Author Topic: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?  (Read 85797 times)

hodedofome

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Hey hodedofome, thanks for the wealth of information! I have one more question - you mention sales rank quite a bit. I was wondering what sales rank numbers you look for in particular? Are we talking like in the top 10,000? What's your baseline?

https://sellics.com/blog-amazon-sales-rank
https://thesellingfamily.com/how-much-inventory-buy-one-time-amazon-business

Here's a calculator where you put in the sales rank in a particular category and it'll tell you roughly how many sales the product has per month. https://www.junglescout.com/estimator/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=723

Here's a chart showing what the top 1% of each category's seller rank is https://sourcingsimplifiers.com/bsr-chart/

This isn't definitive but is a good place to start to keep you from getting yourself into trouble. Try to find items at the following ranks or below when starting out:

Baby: 25k
Toys and Games: 100k
Home and Kitchen: 150k
Sports and Outdoors: 125k
Video Games: 10k
Clothes: 60k
Shoes: 15k
Health and Beauty: 99k
Grocery: 60k

I use the Keepa Google Chrome extension to show me the ranking, price history and sales history of an item. When you are looking at an item on Amazon, it'll put this chart below the item description and it's super handy. It'll take some time to learn how to properly read it but it can be done. https://keepa.com/#!addon

I also use camelcamelcamel for the same info but presented a little differently. https://camelcamelcamel.com/

The FBA fees/profitability calculator is essential (also found in the seller app): https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index?lang=en_US

Using the add a new product tool on Amazon's seller page is essential for finding out if you are restricted from selling it or if there's hazmat concerns https://sellercentral.amazon.com/productsearch?ref_=GS_SWIPE_add_product


SteadyStacker

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Hey hodedofome, thanks for the wealth of information! I have one more question - you mention sales rank quite a bit. I was wondering what sales rank numbers you look for in particular? Are we talking like in the top 10,000? What's your baseline?

https://sellics.com/blog-amazon-sales-rank
https://thesellingfamily.com/how-much-inventory-buy-one-time-amazon-business

Here's a calculator where you put in the sales rank in a particular category and it'll tell you roughly how many sales the product has per month. https://www.junglescout.com/estimator/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=723

Here's a chart showing what the top 1% of each category's seller rank is https://sourcingsimplifiers.com/bsr-chart/

This isn't definitive but is a good place to start to keep you from getting yourself into trouble. Try to find items at the following ranks or below when starting out:

Baby: 25k
Toys and Games: 100k
Home and Kitchen: 150k
Sports and Outdoors: 125k
Video Games: 10k
Clothes: 60k
Shoes: 15k
Health and Beauty: 99k
Grocery: 60k

I use the Keepa Google Chrome extension to show me the ranking, price history and sales history of an item. When you are looking at an item on Amazon, it'll put this chart below the item description and it's super handy. It'll take some time to learn how to properly read it but it can be done. https://keepa.com/#!addon

I also use camelcamelcamel for the same info but presented a little differently. https://camelcamelcamel.com/

The FBA fees/profitability calculator is essential (also found in the seller app): https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalculator/index?lang=en_US

Using the add a new product tool on Amazon's seller page is essential for finding out if you are restricted from selling it or if there's hazmat concerns https://sellercentral.amazon.com/productsearch?ref_=GS_SWIPE_add_product

You are legendary for providing all this info, I really appreciate it. I hope karma is good to you.

If youu dont mind, could you briefly talk about labeling and packaging? Does buying all the boxes & labels eat into margins much? Do you have to print the labels on peel & stick, or do you just tape it to the product & package?

Thanks again
« Last Edit: May 23, 2017, 03:17:17 PM by SteadyStacker »

hodedofome

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One tip to lower your cost (for a higher ROI) for RA/OA is to stack coupons and discounts. So the item say at Kohl's is normally $19.95. It sells on Amazon for $30, not enough to really make any money on it after fees.

You go to cardbear.com and buy a gift card at an 11.2% discount today. https://www.cardbear.com/gift-card-discount/128/Kohl%27s

Then you use the WikiBuy Google Chrome extension with eBates and it'll automatically put in the best coupon codes if any are available. From eBates there's 15% off $100 sitewide https://www.ebates.com/kohls.com?query=kohl&position=1&type=suggest&store=7206 You'll also get 6% cash back for Kohl's today on eBates.

Then you use Kohl's cash (you can earn $10 for every $50 you spend, essentially saving you an additional 20%).

When you buy the gift card from cardbear, you use a rewards credit card for another 1-2%.

So 11.2% + 6% + 20% + 1% is a total of 38.2% discount, saving you $7.62 and bringing your cost down to $12.33. Suddenly that $20 item with no ROI becomes a pretty decent buy with probably a 75% ROI.

These are things the general public won't ever do so you won't have as much competition most likely. They'll pass right over it thinking there's no money to be made.


hodedofome

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You are legendary for providing all this info, I really appreciate it. I hope karma is good to you.

If youu dont mind, could you briefly talk about labeling and packaging? Does buying all the boxes & labels eat into margins much? Do you have to print the labels on peel & stick, or do you just tape it to the product & package?

Thanks again

Since 3/21 I've spent $133 on shipping supplies. I bought boxes, tape, packing paper, and polybags. I already had Avery labels around the house.

I haven't bought boxes, packing paper or tape in 1 month. I've been doing enough online arbitrage that I just re-use the box and airbags that the items come with.

Starting out I had Amazon label any item that needed to be labeled ($0.20 each). Since I try to find higher priced items $0.20 doesn't hurt too bad. I'm doing more of it now, it's just peel and stick for me now. Once I ramp this up I'll buy a thermal label printer and do it better. It eats into your ROI at first, but then you start getting more efficient with everything. Go into this expecting the first few months you'll be happy to break-even after expenses.

hodedofome

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I've been making my own list of restricted brands and what it takes to sell them, here's what I got so far. When is says invoice, you need to provide proof of an invoice where you purchased from an authorized distributor or the manufacturer (retail stores don't count). Authorization means you obtained a letter of authorization to resell the product from the manufacturer:

