Bitcoin and Amazon??
I will admit that this isn’t going to be your normal blog post or even on the radar of 99% the people.
That is ok because we all know that FBA is crowded and the competition is fierce. It is good to be on the fringe of techniques that others don’t know or understand.
Let get on the same page before we get started.
Bitcoin. Heard of it? Maybe?
Well it is a real thing.
Lots of people use Bitcoin even if you don’t know it or don’t trust it.
Amazon.
Besides where us FBA people sale our wares, it is one of the biggest retailer/source of products. ( ie, AZ to AZ flips)
Ok you are saying but where are you going with this?
Well I am glad you asked.
Why Use Bitcoin For Sourcing From Amazon
The simplest answer is the you can buy products on Amazon cheaper with Bitcoin, but there is more to it.
There are people that want Bitcoin and those people have Amazon gift cards that they will sort of exchange for Bitcoin. ( actually they purchase products from Amazon and exchange those for Bitcoin)
It is possible to get a 15%-20% discount off of Amazon products by doing this.
For those that buy discounted gift card, you know that you can never get Amazon gift cards at that kind of discount.
Some of you just called BS on that.
You are saying that there is no way that people are taking 20% less just to exchange Amazon gift cards for Bitcoin.
Well it is true but I don’t claim to know the reasons why.
First, many people want to not leave a paper trail on acquiring Bitcoin for different reasons.
Second, when converting gift cards into cash, you lose a percentage of the value because their are other people taking a cut.
Third, many people don’t have any money invested into the Amazon gift cards ( ie a gift or * other)
Actually this is a good example of the Textbook Arbitrage extension. When you trade in textbooks, you receive Amazon gift cards. You might not want these and want to convert them to Bitcoin to be spent somewhere else ( Maybe you want to pay a Fiverr guy to make you some tee shirt designs. Fiverr takes Bitcoin )
Here is a great post about this
Textbook Arbitrage Demystified – The Basics You Need To Understand
How To Exchange Bitcoin For Discounted Amazon Products
There is actually a website set up to exchange Bitcoin for Amazon products. It is called Purse.
Here is a short video explaining it.
In the simplest terms, you set up a wishlist of products you want to buy ( source) from Amazon and you get to set the discount percentage you want to receive ( no guarantee that you will get it but the average is 20% off)
Then you submit this wish list to Purse and pay with Bitcoin. Then people buy the products and have Amazon ship them to you.
Purse acts as a middleman to make sure it all goes good.
https://purse.io/?_r=9sCobh
Here is a much more detailed video on how it works
Basically this is almost like buying discounted gift cards that many people already do for RA and OA.
Not trying to suggest people bend rules but here are a few hacks/facts.
First, this is an easy way to get around Amazon buying limits. For example, say Amazon comes back in stock with the Speak Out game and set a maximum of 2 games per person limit on them. Well you are not buying these, other people are, so you could get 20 people to buy these via Purse and get 40 units of these.
Not to scam more, but the people on Purse may actually be buying via Prime and you may get them super fast. Once again, not trying to bend rules but it is going to happen.
Ever see products that Amazon sells dirt cheap via Pantry and there is another listing for it that has a good sales rank? It is against the rules to buy from Pantry and to send it back in to sell on the other listing. But what if you aren’t the person that bought it? ( I know, really coming close to the dark side) You could actually put a Pantry item on your wishlist.
While the above ideas may not be an area where you want to go, here are a few “less scammy” ideas.
You could look for multipack of products that you could break down into singles and the extra 20% discount would make they way more profitable.
Also when there are digital coupon code on Amazon, people might be way more willing to buy the product since they can get it at a discount. The same could be true on any products that Amazon has put on sale.
Setting Bitcoin And Purse Up
Here is a great video on how to set up Coinbase ( I had a choice, this guy or a 11 year old to teach this)
Go to Coinbase to sign up
https://www.coinbase.com/join/58074e47c04ee0620fb12d7f
Getting Bitcoin Without Buying Bitcoins
As shown in the video for Coinbase, you can exchange your dollars for Bitcoins ( there are small fees involved) but there are other ways to get Bitcoins.
I used the example earlier of the textbook arbitrage but that gets you Amazon gift cards which you them have to exchange for Bitcoins and you will lose a little along the way due to other taking discounts, fees, etc
There are more ways to Bitcoin than trading gift cards. You can sell stuff to get Bitcoins.
On the Purse site, there is an option to sell products and get paid in Bitcoin. ( Think of Amazon returns or restricted products)
There is also another popular site called OpenBazaar where you can sell products without any fees and get paid in Bitcoins.
This would be the perfect place to sell all your AZ returns and restricted items.
You can also accept Bitcoin in your Esty store.
Once again you could sell similar items that you would on eBay on Esty and get paid in Bitcoin.
The big point here is that people can’t spend Bitcoins everywhere that they want to shop so their choices are limited to exchange digital money into physical products, which becomes your selling niche. This means that you have very little competition and can control your prices.
The Secret Sauce Of Bitcoin
First before I go any farther, if you don’t understand Bitcoin and want to know everything possible about it ( like a did) here is the book I read on it
https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Befuddled-Conrad-Barski/dp/1593275730
This is a long read and has way more info that you really need.
Onward
Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins which will all be in the marketplace by 2040. So Bitcoin has a limited supply and it is traded just like other currencies.
What this means is that the value of it changes constantly. In general it is going up, which mean if you sell your Amazon return for $50 worth of Bitcoin, it might have $55 worth of buying power 2 weeks later. ( this is why some people will trade their AZ gift cards for 20% less)
While I personally wouldn’t put my nest egg into Bitcoin, there are good reason to have some money in it and your buying power might increase ( it could go down too) .
Conclusion
Bitcoin is going to be scary to most people but it is actually very safe. These is really not different than buying discounted gift cards and it is just basically AZ to AZ flips. I can almost guarantee your competition is not doing this and most won’t even after reading this.
Jason Wilkey is a full time FBA seller, a FBA Master admin and has an FBA website at www.arbitrage411,com
Really interesting write-up. Lots of potential there. Don’t mean to be a downer but I would be careful, if someone has a Prime account and ships it to your house or business and you resell on Amazon. A lot of us don’t use a Prime account to source since it’s against policy to resell Prime received items. Amazon could easily check if something you are selling was shipped to your place via Prime whether or not it was purchased by you. Just something to consider.