make more money from being ungated. Even if you're starting out, if you have a legit invoice and the business info of your seller account matches the business info on the invoice, the invoice will be accepted.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2018, 01:03:52 PM by hodedofome »

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #178 on: February 26, 2018, 04:52:50 PM »

I started in March of 2017 with $300 in mostly bad clearance items. A few worked out, a few I still have in my garage waiting to be sold on eBay lol. I didn't know anything about restrictions so I bought Lego, Little Tykes, etc.

I'd say my sales are about 50% coming from OA. I haven't really used Tactical Arbitrage lately, but I need to get back into it. I found an online brand that had some decent selling already going on at Amazon, but the few sellers who sold the product didn't keep it in stock. They'd buy 3 at a time and sell out quick. I could tell this from the Keepa graphs. So I started with 3, then bought 5, then bought 10, then 25, and finally settled on 50-75 per month from 1 item. This item largely has no competition. Had they just ordered enough to test the market, they would have found it was far deeper than they ever imagined. I buy it for $15, sell it for $35, make $9 on each item for a 60% ROI. It sells 50-75 per month so I'm making about $500 a month just from 1 item. All of the ranks for each variation are over 100k in home & kitchen, and some are over 1 million in rank. You can't always trust the rank, and if you're the only seller it can still be worth it.


How did you initially find this website/product? Was it through one of these tools or a deal aggregator website (i.e. slickdeals) or just browsing through Amazon listings and then trying to find another source?

I've had a couple of small wins with RA/OA but I would obviously like to find a replenishable product, even if it had a much lower profit margin just to provide some consistency. 

Most of my gross profit margins (profit after deducting all selling/FBA fees and cost of goods sold - not including miscellaneous shipping supplies or other overhead) have been around 20 - 60% with actual profit per item ranging from $1.70 to $40+. Those $40+ per item profits are nice but it's higher risk buying a $80 item to sell for $150 as some of these have had no sales rank so I'm just going off how many recent reviews have been left (recent reviews means someone must be buying it and very few people leave reviews so a few in the last month or two is a good sign) and if there are any eBay sales.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #179 on: February 27, 2018, 08:56:49 AM »
How did you initially find this website/product? Was it through one of these tools or a deal aggregator website (i.e. slickdeals) or just browsing through Amazon listings and then trying to find another source?

I've had a couple of small wins with RA/OA but I would obviously like to find a replenishable product, even if it had a much lower profit margin just to provide some consistency. 

Most of my gross profit margins (profit after deducting all selling/FBA fees and cost of goods sold - not including miscellaneous shipping supplies or other overhead) have been around 20 - 60% with actual profit per item ranging from $1.70 to $40+. Those $40+ per item profits are nice but it's higher risk buying a $80 item to sell for $150 as some of these have had no sales rank so I'm just going off how many recent reviews have been left (recent reviews means someone must be buying it and very few people leave reviews so a few in the last month or two is a good sign) and if there are any eBay sales.

My first replen product I'm honestly not sure how I found it. I had used it before in my house, and perhaps I just searched for it on Amazon out of curiosity? I know I scanned the brand's site with Tactical Arbitrage but didn't come up with anything. I may have manually searched out the product after the scan, compared the price then thought I had a winner after looking at the Keepa chart. There were only a few products from this site listed on Amazon, and it took me several months to realize I needed to be working on listing every product they sell, not just the ones who are already selling.

To give an example, look at Toys R Us. Toys R us sells toys that you can get anywhere else. But they also have their 'exclusive' line that you can only find at Toys R Us. I saw a few of those exclusive products for sale on Amazon, recognized a good deal, and jumped on the listing. Only a couple other sellers were doing the same thing, so competition was low. Then I decided to go through the entire Toys R Us site and find every exclusive product they sold and listed those on Amazon for the first time. There's zero competition on those listings, so I get every sale.

For the beauty product that is a replen, I believe I initially found that while scanning the site with Tactical Arbitrage, but then went into the physical store to see if it was really as good as I thought. Then I scanned all the products on that shelf to see if there was anything else I was missing. It was in a category I wasn't really thinking about before. So I have OA helping me out with RA ideas, and RA (or my own personal purchase history) helping me out with OA ideas.

