I've went through a number of courses to find and launch an Amazon FBA business but haven't found a product to fit the bill. I've decided to instead go and hunt for an existing account to purchase (which saves the hassle of finding & testing a product + has all parts of the system worked out already). What should I be aware of as a newbie entering the space?

Thank you!

Hello! I've been researching buying an existing FBA business (one is supplements, the other is in office supplies) via Empire Flippers (or possibly flippa). Is it a viable purchase? Could one make a profit and grow the biz?

I combed through Reddit to find an answer before posting and consensus was that it's not worth it, it's better to start fresh (at least that was the case a few years back). What are your thoughts now? Could it be a good business to buy and grow? Or is it still better to start from scratch?

Good afternoon community, I’m looking to buy an FBA business that has already been up and running for several years. I have been looking at several on Flippa and empire. What are some of the questions you wish you would have asked before purchasing one? And what information you can give if any on purchasing something like this. This would be a purchase of approximately $50 to 75k. Thanks so much for any insight!

I've been an Amazon seller for about ten years and I'm looking to exit and sell my business now.

I haven't done badly from it - but my journey has changed somewhat over the years. For the first seven, I was doing wholesale and that was at times a real money spinner. But then I started to think about how I could create a sellable business and I created a gifting business with a good trademarked brand. This has not done badly and I'm hoping now to exit.

I'm questioning my approach and strategy though now around this. My thinking was to build a versatile gifting brand that could easily be transferrable to other gifting products. I think I've done that but now I'm wondering if there is really any value in this to a buyer? The account has a secure footing in the US and the UK. I thought this combined with a good versatile brand could mean that would have appeal to a Chinese company or something.

I have plenty of products with great reviews but I think the greatest challenge here is the fact that they are design based so can go out of fashion and also in general, the product category is declining in general sales across the population (although probably still growing on Amazon still). So, I guess I'm wondering here if the products in my business would have much appeal. It is well systemised though so doesn't take loads of time to run and restock.

So I guess my question is.. are FBA buyers really only interested in buying businesses where the products are absolutely at the core. Is there no value in selling accounts with a long history of selling on Amazon with a brand that could compliment or help build other product offerings?Have I overestimated the importance of this? When it comes to design and fashion based businesses.. isn't it a truth that many of the products that they sell have a short lifecycle. What are potential buyers thinking when looking to buy a business? I am thinking they realise that some products have a short life cycle and that they need to build on the range when they take over the business.

I’m a business buyer starting to consider e-commerce businesses as acquisition targets. It seems like every business listing I review has their product on Amazon.

I’ve heard horror stories about selling on Amazon — being knocked off by Chinese companies or Amazon. A booming business suddenly drops in the search rankings.

For context, I’m searching for a business with anywhere from $500k to $5m in top line revenue.

How worried should I be about Amazon making up the majority of a company’s revenue.

Hey I just wondered if someone here got a working FBA store and thought about selling it or maybe if someone here knows a site that sells fully working FBA stores sort of "exit" I mean if the store profit is 100 $ a month, I will buy it for 1500$ for example...

Thanks ahead!
Noam

I made this for someone and thought it would be nice on here

How to start an Amazon FBA business.

There are a lot of YouTube videos available online and courses that explain how to start up an Amazon business. These videos often say that you need a lot of money to start up a company, a lot of experience and a lot of luck. This is simply not true. I’m going to explain how I make around £100 profit per day through FBA as a 15 year old with a £50 investment.

How do you set up an FBA account? Go to sellercentral.amazon.com and select sign up. There are two different plans for Amazon. One is professional and one is individual. I would suggest starting off with individual, as it is free, but you must pay an additional £0.75 selling fee on top of the FBA fees when you sell a product, whereas with the other plan, you pay £25 a month and do not pay the 75p selling fee. Then, enter your information and they will ask for a bank statement and a form of identification such as a passport, to confirm that you are who you say you are and that the address is correct. If you intend to sell for commercial gain (I.e. profit) and not just to sell old stuff, you will need to add you UK UTR (Unique Tax Reference) which is available in Government Gateway/Self Assessment, for which you will need to upload a copy of a self assessment. Sometimes they will ask for a video verification also. Ensure that all of the information matches up, otherwise your account will be closed and you will be blacklisted.