Little Tikes - $2,500 fee + 1 invoice with 10 or more items
Child and Infant Products - need 1 invoice with at least 10 items on it
Infant Toys - $2,500 fee
Toy Building Block Products - 1 purchase invoice with at least 10 items on it plus children's product certificate
Baby Activity Gear - $2,500 fee
Baby Feeding - $2,500 fee
Bleacher Creatures - need 1 invoice + authorization from Bleacher Creatures
Learning Toy Products - $2,500
Baby Stroller and Carrier - $2,500
Lego - $1,000 fee + invoice + Lego authorization
Marvel - $2,500 fee? (Marvel Toys and Games just needs invoice + authorization)
Mattell - $1,000 fee + invoice + Mattell authorization
Nike - $1,500 fee + invoice + Nike authorization
Champion - Invoice + Champion authorization
Under Armour - $1,000 fee + invoice + Under Armour authorization
Keen - Invoice + Keen authorization
Funko Pop - Invoice + Funko authorization + $1,000
Paw Patrol - Invoice + $2,500
DC Toys - Invoice + $2,500
New Balance - 1 Invoice + New Balance authorization
Asics - 1 Invoice + Asics authorization + $1,500
Brooks - 1 Invoice + Brooks authorization
Dietary supplements - $3,000 fee
Sports Nutrition - $3,000 fee
WWE - $1,000 fee + invoice + Mattell authorization
Hasbro - Invoice + Hasbro authorization + $1,000
Star Wars - Invoice + Star Wars authorization + $1,500
Sony - Invoice + Sony authorization + $1,000
Disney - Invoice + Disney authorization + $1,000
Nerf - Invoice + Nerf authorization + $1,000
Rubie's - Invoice + Authorization
Topicals - $3,000 fee
Feminine Hygiene - $3,000 fee
Shopkins - Invoice + authorization + $1,000
Beats - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
Mophie - $1,000 + Invoice + authorization
Native Union - Invoice + authorization
Otterbox - $1,000 + Invoice + authorization
Makita - $1,000 + Invoice + authorization
Dewalt - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
Milwaukee - NONE
Bosch - None as long as it's not automotive
Chicago Pneumatic - NONE
RIDGID - NONE
Hitachi - NONE for tools, need approval for the health products though
3M - Invoice + 3M authorization
Takara - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
Bandai - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
Hamilton Beach - Invoice + authorization
Black n Decker - Invoice + authorization
Apple - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
Samsung - Invoice
Keurig - $1,000 + invoice + authorization
SharkNinja - Invoice + authorization
Oxo - Invoice + $1,000 + authorization
Cuisinart - Invoice + authorization

SteadyStacker

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Since 3/21 I've spent $133 on shipping supplies. I bought boxes, tape, packing paper, and polybags. I already had Avery labels around the house.

I haven't bought boxes, packing paper or tape in 1 month. I've been doing enough online arbitrage that I just re-use the box and airbags that the items come with.

Starting out I had Amazon label any item that needed to be labeled ($0.20 each). Since I try to find higher priced items $0.20 doesn't hurt too bad. I'm doing more of it now, it's just peel and stick for me now. Once I ramp this up I'll buy a thermal label printer and do it better. It eats into your ROI at first, but then you start getting more efficient with everything. Go into this expecting the first few months you'll be happy to break-even after expenses.

Thanks,  I watched maybe 5 instructional videos so far. Maybe its me and i need to watch more, but the packaging & labeling process seems a bit confusing & complex. I think i need to spend more time reviewing it. I have a feeling it'll get easier eventually.

hodedofome

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If you are buying products with UPC barcodes on them, usually you don't have to label anything. When you sign up for an account, you add the products you plan to sell. Then you choose which ones you want to send in. Amazon will tell you if they need labels, and if you want to do it or want them to do it for a fee. They will also tell you if it needs to be bubble-wrapped. They'll tell you where to send the products, and hopefully they are all going to 1 place. Hopefully you can fit it all in 1 box and just make sure the products can't move around too much. After doing a few you'll get the hang of it.

Expect to make some mistakes in the beginning. It's all part of the process and there's no way to really feel comfortable until you done it several times in real life.

bunchbikes

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With all the experience you have with Amazon @hodedofome, you really should consider creating your own brand of products.

Better margins, less time commitment.

There's work upfront to get the product going, but once it's going... it's hands off.


Going around to stores sounds like a huge pain.   I know a guy who does 3-5mil in RA, he has a warehouse and manages a team of buyers.  But even then, you got overhead and have to manage employees. yuck.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2017, 06:07:17 AM by CargoBiker »

CareCPA

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This thread makes me want to dabble in RA/OA.
I'm not looking to make huge money, but I have some ecommerce clients, and it would be nice to be more familiar with how the whole Amazon process and reporting fits together.

10dollarsatatime

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It's certainly been covered by hodedofome thoroughly. :)

I started out just using whatever boxes I could scrounge.  Amazon doesn't care as long as they're not liquor boxes.   Same thing for packing material.  I buy rolls of brown paper now, but still reuse all the bubble wrap and packing bubbles I come across.  I get my boxes from uhaul.

I have always labeled my own things.  Started out with an old laser printer I got for $10 on public surplus.  As soon as I proved to myself that this was a thing I was going to keep doing, I upgraded to a dymo, which is much easier to work into the process.

Last year I started using Inventory Lab.  At this point, I don't think I'd do FBA without a listing program.  It makes the flow much easier/faster and you build packing lists for your boxes as you go.  There are others out there.  But I haven't looked into them much because Inventory Lab does everything I need.

I'd have to say my biggest mistake is not taking care of accounting as things happen.  Saving it up and doing it in a chunk at the year's end was bad.  Month's end is bad if I've been pushing hard that month.  Believe me when I say sit down, scan your receipts, and update your books at least once a week.  It will make doing your taxes much easier.

hodedofome

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This thread makes me want to dabble in RA/OA.
I'm not looking to make huge money, but I have some ecommerce clients, and it would be nice to be more familiar with how the whole Amazon process and reporting fits together.

It's certainly helped me out with my clients. It won't take much $$$ to at least figure out the A, B and C's of working with Amazon. I sell accounting and ERP systems for my day job. Many of them sell mail order, website, eBay, Amazon, etc. I'm able to walk into a prospect's office and talk intelligently about their Amazon business. Most of them don't even realize there's a Brand Registry Program that helps them control their product being sold on Amazon. Even if you can't answer their questions yourself, if you can point them to the right people and companies that can help implement their goals they will look to you as a trusted adviser. There's plenty of ex-Amazon employees doing consulting out there to help people sell and control their brand on Amazon.

hodedofome

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With all the experience you have with Amazon @hodedofome, you really should consider creating your own brand of products.

Better margins, less time commitment.

There's work upfront to get the product going, but once it's going... it's hands off.


Going around to stores sounds like a huge pain.   I know a guy who does 3-5mil in RA, he has a warehouse and manages a team of buyers.  But even then, you got overhead and have to manage employees. yuck.

