With numerous sellers jumping onboard to sell products online, the Amazon marketplace has become more competitive. Many who are serious about making money through online sales are turning to sell wholesale products on online marketplaces like Amazon.
First, however, you need to know how to find the right wholesale supplier for your Amazon business.
Knowing how to use helpful software like Tactical Arbitrage to find a reliable Amazon supplier is the starting point.
Why You Need To Find the Best Amazon Suppliers
Let’s clarify a bit about terminology. The terms wholesaler, wholesale supplier, & Amazon supplier are often used to describe a manufacturer or distributor for the products. In a nutshell, all the terms mean the same thing – they sell products to you, the retailer, and not the end consumers.
Wholesale sellers used to successfully sell by sourcing products and flipping it for a profit. But, if you don’t stay on top of the changing online marketplace and know where to look for products, you could waste time and money.
Wholesale suppliers allow Amazon third-party sellers to buy in bulk and sell at a low cost without a huge overhead cost. Getting products from the manufacturer directly will give you some bulk discounts. By doing so, you provide more competitive prices in your store.
Wholesalers are also likely to be open to product price negotiation making your cost even lower and your profit margin even higher from the best suppliers.
Working with wholesalers is fairly straightforward. Finding a few reliable suppliers allows you to buy many different types of products and amounts of products from a trusted source.
The bottom line rule of making a profit selling on Amazon is to source products that customers want at prices that allow for a large profit margin for you. Buying products from a supplier in bulk and then selling them at retail prices is your best-case scenario.
First, you need to find great suppliers who want their products on the largest online marketplace and whom Amazon allows.
Of course, there is no simple list or all inclusive wholesale directories to make this process easy, but Tactical Arbitrage & some simple Google search can help with the process of finding some Amazon FBA wholesale suppliers.
Amazon Standards
The large online marketplace has high-level Amazon Policies and Standards. Amazon requires that all selling partners abide by their strict supply chain quality standards which is easy to comply following a solid wholesale business model.
While you want a high ROI, you don’t want cheap products that will end with poor customer service reviews. You also won’t want to support substandard working conditions in less-than-desirable factories where some products are manufactured.
To maintain quality standards, Amazon sets the bar high and requires that all products meet safety standards and be produced in a healthy and inclusive work environment.
Advantages of Sourcing Products Through Wholesalers
Some advantages to using wholesalers to sell on Amazon include:
- You are able to back order popular products that are out of stock
- Offer credit which helps with cash flow
- Finding a local supplier will help with shipping costs
- Special promotions that wholesalers run are quite often better than retail specials
- Open gated products or restricted categories by using authorized wholesaler invoices
- Enjoy more protection from Copyright or Intellectual Property policy warnings or infringement claims
What To Look For In An Amazon Wholesale Supplier
Many sellers start by targeting a specific category of products on Amazon. They then look for popular brands that represent the category best.
If you sell in the electronics category, for instance, search specifically for a top-selling brand that isn’t gated or restricted.
Quality Product
Find suppliers who offer products that rank well in the main category and sell for at least $20.
Make sure at least ten sellers are offering the item and that neither Amazon nor the manufacturer is listed as the seller. Look to make sure the item has at least ten reviews and that it sells at least 300 units per month.
Now, look for wholesalers who sell these brands.
How to Find Amazon Wholesale Suppliers
To find Amazon wholesale suppliers, you will first need to identify what the marketplace considers to be acceptable for Amazon sellers. Start by writing down a list of brands you are interested in selling.
Each brand you’ve chosen should have a list of their authorized wholesalers and distributors posted on their website. If you cannot locate their list, don’t be afraid to directly make contact with suppliers.
Some sellers choose to visit trade shows where they can deal face-to-face with the wholesalers. Often, the wholesaler is willing to negotiate lower prices in a trade show setting.
Others find suppliers through internet searches, subscribing to online magazines that target wholesalers, or using a wholesale directory.
