Author Topic: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?  (Read 85790 times)

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #200 on: March 11, 2018, 06:46:37 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?

You don't necessarily have to beat his price. Amazon is usually the cheapest but not always. On the other hand, it is the first (and often only) shopping destination for a tens of millions of people. Maybe you can price it at $7.99 and still get plenty of sales. Or sell it as a 2-pack only for $10.99.

Find something similar on Amazon (in terms of size and weight) and plug it into this FBA fee calculator. https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index?lang=en_US Amazon's fee is 15% but the FBA fee (cost of them picking, packing, and shipping) will vary by size and weight.

It's hard to be profitable at those very low price points because you'll either have a $0.99 fee per item or have to pay $40 a month for a professional seller account. If you're all in landed cost is $0.75 each and you sell it for $6.00 Amazon's fees might end up being $5.00. Is it worth all that effort to hopefully make $0.25 per widget on something that might sell a few hundred units (or maybe far less) per month? Even if the fees are only $4.00 it's probably not worth it.

ePalmtrees

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #201 on: March 15, 2018, 01:27:51 PM »
Hey guys, I've made my money on amazon for awhile, but selling self-published books through createspace. I've done well but it's getting saturated and I'm looking at jumping into the sellers market. I'm probably going to the amazing.com amazon sellers conference in Orlando next month.

Would anyone currently selling on amazon want to skype chat/mastermind? I know I don't have much to offer at the moment since I'm not actually doing it but would love to have some friends to chat with in the industry. I was in affiliate marketing for a long time and miss having internet marketing friends to talk about this stuff with.




Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #202 on: March 19, 2018, 01:44:04 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. 
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 found 9 bottles of a self-tanning prduct in the clearance aisle at a Walmart a couple of weeks ago for $2.75 each. Sales rank seemed to be okay and it looked like it was selling for $15-20. I was planning to send it in to FBA but I would have needed to put it in a poly bag and didn't feel like buying a 100 pack for this one item. I finally put it up as fulfilled by merchant last week and I basically sold all 9 units in about 4 days. I started at $17.99 and overnight sold 5. Then I bumped the price up to $19.99 and sold a few more the next day and finally up to $21.99 and sold the final unit a day later. The only other seller is priced at about $30. This items sells from Ulta Beauty for $19.99 so I definitely underpriced it a bit to start with but obviously there was some pent-up demand since the only other seller had it priced so high. Unfortunately I can't even find this product on Walmart's website. It's apparently a nicer European brand so I'm not sure why it was in stock at Walmart. I'd love to be able to find some more in a clearance aisle.


I found a local wholesaler who carries some local food brands and will give me net 30 terms after the first cash order with no minimum order quantity. They happened to be located a block away from the post office I drop off some packages at so it would be easy to stop by there on the way to or from work. Should be able to get ungated in grocery with that and I figure I can buy 10 cases of various products for about $250-300. Margins aren't amazing because I'll have to repackage some of the glass products and buy a bunch of boxes and bubble wrap for that. Still, I've already identified several products they carry where a 3- or 4-pack is selling for $30-35 and I can buy those 3-4 units for about $11-12 each. A lot of the products are selling decent amounts despite having pretty crappy listings with a single picture, maybe two and just a few bullet points. There are some other sellers so I'm thinking of trying to create my own pack with a slightly customized packaging. I.e. get a nice sturdy box and get a logo printed on it. I see one seller who is offering some recipes with a 4-pack so they have an exclusive listing where they are probably getting at least 5-10 sales a month, all to themselves.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 09:14:29 AM by Michael in ABQ »

evme

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #203 on: March 21, 2018, 03:05:53 AM »
Hi all, I'm new to the MMM forum but have been a seller on amazon for many years. I have sold through FBA for the past 6-7 years. I mostly sell media products, or what amazon refers to as BMVD (Books, Music, Videos and DVDs). I expect to chime in more later but thought I would introduce myself for now.

Cali

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #204 on: March 21, 2018, 05:18:12 AM »
posting to follow

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #205 on: March 21, 2018, 02:26:11 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. 
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 found 9 bottles of a self-tanning prduct in the clearance aisle at a Walmart a couple of weeks ago for $2.75 each. Sales rank seemed to be okay and it looked like it was selling for $15-20. I was planning to send it in to FBA but I would have needed to put it in a poly bag and didn't feel like buying a 100 pack for this one item. I finally put it up as fulfilled by merchant last week and I basically sold all 9 units in about 4 days. I started at $17.99 and overnight sold 5. Then I bumped the price up to $19.99 and sold a few more the next day and finally up to $21.99 and sold the final unit a day later. The only other seller is priced at about $30. This items sells from Ulta Beauty for $19.99 so I definitely underpriced it a bit to start with but obviously there was some pent-up demand since the only other seller had it priced so high. Unfortunately I can't even find this product on Walmart's website. It's apparently a nicer European brand so I'm not sure why it was in stock at Walmart. I'd love to be able to find some more in a clearance aisle.


I found a local wholesaler who carries some local food brands and will give me net 30 terms after the first cash order with no minimum order quantity. They happened to be located a block away from the post office I drop off some packages at so it would be easy to stop by there on the way to or from work. Should be able to get ungated in grocery with that and I figure I can buy 10 cases of various products for about $250-300. Margins aren't amazing because I'll have to repackage some of the glass products and buy a bunch of boxes and bubble wrap for that. Still, I've already identified several products they carry where a 3- or 4-pack is selling for $30-35 and I can buy those 3-4 units for about $11-12 each. A lot of the products are selling decent amounts despite having pretty crappy listings with a single picture, maybe two and just a few bullet points. There are some other sellers so I'm thinking of trying to create my own pack with a slightly customized packaging. I.e. get a nice sturdy box and get a logo printed on it. I see one seller who is offering some recipes with a 4-pack so they have an exclusive listing where they are probably getting at least 5-10 sales a month, all to themselves.