Getting ungated in beauty has really helped. I can go into a beauty supply store and head straight to the clearance section. More often than not, I can find something for $5-10, has good reviews, and no current listings. It's out of stock, probably been discontinued, which is why it's on clearance. At that point I can pretty much list that skin cream or shampoo for whatever I want, and it'll sell. Those women who used it before love it, and are willing to pay up to get it again. It might have retailed for $10-30 originally, I get it for $5-10 and sell it for $50+. It's not something I can depend on every week (unless I was traveling every day hitting up stores state-wide) but it's a nice bonus on top of the replens.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2018, 09:02:54 AM by hodedofome »

Roland of Gilead

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #180 on: February 27, 2018, 09:05:51 AM »
Curious how the performance of buying Amazon stock itself with one's startup capital would compare to the return on investment of setting up a Amazon store...

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #181 on: February 27, 2018, 12:31:24 PM »
Curious how the performance of buying Amazon stock itself with one's startup capital would compare to the return on investment of setting up a Amazon store...

Well if you'd bought it a decade ago probably pretty well. On the other hand, a business can easily generate rates of return of over 100% in a year on your initial capital if you can turnover inventory quickly. Pretty hard to find a stock that will do that.

In college I was part of a engineering/business program that included a scholarship and some special classes where we would develop a business to submit to the annual business plan competition. Part of the program included a trip to silicon valley where we stayed in the mansion of a wealthy alumni and got to tour some businesses. I missed the Tesla tour unfortunately as I had to leave early but one place we did tour was 126 Labs which at the time was Amazon's secret product development subsidiary that was creating the Kindle. This was about 6-8 months before it launched and we had to sign NDAs. We only saw early prototypes but I quickly guessed what it was. I remember later that summer thinking that it was going to be a big hit and I should really buy some Amazon stock which was trading at around $75 a share. I already had about $10-12k in the market in mostly financial stocks (most of which soon crashed to a fraction of their value) but I ended up not pulling the trigger. Since Amazon is now trading at about $1,500 and I could have bought it a decade ago for $75 that's an annualized return of about 35%. Amazing to be sure, but still a lot less than you can generate with a business.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #182 on: February 27, 2018, 01:59:44 PM »
How did you initially find this website/product? Was it through one of these tools or a deal aggregator website (i.e. slickdeals) or just browsing through Amazon listings and then trying to find another source?

I've had a couple of small wins with RA/OA but I would obviously like to find a replenishable product, even if it had a much lower profit margin just to provide some consistency. 

Most of my gross profit margins (profit after deducting all selling/FBA fees and cost of goods sold - not including miscellaneous shipping supplies or other overhead) have been around 20 - 60% with actual profit per item ranging from $1.70 to $40+. Those $40+ per item profits are nice but it's higher risk buying a $80 item to sell for $150 as some of these have had no sales rank so I'm just going off how many recent reviews have been left (recent reviews means someone must be buying it and very few people leave reviews so a few in the last month or two is a good sign) and if there are any eBay sales.


Getting ungated in beauty has really helped. I can go into a beauty supply store and head straight to the clearance section. More often than not, I can find something for $5-10, has good reviews, and no current listings. It's out of stock, probably been discontinued, which is why it's on clearance. At that point I can pretty much list that skin cream or shampoo for whatever I want, and it'll sell. Those women who used it before love it, and are willing to pay up to get it again. It might have retailed for $10-30 originally, I get it for $5-10 and sell it for $50+. It's not something I can depend on every week (unless I was traveling every day hitting up stores state-wide) but it's a nice bonus on top of the replens.

I think now that I've upgraded to a professional account I'm ungated in beauty as well. I searched several different beauty products and I was able to create a listing in all but a few restricted brands, though I did get auto-approved for one brand (which has wholesale but does not allow sales on Amazon as they do that themselves). I remember early on scanning a few clearance beauty products at Target but I was restricted in all of them. If I try to add a grocery item for instance it still says I need approve in that category or sub-category but I never got that with any beauty items and I don't see the beauty category in my list of approvals.

Feels a bit awkward going through a makeup aisle or looking at the beauty clearance items but looks like it's worth checking out now.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #183 on: February 27, 2018, 02:24:30 PM »
How did you initially find this website/product? Was it through one of these tools or a deal aggregator website (i.e. slickdeals) or just browsing through Amazon listings and then trying to find another source?

I've had a couple of small wins with RA/OA but I would obviously like to find a replenishable product, even if it had a much lower profit margin just to provide some consistency. 

