So you’ve decided to enter the business of Amazon reselling. Or perhaps you are looking to improve your established retail arbitrage business. Whichever stage you’re in, we have put together five tips to help you save time and improve your return on investment.
So you have decided to enter the business of Amazon reselling. Alternatively, perhaps you are looking to improve your established retail arbitrage business. Whichever stage you are in, we have put together five tips to help you save time and improve your return on investment.
1. Consider investing in a Bluetooth Barcode Scanner
Purchasing a Bluetooth barcode scanner for your FBA business will be one of the most cost-efficient and time-saving tools you can add to your Amazon arsenal. When Amazon resellers are starting out, they are usually entering in USB or ISBN codes manually. Some FBAers opt for using their mobile phone’s camera scanner for capturing barcode information. Both groups end up noticing the inefficiency in these two methods quickly. By using a Bluetooth barcode scanner like the hugely popular Scanfob® 2006 Bluetooth Barcode Scanner, sourcing and listing products through your Amazon store becomes a much simpler and pain-free task
2. List unique or niche products
Selecting products which are rare or more uncommon to Amazon marketplace will limit the amount of competition against other sellers and is an excellent way to ensure success in your FBA business. One method of distinguishing your products from those being sold by others is through the use of white labeling – i.e., purchasing a product directly from a manufacturer or vendor and applying your personal brand or label to that product.
3. Join FBA or Amazon Reseller social media groups and blogs
If you have not already joined an Amazon FBA group, you are probably missing out on valuable information. Groups like ScannerMonkey, ScanPower, FBA’s SubReddit and countless others provide networking for thousands of members on social media networks, personal web blogs, and video hosting channels like YouTube. These groups primary purpose is to share and compare products, provide strategies for increasing profits, and discuss best practices. It is also a place where Amazon novices can pick the brains and ask questions of veteran sellers without fear of imposing on their competition.
4. Get a Pro Merchant Subscription
There are two types of Amazon selling accounts. The individual selling account which is a free service, and the professional merchant account (aka Pro Merchant), which requires a monthly subscription fee. Even though the individual account is free, there are reasons why one should opt for the Pro Merchant account. First, when selling using a personal account, there is an additional $1 fee added to each sale (in addition to other Amazon fees). This fee gets waived for Pro Merchant Account users. The second, and most important, is Buy Box eligibility (see more below). If you are not a Pro Merchant Amazon seller YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR THE BUY BOX. That means that even if you have the lowest price on a product and have a 100% positive rating, you will still never win the buy box.
5. Win the Buy Box
The buy box is the box on an Amazon product detail page where the customer purchasing process begins. Because Amazon allows multiple sellers to offer the same item(s), winning the Buy Box for sought-after products significantly increases your chances of winning the deal. Amazon does not like to disclose how seller metrics factor into winning the buy box. They state: “Excelling in all areas that deliver an outstanding customer experience is the best way to achieve Buy Box eligibility and win the Buy Box. These areas include pricing, availability, fulfillment, and customer service”. A relatively ambiguous statement. However, common sense dictates that the more unique a product listing be, the more likely it will be to win the buy box and ultimately result in the sale.