PL may happen for me one day but not right now. Each area (RA, OA, Wholesale, PL) fits a certain personality and desire. Because I'm a trader on the side, arbitrage opportunities were a natural fit and a good place to start. We'll see how long that lasts.

I can tell you at this point I have no desire to have employees or overhead. Maybe that changes in the future but for now it's not me. I think you can do pretty well as a 1 person shop in RA/OA. There's a guy in Boston who started last year and did $350k in sales his first year by himself. He's a CFO with a day job so he outsourced everything except the buying. I don't know how much profit he made but that's still a good bit of business.

SteadyStacker

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Newbie question...Obviously you need to place a shipping label outside your package. But do you also need to label the items inside? I know it's not a simple yes/no.

Assuming I'm shipping a few individual items in one box. Do we need some sort of label on the items inside the package? Or is this where you can send them without a label & pay amazon to label them once they arrive?

Or can you simply send them without a label and go to seller central to input those shipping details so they don't have to open the box?

This is the shipping stuff that is confusing the hell out of me.

Lis

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Newbie question...Obviously you need to place a shipping label outside your package. But do you also need to label the items inside? I know it's not a simple yes/no.

Assuming I'm shipping a few individual items in one box. Do we need some sort of label on the items inside the package? Or is this where you can send them without a label & pay amazon to label them once they arrive?

Or can you simply send them without a label and go to seller central to input those shipping details so they don't have to open the box?

This is the shipping stuff that is confusing the hell out of me.

Shipping scared me too, but honestly it's not that scary!

Let's say you're sending in 10 individual items. When you create the listing on the seller central page, it'll prompt you to print out individual labels to stick on each item. Best practice is to cover any existing barcodes, but you can stick it anywhere.

You can also choose to send them in unlabeled and Amazon will label them for you, but it's an extra... $0.50 per item I think? Absolutely depends on your situation here... if you're doing PL and sending in hundreds/thousands of items, it might make sense. If you're reselling and looking at profits of $3-$5 each? Probably not.

10dollarsatatime

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Newbie question...Obviously you need to place a shipping label outside your package. But do you also need to label the items inside? I know it's not a simple yes/no.

Assuming I'm shipping a few individual items in one box. Do we need some sort of label on the items inside the package? Or is this where you can send them without a label & pay amazon to label them once they arrive?

Or can you simply send them without a label and go to seller central to input those shipping details so they don't have to open the box?

This is the shipping stuff that is confusing the hell out of me.

It depends. 

You can co-mingle, which means any customer buying from your store can be sent an item that any co-mingling seller sent in.  You have less control over your merchandise this way.  Amazon claims they can keep track of who sent what, but there have been issues.  Maybe another seller sent in some items with damaged packaging, and your customer gets that item and isn't happy about it... something to keep in mind.

You can have Amazon label for .20/item.  Not a bad price.  You just need to make sure you keep things that could be confused for each other in separate boxes when you ship them in so they don't get mixed up at the warehouse.

Or you can just label them yourself.  This is currently the method I use.  But I hate prepping, so that may change.

When you ship, you do submit box content, so they know what is in each box when they scan the barcode on the outside.

SteadyStacker

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Thank you both, I haven't listed anything yet so those details definitely helped clear things up.

hodedofome

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Newbie question...Obviously you need to place a shipping label outside your package. But do you also need to label the items inside? I know it's not a simple yes/no.

Assuming I'm shipping a few individual items in one box. Do we need some sort of label on the items inside the package? Or is this where you can send them without a label & pay amazon to label them once they arrive?

Or can you simply send them without a label and go to seller central to input those shipping details so they don't have to open the box?

This is the shipping stuff that is confusing the hell out of me.

There are plenty of items that don't need a label. Really if there's a UPC barcode on the product (of with almost everything you buy should have one) it shouldn't 'need' any additional label, but sometimes Amazon requires one anyways. Sometimes I do it myself sometimes I pay them $0.20-0.50 per item to do it.

In 1 box I might have 3 nerf guns, 2 bottles of Windex, 5 sets of headphones, a board game, and 10 iPhone cases. Nothing related to each other but Amazon knows ahead of time what's in the box. When it gets there they sort it out, and label the items that need to be labeled. 

Cwadda

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I just configured my first FBA listing so am excited to see what happens. I'm shipping 5 items together. This product in particular had UPC codes but Amazon required their own labels anyway.

Will keep everyone posted how it goes.

Lis

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This product in particular had UPC codes but Amazon required their own labels anyway.

If you're doing FBA, everything you send in requires a label somehow. Whether you print them off and apply them yourself, or pay to have Amazon do it, a label is being put on your product (again, if going through FBA). It corresponds with their specific database number (ASIN) and it helps them keep things organized in their warehouse. If you go to any Amazon product page and scroll down to Product Information, you'll see important information on it - the ASIN (Amazon's barcode for it), Best Seller's Rank (where it falls in specific categories - usually just the first/most broad category is the most important), and the product dimensions (helps you figure out box sizes, or how many could fit in a box you have, etc.). If you're doing OA, it's easier to find the product yourself on Amazon, then use whatever tracking systems (Keepa, camelcamelcamel, etc) with the ASIN.

LiseE

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Wow .. all great information .. thanks so much for sharing.  I've been immersed in learning the PL side of FBA but I've been reading more and more about how we should start out with OA/RA to learn the ropes which makes sense to me.

One thing about the Private Label model is the whole Amazon Sponsored Ads and PPC.  I'm just wondering with OA/RA .. how do people find your listings??  Do you still need to do the PPC advertising?

- Lise

Lis

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Wow .. all great information .. thanks so much for sharing.  I've been immersed in learning the PL side of FBA but I've been reading more and more about how we should start out with OA/RA to learn the ropes which makes sense to me.

One thing about the Private Label model is the whole Amazon Sponsored Ads and PPC.  I'm just wondering with OA/RA .. how do people find your listings??  Do you still need to do the PPC advertising?

- Lise

If you're going OA/RA, you're going to be focusing on already-popular items that don't need specific advertising from you. You're going to your local store (or their website) and taking advantage of a sale or something similar. For example, my local Target (not all Targets) was trying to get rid of a certain toy to make room for new stuff and were selling them as Buy 1, Get 2. Now this toy had been out for a while but was still popular, and people were still searching for it, my local Target had just ordered too many and were trying to get rid of them.