Most of my gross profit margins (profit after deducting all selling/FBA fees and cost of goods sold - not including miscellaneous shipping supplies or other overhead) have been around 20 - 60% with actual profit per item ranging from $1.70 to $40+. Those $40+ per item profits are nice but it's higher risk buying a $80 item to sell for $150 as some of these have had no sales rank so I'm just going off how many recent reviews have been left (recent reviews means someone must be buying it and very few people leave reviews so a few in the last month or two is a good sign) and if there are any eBay sales.


Getting ungated in beauty has really helped. I can go into a beauty supply store and head straight to the clearance section. More often than not, I can find something for $5-10, has good reviews, and no current listings. It's out of stock, probably been discontinued, which is why it's on clearance. At that point I can pretty much list that skin cream or shampoo for whatever I want, and it'll sell. Those women who used it before love it, and are willing to pay up to get it again. It might have retailed for $10-30 originally, I get it for $5-10 and sell it for $50+. It's not something I can depend on every week (unless I was traveling every day hitting up stores state-wide) but it's a nice bonus on top of the replens.

I think now that I've upgraded to a professional account I'm ungated in beauty as well. I searched several different beauty products and I was able to create a listing in all but a few restricted brands, though I did get auto-approved for one brand (which has wholesale but does not allow sales on Amazon as they do that themselves). I remember early on scanning a few clearance beauty products at Target but I was restricted in all of them. If I try to add a grocery item for instance it still says I need approve in that category or sub-category but I never got that with any beauty items and I don't see the beauty category in my list of approvals.

Feels a bit awkward going through a makeup aisle or looking at the beauty clearance items but looks like it's worth checking out now.

For sure, everyone seems to start out with toys and tech (I know I did) but that's a tough market to stick with every month. Grocery, Home and Kitchen, Beauty and Health are where you can sell steadily throughout the year. Not to mention, the ROI on Beauty and Health can be massive. When I've seen video tours of wholesale guys' warehouses, I can always spot the beauty items being prepped. It's a big business.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #184 on: February 27, 2018, 03:09:30 PM »

For sure, everyone seems to start out with toys and tech (I know I did) but that's a tough market to stick with every month. Grocery, Home and Kitchen, Beauty and Health are where you can sell steadily throughout the year. Not to mention, the ROI on Beauty and Health can be massive. When I've seen video tours of wholesale guys' warehouses, I can always spot the beauty items being prepped. It's a big business.

Have you had much luck with grocery? It seems like the margins would be a lot lower and you have to worry about expiration dates. Plus, how many grocery items really sell for more than a few dollars? I suppose if you sell a whole case of something for $20-30 it could be profitable, but not really any one-off item.

I've avoided tech for the most part, and haven't had much luck with toys. I've got 10 units of an electronic toy I picked up through OA (nice that I can immediately reship it to FBA after just putting a new label on) that should arrive at FBA soon and will hopefully net about $15 at the current price but at a pretty low margin of about 15%. I found some Bluetooth speakers on clearance for $21 that I'm hoping to sell for $60. Those too should arrive soon.

I think you mentioned going through a store with two carts full of light bulbs. I just did that this morning :) one cart full. Luckily I found a helpful clerk at self checkout who let me just count them all up and she punched it in rather than make me scan 130 boxes of light bulbs and bag them. I ended up transferring some to a second cart to take out to my truck. Profit's pretty low but they're selling 1,000 +/- a month and the buy box seems to rotate to some higher priced sellers, not just the lowest or Amazon. So depending on how fast they move I might price them to sell with $1.50 profit or with $2.50 profit. There's still several hundred more at other stores I haven't hit yet. I think I might get my kids to help me prep by putting the barcode stickers over the original barcode.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #185 on: February 27, 2018, 03:15:19 PM »
With grocery I’ve found the best luck selling multipacks (3 boxes of whatever vs 1) as well as regional stuff, spices, coffee, and anything gluten free or all natural. People are willing to pay up for stuff like that. If there’s a chain that’s only in one state, then customers may prefer their flavor but live across the country. You can be the one to supply them with a product they’d like to buy but can’t where they live. Nothing I’ve done that’s a replen has been high ROI but it can turn over pretty good.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #186 on: February 27, 2018, 05:24:08 PM »
With grocery I’ve found the best luck selling multipacks (3 boxes of whatever vs 1) as well as regional stuff, spices, coffee, and anything gluten free or all natural. People are willing to pay up for stuff like that. If there’s a chain that’s only in one state, then customers may prefer their flavor but live across the country. You can be the one to supply them with a product they’d like to buy but can’t where they live. Nothing I’ve done that’s a replen has been high ROI but it can turn over pretty good.