How do you find a product? This is the hardest stage of creating a successful business. To find a product, go onto the general Amazon customer website/app. Then, if you have a product is mind, try and find that product on there, but if not, look around in a category that you may want to sell in. Now that you are here, take your time and have a scroll through. Look out for products that have sold a lot in the last month (e.g., it may say 1K+ sold in the last month [see image 1]). You could use Helium 10 or Jungle Scout for more accurate sales information, however, I did not as they are extremely expensive. Now that you have found this product, go to your Amazon Seller Central, and go to the Add a Product page. Copy and paste the ASIN from the listing into this page. It will take you to one of three routes. The first route and best route is that it will automatically let you sell this product. This is good, as you can instantly start, but there will be a lot of competition, possibly making it harder to sell and make a lot of money, due to competitive pricing. The second option is that you will have to ask for approval. This is where you have to submit an invoice, showing that you have purchased the exact same product within 180 days from the exact same supplier. (See image 2). From my experience, this is extremely hard to get approval for , but can pay off due to the limited competition. The third and most annoying route is that it will ask for a Transparency code. This is extremely annoying as no suppliers will like to give this unique product identifier code away, making it a completely monopolistic market. However, if you cannot find a product you would like to sell, you can create your own Amazon listing, however this is more risky as there are less reviews, for example. Now that you have found the product, head over to Alibaba.com and try to find the exact same product there. Once you have found it, I would suggest talking to the supplier to try and get a lower price, and then purchase a small quantity to test it out - remember that you must pay a 20% import tax if you are importing to the UK. Before purchasing, ensure that you can make a profit of around 100%. If you can’t find the product on there, look for a different product to sell on Amazon.

Once you have the product. When the product arrives, you have two choices. You can either go FBA or FBM. FBA is more common, where you shop the product to Amazon and they sell it as Prime Delivery and they provide customer service. Or there is FBM, where you dispatch the product when it sells. With FBM, you simply keep the stock and then buy postage when it sells, and keep updating the customer, although you are less likely to gain the buy box, and you must provide assistance. FBA is much better. Once you know your listing, go to seller central and select Replenish Inventory. Then, you select how many units you would like to send. Amazon will then get you to print some labels on 9 x 3 sticker paper. These need to be fixed to each unit, as it allows Amazon to track them. Once this has been done, you select how many boxes you will be shipping in (although I use the box that the units were shipped in from China) and the dimensions / weight of them. Then, you must purchase delivery. You should always use the Amazon partnered carrier, which in the UK is UPS as they cost just around £2.50 per box, no matter the size. Then, you print the labels, and drop it off at the drop off point, where it will be transferred to a Fulfillment Centre (FC). The package will generally be held until there are enough to fill up a truck to Amazon. Once at the FC, Amazon will open the package, and distribute the units to other FC’s around the country, to allow for Prime delivery. Once they have been received at each FC, they will be eligible for Prime Next-Day delivery.

Sales. Once a unit has been sold with FBA, Amazon will ship it and they will take a cut of the price.

The Buy Box When you go onto Amazon, the box that says buy now is called the buy box. On one particular listing, there may be 7 sellers, for example, and so competition for the box is very fierce, and if an FBA seller is available, they will always get it. However, if there are more than one seller, it depends on price, customer reviews etc. Therefore, there can be significant price conpetition, but there is no point in reducing your price too much, where you won’t make a profit.

Returns When a product is returned, a refund will be taken from your account level reserve (see below) and given to the buyer. When it is returned, you have the option for it to be returned back to you. From here, if the condition is ok, I always sell it again, but as FBM at a lower price, just to get rid of it, but still make a profit. Returns can sometimes be avoided, by talking to customers and offering partial refunds for example.

Money Once you sell an item, and it has been dispatched, Amazon will add the money (minus all of the costs such as per item selling fee, FBA fees and storage fees (which are negligible)) to your balance. This is generally held for a few days in the Account Level Rseserve, which is where money for refunds comes from. After a few days, the money will be released into the actual balance. Amazon then initiate a transfer of the money once every 7 days, whether it is positive or negative. Every seven days, only my a percentage of the total sales money will be given to you, to allow for refunds. Although it is every seven days, every day, a small amount will be made available to transfer, but it is best to wait for the 7 days, as otherwise it takes longer, as a transfer, whether it is for £0.01 or £1,000,000 can only be made once every 24 hours. Once the transfer has been initiated, it will take 3-5 working days to end up in your account.

