Find Wholesale Products To Sell On Amazon
Simply reselling goods made by other companies falls under the wholesale sourcing method. This is a very common way to find cheap products to sell on Amazon, especially for startups looking to explore the profit potential of different product categories.
Its easy to source products from wholesale suppliers online via wholesale marketplaces like Alibaba, Thomasnet, and others. You can also visit trade shows and buyers markets within your industry to find all types of wholesale vendors.
In fact, a simple online search is an easy way to kick-start your wholesale sourcing efforts and run an efficient ecommerce business. Start by searching for the name of an item youd like to sell and add wholesale.
When you work with wholesale suppliers, you purchase goods in bulk, often in units called case packs, store your inventory, and ship products as theyre ordered. You can handle product storage, order packing, and shipping yourself or use FBA for these fulfillment tasks.
However you fill orders, you also need an inventory and purchasing management system to track your inventory levels and ensure you keep enough products in stock to fill orders. Many inventory management tools integrate with Amazon seller account and FBA accounts.
Pros and cons of selling wholesale products on Amazon:
If you have a wholesale product that sells well, you can gain higher profits with direct sourcing, which we cover next.
Brand Approval Is A Bit Hard
Competitors are everywhere because several sellers like you are looking for an account created with wholesalers or distributors.
To stand out among all, you must get a pitch ready and convince the distributor to do business with you. It becomes challenging sometimes if youre reaching out to a renowned brand.
Find The Best Suppliers Using The Sellerapp Product Sourcing Tool
Theres no shortage of platforms where you can find suppliers to launch your next product. However, its important that you find the ones that are reliable and verified. SellerApp makes it easy for you. Powered by the retail giant Alibaba, our product sourcing tool processes supplier data from Alibaba and offers you the top suppliers from across different countries.
Go to SellerApp dashboard Product sourcing
Type in your product name or a relevant search term of your choice and hit Enter.
SellerApp will show the top suppliers for a given search term. You can also refine the results by using the filters based on your country, supplier country, minimum order quantity, product type, price range, etc.
You can further narrow down your options based on verified and trade assurance. Once you finalize a product, click on the product to go to Alibabas product page. Its as simple as that.
Alternatively, you can also download SellerApps chrome extension to find the best suppliers in your niche. Go to the product details page or search results page on Amazon and click on the chrome extension, youll be able to find the relevant suppliers.
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Where To Buy Retail Returns And Amazon Return Pallets
Here is a list of auctioneers offering bulk, pallet, and truckload sales of retail returns, liquidation, clearance lines, salvage, and refurbished merchandise in the US market. Some of these auctioneers offer single items but most offer everything in bulk lots either by the pallet load, box lots, or even by the truckload. Many offer bulk lots of retail returns from major department stores such as Amazon, Lowes, Target, Walmart, and others.
Also, see our category Bulk & Pallet Lots and Retail Returns for auction notices.
How Can I Buy Things From China And Sell On Amazon
Alibaba is the key, of course. Alibaba is a vast marketplace where Chinese manufacturers and suppliers sign up and list their products. For a seller, this is an extremely valuable resource, because it means you dont have to find individual Chinese sellers online since they are all on Alibaba.
Genius.
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Keeping Track Of Inventory Levels
Tracking all of the inventory levels of all of your products you source wholesale is a very important task. Well walk through two ways you can use tools to help you with this task now.
The first option to setup replenishment alerts directly within Amazon Seller Central. This is a free option and is a good starting point when you dont have a huge number of items to keep track of. Lets walk through a quick example of how to setup a replenishment alert on any item in your inventory:
First, locate the item in your inventory and click on the button just to the right of Edit as shown below:
Then we will want to click on the Set replenishment alerts option that pops up:
You will then be taken to a screen to set the inventory level you want to be notified of when you reach. Lets say you set the replenishment to 10 units, that means that when your inventory level reaches 10 units, Amazon will let you know.
You can set up the replenishment alert quantity in this next screen. Enter the number by the red arrow as shown in this screenshot:
After clicking save, you will receive alerts going forward when your inventory reaches the level you set.
The above method is great when starting out but can be difficult to manage as your business scales. If you reach that point then its worth taking a look at getting a more robust tool involved. We currently use RestockPro to help us manage which products to reorder.
Sourcing Your Amazon Wholesale Products
Hop on Google and start researching the manufacturer of your desired products. Reach out through their website or to designated sales representative via email or phone.