I just looked up my favorite salsa from a local restaurant chain and a 3 pack is going for $33 with estimated sale of 15 per month. I'm pretty sure I can buy it for about $4-5 a jar at Walmart. Profit is only a few bucks but they've got a few different varieties and I might be able to workout a wholesale deal with the restaurant locally.

My wheels are spinning. Thanks for the advice. I see a lot of possibilities here.

max9505672

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #187 on: February 28, 2018, 06:25:44 AM »
With grocery I’ve found the best luck selling multipacks (3 boxes of whatever vs 1) as well as regional stuff, spices, coffee, and anything gluten free or all natural. People are willing to pay up for stuff like that. If there’s a chain that’s only in one state, then customers may prefer their flavor but live across the country. You can be the one to supply them with a product they’d like to buy but can’t where they live. Nothing I’ve done that’s a replen has been high ROI but it can turn over pretty good.

I just looked up my favorite salsa from a local restaurant chain and a 3 pack is going for $33 with estimated sale of 15 per month. I'm pretty sure I can buy it for about $4-5 a jar at Walmart. Profit is only a few bucks but they've got a few different varieties and I might be able to workout a wholesale deal with the restaurant locally.

My wheels are spinning. Thanks for the advice. I see a lot of possibilities here.
As a new seller on FBA, many categories will be blocked to you and food is one of them. Make sure you get ''ungated'' before sending items unless you're account could be closed + a lot of headaches to get your products back.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #188 on: February 28, 2018, 12:24:58 PM »
With grocery I’ve found the best luck selling multipacks (3 boxes of whatever vs 1) as well as regional stuff, spices, coffee, and anything gluten free or all natural. People are willing to pay up for stuff like that. If there’s a chain that’s only in one state, then customers may prefer their flavor but live across the country. You can be the one to supply them with a product they’d like to buy but can’t where they live. Nothing I’ve done that’s a replen has been high ROI but it can turn over pretty good.

Do you have to send it into FBA as a complete package or can you just send in a bunch of boxes/jar/bags and they will pick out three of them to ship if the listing is for three of a particular item?

I was looking at these jars of salsa that are selling as a three-pack and wondering if I would need to get a separate box to put those three jars in, or stack them up top of each other and get it shrink-wrapped. Since they are glass it would probably need to be the former with some bubble wrap.


I just looked up my favorite salsa from a local restaurant chain and a 3 pack is going for $33 with estimated sale of 15 per month. I'm pretty sure I can buy it for about $4-5 a jar at Walmart. Profit is only a few bucks but they've got a few different varieties and I might be able to workout a wholesale deal with the restaurant locally.

My wheels are spinning. Thanks for the advice. I see a lot of possibilities here.
As a new seller on FBA, many categories will be blocked to you and food is one of them. Make sure you get ''ungated'' before sending items unless you're account could be closed + a lot of headaches to get your products back.

Of course. I'm going to do some more market research before diving into grocery but just this one item could potentially be $50+/- in profit per month and no worries about finding inventory since I can buy a few dozen units at any Walmart in town for $3.78. Might be able to get a better rate straight from the local manufacturer but maybe not. That's just one item from one local brand. I can definitely see expanding out into 20-30 items from a half-dozen of the most popular local brands and even if the margin is only 10-15% that could still be a nice steady base to help support finding the higher margin one-off clearance items.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2018, 12:26:54 PM by Michael in ABQ »

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #189 on: February 28, 2018, 08:30:58 PM »
I usually stay away from glass cause it’s a lot to prep but yeah I’d think along the lines of a box to put those jars in.

If I do a multipack it’s usually just a polybag and a label on the bag. Interesting thing about multipacks is customers will buy them even if it costs more than buying the individual items in higher quantities. All multipacks need to be prepped on your end, Amazon will not bundle them together for you at the time of the sale.

For instance, you can buy a bbq spice for $12 or you can buy my pack of 3 for $49.95. People buy my 3 pack for some reason. I guess they don’t do math very well.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2018, 08:34:07 PM by hodedofome »

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #190 on: March 07, 2018, 03:17:11 PM »
I'm definitely going to look at doing some multipacks. There's the added benefit that if you can customize it you essentially own the listing.

