With the integration of the internet and technology into our daily lives, online shopping has become a norm for most people in the world. According to recent statistics, online retail sales accounted for more than 5.2 trillion US dollars globally. Taking this into consideration, more and more aspiring entrepreneurs are jumping into online retailing, particularly on Amazon. 

However, there are a lot of factors involved when it comes to building an online business from the ground up. When it comes to Amazon retailing, one of the most important questions revolves around the products to buy, outsource, and sell. To help you with this, here is a brief introduction to Amazon as an ecommerce platform as well as a guide on how to choose and outsource products for your Amazon store. 

 

Benefits Of Selling On Amazon

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Large and diverse market reach

Amazon is the largest ecommerce platform in the world. The latest reports put the average monthly website visitors of Amazon in the U.S. at a whopping 2.45 billion.  Thus, starting a business and selling on this platform provides you access to billions of people in the search for Amazon products. 

 

Massive demand

Amazon accounts for the majority of the global online retail sales in the world. With millions of monthly website visitors, there is no doubt that the demand for Amazon products and its services is at an all-time high. Selling on Amazon, therefore, puts you in a position where thousands of customers are looking for a product to buy with a high likelihood of completing the transaction. 

 

Trusted platform

Another advantage of selling on Amazon is that the platform has established itself as a trusted and reliable website for online retail and online shopping. This provides sellers with an easier way to gain customers’ trust even with little to no reviews at the beginning. 

 

Factors To Consider When Choosing Products To Sell On Amazon

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When it comes to choosing products to sell on Amazon, certain factors can help you determine which items can provide the best return on your investment. As a business owner and entrepreneur, you need to understand that not all products sell. And one of the biggest mistakes that an Amazon seller can do is buying products in bulk without learning about factors that can influence its profitability. To give you a better idea, here are some of the crucial factors to consider when choosing products to buy and sell on Amazon. 

 

Demand

Demand is one of the most important factors when it comes to entrepreneurship. To ensure that you gain revenue and earn back your investment, there must be enough demand in the market for your products to sell and for you to sell them at a worthwhile price.

 

Competition

Product and brand competition can make or break your Amazon business. When you’re planning to sell a particular product, look if there are already too many competitors selling the same item. See if they can sell their items at a profit or if the demand is too much for the current market supply. 

 

Shipping Costs

One of the factors that some business owners fail to take into account when it comes to the overall cost of investment is product shipping. Some items require a significant amount in shipping costs to procure which directly affects their profitability. If the product you are outsourcing comes from across the globe and shipping costs are equal to or more than the price of the item itself, you may want to reconsider and look for a different supplier or a whole new product.

 

Effective Ways To Outsource Products To Sell On Amazon

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Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is arguably one of the most popular Amazon business models nowadays. For entrepreneurs who don’t want to deal with inventory management themselves, drop shipping is a product outsourcing method where the supplier or retailer sends the products to the customers directly after purchasing from your Amazon business. This strategy allows Amazon sellers to sell products despite not having the inventory on hand. Drop shipping utilizes a third-party supplier which processes the orders themselves while customers transact directly from your Amazon store. 

 

Wholesale

Sellers who opt to outsource their products wholesale generally buy large volumes of products directly from the manufacturer or supplier to sell them on Amazon. This method typically involves items with an already significant demand which opens opportunities for large profit margins. 

However, it is important for anyone buying products wholesale to go through the necessary channels to approve and legitimize the reselling of a specific product or brand. Otherwise, there is a risk of copyright infringement which can even lead to suspension for the Amazon platform. 

 

Private or White Label

Private or White labeling is a form of outsourcing strategy that involves buying generic products directly from the manufacturer and then adding your own labels or customizations to sell them on Amazon as your brand. This method can also involve wholesale outsourcing to get the necessary materials for your white-label products at a discounted price. 

 

Retail Arbitrage

Retail arbitrage is one of the newest forms of outsourcing discounted products to sell on Amazon. Sellers who follow this framework search for quality products on clearance aisles (50% to 75% off) in large shopping centers such as Target, Walmart, Walgreen, CVS, and the like and resells them on Amazon. 

It is a relatively time-consuming and labor-intensive process since sellers search for items themselves. Aside from that, finding a good product at a significant discount is not ensured. Retail arbitrage is much like a chance-upon strategy but one advantage of it is that it doesn’t require a large upfront investment.

 

Online Arbitrage

Online arbitrage follows roughly the same tactic as retail arbitrage. But instead of scouring retail stores like Target and Walmart, sellers using this product sourcing method browse through ecommerce websites and other online stores for heavily discounted items to resell them on Amazon for profit. Some sellers also utilize digital store vouchers and cash-back services to increase their revenue from their purchases online.

 

Helpful Tips For When Selling On Amazon

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Test your products

If you want to establish yourself as a trusted and reliable Amazon seller, it is important for you to quality assure every product that you are going to sell. Before you begin outsourcing bulk product orders from manufacturers or suppliers, make sure that you can test the product yourself to see the product’s actual performance and quality. Otherwise, you would be dealing with unsatisfied customers and a bunch of low-quality products in your warehouse that you can’t get rid of. 

 

Consider hiring a virtual assistant

Running a small Amazon business can be manageable at the beginning. However, as your business grows and doubles in size and operations, it might be necessary for you to hire extra pair of hands to deal with certain processes. Hire virtual assistants with backgrounds in the Amazon business. 

You can employ them full time but there is also the option of hiring a freelancer. Generally, Amazon VAs can handle a wide range of responsibilities such as standard administrative tasks, customer service, web design, data entry, and the like. However, you can also delegate technical tasks such as product listing and inventory management. 

 

Want to know more about how virtual assistants can help your business? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.