Please remember that you should be paying tax on this, although I believe that from today (1st August 2024) Amazon automatically collect tax on sales to give to HMRC.

I hope this has helped you a lot, and I wish you all of the best, as I have spent 40 minutes writing this!

I would like to remind you that anything is possible with FBA, as I started with 15 units and £50, sold these, to give me £150, brought 45 units to bring in £450, and the cycle continues.

It is a great way to bring in a lot of money simply. I am calling it the Financial Revolution!!!

I wish you all the best, and hope to see you succeed.

Joe

I’m a new seller and learning this whole Fulfillment By Amazon business but I’m curious to know the profits of the members of this forum. I’d like to know the following:

1. How long have you been in the business ?

2. What’s your highest monthly profits (revenue - expenses) ?

3. highest profit in a year ?

4. What’s your advice For new sellers? If there was something you could change/improve on to achieve your level of success sooner, what would that be?

Appreciate the responses! Thanks guys.

Hey - We're looking to acquire an FBA business. My experience has mostly been shopify. Would love to know about any red flag/gotchas to look for pertaining to FBA. Some facts so far

• Age: 2.5 years, kitchen products

• PPC roas ~2.3, but improving

• Paid/Organic revenue distribution: 60/40

• Mostly evergreen sales, steady

• Average return rate 7%

• NCX rate, ~4%

Thanks in advance.

I run two businesses, one of which is an Amazon FBA business / brand that I’m looking to sell to focus on my other venture. The Amazon business I’m selling is a registered S-Corp, trademarked business, fully brand registered, insured, and approved on Amazon. It comes with a separate e-commerce website to expand beyond Amazon, and is also approved and up and running on Amazon in North America, Mexico, and Canada markets. I’ve got a supplier and consultant network with great relationships that I can share to get started on selling as well, and would be willing to give a crash course on finding the right product, PPC, shipping logistics, etc. I stopped selling my products but can provide all product assets if that’s wanted as well. So basically it’s a turnkey Amazon FBA store and full fledged brand to start selling new products immediately on Amazon (and on its own site as well).

Anyone interested? 🙂

The title pretty much says it all. I have a relatively small budget, and have heard differing opinions on whether its a good decision to enter amazon FBA with this little money. If not, would you recommend a different platform?

If you want to do it on your own then what are the things you should look out for when buying a FBA business? and are there any services available that helps you with this?

I see these clips on Instagram about the "hustlers" that do some form of arbitrage on amazon by jacking up the price on products found for a discount. I'm curious to find out from those that aren't pushing an agenda or trying to sell a course... do you actually make money?

These Instagram clips always cite their business revenue, excluding the relevant expenses and costs the business incurs... how can you value a business like that?

Are you planning to sell on Amazon FBA but unsure what to sell? The best products to sell are those that already have a demand. Whether you're selling your own products or reselling someone else's, I'll guide you on how to find good products to sell for yourself.

First, let me be blunt: this might not work for everyone. Everyone's success is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all plan. What works for one person might not work for another, so keep that in mind.

Don't choose a product just because you can source it cheaply, because you like it, or because you think it will sell well. The first product I tried to sell on Amazon was a complete failure because I didn't do any market research. I just saw one other product that seemed to be selling well and tried to sell the same thing. I thought, "If they are selling well, I can throw up my product, and it should sell well too, right?" Nope. I was wrong. Looking back, it's funny now, but at the time it wasn’t.

They had hundreds of reviews, a much better listing, and were already ranked. I had no idea how to set up my listing back then. I had three poor-quality iPhone pictures, horrible copywriting, and worst of all, I had no idea how to launch or rank my product. I just knew someone else was selling well.

