Reply to: PM FAO MF (Amazon trading)

[MarillionFan]

I know - it's the underpricing that I dislked - once someone has underpriced it others have little choice but to compete at similar price points as they can't differentiate themselves enough.

There's some better software about now that moves up and down in a range. If two people use a penny repricer it kills the listing, so I use one that runs down (including aginst Amazon) and then it jumps back up. Works well if only two using them, or Amazon.

The other thing, to do really big money you have to ship up a lot of stuff and so logistically you need to hire people and scale, otherwise it's not worth it.

[eek]

Eek, there are loads of profitable businesses around this. Prep centre is one, FBM Distribution another, scanning software, repricer software, scanners. The guy doing that £12 a month software has seriously underpriced it.

Basically it's like the gold rush. Most won't get anywhere, some get a good find, but mostly the people selling the shovels made all the money.

I know - it's the underpricing that I dislked - once someone has underpriced it others have little choice but to compete at similar price points as they can't differentiate themselves enough.

[MarillionFan]

May I refer you to the article from the verge I posted above it's possible that preping may be more profitable than sourcing.

As for those software prices - You need a lot of people at £12 a month to make a decent living. There are far better markets to be in.

Eek, there are loads of profitable businesses around this. Prep centre is one, FBM Distribution another, scanning software, repricer software, scanners. The guy doing that £12 a month software has seriously underpriced it.

Basically it's like the gold rush. Most won't get anywhere, some get a good find, but mostly the people selling the shovels made all the money.

[eek]

No, they tend not to take stuff directly from suppliers, it has to go via a prep centre.

Easy Prep UK - Amazon FBA Prep Centre

In answer to Eeks question software yes.

Seller Amp – Tools For Amazon Sellers

May I refer you to the article from the verge I posted above it's possible that preping may be more profitable than sourcing.

As for those software prices - You need a lot of people at £12 a month to make a decent living. There are far better markets to be in.

[MarillionFan]

Sone of the stuff I was looking at with the online buying was shipping stuff direct to Amazon from the source so no personal packing/shipping overheads, or is that not an option?

No, they tend not to take stuff directly from suppliers, it has to go via a prep centre.

Easy Prep UK - Amazon FBA Prep Centre

In answer to Eeks question software yes.

Seller Amp – Tools For Amazon Sellers

[DaveB]

The margins look great on paper, but in practicality it's not great as Amazon takes so much.
After fees, software tools, subscriptions, shipping to Amazon etc, the margin comes to 22% for me. So for this month I'll do £30k, that will net me around £6k profit.

By the time you include all my time etc, it works out about £20 per hour. I'm now paying someone £10 an hour to do the packing / shipping. So it has a finite cap on your own time.

I know someone doing £1 Million turnover and he's outsourced a lot of it, so he pays someone to source, someone to pack, someone to buy online, a runner for stores etc and his net profit on that is £80k so he's focussing on developing the tools to sell and has started another business doing that.

It does not compare to contracting, but then again, not much does.

Sone of the stuff I was looking at with the online buying was shipping stuff direct to Amazon from the source so no personal packing/shipping overheads, or is that not an option?

[eek]

The margins look great on paper, but in practicality it's not great as Amazon takes so much.
After fees, software tools, subscriptions, shipping to Amazon etc, the margin comes to 22% for me. So for this month I'll do £30k, that will net me around £6k profit.

By the time you include all my time etc, it works out about £20 per hour. I'm now paying someone £10 an hour to do the packing / shipping. So it has a finite cap on your own time.

I know someone doing £1 Million turnover and he's outsourced a lot of it, so he pays someone to source, someone to pack, someone to buy online, a runner for stores etc and his net profit on that is £80k so he's focussing on developing the tools to sell and has started another business doing that.

It does not compare to contracting, but then again, not much does.

Given what that other guy is doing - writing software to sell?

[MarillionFan]

I used to do stuff like this with Tesco purchases in order to get Avios. I've still got close to 1.5 million and that's with having long-haul Business/First class flights for the past 6 or 7 yers . But I found it took a lot of time to get the best deals.

How much time do you spend doing this? And how much does the shipping to Amazon eat into your margins? What is your % margin averaging out at, based on your capital outlay?

The margins look great on paper, but in practicality it's not great as Amazon takes so much.
After fees, software tools, subscriptions, shipping to Amazon etc, the margin comes to 22% for me. So for this month I'll do £30k, that will net me around £6k profit.

By the time you include all my time etc, it works out about £20 per hour. I'm now paying someone £10 an hour to do the packing / shipping. So it has a finite cap on your own time.

I know someone doing £1 Million turnover and he's outsourced a lot of it, so he pays someone to source, someone to pack, someone to buy online, a runner for stores etc and his net profit on that is £80k so he's focussing on developing the tools to sell and has started another business doing that.

It does not compare to contracting, but then again, not much does.

[eek]

To be frank it sounds too much like hard work but I'll give you this for the next stage - packaging of the purchases to meet Amazon warehouse rules.

Why thousands of Amazon packages converge on a tiny Montana town - The Verge

[Paralytic]

some of the software is useful some not.
If stuff is easily found the price tanks and the margin disappears as everyone jumps on it, so there are lots of others more advanced methods to make money.

an example of a flip at the moment is a Crayola Tracing Pad at Smyths. Doesn’t come up obviously on a software scan but it’s a 3 for 2. £12.49 each comes down to £8.33 each. Then with vouchers you could get another 10% off so £7.60 ish then using another process of buying gift cards at a discount(another trick) I got them closer to £6. There’s some clever cash back and stacking tricks.