Is that wholesaler mostly for convenience stores? I can't seem to find a wholesaler that does legit grocery stores.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #206 on: March 21, 2018, 02:51:14 PM »

Is that wholesaler mostly for convenience stores? I can't seem to find a wholesaler that does legit grocery stores.

Nope, they seem to do regular grocery stores. It definitely feels like a mom and pop sort of outfit. Small warehouse with a really outdated office and just a few people working there. I walked in and asked if they had a product list of price list as I was interested in buying and it took the sales guy a few minutes to find something. Still, seems like there's good potential.

My sister-in-law and her husband both work at a natural foods grocery store (regional chain) and she works in the receiving department. So if the grocery thing goes well I might see if she can point me towards some suppliers for some products that they carry that might have potential.

I found a personal care brand that it looks like might have some OA/RA potential. Walmart stocks some of their products but so does another website. They're selling for about $6-7 per unit in both places but Amazon only has some of their products listed. Those single items there's no margin but selling a pair (shampoo and conditioner for instance) there's just one seller with a few in stock who's got them at $40 and is still managing to get a few sales per month. I'm testing the market with a few units fulfilled by merchant at $30 before I place a big order and send it in to FBA. To do that I'll have a bit of prep (poly bag and label). I also tried contacting the brand directly. After all if they can sell it to Walmart and this other retailer who are reselling it for $6 they must be wholesaling it for $3-5 per unit. Then again, they wouldn't be the first brand to lose money selling to a big box retailer. All of the listings only have a single image and so-so bullet points so hopefully I can convince the brand owner to sell to me directly and boost sales by improving the listings.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #207 on: March 21, 2018, 03:36:40 PM »

I found a personal care brand that it looks like might have some OA/RA potential. Walmart stocks some of their products but so does another website. They're selling for about $6-7 per unit in both places but Amazon only has some of their products listed. Those single items there's no margin but selling a pair (shampoo and conditioner for instance) there's just one seller with a few in stock who's got them at $40 and is still managing to get a few sales per month. I'm testing the market with a few units fulfilled by merchant at $30 before I place a big order and send it in to FBA. To do that I'll have a bit of prep (poly bag and label). I also tried contacting the brand directly. After all if they can sell it to Walmart and this other retailer who are reselling it for $6 they must be wholesaling it for $3-5 per unit. Then again, they wouldn't be the first brand to lose money selling to a big box retailer. All of the listings only have a single image and so-so bullet points so hopefully I can convince the brand owner to sell to me directly and boost sales by improving the listings.

Cha-ching. Just sold a pair of shampoo and conditioner for $30 that I bought off the shelf last night at Walmart for about $13 with tax and listed for sale about four hours ago. Shipping FBM is more than FBA so profit margin is about $6 but should increase a couple dollars with FBA and buying from the online supplier with no tax.

evme

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #208 on: March 25, 2018, 02:01:28 AM »
Has anyone found a way to skip or automate the "Add dangerous goods information" step when converting products to fulfilled by amazon? It's not a big deal when you're just adding a couple SKUs but when you have a few dozen it gets to be a real time suck.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #209 on: March 26, 2018, 06:48:46 AM »

I found a personal care brand that it looks like might have some OA/RA potential. Walmart stocks some of their products but so does another website. They're selling for about $6-7 per unit in both places but Amazon only has some of their products listed. Those single items there's no margin but selling a pair (shampoo and conditioner for instance) there's just one seller with a few in stock who's got them at $40 and is still managing to get a few sales per month. I'm testing the market with a few units fulfilled by merchant at $30 before I place a big order and send it in to FBA. To do that I'll have a bit of prep (poly bag and label). I also tried contacting the brand directly. After all if they can sell it to Walmart and this other retailer who are reselling it for $6 they must be wholesaling it for $3-5 per unit. Then again, they wouldn't be the first brand to lose money selling to a big box retailer. All of the listings only have a single image and so-so bullet points so hopefully I can convince the brand owner to sell to me directly and boost sales by improving the listings.

Cha-ching. Just sold a pair of shampoo and conditioner for $30 that I bought off the shelf last night at Walmart for about $13 with tax and listed for sale about four hours ago. Shipping FBM is more than FBA so profit margin is about $6 but should increase a couple dollars with FBA and buying from the online supplier with no tax.

Proceeded to sell eight more units over the weekend. Guess there was some pent up demand of people not willing to pay $40. Decided to order about 30 more packages from an online supplier for sending in to FBA. It's too bad you can't keep it FBM while waiting for FBA to get in stock. However next week I'll be leaving for two weeks so I won't be able to do any fulfillment myself. I'll need to set my inventory to 0 for some random one-off items I have FBM (mostly books).

My biggest problem now is time and still trying to get my wife on board. Now that I'm done with my regular and time-consuming job I should have some more time to grow this. At least until I start my new job next month some time.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #210 on: March 26, 2018, 07:39:55 AM »
Has anyone found a way to skip or automate the "Add dangerous goods information" step when converting products to fulfilled by amazon? It's not a big deal when you're just adding a couple SKUs but when you have a few dozen it gets to be a real time suck.

Inventory Lab has a streamlined process for inventory management, including dangerous goods information.

evme

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #211 on: March 27, 2018, 07:30:40 PM »
Has anyone found a way to skip or automate the "Add dangerous goods information" step when converting products to fulfilled by amazon? It's not a big deal when you're just adding a couple SKUs but when you have a few dozen it gets to be a real time suck.

Inventory Lab has a streamlined process for inventory management, including dangerous goods information.