Enough about my failed product. I say this to highlight how important it is to pick the right product, especially when you're first starting. So in general, you should approach your product research like this:

Learn From My Mistakes

Don’t choose a product just because you can source it cheaply, because you like it, or because you think it will sell well. The first product I tried to sell on Amazon was a complete failure because I didn't do any market research. I saw one product that seemed to be selling well and tried to sell the same thing. I thought, “If they are selling well, I can throw up my product and it should sell well too, right?” Nope. I was wrong.

They had hundreds of reviews, a much better listing, and were already ranked. I had no idea how to set up my listing back then. I had three poor-quality iPhone pictures, horrible copywriting, and worst of all, I had no idea how to launch or rank my product. I just knew someone else was selling well.

Enough about my failed product. I say this to highlight how important it is to pick the right product, especially when you're first starting. So here’s how you should approach your product research:

Find the Market

For your first product, look for ones that are easier to ship and manufacture so you can launch quicker. The main factors to consider are:

Small and lightweight

Non-seasonal

Non-fragile / non-electronic

Non-brand dominated

Price between $12 and $55

Already selling well (over 500 units per month)

Next, you want to find other potential, successful products that will lead you to the overall market. Here are two effective product research methods:

Free Method

Check out the New Release section of any sub-category. The idea is to find products that have just recently launched and are already selling well. Some good categories to start in are Home & Kitchen, Office Products, and Pet Supplies. Go into their sub-categories to find oddball products that are doing well. For example, Home & Kitchen > Kitchen & Dining > Tabletop > Tabletop Accessories > Kitchen & Table Linens > Tablecloths. You can use the free AMZ Scout Chrome extension to estimate how many units are being sold each month.

Paid Method

Use the Jungle Scout Web App ($40 a month). The product database lets you search through Amazon with the criteria we went over and only pulls back products that fit.

Analyze Market Trends

Research the current trends and popular products in your target market. Look for gaps and opportunities where there is a demand for new products. It's important to start doing this for just one market, ideally your country’s market.

Use Product/Keyword Research Tools

Use these tools to identify potential product ideas. They can help you identify popular search terms and phrases related to your target market. Use Amazon’s search engine autocomplete, which will show you the daily trends for that Marketplace. Start typing (for example, "car Christmas decoration") and get ideas.

Think Outside the Box

Don’t just rely on scraping Alibaba for the next big product. Millions of people are doing the same. Even Alibaba’s manufacturers are directly selling those products on Amazon. Think outside the box: attend trade shows and local markets related to your target market. This can be a great way to learn about new products and trends and to connect with potential suppliers and manufacturers. Plus, it’s not as easy for your competitors to attend a trade show.

Network and Connect with Other Sellers

This is an absolute must and a game-changer. Join Facebook groups, Discord servers, and follow relevant Twitter accounts. Meeting face-to-face and networking with other sellers on Amazon will give you new ideas, and you'll share the ups and downs of selling on Amazon. Don’t expect other sellers to show you their secret formula. They won’t give you an idea for their next great product, but exchanging ideas with someone in your same position is really helpful.

Avoid Amazon Gurus' Courses

Nobody who is going to make you a millionaire or make you drop your 9-to-5 life will give you the keys to it for $3,000 or $30,000.

Tools for Amazon Product Research

There are several tools that can help with the research process. Some popular options include:

Jungle Scout: A product research tool that helps you identify potential products to sell on Amazon based on data and analytics. The product database includes over 500 million products.

Helium 10: A suite of tools that includes a keyword research tool, product tracker, and other features that can help you research and find profitable products to sell on Amazon. The product database includes over 400 million products.

Viral Launch: A product research and launch platform that offers tools and services to help you find and launch successful products on Amazon. The product database includes over 250 million products.

AMZ Scout: A product research and tracking tool that provides data and insights to help you find the best products to sell on Amazon. The product database includes over 20 million products.

Now that you generally know how to find good product ideas, don't get overwhelmed with the entire process of selling on Amazon. No need to stress about ranking, launching, PPC, sourcing, or anything other than finding the right product to sell. Once you have a good product to sell, figuring out all that stuff becomes so much easier since you know specifically what to sell. You'll start to see how things work and what products sell well once you've been doing product research for a little bit.

Remember, success on Amazon varies for everyone, and there's no guarantee this will work for you. However, by following these guidelines, you'll have a much better chance of finding a product that can succeed in the marketplace.