How Can You Buy and Resell on Amazon

I don’t hide that Amazon is my #1 supplier for my FBA business, so it isn’t surprising that one of the most common questions I get is this:

How is it possible to buy from Amazon and resell on Amazon?  

I understand where this question is coming from.  It simply doesn’t make sense that you should be able to buy from the exact same platform that you sell on. How would you ever make any money let alone how to start a reselling business ?  That’s a question I hope to tackle with this post. In my next post, I’ll explain why I prefer to source from Amazon.

There are at least 3 different ways to profitably buy on Amazon to resell on Amazon (Az2Az for short):
[dropcap]1[/dropcap]  Amazon often has inexplicable price drops of up to 85-90% off, only to return to their previous price within a day or so.  As an example, consider this item:

Chris posted this earlier today on our Facebook Page.  As you can see, the price has been in the $150 range for quite some time.  Then, for no reason, they decided to sell at $65, at which point they promptly sold out.  Now the third-party sellers are all selling at $150+.  Since this has nearly 2 years history of selling at $150, we can be pretty sure that is approximately the price we can get for it.  At this rate, we stand to make between $60-$70 dollars off of this one item.  The logic is simple, buy Amazon’s ridiculous price drops and then sell at their normal price point.

[dropcap]2[/dropcap]  Sometimes Amazon is always at a low price, but when they run out, the price skyrockets.  The perfect example for this type of product is the Revlon Perfect Style Thermal Round Brush.

When Amazon is in stock, they always sell this brush for $0.99.  However, they can’t keep them in stock at this price and so they sell out frequently.  Look what happens to the price when they sell out?  I’ve sold this brush over and over for $9-$10.

[dropcap]3[/dropcap]  Sometimes we need to do a little bit of work.  This can be in the form of creating bundles, creating multi-packs, or unpacking something Amazon has sold as a multi-pack.  My favorite is the final option: Unpacking something that Amazon has sold as a multi-pack.  You would be amazed at how often Amazon sells a case of 12 items for the same price as they sell a 3pk.  (Pro Tip: Pay special attention to items where the average consumer has absolutely no need for 12!).

Here is one of my favorite examples!  I bought this case of 12 for $58.  I was banking on the fact that most people couldn’t go through 12 containers of 23.5oz of Garlic and Herb spice in their entire life.  Sure enough, I was able to sell out at $23.49 each.  That means I bought for just under $5.00 each and I sold it for almost 5 times as much as I paid for it.

These aren’t the only ways to make money doing AZ2AZ (and if you’d like to add any, leave a comment!), but they are three of my favorite and help illustrate the concept that you absolutely can make money by buying and selling on Amazon.

As always, Best Wishes!
-Mike

Disclaimer: Amazon Prime Terms and Conditions prohibit using any prime benefits for the purpose of resale.  So, if you want to employ any of the previous methods, you should have a non-prime account that you use to source with.  You can still get free shipping at $35 or you can do what I did and sign up for the Business Account for free and get free 2-day shipping on carts that are $49+.