Many start by looking on social media sites for specific industry manufacturers, suppliers, or wholesalers, or online B2B wholesale sites.
Tips For Searching Online
When searching online for a reputable wholesaler, use some Google secrets to get better search results. For instance, use quotation marks around specific search words such as:
- wholesale “inventory” “[location]” “xls”
- Use a minus sign before keywords to find specific categories such as wholesale “inventory” “xls” -electronics, or use an asterisk to find a term randomly such as: wholesale “inventory” “csv” electronics*
Get Professional
A legitimate wholesaler is going to require that you are a registered company before they will sell in bulk to you. Keep in mind that the more professional and legitimate you look, the more suppliers and Amazon will take you seriously.
You will also need to go through an application process. So, make sure you have established a Limited company or have an LLC in place as well as a domain name and a professional website set up with an email address that reflects your company’s name.
Don’t worry about going overboard with all the bells and whistles or a full-on eCommerce site. Just keep the site simple yet professional.
It doesn’t hurt to establish other social media accounts using your business name, such as on LinkedIn. The larger your online presence, the more impressive you will look to a wholesaler.
A Difficult Process Ultimately Means Less Competition
If the supplier seems to be overly strict and requires extra work from you, look at this as a good sign. Some suppliers are going to require that you place an initial order before you can open your account with them.
The more hoops you are required to jump through will mean your competitors will find it more difficult to sell competing products.
15 Tips For Reaching Out & Negotiating With Wholesale Suppliers
Before you start looking for a wholesaler, make sure you have an Amazon wholesale account set up along with your sales tax ID number or Employer Identification Number EIN, shipping account number, and a resale certificate or business license.
Before you start negotiations, do your own homework and background check on the wholesaler. Before reaching out to them, research them to find out if you are a good fit for selling their products.
After all, they are potentially about to become your business partner.
Look for some good characteristics of a wholesaler such as:
- The wholesaler is willing to admit mistakes and be responsible through problem-solving techniques
- Produces quality merchandise
- Keeps the lines of communication open at all times
- Welcomes inspections by a third party
- Follows rules and regulations and conducts business in an ethical manner
Once you know which wholesalers you want to try to work with, follow these 15 helpful negotiation tips:
- Treat the initial contact as if it is a job interview and as if you are considering a business partnership.
- Ask for the representative for the brand or product line. Their title may be brand representative, brand manager, territory representative, or simply a sales rep.
- Whenever possible, always ask to meet in person. If this is not possible, make sure you are able to get them on the phone so you can have a two-way conversation. As a last choice, use email.
- Ask questions that reflect you have experience with Amazon FBA wholesale selling even if this is your first attempt to connect with a wholesaler.
- Communicate that you are running an authentic Amazon wholesale business, and you know the trade well.
- Make it clear that you are ready to pay at any time and able to always pay on time.
- Communicate with the representative that you are looking for a long-term partnership.
- Listen to the answers you receive, and use them to explain how you can solve a problem they may be experiencing.
- Let them know how your business will help them increase their sales.
- Never negotiate prices at the beginning of the sourcing process.
- Remain professional, caring, and friendly with your sales representative throughout the conversation and any future communications.
- Project high, and then buy low.
- After the initial contact, make sure you have up-to-date contact details. Always follow up in about a week.
- Keep in mind that at first, you will probably receive several rejections. Don’t let this discourage you. Instead, learn something from each rejection to improve your approach. Ask them for a reason you were rejected. Depending on their answer, move on or try again with a new approach with the same wholesaler.
- Remember to diversify. Just because you start selling wholesale does not mean you should give up your retail sourcing. Always keep both options open.
Using Tactical Arbitrage To Help You Pick Wholesale Winners
While many may think sourcing software is only used for retail arbitrage, it actually does a lot more than finding low-cost products from brick-and-mortar retailers for you to resell. Thankfully, Tactical Arbitrage software is also designed to help you pick wholesale winners.
