One of the best businesses is to sell things on Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). All you have to do is buy great things and let Amazon ship them and take care of returns. People find it hardest to find products to sell on Amazon, which is the main problem they have with selling their goods there. Sellers who have been selling on Amazon FBA for a while have found different ways to find inventory and shared their knowledge so that new sellers can get started. Let’s look at some of the most common places where Amazon gets its products.
How to Find Goods for Amazon FBA
Try either of the following ways to get products for Amazon FBA when you need stock for a dropshipping product, or use a mix of them.
Dropshipping
Over half of all orders on Amazon come from third-party sellers, making Amazon FBA a very profitable business. 34% of all orders were filled through dropshipping in 2022, which was worth $95.37 billion. The method is very popular, and the FBA seller has little to lose by using it. It lowers the cost of buying inventory all at once, which means less money is spent on storage and shipping.
Dropshipping suppliers buy or make goods and keep them in warehouses until they are sold. When an order is placed on Amazon, the dropshipper packages the item and sends it to the Amazon FBA warehouse. Once the deal is done, you can keep the difference between how much the product costs from the dropshipper and how much you sell it for on Amazon. Oberlo, China Brands, SaleHoo, and dropship-empire are all examples of well-known dropshippers.
You need to be careful because dropshipping means you don’t have full control over your inventory. This means that customers could get low-quality products or the supplier could run out of stock. Some dropshippers help your business by giving you tools like automatic stock management that helps you keep track of your inventory and a dedicated customer service and quality control team.
Wholesale Distributors
Wholesale suppliers can help you stock up on a lot of goods at low prices that are easy to sell for a profit. Because wholesalers serve a wide area, they have a lot of goods from which you can choose for the Amazon store. Once you have a good business relationship with the wholesaler, you can talk to them about discounts and better payment terms.
But you have to have a place to store your product and make sure you have the right permissions to resell branded items. If you sell something you don’t have the right to sell, Amazon could shut down your store for copyright violations.
If you choose this method, you should do a lot of research on the market because it can cost you when you have deadstock or slow-moving products that need storage space. You can test the market by buying smaller amounts first, before going on to buy more.
Online directories of wholesalers and B2B market places
Millions of new products are added to wholesale directories and B2B marketplaces every year by manufacturers and their suppliers. Since you will be dealing with manufacturers or their representatives, the prices can be very low and the sales margins can be very high. These ways are very helpful because you can look through thousands of suppliers and brands in different niches to find high-quality, fast-selling products.
Minimum Order Quantities (MOQ) in some B2B markets mean that you need a lot of cash to buy your inventory, but the potential margins make it worth it. Alibaba is the most well-known B2B marketplace and wholesale directory. When doing business on these platforms, you need to be careful because there are a lot of scammers on them, especially if the platform isn’t trustworthy or doesn’t check its suppliers. Reviews and the fact that the platform verifies the supplier can give you a head start.
Manufacturers
Manufacturers want to get rid of their stock as quickly as possible and are the cheapest place to find new, high-quality products. Getting in touch with manufacturers directly can lead to unique products and the chance to customize and brand them. Because the price per unit is low, manufacturers tend to have high minimum order quantities (MOQs). This is good for large businesses that have more money and storage space.
Arbitrage in Retail and Online
Arbitrage is when you buy and sell the same thing in different markets at the same time to make money off of the difference. One can go to local stores and buy things at low prices to sell on Amazon. But how does one get cheap things?
You can go to a local store like Walmart and look for the clearance aisles to find many items that have been marked down. Look for hot deals, crazy discounts, and huge discounts at your local shopping mall to get Amazon FBA inventory for a fraction of the price. You can make a lot of money by reselling the items you buy at a discount.
The strategy works well for collectibles and items that are only made once. It is also less risky than keeping a lot of stock that could end up being useless. You can do something similar by going to an online store. Some local stores may label things as “on sale” to get you to buy them at full price, so you have to be quick. The method is very competitive, and it may be hard to restock because some offers are only available at certain times of the year.
Sell the things you made.
Do you know how to weave, make furniture, come up with ideas, or run your own factory? Well, you can list your own products on Amazon and find a ready market for them. You have full control over the product, its quality, and its stock with this method. You can get help with packaging things. When you sell on Amazon FBA, putting a trademark on your products can help protect you from fakes.
Auctions, Liquidation, Thrift, or Surplus Stores
At auctions, garage sales, and thrift stores, you can get high-quality items for cheap. Most of the items are clearance, overstock, donated, or stock from businesses that have closed.
Make sure you do the math ahead of time to make sure you can still make a profit after paying for the fulfillment costs. You need a sharp eye to make sure you get goods that are valuable and in good enough shape to sell. If you can’t make it to a real auction, eBay can be a great alternative.
Sourcing Agents and Virtual Assistants
You might not have enough time, or you might find it hard to find products for Amazon FBA. You can hire a virtual assistant who will get your inventory using any or all of the other sourcing methods. Websites that act as sourcing agents do research to find the best products or manufacturers and then negotiate the price, logistics, and shipping in exchange for a commission. You have to be careful with this service, though, because some of the agents may only be looking for a commission and not the best products at the best prices.
How to Look for Items for Amazon FBA
Before you spend your money on a product, it’s a good idea to compare its different parts. You can start by using free tools like Google Trends to find out which product is the most popular. Check out the competition to make sure you can compete with similar products that are already on Amazon. If Amazon sells the product under its own brand, it will be hard for you to compete with Amazon. But products that don’t have a lot of competition might not make any money at all.
You join Amazon FBA to make money, so a product that doesn’t give you a good chance of making money may be draining. You may need to sell a lot of low-margin products to make any money. Try to compare the price of the product using different ways to get it so that you can make the most money. Compare the same products from different stores to avoid giving up on quality.
When looking for products to sell on Amazon, it’s a good idea to read their terms and conditions so you know what you can and can’t do. Some things, like pesticides, can only be sold by people from the United States. Other things, like CBD oils, can’t be sold by anyone. If you know what valid products are, you won’t waste money on stock you can’t sell on Amazon.
Shipping costs can have a big effect on a product’s final price and its ability to make money. It’s a good idea to look at the shipping costs of your possible source markets to make sure that they don’t cut into your profits. You can also focus on small, light items that are cheaper to ship to the Amazon FBA store.
Use automation and good online tools to do market research and find products and possible suppliers. The app can help you figure out when to buy stock to make the most money. The apps can help automate the whole process of sourcing and research, making it easier to do. Most of the time, people use:
- Scout in the jungle
- Inventory Laboratory
- Helium 10
- camelcamelcamel
- App for scanning items at Amazon
- The FBA calculator on Amazon
Some of the ways to find inventory work best for people who are just starting out, while others work best for well-known brands. It’s smart to figure out where your business fits to choose the best method. Before you spend a lot of money on sourcing methods, it’s best to start small and see how well they work.
Before putting something up for sale on Amazon, you can check its quality and make sure it meets the right standards. Before putting your product on Amazon, you can get a sample to see how good it is. This will help you avoid getting a lot of customer complaints and having a lot of stock that you can’t sell.
With Amazon FBA, you can sell goods and take advantage of its huge market. There are many ways to get inventory from Amazon. Weigh the pros and cons of each option and choose the one that works best for your business.