Good to know. I don't want to give a third party credentials to access my account though, so guess I'm out of luck.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #212 on: March 28, 2018, 06:14:24 AM »

I found a personal care brand that it looks like might have some OA/RA potential. Walmart stocks some of their products but so does another website. They're selling for about $6-7 per unit in both places but Amazon only has some of their products listed. Those single items there's no margin but selling a pair (shampoo and conditioner for instance) there's just one seller with a few in stock who's got them at $40 and is still managing to get a few sales per month. I'm testing the market with a few units fulfilled by merchant at $30 before I place a big order and send it in to FBA. To do that I'll have a bit of prep (poly bag and label). I also tried contacting the brand directly. After all if they can sell it to Walmart and this other retailer who are reselling it for $6 they must be wholesaling it for $3-5 per unit. Then again, they wouldn't be the first brand to lose money selling to a big box retailer. All of the listings only have a single image and so-so bullet points so hopefully I can convince the brand owner to sell to me directly and boost sales by improving the listings.

Cha-ching. Just sold a pair of shampoo and conditioner for $30 that I bought off the shelf last night at Walmart for about $13 with tax and listed for sale about four hours ago. Shipping FBM is more than FBA so profit margin is about $6 but should increase a couple dollars with FBA and buying from the online supplier with no tax.

Proceeded to sell eight more units over the weekend. Guess there was some pent up demand of people not willing to pay $40. Decided to order about 30 more packages from an online supplier for sending in to FBA. It's too bad you can't keep it FBM while waiting for FBA to get in stock. However next week I'll be leaving for two weeks so I won't be able to do any fulfillment myself. I'll need to set my inventory to 0 for some random one-off items I have FBM (mostly books).

My biggest problem now is time and still trying to get my wife on board. Now that I'm done with my regular and time-consuming job I should have some more time to grow this. At least until I start my new job next month some time.

I guess I was mistaken, you can have both FBA and FBM on the same listing at the same time.

I was able to get my wife on board somewhat by giving her a pair of shampoo and conditioner I bought. :) One was leaking a little from the store but I probably could have cleaned it up and sold it. She's actually enjoying it and wants to write a review on Amazon (using our personal account). Still, $13 to get her on at least somewhat on board is well worth it.

Now I just have to hope no one else hops on this listing. Between the different varieties I could be looking at 50-100 sales per month based on how quickly it's been selling so far. At about $6-7 profit each that would make for a nice base monthly income with an easily replenishable product that appears to have a pretty loyal group of buyers. The online supplier I found even has each individual unit already in a poly bag and delivers within two days for free.

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #213 on: April 15, 2018, 01:49:31 PM »
I started private label 4 years ago, currently, I have 7 SKU's all PL, so I can be helpful in this thread.

My advice to brand new sellers:

  • Don't just slap your logo on something everyone else can go to Alibaba and buy. It will cost you a fortune in pay-per-click to get (And keep) the product ranked and you'll end up racing to the lowest price possible to even move your units.

    Real life example:

    A friend asked me for help starting a PL earlier this year. Since this was my buddy, I helped him find a product, there were 2 sellers selling around 3000 each in December.
    He didn't want to spend a lot, he spent around $500 total ($250 was the GS1 UPCs), and bought around 100 units. He gave a few for reviews, then was selling around 3-5 a day and was on page 1 or 2 for the main keyword. Within a month there were 10 other sellers that jumped in. Now he sells maybe 2 a week. Oh yeah, and the price went from like $13 to like $7 or $8 because everyone keeps slashing their prices to try and sell more than the competition so he makes maybe $1 net profit each now lol
    One of the main reasons for this is because the barrier to entry was too low. The MOQ was so low and the product was so cheap and could be airshipped that anyone with a few bucks could jump in and do it.
  • If you go with a cheap product FBA fees and PPC will eat you alive very quickly.

    My real-life example with a product in the home and kitchen category:

    COGS (cost of goods): $3.43, Airshipping from PRC: $0.97 per unit, Amazon and FBA fees: $4.34 Selling Price $13.95

    That leaves me with $5.21. When doing my initial math, I was like "Hell yeah! $5 a unit sounds great to me! At 500 units I'll make $2500 in profit!"

    Well, that didn't happen. I ended up spending about $1500 on PPC ads, giving away about 100 units through JumpSend and I'm still having trouble getting my product to hold rank. I'm almost at a break-even point on it now that I have a few reviews, but my other (differentiated) products started turning a profit almost immediately.

I still have a lot to learn, but I can say biggest mistakes new sellers make are: not differentiating enough, and not picking an item with a higher selling price.

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #214 on: April 22, 2018, 12:59:40 AM »
Wealth of information in this thread!

Excited..

LiseE

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kpetar ... if just starting out do you think it's too risky to go right into PL?  Do you think it's necessary to do arbitrage first?  Also, can you offer any advice or tips on how you find products?  What services (if any) do you use?

hodedofome

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Recently I started selling shampoo that quickly turned into 50% of my profits. Just got word from the grocery chain I was sourcing it from that it's no longer being manufactured and was pulled from the shelves. The risks of having too many eggs in one basket are real. It won't be long until I'm all sold out and will need to find other products to source. Doubtful I'll be able to find another product as profitable and easy as that one.

Michael in ABQ

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Recently I started selling shampoo that quickly turned into 50% of my profits. Just got word from the grocery chain I was sourcing it from that it's no longer being manufactured and was pulled from the shelves. The risks of having too many eggs in one basket are real. It won't be long until I'm all sold out and will need to find other products to source. Doubtful I'll be able to find another product as profitable and easy as that one.

I found a shampoo and conditioner that's been selling pretty well and I found a cheap online supplier in addition to a grocery store. Buy for $12-13 and sell for $30. With 3-4 SKUs I'm getting an average of 2-3 sales per day with about $10 profit on each via FBA. Unfortunately had an issue where several bundles got separated at the warehouse and several customer complaints about receiving only shampoo or only conditioner. I've got an open case and hopefully Amazon will reimburse me for sending the replacement item direct via priority mail.