OA is a bit trickier, because with RA, you're only competing with whoever is local. I've yet to figure out how to do OA successfully (other than spot a random good deal here and there).

hodedofome

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So far I've found success with searching through lesser known websites for OA. If you're just looking at Walmart and Target well everybody is looking at those too. Here's what I've learned:

1) Find popular items on temporary sale (buy one get one free, 20% off site-wide, stacking discounts, etc)
2) Look through lesser known sites that specialize in liquidations and closeouts. Most likely they have all the stock that's left by the time they get them. If you buy out everything they have, there's no more competition for that item.
3) Brands that choose not to sell their products on Amazon but don't have a habit of threatening lawsuits when other people sell their items. Not every brand wants to sell on Amazon. Some of those items can be bought at regular price and sold at a much higher price on Amazon. Thermopop meat thermometers - you used to be able to buy them direct for $25 all day long and sell them on Amazon for $50. Then the manufacturer finally got the item restricted on Amazon. But for a couple years people could make money on that.
4) An extension of #3 is finding items that are Walmart or Target exclusives (or some other store). That means Amazon is not going to sell that item which opens up the door for 3rd party sellers to do that.

Software tools that scan websites make OA much easier. But it's not what you think. It's not like thousands of people can press a button and see all the deals everyone online at once. It takes a while to scrub sites using the tools, so it's very possible you never see the deal but other people did. There's a bunch of luck involved. By the time someone else sees the deal it may be sold out or gone back up in price. It would take weeks to scrub all the available sites out there, so there's timing luck.

RobinAZ

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I sold on FBA two Xmas seasons ago. Made decent with no minimal effort, lol. Things have changed with the new rules and restrictions but RA is far from dead. PL definitely interests me.

I have a good job but I don't work full time, and I am ready to be working more and getting a side hustle in place again.

hodedofome

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https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/500000-new-sellers-joined-amazon-marketplace-already-in-2017

Since the start of the year Amazon has already had half a million new sellers join its marketplaces.

For many months now we've been detecting 100,000 new sellers join Amazon marketplaces every 30 days. Roughly a half of that goes to Amazon USA, while others spread in the smaller marketplaces.

In Amazon.com 700,000 New Sellers in a Year, Less Than 10% Are Selling Today we wrote:

"There is a lot of new sellers joining, but only a small percentage of them stay for a longer period. This is very apparent when looking at how many sellers had a sale last month, compared to 12 months ago - for Amazon.com that number is growing, but at a relatively slow pace."

By the end of the year we will have detected over a million new sellers, though few will be still actively selling.

Nonetheless it's an interesting metric to look at as it shows where the interest is highest. Because from the thousands of new sellers, some do end up becoming active sellers. Here is a breakdown of new sellers since January 1st, 2017.

Marketplace   New Sellers in 2017   % Growth
Amazon India   43,700   33.0%
Amazon France   37,600   29.7%
Amazon Japan   27,000   25.8%
Amazon Italy   33,400   25.8%
Amazon Mexico   7,100   24.9%
Amazon Canada   26,300   23.7%
Amazon USA   236,000   21.1%
Amazon UK   37,500   15.8%
Amazon China   900   13.7%
Amazon Germany   21,700   11.4%
Amazon Spain   12,700   10.9%
Amazon Brazil   250   0%
In April a marketplace was launched in Brazil, and since then Amazon Brazil has already added 250 sellers. All of them are books sellers, since Amazon in Brazil has not launched any other categories.

The last time we looked at this was in July last year, and found that Amazon Mexico is the fastest growing marketplace. It is still growing fast, because of how relatively small it is.

India is the fastest growing market, both in terms of new sellers, and considering how many of them stay active selling for a longer period. Amazon has committed to investing billions of $ into their operations in India, and since in India they only operate a marketplace the growth will continue to be so.

In the US hundreds of thousands of sellers join every couple few months, but many of them are part of scam techniques to defraud Amazon. At the current rate new seller joins Amazon US marketplace every 30 seconds, no wonder Amazon has been getting more aggressive about auto-suspending just launched sellers.

SteadyStacker

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Update for the curious... thought i'd catch some good memorial day sales this weekend. Spent 2.5hr at Target today scanning so many products. Wow, talk about restrictions. I only ended up with 2 board games that were on clearance, 5 items total. After shipping costs i might walk away with $25. Not great for the time i spent, but its about 20% return on investment not including the FBA membership. I also hit a wholesale liquidator yesterday with no luck at all, which was surprising. Gonna try WalMart tomorrow, hopefully have some better luck. I need a reason to stick with this.

Also been looking on all sort of websites. No luck yet in that area.

 

hodedofome

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Update for the curious... thought i'd catch some good memorial day sales this weekend. Spent 2.5hr at Target today scanning so many products. Wow, talk about restrictions. I only ended up with 2 board games that were on clearance, 5 items total. After shipping costs i might walk away with $25. Not great for the time i spent, but its about 20% return on investment not including the FBA membership. I also hit a wholesale liquidator yesterday with no luck at all, which was surprising. Gonna try WalMart tomorrow, hopefully have some better luck. I need a reason to stick with this.

Also been looking on all sort of websites. No luck yet in that area.

You should not expect to make any money your first month or two. It'll take some time to learn what to look for. You'll also have plenty of strike-outs. You'll hit up several stores with nothing to show for it, then you walk into 1 store and spend hundreds.

Get on mailing lists for the store websites so you know in advance what's going on sale.

The more you sell, the more Amazon likes you and will allow you to get ungated in some categories. Some brands you won't get in without paying some $$$, but there's plenty out there that's profitable and will sell. You just have to keep looking.

I went into Big Lots a few weeks ago and saw some flea medication that said I was restricted. I applied for the product and was approved right away.

You can get ungated in shoes just by applying. You can do the same thing for automotive, just use your Amazon store link as your website when they ask.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 01:10:34 PM by hodedofome »

LiseE

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what does it mean to be at a store and "scanning" products?  Is there an app?

Cork

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Fun thread, it's pulling me back in.  I'll throw my hat into the ring.

2015 - 11k profit from iphone sales.  Might have been the simplest method, but I found a local source of $50 iphone 4S that were gently used from a business.  I bought every one of them for 10 months and resold on amazon for $90-160 depending on condition.

No jungle scout, no research, just one great lead.  It made me believe there are always deals out there.   My advice is to find surplus and bulk liquidation monthly sales. 

what does it mean to be at a store and "scanning" products?  Is there an app?

Yep, there is an amazon seller's app on the app store.  Your phone's camera reads the barcode.


hodedofome

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Yesterday I dropped my first FBA shipment in the mail. I bought a bunch of books from students at $10 apiece and am going to sell them for $40 each via FBA. They're ranked in the top 15k. Curiously awaiting how the first FBA inventory will go.

