An Amazon Arbitrage Journey

Not much of an update on progress here. Working on the 4th shipment now. Going to be 2 boxes with about 46 items in it. The cost of goods for this shipment is around $100 with a total potential profit of $340. Most of the profit is from one item though. Found an old personal organizer, new in original packaging for $6 at a Goodwill that is selling for ~$200 on Amazon. Without that item though, it's still some nice profits on this shipment. 24 of the items were a back to school item that was on clearance for just $0.25, the rank isn't too good, but I will get around $2 return on each of these items sold.

I am also starting to look beyond just selling on Amazon and have posted my first Ebay listing the other day for a Monopoly game that is restricted to sell through Amazon. Not expecting much here, but starting to get the ball rolling with using Ebay as a 2nd option for reselling products that I can't sell though Amazon.

Keep it up man, you will see success. Good going starting something on eBay. It really opens up a lot of doors for things you can't sell on Amazon like used items for example which is perfect since your doing Goodwill. I took it from a couple hundred a month on eBay to around $20k my first year up to $50k in sales by my third. All at about 80% proffit at that. If you enjoy doing it you can make some great money. Keep us updated. I will try and share some of what I learned from my experiences if it helps.

I'm for sure going to keep working on getting Ebay going. Still only have the 1 product listed and am waiting to get a sale or two and start getting feedback. Although I really need to do some more work on my Ebay profile to build trust.

Had a good day on Amazon though. Sold 12 items for about $140 in sales. Doesn't sound like a lot but I only have ~220 items in my inventory. If I could sell 5% of my inventory everyday it would be amazing!

Sunday I will get paid ~$150 from Amazon, which is going to go straight into buying more inventory to send to Amazon. Really want to get a bit of a snowball effect going, and keep getting more and more cash. Would like to take a week long thrift store road trip toward the end of the year if I can get some good profits over the next month or two.

Great thread, thanks for sharing! How do you plan on scaling your business? I would think it's time-consuming to go from store to store. What other ways do you plan to buy merchandise? Would it not be easier to buy in volume from Asia then send it to Amazon?

I guess Ill have to follow this to understand. Good Luck

I am glad that you are now making some money using amazon. These are just some of the hidden opportunities of making money without much struggle with the emergence of the internet. Just focus now on the task and for sure you will see the results that it will have to bring to you. Also you ca decide to specialize in one product and be the best in it.

Yeah after a while you find one or two niches that bring the majority of your income and just focus on those. One major thing I learned is not to sell items (on eBay at least) that target a younger audience (video games, sports memorabilia/cards etc. More complaints (partial refund scams), negative feedbacks and returns from kids. I found that the older my customer and the more they paid the happier they were, so I focused on products for them. In general I found that the more someone paid for an item the happier they were. Seems odd, but sometimes if an item Sat for a while I would raise the price and then it would sell. Seems counterintuitive but it works. Anyway just some more thoughts. Good luck with it.

Just to give you some eBay motivation I will share my last 24 hours sales with you to give you an idea of the types of stuff I sell, where I find it and proffit margins.

1960's chess set - paid $3 Goodwill - sold $49.95

Fancy coffee filter - paid $1 Goodwill - sold $25.95

Lecreusit frying pan - paid $7 Goodwill - sold 69.94

Old Turquoise necklace - paid $6 church thrift - sold $104.95

Total spent - $17
Total proffit - $232.79

I listed all this along with some other items yesterday and thats what has sold so far. The best part is with eBay no wait for the cash. With PayPal debit you can withdraw the cash immediately ( as long as your account doesn't have the 21 day hold still). It's great for me cause it's a nice earning hobby on the side. I can make a couple $$$$ every month just stopping into these thrift stores while I'm out running errands. It's a no brainier.

That's some nice finds Alchmizt!

I haven't really focused too much on one or two products, just looking for anything that I can sell for a profit on Amazon. Still waiting to get my first couple sales on Ebay to start getting feedback and look more trustworthy. My focus will remain mostly on Amazon FBA, putting a label on an item and sticking it in a box is really hassle free!

I haven't really done to much sourcing this week after sending the shipment in on Tuesday. I have a few items but nothing special. I am purposely waiting to get another shipment ready until after I get paid this week.

Zartan said:

Great thread, thanks for sharing! How do you plan on scaling your business? I would think it's time-consuming to go from store to store. What other ways do you plan to buy merchandise? Would it not be easier to buy in volume from Asia then send it to Amazon?

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It will be hard to scale the business in the future, but there is still a lot of room to grow before that decision will need to be made!

It is time consuming going store to store. But, most of the time you can find a few items to make it actually worth the time. It would be easier to source some items from Asia or another manufacturer and I will probably look into that in the future.

My immediate goal however, is to turn this into a way to travel around America and to make some money and have fun! I have been watching a lot of videos from a couple guys that have some vlogs up with them just going to thrift stores and pawn shops and it's something that I think would be very enjoyable (and profitable). Specifically Resale Rabbit and Raikin Profit are 2 of the best guys and have some great content related to retail arbitrage and thrifting.

UptonGoodwin said:

That's some nice finds Alchmizt!

My immediate goal however, is to turn this into a way to travel around America and to make some money and have fun! I have been watching a lot of videos from a couple guys that have some vlogs up with them just going to thrift stores and pawn shops and it's something that I think would be very enjoyable (and profitable). Specifically Resale Rabbit and Raikin Profit are 2 of the best guys and have some great content related to retail arbitrage and thrifting.

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Excellent! As long as you're having fun, that's all that really matter. Thanks for mentioning the videos that inspired you, there's some great tips in them!

Any updates? How is it going? Have you ever got troubles reselling items? I plan to start online arbitrage reselling items on amazon but I am afraid about legal side of the thing

Following ! you are doing great OP