Amazon Reselling: How to Buy & Resell on Amazon 

Introduction

Learning how to resell on Amazon is a great way to make money, and many people find success using the e-commerce platform this way. With any money-generating endeavor though, it is best to do your research, set everything up correctly, and have a plan. By creating a strategy for your unique business, you can generate a profit. There are several steps involved when reselling on the retail giant, including determining the right items to sell, finding the proper manufacturer, and more.

While that is simple enough, you can gain a deeper understanding of the concepts above with our full guide explaining how to become an Amazon seller. On top of that, we are going to dive into the best ways of reselling on Amazon.

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Can I Resell Items on Amazon?

Yes, you can resell products on any e-commerce marketplace including Amazon, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace.

Another thing to note is that, once you purchase a product legally, you can then resell it whenever you like (as long as it is sold in an unchanged condition). In simple terms, this means that a product that you buy new, for example, must be sold as new.

However, while Amazon does allow you to resell other products on its site, they do have certain limitations in place regarding particular items. For these special products, you will need to get approval before reselling them.

Some of these particular products are from brands you probably recognize such as Disney, LEGO, Apple, and many more. If a new seller ever tries to resell one of these products on Amazon before getting approval, they will not be allowed to sell them.

How Reselling on Amazon Works

It is surprisingly simple to resell products on Amazon. Generally speaking, all you have to do is purchase products at a low price, resell them for a higher price on Amazon or elsewhere, and then keep the difference—or profit—for yourself. 

Additionally, to keep track of your growing finances (as well as the number of your sales), you’ll want to check out our Profits tool. It can even help you know about any important changes in your chosen product category so you can always stay one step ahead of the competition.

The challenging part of reselling on Amazon involves the process of calculating the handful of different fees involved in the process before you even purchase a product. Taking the time to perform these important calculations will help ensure that you turn a sizable profit for all your hard work. Unfortunately, many Amazon resellers jump into this money-making method without fully understanding the numbers, ultimately leading them to undercut their competition and lose money on every sale.

Additionally, you’ll also need to understand how to fulfill all your orders with Amazon. The two options to choose from include Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM). Taking the time to understand the differences between FBA vs. FBM could be very beneficial to your success on Amazon.

Regarding Amazon FBA, if you choose to go with this method, you will also need to keep in mind the handful of FBA fees. Amazon FBM, too, has its fees in the form of shipping costs so, ultimately, it’s up to the seller and their specific circumstances to determine which course is right for them.

If understanding FBA seller taxes and other costs or FBM shipping fees sounds complicated, an easy solution to immediately figure out all these fees is to use the Amazon revenue calculator. This will seriously help you figure out which products on Amazon are great, and which are not. Who knows, you may even get one of your products on our list of the best selling products on Amazon!

Another option new Amazon resellers can use to figure out costs is the Amazon Seller app which will calculate the fees of a product with a simple barcode scan of a given item.

How to Become an Amazon Reseller

1. Determine What to Sell

Amazon is a prominent company, and its vast platform is used around the world. There are millions of Amazon buyers out there, and there are also numerous Amazon sellers. So, the competition is real and intense. 

Determining what to sell may sound easy, but you must conduct research and know the market using Helium 10’s Black Box. It also involves figuring out the specific quantity of items you need and the niche you want to target.

An excellent place to start is with your business plan. Think about what buying categories you are interested in as a seller. What is your demographic? What is your niche? Are you going to stand out from the competition? What are the trending products right now? What products are readily available through a wholesaler or a manufacturer for a reasonable price? These questions can help guide you in the right direction.

Another way to determine what to sell is by viewing Amazon’s Best Seller list. Doing so will give you an idea of what is currently trending on the retail giant’s platform.

These are just a handful of options to help you formulate a plan of attack for reselling on Amazon.

2. Register and Become an Amazon Seller

To resell products on Amazon, you will have to register to become a seller. Amazon conveniently has a “Become an Amazon seller” page, so all you have to do is follow the directions closely and pay the ongoing monthly fee of $39.99.

3. Find a Quality Supplier

Once you know what you want to sell and have learned how to create an Amazon seller account, it is time to source your products. Working with a quality supplier is essential since they will be responsible for your final product. 

