online arbitrage amazon fba

Is Online Arbitrage Still Viable on Amazon Given Buy Box Removal for High Pricing?

reddit.com › r › FulfillmentByAmazon › comments › 18xm3ym › is_online_arbitrage_still_viable_on_amazon_given

I'm going to differ from others. Online arbitrage is still possible on Amazon and elsewhere, if the cost of inventory is low enough. I do 100% online arbitrage (no dropshipping of any kind). My sales are 55/25/15/5 FBA/Walmart/FBM/eBay. I mostly source from Amazon, sometimes Walmart or other retailers, and rarely from the manufacturer itself (but some of my best-selling products come from the manufacturer). I mostly sell my products at $50-200. My rule of thumb is to buy inventory for 50% or less of what I expect to sell it for, so that means paying $\text{[math]}$ 100. Obviously the lower the better. If I have confidence in selling an item for more than $200 I'll go above 50%. I did $300K (+25% yoy) in revenue in 2023, and ~$85K (+39% yoy) pretax profit. I prefer to focus on return on investment. That $85K came from $149K in inventory; that is, I spent $149K for the inventory that I sold in 2023, I got that $149K back, and earned $85K in addition, so a ROI of >55%. I agree with u/CoyotePuncher about this strategy not being viable for "upper level" annual sales (let's say seven figures). I'd love to prove him (and me) wrong, though! CC: u/catjuggler , u/mttl Answer from TMWNN on reddit.com

reddit.com › r/fulfillmentbyamazon › is online arbitrage still viable on amazon given buy box removal for high pricing?

r/FulfillmentByAmazon on Reddit: Is Online Arbitrage Still Viable on Amazon Given Buy Box Removal for High Pricing?

January 3, 2024 -

As someone who’s been selling through online arbitrage on Amazon for about 2 years now, I’m facing a dilemma and would appreciate your insights. Lately, Amazon seems to be actively removing the buy box for sellers if the item’s price is significantly higher than on other websites. This strategy of Amazon complicates our ability to forecast profitability.

The main issue here is the lack of clarity from Amazon regarding the maximum price threshold before they decide to remove the buy box. This uncertainty makes each purchase a risk, potentially leading to razor-thin margins, breaking even, or even losses. I’ve purchased products before that seemed promising only to have Amazon remove the buy box until I brought it down to a price that led to a loss.

Given these circumstances, I’m questioning the feasibility of continuing with OA on Amazon. How are you all managing this situation? Do you still find OA on Amazon to be a viable strategy?

Eager to hear your thoughts and experiences.

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I'm going to differ from others. Online arbitrage is still possible on Amazon and elsewhere, if the cost of inventory is low enough. I do 100% online arbitrage (no dropshipping of any kind). My sales are 55/25/15/5 FBA/Walmart/FBM/eBay. I mostly source from Amazon, sometimes Walmart or other retailers, and rarely from the manufacturer itself (but some of my best-selling products come from the manufacturer). I mostly sell my products at $50-200. My rule of thumb is to buy inventory for 50% or less of what I expect to sell it for, so that means paying $25-$100. Obviously the lower the better. If I have confidence in selling an item for more than $200 I'll go above 50%. I did $300K (+25% yoy) in revenue in 2023, and ~$85K (+39% yoy) pretax profit. I prefer to focus on return on investment. That $85K came from $149K in inventory; that is, I spent $149K for the inventory that I sold in 2023, I got that $149K back, and earned $85K in addition, so a ROI of >55%. I agree with u/CoyotePuncher about this strategy not being viable for "upper level" annual sales (let's say seven figures). I'd love to prove him (and me) wrong, though! CC: u/catjuggler , u/mttl

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A big part of OA is finding stuff that’s discontinued, rare, or hard to find. For example, a limited run flavor of Coke. In those cases, buy box isn’t necessary, people will buy it anyway. If you aren’t able to sell something unless you have buy box, it just wasn’t a good product with enough demand or constricted enough supply. Dropshippers are the biggest threat. They can instantly list on Amazon the entire catalog of Walmart.com at razor thin margins, leaving zero opportunity for regular old OA. Is OA viable? Only if you’re creative. Create multipacks and bundles, create your own Amazon listings, run ads, predict supply shortages and demand increases. Competitors and dropshippers aren’t doing any of that. They’re doing things in a “lazy” way and refusing to do anything outside the box.

Arbitrage Hero

arbitragehero.com › home › how to start online amazon fba arbitrage: a step-by-step guide for maximizing profits

Start Amazon FBA Arbitrage - Step-by-Step Guide to Profits

March 25, 2025 - Low Risk: As an Amazon FBA seller, you are not responsible for the shipping or handling of products. Amazon takes care of all of these tasks, which means that you are not exposed to the same level of risk as a traditional retailer. High Profit Margins: With online Amazon arbitrage, you can often achieve high profit margins by buying products at a low price and then selling them at a higher price.

Discussions

To those who sell on Amazon FBA via online/retail arbitrage or wholesale please answer the below questions.

Around $25k Almost 5 years Monthly net profit is between $40k-60k (~20% of monthly sales) The first few months or so, however we made huge mistakes by overpurchasing on slower skus early on which tied our capital. About a third of our warehouse space is storing these items still today unfortunately... No, this is my full-time job as well as my employees. I never worked a full-time job and did Amazon simultaneously, so I couldn't tell you. Everything we purchase we first send to our warehouse as we purchase 300+ skus on a weekly basis, ranging from asins that have a couple sales a month to thousands of sales a month. Our operations, 3000+ sku catalog, and extremely lean operations would not be sustainable for someone else to do. I also strongly believe in keeping absoultey eveyrthing in-house in regards to inventory management, fba prep, etc. Additionally, keeping prep in-house for items which are $15 or less is they only way to be competitive on pricing. (this is a long discussion, but you can find my details answer in other threads). Since we send out over 8000 units a week, we would be spending $50k+ on prep every month. First of all, OA/RA will not be relevant in the next year or so. Amazon wants legitamate businesses who work with authorized distributors and manufacturers, not some guy flipping a pair of shoes he found at Marshalls. That is for eBay, etsy, etc. There are thousands of things, however, these tips would have been useless most likely as I was not experienced in the industry long enough to deeply understand their practicality. You need "time in the trenches" to deeply understand most wise tips. However, a couple tips like not going too deep in inventory in the beginning would have probably helped. More on reddit.com

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Is Online Arbitrage Still Viable on Amazon Given Buy Box Removal for High Pricing?

Join Our Discord Server! We created a Discord server for our community and would like to invite all of you to join! You'll be able to discuss FBA with users around the world and discuss events in real time! There are separate channels for many FBA topics which you can opt in and out of, including; PPC, Listing Optimization, Logistics, Jobs, Advanced FBA, Top Secret/Insider Info, Off-Topic I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. More on reddit.com

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