Youll need to get set up as a reseller of the brand, as well as negotiate your pricing and initial purchase volume.
Heres how to best go about that:
- Make them want to work with you. If its a known brand, they likely have plenty of resellers knocking at their doors. Tell them why youre different and how youll help them make more money and be more successful.
- Give them proof. Show them examples of past success on Amazon or offline. Let them know their products are in good and capable hands.
- Be willing to negotiate. You might not get a yes right away, or you might get hit with shocking, no-way numbers up front. Dont give in. Almost all manufacturers are willing to negotiate to some degree, so keep trying and proving your worth.
If youd be the first reseller taking their products to Amazon, you can also bring up the immense amount of work that selling on Amazon requires.
Talk about the immense market opportunity you can help them leverage without any extra work or hassle on their part.
Eventually, youll need to settle on a price, sign a contract and put in your initial order. Youll then be one step closer to selling.
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Other Ways To Reduce Costs
If you also want to buy large quantities of items from a manufacturer or distributor without paying tax, you can obtain a resale license known as a wholesale license because wholesalers use it to purchase large quantities of inventory. Buying and selling goods wholesale is not strictly necessary to sell goods, but many wholesalers will require or require VAT and ID.
Pitfalls Of Wholesale Business On Amazon
As with anything in life, selling wholesale products on Amazon has its drawbacks. Lets take a look at the top three pitfalls of the wholesale business on Amazon.
- Competition: Theres no listing on Amazon that you intend to place your offer that doesnt have multiple sellers. It can sometimes become a race to the bottom since the only lever available for you to pull is price.
- Up-front Cost: Wholesaling is more expensive than dropshipping or reselling because you must buy goods in bulk.
- Research: Research is the most time-consuming aspect of this business. You have to keep researching the Amazon marketplace for product opportunities so that you can place your order in bulk from a supplier.
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The Best Stores For Retail Arbitrage
The key to retail arbitrage is finding items that people want, at a lower price point, so you could sell those items at a higher price without customers complaining. Here are the types of stores you could find items to sell:
- Wholesale chain stores like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.
Every online merchant goes to these stores to find many low-priced items. You might think that the competition is fierce if youre sourcing from these stores, but choosing which clearance items to buy and which branch to buy them from matters a lot. Some people even have insider info about sale dates of each local branch.
- Mom-and-pop stores
These little gems in the community still hold value, even if theyre trapped in between multi-million dollar wholesale stores. Youd be surprised at the high-profit, low competition items you can find at mom-and-pop stores since the lack of inventory often means you can up the price because no one else is selling them.
- Specialty stores
Heres where an eye for good finds would help your retail arbitrage business prosper. Visit specialty stores and look for items that dont belong. For example, check out the toy section at your local grocery store, hardware tools at the bookstore, electronics at drug stores like Walgreens, general merchandise at your local home improvement store, or DVDs at hardware stores like Ace.
- DIY stores like Etsy
- Local and international wholesalers
Wholesale Costs & Profitability
Notably, the start-up costs of selling wholesale on Amazon are lower. Nearly 50% of Amazon wholesale sellers spent less than $2500 to launch their wholesale business. This is because buying products in bulk generally comes with hefty discounts. Furthermore, wholesale sellers dont have to invest into marketing their products, because they are reselling already established brands.
In terms of profitability, most Amazon FBA wholesalers earn over $5000 monthly. Wholesale is an attractive prospect to many sellers, because the start-up costs are fairly low for a very decent profit margin! It provides a level of security that other methods do not provide.
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What Does It Mean To Buy Wholesale
Buying retail and wholesale are two different things. When you buy merchandise from a wholesaler, youre shopping from the middleman between your retail store and the manufacturer. A wholesale purchase is almost always made in bulk, and because of that, you pay a discounted price for the purchase. After you buy products from a wholesaler, you can then sell them at your own store at a higher price to make a profit. This higher price is called the retail price, and its what customers will pay when they shop in your store.
The difference between the retail and the wholesale prices is called the margin. Its the amount of profit that a retailer gets from a sale. The retail price typically varies between businesses, and there are a few that can be used to determine the best retail price for you. Once you do this, you can then determine your .
Gross Profit = Revenue Cost of Goods Sold
In the above formula, revenue is equal to the retail price you charge to your customers. COGS is a high-level metric that covers all of the variable costs associated with producing and selling goods. Fixed costs are not accounted for in gross profit calculations. For the sake of simplicity, since youre buying from a wholesaler instead of producing a product yourself, you can estimate that your COGS is the price you pay for a product.