To find a reliable supplier or manufacturer, you may have to read customer reviews and conduct interviews to ensure you get top-quality items.

4. Create Your Listing

Everything you need to create a product listing is available via your Amazon seller account. To ensure your listings stand out, make sure to use our listing optimization tools, including the FREE Helium 10 Chrome Extension.

5. Use Amazon FBA

If you really want to build a strong and lasting business that sells a huge amount of products each and every month, you’ll need to come up with a winning fulfillment strategy. While it’s possible to pack and ship the orders yourself via FBM, it’s much easier to use FBA.

By using FBA, all you have to do is send your inventory over to Amazon, and they will then store it for you and ship your products when they’re sold. Even though there are fees associated with this method, the ultimate trade-off is well worth it.

As an added bonus, using Amazon FBA will give you much-needed time to focus on other key aspects of your growing business like discovering great Amazon product launch strategies that can net you more sales.

6. Win the Buy Box

The last thing Amazon resellers will have to know is how to win the Buy Box. This key feature of the platform serves as the ‘Buy Now’ button on Amazon’s product listing pages. Even though there are many different sellers competing for the same product on the site, only one can get the Buy Box, which helps boost the sales of any given product.

Check out some of these important tips that’ll help you win the Buy Box and beat the competition:

• Get a Professional Seller account: Only sellers with a professional seller account qualify for the Buy Box.
• Ensure quality customer service: Always make sure that your customers are satisfied with your product and leave a great star rating and review.
  • Unsure how to get reviews? Check out our guide on how to get reviews on Amazon and start building a loyal and long-lasting audience.
• Offer competitive prices: While your prices should be competitive, they don’t necessarily need to be the lowest (although they should be close).
• Maintain a large inventory: With a large inventory, you can ensure that you always have your products, enabling you to make more sales.
  • If this sounds like a headache, you may want to sell on Amazon without inventory, instead.

By following the above guidelines, you can help give yourself the best possible chance of winning the Buy Box and raking in the profits.

Where to Buy Items to Resell on Amazon

Wholesale

Amazon wholesale occurs when you purchase a product in bulk from either a brand or distributor and then resell it at the given retail price (often netting you profit).

When Amazon resellers wholesale, they’ll have a steady stream of inventory directly from the brand and—more often than not—with an unchanging price point.

When you purchase your inventory directly from either a manufacturer or brand, you get the benefit of enhanced security. This is because the invoices you receive from the brand prove that your products are legitimate. This can come in handy if a dissatisfied customer accuses your product of being illegitimate.

Additionally, when you receive an invoice from the manufacturer or brand, you will also be able to get brand approval in a shorter time frame. The reason for this is that Amazon will usually require sellers to have an invoice with 10 units—or more—purchased before allowing them to get approved for a given restricted brand or product.

Furthermore, to purchase directly from a brand, sellers will be required to create a wholesale account, allowing them to purchase inventory in bulk at a discounted price.

Arbitrage

Arbitrage is when Amazon resellers discover a price difference between two retailers for any given product, purchasing it from the cheaper retailer, and then reselling it on Amazon for a higher price.

The two different methods of arbitrage are retail arbitrage and online arbitrage. Retail arbitrage is for resellers who buy from physical, in-store retailers, and online arbitrage is more suited to those who buy from online retailers.

A consistent way to discover profitable products to easily resell from retailers is to visit local stores such as Walmart and Target (for retail arbitrage) or Etsy and eBay (if you’re more into online arbitrage).

When you walk into a physical retail store in your area with the purpose of finding a great product to resell, you can simply scan the products you’re interested in using the Amazon Seller app.

While in the app, you can easily input the cost of the product, and the app will then tell you key information about that product you can then use to determine whether it’s a great find or not.

A great way to get started locating these physical products is to head to the clearance section of any store and proceed to thoroughly scan everything until you find your winning product. While the process can be a long one, it’s sure to pay off if you stick with it.

Tips on How to Succeed as an Amazon Reseller

If reselling on Amazon sounds appealing to you, there are a few key things you should keep in mind that’ll help you stay profitable on Amazon.