Ive just woken up to find the 10 I sent in last week have all sold this morning alone at £18.20 each. So at 7.48am I’ve already sold £230 worth stuff including them. I say it works if you know what you’re doing

I used to do stuff like this with Tesco purchases in order to get Avios. I've still got close to 1.5 million and that's with having long-haul Business/First class flights for the past 6 or 7 yers . But I found it took a lot of time to get the best deals.

How much time do you spend doing this? And how much does the shipping to Amazon eat into your margins? What is your % margin averaging out at, based on your capital outlay?

[MarillionFan]

Cheers MF.

The Online Arbitrage with FBA was specifically want I was interested in since it needs minimal resources other than the time spent to end products and capital to buy stock and cover operating costs. No storage, stock handling etc.

I get the principle behind it, I'm just skeptical about how well it works in practice since most of the info out there seems to come from the guys selling the arbitrage software tools etc.

some of the software is useful some not.
If stuff is easily found the price tanks and the margin disappears as everyone jumps on it, so there are lots of others more advanced methods to make money.

an example of a flip at the moment is a Crayola Tracing Pad at Smyths. Doesn’t come up obviously on a software scan but it’s a 3 for 2. £12.49 each comes down to £8.33 each. Then with vouchers you could get another 10% off so £7.60 ish then using another process of buying gift cards at a discount(another trick) I got them closer to £6. There’s some clever cash back and stacking tricks.

Ive just woken up to find the 10 I sent in last week have all sold this morning alone at £18.20 each. So at 7.48am I’ve already sold £230 worth stuff including them. I say it works if you know what you’re doing

[DaveB]

Yes there are a lot of courses, videos, gurus, software tools, methods and facebook groups etc.


It's an interesting area Dave and there are four ways to source product products for Amazon, and primarily three ways to sell them.

RA - Retail Arbitrage is the process of going into a store finding a product on the shelf for X and selling it for Y on Amazon to make a profit. YouTube (This guy is my favourite to watch, sketchy as hell)

OA - Online Arbitrage is the process of finding products to buy online for X to sell on Amazon for Y and make a profit.

WHolesale - Buy from a wholesaler and sell online

PL - Private Label - Make your own product (or White Label) a product and sell it online for more.

Amazon uses three different distribution models

(1) FBM - Fullfilled by Merchant - Basically you send it out and do all the customer support yourself
(2) FBM Prime - Fulfilled by Merchant, but as part of the prime membershup (you need a proper distribution company/warehouse for this)
(3) FBA - Fulfilled by Amazon

FBA is where you get any of the products sourced above and send them to Amazon. They sit in their warehouse, they do all the distribution and customer service. This is the most popular, becuase it allows you to have a business that they effectively run for you (hence the videos sitting on beaches)


So Ive created a six figure Amazon business and I've turned over £20k in the last three weeks mostly flipping products from retail stores / online sites at 3x buying price.

There;s loads of things in this area, you just need time to learn it all

Cheers MF.

The Online Arbitrage with FBA was specifically want I was interested in since it needs minimal resources other than the time spent to end products and capital to buy stock and cover operating costs. No storage, stock handling etc.

I get the principle behind it, I'm just skeptical about how well it works in practice since most of the info out there seems to come from the guys selling the arbitrage software tools etc.

[MarillionFan]

I'm not doing anything with it cause I've been stuck for ages on seller verification

My daughter does white labelling with cosmetic products and has built a great wee brand for herself in a short space of time and does quite well out of it. She's currently fulfilling her own orders but is looking at FBA now as she's grown quite significantly. She's got some marketing skills though that I don't quite understand

That'll be SEO, PPC, Facebook Marketing & Sales Funnels. I'm loving it :-)

[TestMangler]

Are you guys using Amazon as a storefront for a specific product line or using arbitrage tools to buy and sell anything that will make a profit?

I've seen a lot of info around about the arbitrage side but I'm skeptical as to how well it works given that most of the info seems to come from people wanting to sell you services and software to do it with.

I'm not doing anything with it cause I've been stuck for ages on seller verification

My daughter does white labelling with cosmetic products and has built a great wee brand for herself in a short space of time and does quite well out of it. She's currently fulfilling her own orders but is looking at FBA now as she's grown quite significantly. She's got some marketing skills though that I don't quite understand

[MarillionFan]

Are you guys using Amazon as a storefront for a specific product line or using arbitrage tools to buy and sell anything that will make a profit?

I've seen a lot of info around about the arbitrage side but I'm skeptical as to how well it works given that most of the info seems to come from people wanting to sell you services and software to do it with.

Yes there are a lot of courses, videos, gurus, software tools, methods and facebook groups etc.


It's an interesting area Dave and there are four ways to source product products for Amazon, and primarily three ways to sell them.

RA - Retail Arbitrage is the process of going into a store finding a product on the shelf for X and selling it for Y on Amazon to make a profit. YouTube (This guy is my favourite to watch, sketchy as hell)

OA - Online Arbitrage is the process of finding products to buy online for X to sell on Amazon for Y and make a profit.

WHolesale - Buy from a wholesaler and sell online

PL - Private Label - Make your own product (or White Label) a product and sell it online for more.

Amazon uses three different distribution models

(1) FBM - Fullfilled by Merchant - Basically you send it out and do all the customer support yourself
(2) FBM Prime - Fulfilled by Merchant, but as part of the prime membershup (you need a proper distribution company/warehouse for this)
(3) FBA - Fulfilled by Amazon

FBA is where you get any of the products sourced above and send them to Amazon. They sit in their warehouse, they do all the distribution and customer service. This is the most popular, becuase it allows you to have a business that they effectively run for you (hence the videos sitting on beaches)


So Ive created a six figure Amazon business and I've turned over £20k in the last three weeks mostly flipping products from retail stores / online sites at 3x buying price.

There;s loads of things in this area, you just need time to learn it all