Great find. Just make sure you scan the books ahead of time. Textbooks for several publishers just got restricted for New and Like-New conditions. You can only sell a lot of textbooks as Acceptable, Good or Very Good.

I bought about 100 books over the past few months with hopes that I can unload most of them during textbook season. So far I've only sold about 4 or 5. We'll see how it goes. If textbook season is as good as everyone else says it is, I might try to focus on textbooks during September/January and toys/seasonal items during Q4. The rest of the year just relax and prepare for those 3 seasons. Maybe dink around with some small buys here and there in between when I see a sale.

SteadyStacker

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Update for the curious... thought i'd catch some good memorial day sales this weekend. Spent 2.5hr at Target today scanning so many products. Wow, talk about restrictions. I only ended up with 2 board games that were on clearance, 5 items total. After shipping costs i might walk away with $25. Not great for the time i spent, but its about 20% return on investment not including the FBA membership. I also hit a wholesale liquidator yesterday with no luck at all, which was surprising. Gonna try WalMart tomorrow, hopefully have some better luck. I need a reason to stick with this.

Also been looking on all sort of websites. No luck yet in that area.

You should not expect to make any money your first month or two. It'll take some time to learn what to look for. You'll also have plenty of strike-outs. You'll hit up several stores with nothing to show for it, then you walk into 1 store and spend hundreds.

Get on mailing lists for the store websites so you know in advance what's going on sale.

The more you sell, the more Amazon likes you and will allow you to get ungated in some categories. Some brands you won't get in without paying some $$$, but there's plenty out there that's profitable and will sell. You just have to keep looking.

I went into Big Lots a few weeks ago and saw some flea medication that said I was restricted. I applied for the product and was approved right away.

You can get ungated in shoes just by applying. You can do the same thing for automotive, just use your Amazon store link as your website when they ask.

Thanks I appreciate the additional detail. I started adding the items to my inventory, and Amazon said i had to pay shipping from their facility to the customer, in addition to shipping to the FBA warehouse. So i returned the items, it ended up not being profitable. I thought i'd only have to pay shipping once to the warehouse.

LurkingMustache

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The biggest problem I have with this is that it seems really hard to get started in a couple ways:

1.  Everything on Amazon seems to be restricted now.  So, Retail/Online arbitrage to start with is severely limited unless you get unblocked in categories.
2.  There seem to be a lot of gurus that sell stuff to you so you can start.  Which makes me believe that it might be better and/or easier to achieve profit from just "teaching" how to do these things - rather than just do them.  That may just be the skeptic in me, though.
3.  Apart from the gurus, a lot of the systems you can use to help find products are paid subscriptions.  I guess if you are really dedicated to it you can dive in head first and pay for Jungle Scout and other subscriptions in order to start.  Just seems like a stretch for me to pay for stuff first.

I'm going to keep researching it, I did read that you can get unblocked from categories more easily as you start selling things -- so even selling used may be a good option to create some reviews.

Bart1ma3u5

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Posting to follow. I set up an account and am hoping to go look for products soon to try this out and see how it goes.

hodedofome

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The distribution facility received my shipment yesterday. It now says the product is back-ordered until June 7th. I'm assuming they're not ready in the warehouse for immediate distribution if someone were to buy them right now.

People can buy the products you have under "reserved" status, they just won't receive them right away. I've sold stuff that was backordered before, but it doesn't happen often.

Used books take especially long to get sorted out and sent to the right fulfillment center. It can take 2-3 weeks sometimes. Other items usually take up to a week.


hodedofome

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The biggest problem I have with this is that it seems really hard to get started in a couple ways:

1.  Everything on Amazon seems to be restricted now.  So, Retail/Online arbitrage to start with is severely limited unless you get unblocked in categories.
2.  There seem to be a lot of gurus that sell stuff to you so you can start.  Which makes me believe that it might be better and/or easier to achieve profit from just "teaching" how to do these things - rather than just do them.  That may just be the skeptic in me, though.
3.  Apart from the gurus, a lot of the systems you can use to help find products are paid subscriptions.  I guess if you are really dedicated to it you can dive in head first and pay for Jungle Scout and other subscriptions in order to start.  Just seems like a stretch for me to pay for stuff first.

I'm going to keep researching it, I did read that you can get unblocked from categories more easily as you start selling things -- so even selling used may be a good option to create some reviews.

I was lucky in that an established seller told me about FBA while I was on vacation. I got his number and was able to text him when I got frustrated.

Yes there are many gated categories, but there are many non-gated categories too. There are millions of products out there, and plenty of wide-open brands. You gotta get out there and scan every item on the shelf. It takes a long time but eventually you'll get more efficient. You'll one day be able to walk down an aisle and skip all the products you know aren't worth it, and go straight to the ones that look like they have potential and you haven't scanned before.

You'll run into the 'replenishable' products 1 by 1, and soon you'll have a whole list of items that you can buy off the shelf at retail price and sell them for a profit on Amazon. You walk into a store and it only takes a few minutes because you know exactly what you're looking for.

Or, you learn the online arbitrage tools and let that do the heavy lifting for you. Or you do both.

This business isn't for someone who wants to get rich quick without trying. But if you put in the time and try to learn something new every day (and you have some startup $$$), you can get there. I'm made many mistakes and had to unload inventory on eBay plenty of times because I bought it without realizing I was restricted. Thankfully my mistakes haven't cost me too much $$$.

I started at the end of March and just surpassed $5k in sales on Amazon for the past 30 days today (total I've sold so far is $9k). I've invested a total of $3k of my own money to start. Next stop is $10k sales in a month. I texted the guy who got me into this and he did $35k last month in sales and profit matched his IT Admin salary. Once he hits $12k/profit consistently he's quitting his job.

LiseE

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Quote
I started at the end of March and just surpassed $5k in sales on Amazon for the past 30 days today (total I've sold so far is $9k). I've invested a total of $3k of my own money to start. Next stop is $10k sales in a month.

Great job!  I'm suffering from analysis paralysis but I'm about to jump in .. very excited and love to hear the progress of another person who is trying this business model.  I've been researching and reading everything I can since February ... I know it's not a quick win but I'm also looking to match my current salary before I can pull the plug .. whoo hoo .. here we go!


SteadyStacker

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I'll admit I haven't been doing this because I became consumed with other life matters when i started reading about fba. Two things that really annoyed me about the process are

1. It was already addressed earlier in the thread,  but the endless restrictions when you first sign up. I would advise ferrying unrestricted in as many categories first, then try step 2 below.