Cwadda

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kpetar ... if just starting out do you think it's too risky to go right into PL?  Do you think it's necessary to do arbitrage first?  Also, can you offer any advice or tips on how you find products?  What services (if any) do you use?

You have to be very careful with private labeling. Foreign sellers make competition extremely fierce, to the point of driving your product into the ground.

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I started FBA a few months ago after running into a guy at DisneyWorld who started doing it a year or two ago. He told me I could make $100k the first year easy if I put in the work. I was intrigued so I thought i'd check it out.

He does retail/online arbitrage. You'll see FBA sellers call it RA and OA. There is also wholesale and private label (PL).

Retail Arbitrage: Finding stuff locally that selling for much cheaper than it is on Amazon
Online Arbitrage: Finding stuff online at other websites that is selling for much cheaper than it is on Amazon
Wholesale: Finding wholesale distributors or manufacturers that will sell you product at wholesale prices and you sell it retail price on Amazon
Private Label: Creating your own products either in the US or Asia and selling them on Amazon

The guy I met told me to spend $350 on thesellingfamily.com. Being a self-taught trader I decided I could probably get the same info for free or much cheaper by reading books and blogs. From what I've seen and heard from them though, their advice appears to be sound and they look like good people. I'm just cheap when it comes to paying for tuition. I did buy a few $10 Chris Green courses on Udemy. Chris is a good guy and has a lot of ideas. He pioneered RA for sure, and makes a few seller tools like ScanPower.

I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. The biggest ones:

1) Buying product in brands that I was restricted from selling. I didn't check on the Amazon Seller app first before buying. These are now worthless and you either have to return it or sell it on eBay. Most of the big name brands are restricted and you gotta pay $1-3k to sell them (Little Tikes, Mattell, Lego, Nerf, Hasbro, WWE, Star Wars, Beats, Nike, Asics, Apple, etc...)
2) Not checking fees on the product before buying. Amazon FBA basically takes 1/3 of the price for their fees. So if it sells for $30, Amazon takes $10. Subtract what the item cost you and that's what you have left. So you really want to find the item for $10-15 so you can make $5-10 on it after fees.
3) Buying products because they are cheap compared to Amazon, but not checking the sales rank history first. It doesn't matter how cheap you got it for, if it doesn't have a good sales rank it'll never sell.
4) Buying products that Amazon considers hazmat and won't let you sell FBA. Basically if it's got chemicals in it or it's an item with batteries, you better make sure you can sell it FBA before buying it. You'd be surprised what products Amazon considers 'dangerous.'
5) Not checking the sales price history of the item. Say I find an item for $10 and it's selling for $30 on Amazon. I think great and I buy it. But then once I list it I realize that it only temporarily listed at that price and now other sellers have caught on and some idiot is trying to drive the price down. Or maybe Amazon was a seller and was temporarily out of stock. Once Amazon gets the product in stock the price plummets down to $12.99. Now I'm going to lose money after fees, and hoping that Amazon goes out of stock is useless.

You'll have to go into this with the mentality that it's a real business. It's going to take time, effort and $$$ to learn everything and make a bunch of mistakes. But the potential is there and you can make this whatever you want. You can sell used books on Amazon and start off with literally $100. Find books for free locally or from thrift stores or library sales. You can buy cheap products on clearance and start off with little money.

Once you figure out how this works, you can work as little or as much as you want. After the first several months to a year, you can choose to only work during good seasons (like 4th quarter or textbook season). You can get a virtual assistant to do online sourcing for you. You can hire a prep center to receive all the items you order online, prep them and send them in to Amazon. You can buy a repricer to automatically reprice your items based on a certain criteria. You can outsource a lot in this so that your effort is minimal for the amount of $$$ you can make.

After selling for 2 months, I've bought around $4k worth of product, sold around $2k at list price, and make about $1k in profit. I'm now using the money I get from Amazon to source more product, instead of putting my own money in. Maybe in the 4th quarter I'll invest in additional inventory, we'll see. I hear 4th quarter is insane.

I have a full time job, a wife, 2 boys and another on the way. So I only source/prep during lunch or evenings after boys go to bed. I use an online scanning tool that goes through other websites looking for deals. So I'm not browsing around for hours, I just see the list of items that already meet my pre-set criteria. Every week I get better at going straight to the spots in stores that have potential items. Every week I'm getting faster at spotting good items to scan. Eventually you can walk through the aisles and not waste much time. You know exactly what you are looking for so if they don't have anything, you leave and go on to the next store. After selling 100+ different products, I'm now seeing the ones that sold well and so all I have to do is order more once the inventory levels get low enough. This only takes a few minutes of my time. Each week as Amazon sees that I'm a good seller, they give me permission to sell products and categories that I was previously prevented from selling. This opens up new opportunities.

It's my hope to get to a point where I have at least 30+ replenish-able products. Meaning these are products that sell well, and I can buy them at a set price online or in a store on a regular basis. There are plenty of these types of products on Amazon that sell for much higher than in the store, you just have to spend the time looking. Once I have enough of those, then I can count on those for regular income and spend my free time looking for one-time deals/clearance/liquidation, etc.

Once I've made enough profit I plan to spend some money getting ungated in the premium brands. I see so many deals that I can't take advantage of because it's a restricted brand. The restricted brands have much less competition, so you don't have to worry as much about the price tanking on you from additional sellers jumping on the listing.

There is a huge market out there of people selling to Amazon FBA sellers. Books, eBooks, online courses, mentoring, blogs, podcasts, facebook groups etc. There is no shortage of information. Just search for Amazon FBA in Google, Amazon, Facebook or a podcast app and you'll fine plenty. The software tools available to help sellers are night and day compared to 5 years ago.

Great info, thank you.

One year later are you still using the online scanning tools and finding they justify the cost?