Work Backwards
Use Tactical Arbitrage software to locate a product, brand, company, business, or a reputable supplier that does well on Amazon. From there, you work backwards to discover where the item is being sourced.
Among other sourcing features, the software allows you to:
- Run multiple scans at the same time
- Save data with the simple press of a button
- Provide you with advanced image matching.
Reverse Search Results For More Sources
Watch this Reverse Sourcing how-to video for more details. This feature is a way to find profitable items and buy them at wholesale prices to sell on Amazon.
Reverse sourcing works backward by finding quality products. Once you locate a potential wholesale product, now it’s time to begin the process of finding the authorized distributor or manufacturer.
Tactical Arbitrage has a dedicated use for wholesale.
The process for getting your list of products from the supplier and using Tactical Arbitrage to sort this data and products to find those that do well on Amazon includes a few easy-to-follow steps:
Get Started with Tactical Arbitrage
Start with the wholesale search feature.
You can connect Tactical Arbitrage with your Merchant Web Services MWS, otherwise known as Amazon Seller Central.
You can add a plugin to grab Amazon’s ASINs, or you can also upload your own stock and pricing spreadsheets and let Tactical Arbitrage quickly and efficiently analyze the data.
Quickly upload your files into the software program and let Tactical Arbitrage select profitable products to sell on Amazon and can use this data to find the most profitable juicy products.
Using Your Data
If you use your own spreadsheet data, include in the first three columns the following:
- Title
- UPC
- ASIN
The main thing to remember is that you must include a price (cost of item) column. This way Tactical Arbitrage can calculate your profits. An image and notes are also helpful.
Using Reverse Search
Inside Tactical Arbitrage, choose the Sourcing From and Selling On, and choose UPC sites and products only which is important if you have the rapid scan on or doing a reverse search.
- Click upload new – choose file – upload
- You can start from a particular row which is helpful, for instance, if you ran the first hundred products and then wanted to come back and keep it going.
- Select Source or Create New must be included. Add in the company’s name that you are running a wholesale search for.
- Enable Rapid Search to go through sheets rapidly up to 18,000 ASINs per hour. Keep in mind that this feature will temporarily disable any other searches and look for UPCs and ASINs only.
- Set filters. Source price adjustments to account for wholesaler sales, or individual state sales tax you should not need to be paying when buying wholesale.
- A few additional filters include Remove Filters, Sales Ranks, Number of Sellers, or Oversized Products.
- Source Title – Remove or add items
- Leave the filters wherever you want them including Costs, Prep Costs, Costs Per Pound to Ship to Amazon, Profit Margins, or ROI filters.
- You can use UPC data, and it will take UPC from Amazon and match on other sites. It may turn out to be less expensive to find from a site rather than a wholesaler.
- Save your filters, and name them whatever you want such as “Wholesale 40 Percent ROI”
- Click the Search button. It will take a minute or so before it gets started as it prepares to gather the data.
The data you get from this search will show you:
- domain
- title of product
- product image if you have links
- price
- adjusted price if necessary
- the Amazon title
- Amazon image
- category
- brand
- ASINs
- Buy Box price
- ROIs
- number of sellers
- Tactical Edge
- average sales rank
- average 90 days
- views
- ratings
- last time updated
From here, you can turn things on and off any way you want and move things around as you like.
You can either review this in Tactical Arbitrage or pull it into a spreadsheet.
Using the Report
Once you have a report, you can now compare the wholesale vendor to find the best ones for you.
Consider item costs, shipping time, freight costs, method of shipment, safety standards, how they track packages, their return policy, and always get references from other store owners who have used the wholesaler.
Final Thoughts
Selling wholesale on Amazon opens up quite a lot more opportunities for profit. Don’t miss out. It’s time for you to make more money online by finding Amazon-approved wholesalers and trustworthy suppliers.
Knowledgeable and savvy sellers are streamlining an otherwise tedious process and literally making money while they sleep by using sourcing software that helps find the best Amazon suppliers as well.