2. Endless scanning without the possibility of finding anything profitable.

I'm not an active seller but if I get back into it I'd try working around this by looking at the amazon best seller lists, and then focus on finding those items from other sources, in hopes of finding a profitable one.

Lis

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2. Endless scanning without the possibility of finding anything profitable.

This is what gets me. From everything I read it can be a learned skill and you get better as you go on, but I don't necessarily have the time, energy, or desire to work on it right now. (Cue the screams in the background - "but money!!")

Question for those who are big into RA/OA (not necessarily PL) - did you set up an LLC/some sort of official business to do this? What do your taxes look like?

Bart1ma3u5

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2. Endless scanning without the possibility of finding anything profitable.

This is what gets me. From everything I read it can be a learned skill and you get better as you go on, but I don't necessarily have the time, energy, or desire to work on it right now. (Cue the screams in the background - "but money!!")

Question for those who are big into RA/OA (not necessarily PL) - did you set up an LLC/some sort of official business to do this? What do your taxes look like?

This is what I am hoping. I have been just scanning things as I am shopping or walking through stores and have so far bought a few items, they all seem to have lower seller rank than recommended or are not super profitable, but I've been buying them to get an idea of the process and to learn what I am doing. I am hoping as I get better at knowing what to look for I will gradually find things with higher seller ranks and are more profitable.

I am also curious about the tax question. I have been keeping track of each item and the buy, sell, shipping and fee prices in a spreadsheet, but not sure what to do with all of them yet.

hodedofome

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My wife already had a LLC from selling Jamberry nails so I put everything under that. You'll need to keep track of all your expenses for the business. You'll take the $$$ Amazon gives you throughout the year, subtract out your expenses, subtract the cost of your inventory, and what's left is your profit you'll owe taxes on. It's helpful to have a separate bank account and everything going in an out can be easily netted against each other.

This is a real business and if you don't have the time or the desire to work hard then it's not for you.

I'm 4 months into this, probably $12-13k in sales so far, haven't tracked my profit the past few months cause I'm spending all my time finding new items or replenishing items I've run out of stock in. I can see in the not too distant future I'll hit a ceiling of what I can do on my own as far as prep work goes. I'll need to outsource some or all of the prep work for packing and shipping to keep growing.

Waiting for my sales tax permit to come in so I can get approved in grocery. It's a gold mine out there for that stuff. Can't wait for fourth quarter to get here. About to go through my first textbook season In August so we'll see how that goes.

Bart1ma3u5

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Well I finally packaged my first shipment to a fulfillment center. Took a bit longer than I expected not knowing the process, and crossing my fingers i didnt miss anything crucial! Hopefully everything will go through without issues, and it gets easier from here on! Looking forward to the start of this journey. I also have a few items listed FBM mostly used books etc I can ship media mail, and am impatiently awaiting my first sale!

cantgrowone

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I'd like to get into this. I have an Amazon account I opened ~11 years ago to buy all the things. However, I sold a used item 5 years ago and the buyer gave me negative feedback. Since then my personal account has been blocked from selling anything.

Phone support refuses to discuss why it is locked. Can anyone offer advice to navigate this so I can have many unlocked categories? Or am I better off creating a new seller account?

Here's my original email when they canceled my account in 2009.
Quote
Hello from Amazon.

We are writing to let you know that we have removed your selling privileges.

We took this action because our records indicate that this account is related to another selling account that was closed by Amazon. Once selling privileges have been removed, sellers are not allowed to establish new accounts.

Due to the proprietary nature of our business, we do not provide detailed information on how we determine that accounts are related.

While we appreciate your interest in selling on Amazon.com, the closure of this account is a permanent action.


Regards,

Seller Performance Team
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
« Last Edit: July 14, 2017, 07:12:27 AM by cantgrowone »

mustache you a question

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I have a question about selling items on Amazon.  Say you do a private label item or even wholesale and you sell on FBA.  Do you ship the item directly to an FBA center?  Or do you have it shipped to a different location and then forwarded on to the nearest FBA center?

Lis

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I have a question about selling items on Amazon.  Say you do a private label item or even wholesale and you sell on FBA.  Do you ship the item directly to an FBA center?  Or do you have it shipped to a different location and then forwarded on to the nearest FBA center?

There are two different methods: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Merchant Fulfilled (MF). If you chose FBA, you ship your items directly to Amazon, and they handle shipping it to a customer when it's ordered (bonus - it's shipped through Amazon Prime). The downside to this is that there are more fees associated it (which makes sense). With MF, you're in charge of storing your products and shipping them out as needed. The fee to do this is smaller, but obviously there's more work involved.

I'm not 100% sure if it works differently with PL, but in general, if you chose FBA, when you create a shipment on the Seller Central homepage, it will tell you which FBA center to ship to - it won't necessarily be the closest one. There's also the possibility of it being split into two or more shipments to different FBA centers. You're responsible for the shipping costs to the FBA center - they have a deal with UPS that makes shipping to Amazon *not awful* (I think I spent less than $8 shipping a 50lb box, though I don't remember to which location). I've never done MF, but I believe you just specify MF when you create a listing as well as add a shipping price (if you chose).

mustache you a question

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I have a question about selling items on Amazon.  Say you do a private label item or even wholesale and you sell on FBA.  Do you ship the item directly to an FBA center?  Or do you have it shipped to a different location and then forwarded on to the nearest FBA center?

There are two different methods: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Merchant Fulfilled (MF). If you chose FBA, you ship your items directly to Amazon, and they handle shipping it to a customer when it's ordered (bonus - it's shipped through Amazon Prime). The downside to this is that there are more fees associated it (which makes sense). With MF, you're in charge of storing your products and shipping them out as needed. The fee to do this is smaller, but obviously there's more work involved.

I'm not 100% sure if it works differently with PL, but in general, if you chose FBA, when you create a shipment on the Seller Central homepage, it will tell you which FBA center to ship to - it won't necessarily be the closest one. There's also the possibility of it being split into two or more shipments to different FBA centers. You're responsible for the shipping costs to the FBA center - they have a deal with UPS that makes shipping to Amazon *not awful* (I think I spent less than $8 shipping a 50lb box, though I don't remember to which location). I've never done MF, but I believe you just specify MF when you create a listing as well as add a shipping price (if you chose).