Now that you sold over 100+ products and you see what sells you mention you just order more to list when your stock runs low. I imagine these are replenishables you found you can buy retail and flip on amazon?

PhoenixHeat

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Here's an example of Online Arbitrage:

Insignia Plug-In Bluetooth Speaker
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-plug-in-bluetooth-speaker-white/8417024.p?skuId=8417024
Sells for $14.99 + tax free shipping

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WH893JM/
Sells for $34.82 Amazon FBA

Fees: $5.77
Net Profit: $12.81
Profit Margin: 79%

There are 8 other FBA sellers on this item and it sells a few per week so I wouldn't buy more than a few.

Of course there will be shipping charges to send this to Amazon, however if you live close to a fulfillment center it won't be too much. Amazon has the best shipping rates in the world. I'm 100 miles from a fulfillment center and to ship a 18" cubed box weighing 25 lbs UPS might cost me $8. Retail that might cost you $30-$40.

I typically only look for items selling for over $15 on Amazon, and I want to make at least $5 profit on each item to make it worth my time. I'll make an exception to this if it is an item I can sell a lot of, like a household good that sells all day long and I can buy as much of it as I want.

The best item is one that is small, light, expensive with a good sales rank. It'll have the lowest FBA fees and will give the best ROI.
I used this exact product as an experiment but seems i couldnt get around the hazmat concerns getting it o amazon. How did you handle this?

PhoenixHeat

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Question for you: how did you go about getting the grocery category approval? Is it difficult?

Sign up for a free account on Pricemaster.com

You will either need to make 3 separate purchases if you don't have a sales tax certificate or Business License or Home Occupation Permit, or 1 purchase if you have 1 of those documents. I did 1 large purchase (probably too large) as well as submitted my Texas Sales Tax Certificate.

You will need to make sure the business name and address on the Pricemaster invoice is identical to the business name and address on your Amazon seller profile. Note this is not your store name, but the name you give Amazon for tax purposes. You want it to be clear to a foreign Amazon seller support associate that it is the same person/company.

The grocery application form will tell you how many units you need to have on the invoice, but plan on buying at least 10 cases of each item. If you need 3 invoices, then place 3 orders of 10 cases/boxes each.

Product 1: https://pricemaster.com//WALKERS-SHORTBREAD-ROUNDS-24PCSBOX?path=
matches with https://www.amazon.com/Walkers-Shortbread-1-2-oz-2-Count-Cookies/dp/B0019VM5FC

Product 2: https://pricemaster.com//HARIBO-DINOSAURS-5oz---12-BAGSCS?path=
matches with http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M2DYOC

Product 3: https://pricemaster.com//KOOL-AID-BLACK-CHERRY-48S-3214?path=
matches with http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ED6IZE

Expect to pay a good amount for shipping. Expect to lose a few bucks on this, but you won't lose a lot. These items sell well (you'll probably sell out within a month) and the ROI on each one is close to break-even after Amazon FBA fees. However, once you factor in shipping you'll probably lose a little bit. It's worth it though. I probably made the money back within a week or two. Grocery can be an awesome category.

You will need to send Amazon the 'original' invoice from Pricemaster. Just wait a day or two after placing the order and they will send it to you. Don't send in the order form or the online Order Invoice you get from the Pricemaster website. You should get an "Original Invoice" from them a day or two after placing the order.

Write the ASIN of the item next to each line item on the invoice. Assume the Amazon seller support has no idea how to read an invoice and figure it out on their own. Make it easy for them. Write down the appropriate ASIN on the same line, and cover up the pricing info. I used Kami online PDF annotation and markup tool. You can do it by hand if you want and scan in the invoice.

Once approved, are you then going back t Price master to buy wholesale and flip?

PhoenixHeat

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For anyone curious, I'm currently generating $8000/month in sales, operating at a 25% profit margin. It's livable income for me, but I'm a single guy. I also have other income streams, so I just invest the profits back into buying more inventory, like what hodedofome is doing.

Private label? Doing the recommended to buy a small product you can sell for about $20 or do you have a different approach?
how are you doing now and are you strictly RA or do you do OA as well? If so do you rely on any tools for the OA part?
Nope, just retail arbitrage.

PhoenixHeat

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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.

Any light bulbs ive scanned thus far are restricted - is there something i am missing?

Cwadda

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Here's an example of Online Arbitrage:

Insignia Plug-In Bluetooth Speaker
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-plug-in-bluetooth-speaker-white/8417024.p?skuId=8417024
Sells for $14.99 + tax free shipping

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WH893JM/
Sells for $34.82 Amazon FBA

Fees: $5.77
Net Profit: $12.81
Profit Margin: 79%

There are 8 other FBA sellers on this item and it sells a few per week so I wouldn't buy more than a few.

Of course there will be shipping charges to send this to Amazon, however if you live close to a fulfillment center it won't be too much. Amazon has the best shipping rates in the world. I'm 100 miles from a fulfillment center and to ship a 18" cubed box weighing 25 lbs UPS might cost me $8. Retail that might cost you $30-$40.

I typically only look for items selling for over $15 on Amazon, and I want to make at least $5 profit on each item to make it worth my time. I'll make an exception to this if it is an item I can sell a lot of, like a household good that sells all day long and I can buy as much of it as I want.

The best item is one that is small, light, expensive with a good sales rank. It'll have the lowest FBA fees and will give the best ROI.
I used this exact product as an experiment but seems i couldnt get around the hazmat concerns getting it o amazon. How did you handle this?

There is no way around. If it's listed as a hazmat, it cannot be sold Amazon FBA. You may still sell it from your house (fulfilled by merchant).

Cwadda

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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.

Any light bulbs ive scanned thus far are restricted - is there something i am missing?
Either the bulbs are listed as hazmat or the actual brand is restricted. So you cannot sell that brand without being approved first.