Tips For Contacting And Negotiating With Wholesale Suppliers
Having determined the priority suppliers, you need to contact them and find out the terms of cooperation. Try not to stop at one supplier, but build connections with several partners.
If the terms of cooperation are suitable, but the company doesnt seem very reliable, its better to meet with its representative in person. The following are some key things to check first regarding the supplier:
- How are the discounts and the cost of the purchased goods formed?
- What is the minimum batch of goods or the amount for a one-time purchase?
- How are the ordering and the receiving of paid goods carried out?
- How often will the supplier be able to provide current stock balances ?
- In what form is the deal and partnership handled? Is the agreement concluded, and reporting documents provided?
- Are there any certificates of conformity for the products?
- How are the warranty service and the return of defective products carried out?
- If the goods are expensive, is it possible to return an unclaimed but already paid product or exchange it for other items?
- Does the supplier provide additional information about the goods, such as photos, descriptions, characteristics?
Now you have a short list of wholesale suppliers to contact. The next step is to message or call them. To prevent potential suppliers from ignoring your request, its important to follow several rules:
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My Thoughts On Buying And Selling Amazon Return Pallets
Buying and selling returned Amazon merchandise in bulk can be both exhilarating and fun. The main advantage of this business model is that you dont really need much storage.
Most of the products that you buy from your pallet will be immediately sent back to Amazons warehouses for resale or listed on Ebay.
It also doesnt require much money or technical skill to start because you will be relying on 3rd party marketplaces for your sales.
But in the long run, buying and selling returned merchandise is not easily scalable and it can feel like running on a hamster wheel. You never know when your next pallet will be your last and youll often end up with lots of unsellable merchandise.
The main reason I stopped my online arbitrage business was because it had plateaued and I wasnt willing to invest in more human capital to continue to grow it.
In addition, I had so much junk lying around the house that my wife threatened to divorce me:) But its a great way to get started in ecommerce.
So if you are new to selling online, buying and selling Amazon return pallets can be a great way to dip your toes in the water without much risk.
Wholesale On Amazon Vs Other Amazon Business Models
Selling wholesale on Amazon is not the only way to make money. Other business models used by other sellers are:
- Private label
- Retail arbitrage
- Dropshipping
As youll soon see, the process of starting a wholesale business is similar to that of other Amazon businesses. However, wholesale differs from other business models in some significant respects. Lets do a quick comparison.
Now that you know the similarities and differences between selling wholesale and other business models, why should you choose to sell over other selling methods?
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The Making Money Part Of Retail Arbitrage
Finding products you can buy cheap and sell high by sourcing through multiple stores is just the first phase of this business. The final phase involves the actual selling, processing, and shipping of products to your customers.
Choosing where to sell your products should be a calculated decision since your choice will affect how well youll reach your target market. Its important that the majority of your selling platforms are online, as about 78% of Americans prefer to shop online and this is a chunk of the market you dont want to neglect.
And you can do this in multiple ways, such as:
Depending on which platform you choose to sell in, some tools can be useful in calculating profit, list items from Amazon to eBay , Amazon seller app, compare prices across the board , determine out-of-stock products, gather rebates and coupons and many more. These tools all help resellers create a business model for their retail arbitrage business.
Wholesale Products To Sell On Amazon
- What to consider if trying to sell wholesales products on Amazon
- Pros and cons
- Tips to find suppliers
- Tools to help you with wholesale
An Amazon wholesale business is when you buy goods or products in bulk directly from a manufacturer at wholesale prices and resell them on Amazon via FBA or FBM.
As with any other business model, to thrive in this business, you need time, money, and killer marketing strategies.
The difference between succeeding or failing as a wholesale product seller is often whether you can:
- find a brand with high consumer demand
- they allow resellers to
- open a wholesale account with them
- buy their minimum order quantity
- follow their rules regarding pricing and branding
What you dont want to do is buy products from Target or Walmart and try to flip them on Amazon. You will be shut down quickly because you are not an authorized reseller of the brand. Reliable suppliers will help you stay on top of your game and give you an edge over other sellers.
So, how does this business model work? What should you do when looking for wholesale products to sell? How to find wholesale suppliers for Amazon?
Ahead, I will provide answers to these questions and also dive deeper to show you how to sell wholesale products on Amazon and the right tools to leverage to find the best wholesale products.
But before we jump into specifics, lets quickly explain what the Amazon wholesale business model is.
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