Thanks for the reply.  I guess I should clarify my question.  Is there any reason to mask where the shipment is going to if you are dealing with a wholesaler or to mask where a shipment is coming from if you are in private label?  I used to work for an e-commerce site that sold items on Amazon (we shipped out of our own distribution network).  They were always concerned that Amazon would copy the product and sell it themselves.  Is there any of that concern with FBA?

hodedofome

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I have a question about selling items on Amazon.  Say you do a private label item or even wholesale and you sell on FBA.  Do you ship the item directly to an FBA center?  Or do you have it shipped to a different location and then forwarded on to the nearest FBA center?

There are two different methods: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Merchant Fulfilled (MF). If you chose FBA, you ship your items directly to Amazon, and they handle shipping it to a customer when it's ordered (bonus - it's shipped through Amazon Prime). The downside to this is that there are more fees associated it (which makes sense). With MF, you're in charge of storing your products and shipping them out as needed. The fee to do this is smaller, but obviously there's more work involved.

I'm not 100% sure if it works differently with PL, but in general, if you chose FBA, when you create a shipment on the Seller Central homepage, it will tell you which FBA center to ship to - it won't necessarily be the closest one. There's also the possibility of it being split into two or more shipments to different FBA centers. You're responsible for the shipping costs to the FBA center - they have a deal with UPS that makes shipping to Amazon *not awful* (I think I spent less than $8 shipping a 50lb box, though I don't remember to which location). I've never done MF, but I believe you just specify MF when you create a listing as well as add a shipping price (if you chose).

Thanks for the reply.  I guess I should clarify my question.  Is there any reason to mask where the shipment is going to if you are dealing with a wholesaler or to mask where a shipment is coming from if you are in private label?  I used to work for an e-commerce site that sold items on Amazon (we shipped out of our own distribution network).  They were always concerned that Amazon would copy the product and sell it themselves.  Is there any of that concern with FBA?

If you do a big enough business on Amazon you can expect competition at some point. Whether that be from other sellers jumping onto the listing and making you share the buy box, other sellers creating copycat products and now you're competing for the ranking, or Amazon making their own product to compete with you. Generally Amazon doesn't get involved unless many millions of dollars are at stake. They do batteries and clothing and phone cables and mostly tech items.

If you're making a 'me-too' product, and it was easy for you to create, it'll be easy for someone else to copy it. Just the nature of things.

Michael in ABQ

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After reading through this thread a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a try. I started small with just a few hundred dollars planning to try my hand at retail/online arbitrage. I listed some new books I got when Hastings closed down last year that I had never got around to reading. Barely made anything on those. I found seven Gillette razors on clearance at a grocery store for $11 each and have sold all but one for $20+ $5 shipping credit. Actual shipping costs have been about $3, and in two cases I sold two at once which mean same shipping cost but double the shipping credit. I almost got burned because I later realized they were restricted. The bar code was covered up and when I used the Amazon seller app it came up with a different listing where someone had misspelled Gillette but it matched exactly the package I had (some comments indicated they were getting counterfeits).

I spent probably 4-5 hours scanning items at several Walmart, Target, and a couple other stores and just found one toy on clearance that might make a small profit. Everything else was either restricted or the margins were very slim due to the size/weight (i.e. Easy Bake Ovens on clearance that weight a few pounds each and come in a large box).

I decided to try out FBA and found a kitchen item on sale online for about $13 shipped that was selling for $35 in that particular color. I bought the dozen in stock and when they arrived got to spend about 40 minutes laboriously peeling off the sticker from the cardboard box showing they were discounted from $29.99 to $17.99. Luckily I was able to just reseal the box, slap on the FBA shipping label and drop it off at FedEx. 28 lbs. in a sizeable box shipped to the next state for $11.99. They should be available next week and I'll see how quickly they sell. Based on the sales rank they're selling about 80-90 per month and I plan to be the lowest price (about $1 less than Amazon). Hopefully they sell out in the next couple of weeks.

I also listened to some podcasts and started researching the sales tax aspect which can become pretty complicated/expensive. I already have a pretty demanding full time job plus a large family and a second career in the National Guard. Plus I'm going to be spending the next few months working on a professional designation which will eat up much of my already nonexistent free time. I may come back to this in a few months but I think I'm probably going to just try and sell out my current limited inventory and take a break. If I sell these dozen items through FBA I'll probably clear about $100 in profit but at the cost of probably 20-30 hours of research, shopping, packaging/prepping, etc. I can certainly see scaling this up and making more money at a better hourly rate but I work on commission and can make $30+/hour  just be working more at my regular job so it's kind of hard to justify spending so much time on something that probably won't make as much. That and my wife thinks I'm already stretched too thin and shouldn't take on anything else.

Cwadda

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #96 on: August 01, 2017, 08:48:13 AM »
After reading through this thread a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a try. I started small with just a few hundred dollars planning to try my hand at retail/online arbitrage. I listed some new books I got when Hastings closed down last year that I had never got around to reading. Barely made anything on those. I found seven Gillette razors on clearance at a grocery store for $11 each and have sold all but one for $20+ $5 shipping credit. Actual shipping costs have been about $3, and in two cases I sold two at once which mean same shipping cost but double the shipping credit. I almost got burned because I later realized they were restricted. The bar code was covered up and when I used the Amazon seller app it came up with a different listing where someone had misspelled Gillette but it matched exactly the package I had (some comments indicated they were getting counterfeits).

I spent probably 4-5 hours scanning items at several Walmart, Target, and a couple other stores and just found one toy on clearance that might make a small profit. Everything else was either restricted or the margins were very slim due to the size/weight (i.e. Easy Bake Ovens on clearance that weight a few pounds each and come in a large box).

I decided to try out FBA and found a kitchen item on sale online for about $13 shipped that was selling for $35 in that particular color. I bought the dozen in stock and when they arrived got to spend about 40 minutes laboriously peeling off the sticker from the cardboard box showing they were discounted from $29.99 to $17.99. Luckily I was able to just reseal the box, slap on the FBA shipping label and drop it off at FedEx. 28 lbs. in a sizeable box shipped to the next state for $11.99. They should be available next week and I'll see how quickly they sell. Based on the sales rank they're selling about 80-90 per month and I plan to be the lowest price (about $1 less than Amazon). Hopefully they sell out in the next couple of weeks.