PhoenixHeat

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I heard and started learning about being an FBA seller in mid April 2018. I started buying inventory 4.23.18. My initial goal is to Prove the concept could work like the sucess stories indicated.

I sent my first box to FBA like 4.24.18 or 4.25 and my first sale was like 4.27. Its surprising how sales can be pending for a number of days without shipping since as a consumer I am used to buying Prime and seeing the product in 2 days or less at my door. But, like others have indicated this is fairly normal and nothing to be concerned with. In fact the orders slowly but surely started to get shipped out.

I think I've had inventory at Amazon for about 10 days now and it seems i am getting the proof of concept I am looking for.

Thanks for all the info sharing thus far everyone.


robartsd

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Its surprising how sales can be pending for a number of days without shipping since as a consumer I am used to buying Prime and seeing the product in 2 days or less at my door. But, like others have indicated this is fairly normal and nothing to be concerned with. In fact the orders slowly but surely started to get shipped out.
I would guess that the pending orders not being shipped for a few days are orders where non-Prime shoppers chose "Super Saver Shipping". As a consumer, there is no need to pay Amazon ~$100/yr to get free shipping if you're willing to wait up to two weeks and group purchases in $25-35 orders.

PhoenixHeat

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Its surprising how sales can be pending for a number of days without shipping since as a consumer I am used to buying Prime and seeing the product in 2 days or less at my door. But, like others have indicated this is fairly normal and nothing to be concerned with. In fact the orders slowly but surely started to get shipped out.
I would guess that the pending orders not being shipped for a few days are orders where non-Prime shoppers chose "Super Saver Shipping". As a consumer, there is no need to pay Amazon ~$100/yr to get free shipping if you're willing to wait up to two weeks and group purchases in $25-35 orders.

I hadn't considered this - interesting.

kpetar

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kpetar ... if just starting out do you think it's too risky to go right into PL?  Do you think it's necessary to do arbitrage first?  Also, can you offer any advice or tips on how you find products?  What services (if any) do you use?

Well, "risk" is always a factor in starting a new business. You can try with arbitrage, spend some $$$ and learn the ropes. Trust me, you’ll learn more from doing it than you will from any course out there.
Finding profitable products to sell on Amazon is the most overwhelming, the most difficult step of the process and probably the No. 1 thing people getting stuck with. If you don’t have a product, you are DEAD in the water. It’s the first step to a successful Amazon business, or ANY business really. If you don’t have a product to sell, you have no FBA business. At start you should check product with sourcing price $10-15/unit and needs to come in via Ocean Freight to be competitive. You are not going to find the same amount of competition because people aren’t willing to “risk” that much on a private label when there are cheaper investments. If you search for light and small product that can be shipped by air and with sourcing price between $1-$5 then you will see small profit margin and tons of competitors. All of those things that made it easy for you are also easy to others too. For a new competitor, there is very little risk of investing $1000 on product+marketing in the hopes of finding a winner.

And of course - you have to differentiate. Hard? No. Example: toothpicks. There is no simpler product, but still, you can introduce toothpicks out of an almond tree, pay some bloggers to write how are they better for your teets etc. and boom you have a different product that you can price higher than regular toothpicks.

I use Jungle scout and Unicorn smasher but the issue with this kind of program (Jungle scout) is the more users it has, the higher chance there is that another seller is seeing the same products as you. Use it just for idea validation.


hodedofome

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Once approved, are you then going back t Price master to buy wholesale and flip?

No, it was work just to find items I could break even on. You don't go to Pricemaster to make money. You go there to get ungated for hopefully the leastt cost possible.

hodedofome

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Here's an example of Online Arbitrage:

Insignia Plug-In Bluetooth Speaker
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-plug-in-bluetooth-speaker-white/8417024.p?skuId=8417024
Sells for $14.99 + tax free shipping

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WH893JM/
Sells for $34.82 Amazon FBA

Fees: $5.77
Net Profit: $12.81
Profit Margin: 79%

There are 8 other FBA sellers on this item and it sells a few per week so I wouldn't buy more than a few.

Of course there will be shipping charges to send this to Amazon, however if you live close to a fulfillment center it won't be too much. Amazon has the best shipping rates in the world. I'm 100 miles from a fulfillment center and to ship a 18" cubed box weighing 25 lbs UPS might cost me $8. Retail that might cost you $30-$40.

I typically only look for items selling for over $15 on Amazon, and I want to make at least $5 profit on each item to make it worth my time. I'll make an exception to this if it is an item I can sell a lot of, like a household good that sells all day long and I can buy as much of it as I want.

The best item is one that is small, light, expensive with a good sales rank. It'll have the lowest FBA fees and will give the best ROI.
I used this exact product as an experiment but seems i couldnt get around the hazmat concerns getting it o amazon. How did you handle this?

When I look up this bluetooth speaker on the Amazon Seller app I don't see it being listed as hazmat. Are you seeing this?

PhoenixHeat

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Here's an example of Online Arbitrage:

Insignia Plug-In Bluetooth Speaker
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-plug-in-bluetooth-speaker-white/8417024.p?skuId=8417024
Sells for $14.99 + tax free shipping

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WH893JM/
Sells for $34.82 Amazon FBA

Fees: $5.77
Net Profit: $12.81
Profit Margin: 79%

There are 8 other FBA sellers on this item and it sells a few per week so I wouldn't buy more than a few.

Of course there will be shipping charges to send this to Amazon, however if you live close to a fulfillment center it won't be too much. Amazon has the best shipping rates in the world. I'm 100 miles from a fulfillment center and to ship a 18" cubed box weighing 25 lbs UPS might cost me $8. Retail that might cost you $30-$40.

I typically only look for items selling for over $15 on Amazon, and I want to make at least $5 profit on each item to make it worth my time. I'll make an exception to this if it is an item I can sell a lot of, like a household good that sells all day long and I can buy as much of it as I want.