Just got a message from a toy brand owner basically telling me to close my listing or they'll report me to Amazon. It appears to be legitimate and even though I was approved for the brand (automatically) it looks like they're cracking down on unauthorized resellers. Since I sourced 10 units from woot.com it didn't fly with them. I dropped the price to just above my breakeven and quickly sold three but now I'll have to pull the other 7 off and sell them on eBay. Hopefully I can at least breakeven on those.

Still finding a few decent one-off clearance deals, mostly at Walmart. Found a modem/router for $35 that is selling for about $125. It was hidden in the back of the locked display case. Wonder if some employee stuck it back there, hoping to buy it themselves. Just got an alert for an electric chainsaw for $59 that has sold for about $250-300 on Amazon. Supposedly two in stock, guess I'll find out when I swing by after work. Might not be able to send it into FBA because of the battery but even if shipping is $50 that's still a healthy profit margin. I almost got burned with a heavy item I listed on eBay with free shipping. I calculated UPS ground at $40 or less to pretty much the whole US but didn't take into account Hawaii. Got an order from there and shipping was going to be $90 but luckily the buyer was cool with me cancelling the order.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #191 on: March 08, 2018, 09:18:14 AM »
If a brand reaches out and demands I stop selling, I tell them to go through Amazon. They can't keep me from selling their product unless the listing is infringing on intellectual property (images or description is stolen from brand owner's website or whatever).

I've had a few images taken down, so I had to take pictures of the product myself and the listing is now back to normal.

I've been hit with a counterfeit claim, but sent Amazon my order confirmations and my selling privileges were restored.

A few times the brand owner went through Amazon and got me kicked off the listing, which stunk.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #192 on: March 08, 2018, 10:40:52 AM »
If a brand reaches out and demands I stop selling, I tell them to go through Amazon. They can't keep me from selling their product unless the listing is infringing on intellectual property (images or description is stolen from brand owner's website or whatever).

I've had a few images taken down, so I had to take pictures of the product myself and the listing is now back to normal.

I've been hit with a counterfeit claim, but sent Amazon my order confirmations and my selling privileges were restored.

A few times the brand owner went through Amazon and got me kicked off the listing, which stunk.

From what I've read, Amazon won't necessarily accept a receipt from Walmart or some random website as proof of authenticity. I know they won't for getting ungated but I don't want to run the risk of having my account shut down over it. I posted in the Amazon seller forums and some people indicated that this particular brand is pretty aggressive about unauthorized resellers. I got an email from Amazon a couple of days before that this brand was going to be restricted soon (no longer automatically ungating I assume) so I took a bit more serious than if it had been totally out of the blue.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #193 on: March 09, 2018, 10:26:01 AM »
If a brand reaches out and demands I stop selling, I tell them to go through Amazon. They can't keep me from selling their product unless the listing is infringing on intellectual property (images or description is stolen from brand owner's website or whatever).

I've had a few images taken down, so I had to take pictures of the product myself and the listing is now back to normal.

I've been hit with a counterfeit claim, but sent Amazon my order confirmations and my selling privileges were restored.

A few times the brand owner went through Amazon and got me kicked off the listing, which stunk.

From what I've read, Amazon won't necessarily accept a receipt from Walmart or some random website as proof of authenticity. I know they won't for getting ungated but I don't want to run the risk of having my account shut down over it. I posted in the Amazon seller forums and some people indicated that this particular brand is pretty aggressive about unauthorized resellers. I got an email from Amazon a couple of days before that this brand was going to be restricted soon (no longer automatically ungating I assume) so I took a bit more serious than if it had been totally out of the blue.

Sounds like you did the right thing if you got a message from Amazon themselves.

Detailed receipts from retail stores and websites are acceptable for showing Amazon proof of authenticity. It is not ok for getting ungated in a restricted brand or category. You'll need invoices from a legit distributor/wholesaler/manufacturer for ungating.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #194 on: March 09, 2018, 11:43:28 AM »
Bought a bunch of LED lightbulbs for $4 and was selling them for $10 and making a small profit. Unfortunately after getting a couple boxes into FBA and prepping a few more boxes worth Amazon has now dropped the price to $5.97 and changed it to an add on item. So I'm probably hosed on $800 worth of inventory. Maybe I can find an apartment complex or something similar that wants to buy a few hundred LED light bulbs.

Edit: I guess they changed their minds because Amazon raised the price back up to $11 and stopped making it an add-on item.