1. Low-Competition Products

It’s possible to resell on Amazon using two different methods.

You can either successfully sell items that have high competition, or sell items with low competition that do not possess any proven success record.

For new Amazon resellers, the second option will most likely be your best bet. This is because low-competition products have the incredible potential to easily establish you as the far and away leader of your product’s category. In this manner, you can work at building your brand on Amazon. Additionally, being the leader of a product category makes it much easier to win the Buy Box.

By winning the Buy Box, sellers can easily gain a huge boost to both their visibility and sales on Amazon. The positive impacts of having the Buy Box encompass your brand, seller ranks, and ratings, all of which are crucial in growing your business.

However, when you sell low-competition products, the lack of a proven sales record means that your product may not take off. You should also consider that other sellers may have passed on your chosen product for a reason. These reasons may have included a lack of interested customers, low-profit margins, or another important reason. Before choosing a low-competition product, you should always take the time to research it before going all in.

Another important thing to note is that you will need to possess a decent seller rank in order to gain the visibility required to boost your sales on Amazon. Because of this, choosing the second option is often the best choice.

Also, it’s often not even enough to find a low-competition product. To ensure you stand out from the crowd, keyword research is crucial. Thankfully, with Helium 10’s powerful Magnet, you can gather all the keywords you’ll need for any given product.

2. Offer a Low Price on a High-Competition Product

Another way to find success on Amazon as a reseller is to discover, buy, and sell high demand products that have a proven record of success. When selling a popular product, sales influx is usually assured, and this significantly helps boost both your rankings and visibility on Amazon.

The difficult part of this method comes in the form of competition against many sellers who have already found success with the product. In these circumstances, you’ll likely need to offer a reduced price for the product in order to make waves. Additionally, offering a lower price for your item can earn you the Buy Box, as well as an audience that is more than willing to purchase it. Keep in mind, though, that the target audience you’ll be attracting will be discount shoppers. In short, this means that, if you ever raise the price of your product, those shoppers may disappear.

A last thing to consider is the Amazon profit margins you’ll incur throughout the process in addition to all the other costs.

3. Select Quality Products

No matter if you sell a low-competition or high-competition product, it’s important to sell a quality product. When you sell quality products on Amazon, you come across as a high-end seller to your target audience. This helps boost your brand and can prepare you in advance for the day when you’re ready to expand your business.

Also, when you sell a high-quality product, you can charge a premium price for it. As all sellers know, if you sell a higher-priced item, the profit margins you receive will be higher as well. Conversely, if you sell cheap, low-quality products, you can expect to receive bad reviews and high returns, damaging your Amazon business in both the short and long run.

4. Look for Products With High Margins

While this may be a no-brainer for some, its importance causes it to be repeated here. It is absolutely critical that you discover products that have high margins. In most cases, you will not be able to build a sustainable, lasting business with a product that may be high-quality, but with a low margin.

If you have a product that your customers love, but that doesn’t have a high margin, it is not worth it to your business to sell this item. By taking the time to analyze your costs and really determine whether a product has high margins or not, you can save both time and money that you otherwise would have invested in a low-margin product.

5. Build a Brand

A common and unfortunate mistake that many new Amazon sellers make is that they erroneously decide to sell the first product they think may work. This may work in the short term, but it’s not a good idea for serious sellers looking to grow their fledgling business.

It’s important to always remember not to get too attached to a certain product. What you’re selling can always change. Instead, you should aim to provide value to your customers with every product you resell, no matter what it is. In this way, you’ll attract a wider audience who will be interested in not only the product you sell but that it’s you who’s selling it. Brand recognition, trust, and awareness are all golden keys to your success.

Conclusion

When you choose to resell items on Amazon, you have the potential to find lasting success if you do it correctly. Having a real, thought-out game plan can significantly help you succeed where other resellers have failed. Remember, to win on Amazon, you need to work hard and work smart.

To further help yourself create a solid business that can be scaled ever upward on Amazon, be sure to check out Helium 10’s tools. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish with them and how far ahead of the competition you’ll be, even when just starting on Amazon.