I also listened to some podcasts and started researching the sales tax aspect which can become pretty complicated/expensive. I already have a pretty demanding full time job plus a large family and a second career in the National Guard. Plus I'm going to be spending the next few months working on a professional designation which will eat up much of my already nonexistent free time. I may come back to this in a few months but I think I'm probably going to just try and sell out my current limited inventory and take a break. If I sell these dozen items through FBA I'll probably clear about $100 in profit but at the cost of probably 20-30 hours of research, shopping, packaging/prepping, etc. I can certainly see scaling this up and making more money at a better hourly rate but I work on commission and can make $30+/hour  just be working more at my regular job so it's kind of hard to justify spending so much time on something that probably won't make as much. That and my wife thinks I'm already stretched too thin and shouldn't take on anything else.

I agree. I'm remodeling my house and work 2 other jobs. I might be spread too thin to do the Amazon business for now.

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #97 on: August 07, 2017, 10:28:21 AM »
I hit this just a few days ago.

Here's the YTD number since the end of March when I started. Just doing this on the evenings and weekends.



I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. I got approved in grocery a month ago and that has helped out tremendously. I'm finding all sorts of new things to sell.

I identified a product selling at a local grocery store for $10 and sells on Amazon for $30. It sells about 6 per day with only 1 other seller on the listing. I bought up all the stock in my town but they weren't able to order any more. I can't get a good answer from the store managers as to why they can't get more. I'm suspecting it's been discontinued. I've tried contacting the manufacturer to order directly from them but I haven't gotten any response from them. So I went down to Austin last weekend and hit up every store there (total of 14) and grabbed 108 of them (so total of $1,080 potential profit). I'll be heading down to San Antonio next weekend and hope to get the same amount. In a couple weeks I'll head down to Houston and I'm hoping to get over 200 units there.

FYI when someone posts their Amazon sales number that doesn't really mean anything. After Amazon takes out FBA fees (which are usually 1/3rd of the Amazon sales price) and you subtract your cost to buy the goods, you're looking at about 15-25% profit margin as compared to the Amazon total sales. Subtract other costs like shipping, supplies, gas, etc and what you're left with is your profit.

I honestly don't have any idea how much profit I've made so far, as everything has gone back into buying more inventory and i stopped tracking profits on each item with a spreadsheet a few months ago. I'm so busy buying, listing, packing and shipping that I don't have time for anything else. I'll probably buy Inventory Lab pretty soon ($50/mo) so it can track those numbers for me. Buying RepriceIT for only $10/mo a few months ago was worth every penny. I was spending too much time manually repricing.

I hope to get more into wholesaling late this year or early next year after the 4th quarter craze. I'm loving replenishable items and wholesaling is a logical extension to that. I'll sign up for a prep center to receive the goods, prep them and ship them to Amazon so I can focus on acquiring more inventory with my time. My retired dad has offered to help me with prep work, and I may take him up on that. I don't feel comfortable having him deal with heavy (up to 50 lbs) boxes though, he's like 66. So I may just have him focus on listing, labeling, stuff like that.

FYI using a hair dryer on those clearance labels will rock your world. Put some heat on them and the glue will give it up easily. Buy some Scott Peelers from Amazon as well, those are helpful on surfaces that won't allow heat or if you need some extra help. Goo Gone is perfect for taking away any residue left over after you peel off the sticker. Also keep in mind you can sometimes cover up the sticker with an Amazon FBA label and save you some time.

mustache you a question

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #98 on: August 07, 2017, 02:38:08 PM »
I hit this just a few days ago.

Here's the YTD number since the end of March when I started. Just doing this on the evenings and weekends.



I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. I got approved in grocery a month ago and that has helped out tremendously. I'm finding all sorts of new things to sell.

I identified a product selling at a local grocery store for $10 and sells on Amazon for $30. It sells about 6 per day with only 1 other seller on the listing. I bought up all the stock in my town but they weren't able to order any more. I can't get a good answer from the store managers as to why they can't get more. I'm suspecting it's been discontinued. I've tried contacting the manufacturer to order directly from them but I haven't gotten any response from them. So I went down to Austin last weekend and hit up every store there (total of 14) and grabbed 108 of them (so total of $1,080 potential profit). I'll be heading down to San Antonio next weekend and hope to get the same amount. In a couple weeks I'll head down to Houston and I'm hoping to get over 200 units there.

FYI when someone posts their Amazon sales number that doesn't really mean anything. After Amazon takes out FBA fees (which are usually 1/3rd of the Amazon sales price) and you subtract your cost to buy the goods, you're looking at about 15-25% profit margin as compared to the Amazon total sales. Subtract other costs like shipping, supplies, gas, etc and what you're left with is your profit.

I honestly don't have any idea how much profit I've made so far, as everything has gone back into buying more inventory and i stopped tracking profits on each item with a spreadsheet a few months ago. I'm so busy buying, listing, packing and shipping that I don't have time for anything else. I'll probably buy Inventory Lab pretty soon ($50/mo) so it can track those numbers for me. Buying RepriceIT for only $10/mo a few months ago was worth every penny. I was spending too much time manually repricing.

I hope to get more into wholesaling late this year or early next year after the 4th quarter craze. I'm loving replenishable items and wholesaling is a logical extension to that. I'll sign up for a prep center to receive the goods, prep them and ship them to Amazon so I can focus on acquiring more inventory with my time. My retired dad has offered to help me with prep work, and I may take him up on that. I don't feel comfortable having him deal with heavy (up to 50 lbs) boxes though, he's like 66. So I may just have him focus on listing, labeling, stuff like that.

FYI using a hair dryer on those clearance labels will rock your world. Put some heat on them and the glue will give it up easily. Buy some Scott Peelers from Amazon as well, those are helpful on surfaces that won't allow heat or if you need some extra help. Goo Gone is perfect for taking away any residue left over after you peel off the sticker. Also keep in mind you can sometimes cover up the sticker with an Amazon FBA label and save you some time.

hodedofome,

I know someone who did RA with Amazon, they told me Amazon was getting more stringent with what they allow people to sell, requiring invoices and proof of purchase.  Have you run into this at all? 

hodedofome

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Re: Selling on Amazon Prime via fulfillment (Amazon FBA) - Anyone try this?
« Reply #99 on: August 07, 2017, 03:10:58 PM »
For some categories and lots of brands, yes you have to provide invoices. And some you have to get an authorization letter from the brand owner stating you can sell their products on Amazon. But as you can see that hasn't stopped me from making money, and I started in March. I wasn't grandfathered into anything, I've had to apply for everything just like a new seller would today in August.

The guy who got me started began a few years ago, and he's grandfathered into just about everything. It's not fair that he can go out and buy whatever Mattel and Little Tikes junk he wants, and I can't. But that's the way it goes.

It's not gonna stop me from throwing myself in and trying as hard as I can to knock this out of the park.