The best item is one that is small, light, expensive with a good sales rank. It'll have the lowest FBA fees and will give the best ROI.
I used this exact product as an experiment but seems i couldnt get around the hazmat concerns getting it o amazon. How did you handle this?

When I look up this bluetooth speaker on the Amazon Seller app I don't see it being listed as hazmat. Are you seeing this?

Just verifying i am following the amazon rules and procedure, etc.

The listing on amazon says it requires 2 AAA batteries but the item packaging says rechargeable battery included. So when i go through listing on amazon by adding a product it eventually asks if the item contains a battery etc. and that,s where it gets dicey because I haven't found exactly what kind of battery specifics are within this little speaker.

What do you make of this?


robartsd

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Just verifying i am following the amazon rules and procedure, etc.

The listing on amazon says it requires 2 AAA batteries but the item packaging says rechargeable battery included. So when i go through listing on amazon by adding a product it eventually asks if the item contains a battery etc. and that,s where it gets dicey because I haven't found exactly what kind of battery specifics are within this little speaker.

What do you make of this?
The listing also has the size wrong.

hodedofome

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Great info, thank you.

One year later are you still using the online scanning tools and finding they justify the cost?

Now that you sold over 100+ products and you see what sells you mention you just order more to list when your stock runs low. I imagine these are replenishables you found you can buy retail and flip on amazon?

Honestly I haven't had time to mess with Tactical Arbitrage because all my free time has been doing OA and RA replenishables. I keep paying $99/mo for it but each month I ask myself why. It's incredibly powerful, and perhaps once I sell out of my shampoo I'll have some free time to get back to scanning for more replens.

LiseE

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Quote
I keep paying $99/mo for it but each month

$99 a month for what??

PhoenixHeat

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Quote
I keep paying $99/mo for it but each month

$99 a month for what??
Tactical Arbitrage and online software that helps find profitable product online.


Michael in ABQ

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Here's an example of Online Arbitrage:

Insignia Plug-In Bluetooth Speaker
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-plug-in-bluetooth-speaker-white/8417024.p?skuId=8417024
Sells for $14.99 + tax free shipping

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WH893JM/
Sells for $34.82 Amazon FBA

Fees: $5.77
Net Profit: $12.81
Profit Margin: 79%

There are 8 other FBA sellers on this item and it sells a few per week so I wouldn't buy more than a few.

Of course there will be shipping charges to send this to Amazon, however if you live close to a fulfillment center it won't be too much. Amazon has the best shipping rates in the world. I'm 100 miles from a fulfillment center and to ship a 18" cubed box weighing 25 lbs UPS might cost me $8. Retail that might cost you $30-$40.

I typically only look for items selling for over $15 on Amazon, and I want to make at least $5 profit on each item to make it worth my time. I'll make an exception to this if it is an item I can sell a lot of, like a household good that sells all day long and I can buy as much of it as I want.

The best item is one that is small, light, expensive with a good sales rank. It'll have the lowest FBA fees and will give the best ROI.
I used this exact product as an experiment but seems i couldnt get around the hazmat concerns getting it o amazon. How did you handle this?

When I look up this bluetooth speaker on the Amazon Seller app I don't see it being listed as hazmat. Are you seeing this?

Just verifying i am following the amazon rules and procedure, etc.

The listing on amazon says it requires 2 AAA batteries but the item packaging says rechargeable battery included. So when i go through listing on amazon by adding a product it eventually asks if the item contains a battery etc. and that,s where it gets dicey because I haven't found exactly what kind of battery specifics are within this little speaker.

What do you make of this?

I've sent in a few electronics with integrated batteries. Frankly I've just made stuff up to fill out the Hazmat form. I don't know how many grams of lithium are in the battery in a Bluetooth speaker. I doubt it's going to cause a warehouse to catch on fire. Do the best you can and make an educated guess about the specifications. If it's a private label product obviously you would be able to provide exact specifications from the manufacturer. For retail/online arbitrage, don't sweat it too much.

Onomatopoeia

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This thread has tons of great information, thanks to everyone for sharing!

I am just getting started with FBA with RA and OA. For the next month or so I plan to test the water mostly by scanning items at local stores and selling them through FBA using an individual seller account. Until I see some success, I'm just going to use my personal bank account and I'm not going to worry about setting up any sort of legal entity/corporation. I do want to practice the accounting side of things and I've never done this before. What should I keep track of? For the time being, I prefer to track everything myself using a spreadsheet. Do you keep track of shipping items to Amazon as its own line item, or do you track it at the item level?

Right now I have a spreadsheet with a link to the item on Amazon, the store where I sourced item from, how much I purchased it for, and the date I purchased it. When an item sells, I plan to keep track of the sell price, FBA fee, and profit. Am I missing anything?

LiseE

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Good luck Onomatopoeia!  I am wanting to do the very same thing so please do share your progress! 

L2

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mustache you a question

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This thread has tons of great information, thanks to everyone for sharing!

I am just getting started with FBA with RA and OA. For the next month or so I plan to test the water mostly by scanning items at local stores and selling them through FBA using an individual seller account. Until I see some success, I'm just going to use my personal bank account and I'm not going to worry about setting up any sort of legal entity/corporation. I do want to practice the accounting side of things and I've never done this before. What should I keep track of? For the time being, I prefer to track everything myself using a spreadsheet. Do you keep track of shipping items to Amazon as its own line item, or do you track it at the item level?

Right now I have a spreadsheet with a link to the item on Amazon, the store where I sourced item from, how much I purchased it for, and the date I purchased it. When an item sells, I plan to keep track of the sell price, FBA fee, and profit. Am I missing anything?

