3 years ago, my wife and I had tons of student loans and a fair bit of debt. We were both teachers in Florida where they don't get raises... so we didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I started looking into other legitimate businesses I could start and run in my spare time when I read an article about reselling stuff on Amazon. My wife wasn't too keen on it, so I only took $100 and we agreed to not spend any more on trying it out.
I took $100 + some old books from our shelves and started trying to flip things on Amazon's platform. I would buy a light bulb for $1 on clearance and sell it for $12 on Amazon. It BLEW MY MIND how quickly I could double my money just flipping clearance stuff from around town.
It was at this point that our goal changed. I personally knew that this had huge potential and could be a full time business that would allow my wife and I to adopt a family and stay home full time with our kids...
I decided that I wasn't going to pay myself for the first year and instead I reinvested 100% of the profits back into the business to snowball it. Starting with $100 we sold a total of ~$180,000 in our first year with about 30% net profit.
We were growing the business by almost 20% every single month...
Here we are 3.5 years later... We are SEVEN figure sellers on Amazon today, we both quit are day jobs, we are financially free, we adopted 2 beautiful kids from foster care, and we are able to stay home and enjoy our kids childhood with them instead of working all day and missing all the little moments :)
--- FAQ about selling on Amazon ---
- How do you get set up as a seller?
Sellercentral.amazon.com
- How does it work? You buy an item that you know is profitable.
You list the item on Amazon. You ship your item to Amazon (FBA) or you ship it direct to customer (FBM). Once the item sells Amazon pays you your money (minus their cut which is about 30%)
- What do you sell?
Everything. If it exists in a store... someone bought it cheaper from point A and is selling it to you and point B.
- Where can I find good deals?
Everywhere. The easiest places to start are used books, clothing, and clearance isles in big box stores. For kids clothing Oshkosh and Carter baby & kids clothing have great clearance
- Taxes?
Yes we pay those :) Amazon sends 1099 if over 20k in sales Heres a Amazon tax video we did that may help explain some things: https://youtu.be/pCTWcG0g5RE
- How do I know if an item sells?
The Amazon seller app will show you reviews and sales rank. This is an indication of how fast something will sell.
You can also check out top sellers here
TOP 100 Amazon Best Sellers by Category
TOP 100 Amazon New Releases by Category
TOP 100 Amazon Gift Ideas by Category
TOP 100 Amazon Wish List Items by Category
- How do you know if it's profitable?
Again in the Amazon seller app you can see the estimated fees and just do some simple math (Buy cost + fees & ; Avg sale price)
- How many hours per week do you spend purchasing the items to resell? Is it just you and your wife shopping? How many hours per week packaging/shipping items?
This drastically changes depending on our needs and where we were at in our business...
At the start I was probably working 30-40 hours a week (on top of my main teaching job) just on Amazon. The goal was to build an empire so we could quit... so I was highly motivated.
Currently I work maybe 10-15 hours a week because we have systems in place for nearly everything and have outsourced a lot.
It's pretty much just me shopping, though on rare occasion I'll hire some help if I'm dropping 10k+ at a single store on a single purchase.
Do you think you have better success living by large cities with a larger selection of places to find deals?
No. Big cities of more store + more sellers. Small cities have less stores but no sellers.
It's pretty even across the board.
- Are you mainly looking at clearance items?
I look at everything... Though clearance is a good place to start
How do you know what to sell? Do you just go to stores and find clearance items?
I scan the items with the amazon seller app and it tells me data like: Avg sale price, sales velocity, reviews, fees, etc...
- Have you found there to be any restrictions on reselling certain store brands via Amazon at all (ex Disney store, exclusive Target brands, etc)? For the 30% you factor in to Amazon, does that include shipping costs or do you factor that in separate?
Yes there are lots of restrictions when you are first starting. I recommend to start with books and clothing. Shipping is roughly .50/lbs
I thought clothing was one of the restricted categories at first? Also- I know in another post you shared that selling bras are very profitable for you. Do all sizes sell equally as well or are you always left with unsold sizes?
Clothing is not restricted for anyone.
All sizes and styles are fine. There is more demand for white/blacks... but also more sellers of those... and they are easy to find in stores. The Pink tiger stripe 54FF cup is hard to find in store... so that person goes online to buy.
What impact have you seen on your business due to the pandemic?
It's exploded. Nearly everyone is ordering everything online instead of going in store
Do you have to take pictures of all of your items or do you use the pictures from similar listings of the same item?
Nope. It doesn't work like that on Amazon. There aren't really multiple listings for the same item. 1 listing, 1 item, multiple sellers all stocking that same shelf
Do you find things sell better if you send them to amazon verses shipping them out yourself?
yes. Very much so. It gets the "Shipped via Amazon Prime" badge.
Why do you pick Amazon over ebay? Or do you use both? I've been selling on eBay for 15 years but just on the side.
Waaaaay more scalable.
How do you deal with returns? Do you have a lot of returns?
I mostly let Amazon deal with the returns so it's not too bad.
How many of each item do you need to send to amazon? Would they rather have 5 of the same thing or 50? Also what price point do your items need to sell for to make money? (On eBay I have to sell items for $15 with free shipping for it to be profitable)
Desiree all depends on the demand, supply & demand. The sales rank and how many sellers that are on a particular item will help you make that decision. I’d definitely recommend watching the videos on YouTube below ,it breaks everything down!
Do you have a lot of product sitting at your house or does everything just get shipped to the Amazon warehouse once you have enough to fill a box? Space is a hot commodity here with 3 kids and there’s no way we could store the items waiting to sell.
Make sure you check their Hustlebuddies group for more tips and trick!
How Nathan and his wife got started
How to start an Amazon FBA reseller business with $100