Still makes me nervous and I think it's time to get this inventory sold off even if I have to drop the price a bit. Really need to find some more reliable suppliers and defensible products to list.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 02:12:51 PM by Michael in ABQ »

Phoenix_Fire

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #195 on: March 09, 2018, 05:28:24 PM »
I find the retail arbitrage very interesting and am considering getting into it. 

Out of curiosity, how many different items do you normally keep stocked at Amazon, and roughly how many of each?  I’m curious about the quantity needed to get going with this. 

If toys r us ends up going under there will probably be a lot of buying opportunities, but there will also be a lot of people trying the same thing I’m sure.

I keep re-reading this thread and getting more intrigued.  Should probably go set an LLC.

SC93

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #196 on: March 10, 2018, 12:06:03 AM »
I just want to keep reminding readers what a wise man once told me.... you can sell 10 things at $10 profit and make $100 or you can sell 1 thing at $100 profit. It takes 10x more effort to sell the $10 profit item.

If I did ever do something like this, I would buy high-end retail return pallets from a good company that doesn't cherry-pick the pallets. I'm not saying I would ever do it but if I ever did and I'm not 100% sure you can sell that stuff on Amazon because I know nothing about Amazon.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #197 on: March 10, 2018, 06:28:35 PM »
I find the retail arbitrage very interesting and am considering getting into it. 

Out of curiosity, how many different items do you normally keep stocked at Amazon, and roughly how many of each?  I’m curious about the quantity needed to get going with this. 

If toys r us ends up going under there will probably be a lot of buying opportunities, but there will also be a lot of people trying the same thing I’m sure.

I keep re-reading this thread and getting more intrigued.  Should probably go set an LLC.

I've got about a dozen items right now. Anywhere from one item to ten on almost everything. I found a bunch of light bulbs on sale and bought about 200 boxes though I've only sent in 72 so far. Though I'm packing another couple of boxes to send into FBA now since I sold 22 boxes in the last two days.

I just want to keep reminding readers what a wise man once told me.... you can sell 10 things at $10 profit and make $100 or you can sell 1 thing at $100 profit. It takes 10x more effort to sell the $10 profit item.

If I did ever do something like this, I would buy high-end retail return pallets from a good company that doesn't cherry-pick the pallets. I'm not saying I would ever do it but if I ever did and I'm not 100% sure you can sell that stuff on Amazon because I know nothing about Amazon.

Not quite 10x the effort in this case. But still, I'm definitely trying to move into products with a higher margin.

SC93

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #198 on: March 10, 2018, 08:13:29 PM »
You are correct, actually 9x more work. If you sold something at $10 profit, 10 times, you had to mail out 9 more things than I would have had to mail out at $100 profit.

Try a few large ticket items. If you sell 1 thing a month at $1000 profit, you saved yourself a lot of work. There is a lady north of where I live that sells rings and only sells locally. She pays $8 for them and sells them for between $75-$300. I don't know how many she sells but every time I know of, she is meeting up with someone to sell one of those rings. Another lady does the same thing with small furniture. Find something that is going to make you a minimum $50 each time you put the effort in to selling it. And if you choose to sell on something like ebay, the $50 comes after you pay for everything associated with selling in their space. You can do it, just dig deep for those things to make that much profit.

chuckster

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #199 on: March 10, 2018, 10:32:32 PM »
The other day I needed a replacement Thing for something in my house. My first stop was Amazon... they didn't have it, or anything even like it, which surprised me. So I did some googling, and the manufacturer doesn't sell a replacement for this part. So after more online searching, I found someone that sells this thing on ebay, and it was like $13 with $7 shipping because it's coming from Australia. So I did some more googling, and found someone that sells it on his custom website for about $3.50 + $2 shipping, because he's in Europe. He also sells for the same price & shipping from an Etsy store. But not on Amazon. His etsy store has only been around for about 3 months and has about 500 sales.

This thing is very small, about the size of a credit card. I can design my own version of this thing pretty easily. I am sure if I bought a bunch I could get them made for about 50-75 cents each.

Am I crazy to think I could beat this guy in the UK on price if I sell it on Amazon in the US? All I'd have to do is sell below his $5.50, and not having to mail it across an ocean should take care of that.  Or is that too small an item to bother once Amazon's fees come out of every sale?
« Last Edit: March 11, 2018, 11:09:42 AM by chuckster »

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!