That's a pretty good start.  Keep track of how long it takes from date posted to date sold.  It'll show you higher velocity items that you can focus on when you see a good deal.  Also, keep track of your invested time.  You want to make sure you are paying yourself a good hourly wage for all this work!

PhoenixHeat

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This thread has tons of great information, thanks to everyone for sharing!

I am just getting started with FBA with RA and OA. For the next month or so I plan to test the water mostly by scanning items at local stores and selling them through FBA using an individual seller account. Until I see some success, I'm just going to use my personal bank account and I'm not going to worry about setting up any sort of legal entity/corporation. I do want to practice the accounting side of things and I've never done this before. What should I keep track of? For the time being, I prefer to track everything myself using a spreadsheet. Do you keep track of shipping items to Amazon as its own line item, or do you track it at the item level?

Right now I have a spreadsheet with a link to the item on Amazon, the store where I sourced item from, how much I purchased it for, and the date I purchased it. When an item sells, I plan to keep track of the sell price, FBA fee, and profit. Am I missing anything?

That's a pretty good start.  Keep track of how long it takes from date posted to date sold.  It'll show you higher velocity items that you can focus on when you see a good deal.  Also, keep track of your invested time.  You want to make sure you are paying yourself a good hourly wage for all this work!

I think if you want to get started you have to be prepared to put the time in especially in the beginning. There is a learning curve in a lot of things and it may not always be reasonable to make a high hourly wage starting out for your time investment.  I wouldn't let that be a deterrent though early on if your sights are set on learning the ropes and eventually growing and creating a business.

John Galt 512

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #243 on: June 02, 2018, 05:12:32 PM »
Has anybody that is doing Amazon FBA been asked for Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for an item they bought at a retail store?  I ask because that is the pickle I'm in and need to find a way to provide this so that I can ship these two items (not hazardous) to Amazon.  Any help is appreciated.

PhoenixHeat

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #244 on: June 03, 2018, 07:36:55 AM »
Has anybody that is doing Amazon FBA been asked for Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for an item they bought at a retail store?  I ask because that is the pickle I'm in and need to find a way to provide this so that I can ship these two items (not hazardous) to Amazon.  Any help is appreciated.

I don't know if I have been asked directly for the safety data sheets but I think this is what I ran into when trying to list the insignia speaker I mentioned earlier in this thread. Because I didn't/couldn't locate he exact information I decided to pass on the listing. I now pass on items with batteries or things that could throw the hazmat questions if that makes sense.

I would think you tried searching the web for the SDS already and that would be my suggestion if that is the route you are going down. Hope this helps!

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #245 on: June 05, 2018, 09:06:15 PM »
I've tapered off in the last month. I'd found a profitable brand of shampoo and conditioners to sell that I could buy for about $13 and sell for $30 - a profit of about $7-9 per pair. Unfortunately I sent in a decent size shipment and did not put a "sold as set" sticker on the poly bag. Consequently Amazon managed to check-in 35 unites when I had only sent 20 because they must have purposely split up nearly every single one (WHY WOULD YOU OPEN THE BAG WHEN THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY BUNDLED AS A SET?). Consequently I received numerous complaints and 1-star seller feedback because people were only receiving part of the set. Luckily I was able to get all of the negative feedback crossed out and not counted because "This order was fulfilled by Amazon". A bunch of refunds later I still made money off the shipment but it was quite a mess. Since then about 15 other sellers have jumped on the listing and driven the price down to about $20 so it's not even profitable.

My wife has been very opposed to me spending time on this with everything else I've got going on so I'm probably going to downgrade from the professional seller plan soon and just keep my few remaining listings active as FBM.

When all is said and done I'll probably end up with a total profit of $500 +/-. I could certainly ramp things up with some local groceries items as I found a local wholesaler and some profitable items - some of which would require some semi-custom packaging (i.e. glass jars of salsa). But, it's hard to justify the time involved when I could work an hour of overtime and make $40.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #246 on: June 06, 2018, 06:42:39 PM »
Has anybody that is doing Amazon FBA been asked for Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for an item they bought at a retail store?  I ask because that is the pickle I'm in and need to find a way to provide this so that I can ship these two items (not hazardous) to Amazon.  Any help is appreciated.

I wouldn't bother jumping though the hoops if you found the item in store. You would have to contact the manufacturer which would then start raising questions, I'd imagine. You might be better off just selling them FBM.

Cali

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #247 on: June 07, 2018, 12:25:12 AM »
Thanks for this info, I’m learning as well.

John Galt 512

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #248 on: June 11, 2018, 07:15:26 AM »
Has anybody that is doing Amazon FBA been asked for Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for an item they bought at a retail store?  I ask because that is the pickle I'm in and need to find a way to provide this so that I can ship these two items (not hazardous) to Amazon.  Any help is appreciated.

I don't know if I have been asked directly for the safety data sheets but I think this is what I ran into when trying to list the insignia speaker I mentioned earlier in this thread. Because I didn't/couldn't locate he exact information I decided to pass on the listing. I now pass on items with batteries or things that could throw the hazmat questions if that makes sense.

I would think you tried searching the web for the SDS already and that would be my suggestion if that is the route you are going down. Hope this helps!

I ended up talking to a buddy that runs a pool supply selling business on Amazon and he said that it's nearly impossible to get around this without having the manufacture change the UPC code to reflect the product as non hazmat.  So like everyone else I'm staying away from hazmat items or items with batteries.

John Galt 512

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #249 on: June 11, 2018, 07:21:57 AM »
I recently bought an item to sell via FBA that when scanned had great movement numbers (1-2 a day via Keepa) and a great score via AMZME at a selling price of $109.  Now that Amazon has received it they put the item in a different listing that has a used version (for $75) in the buy box and a higher selling price for prime ($149). So when I go into Amazon as a consumer and look up the $109 listing my product listing is not there.  My product listing is in a much less desirable listing, same product though! Has anyone had this happen to them? 

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!