Sell Clothes On Amazon [The Ultimate Guide]

When it comes to selling on Amazon, there has always been one category near and dear to my heart. As weird as it sounds, clothing is one of my favorite categories to sell on Amazon.

I know that most people tend to shy away from selling clothes on Amazon, but I’m a huge fan.

Why do I love to sell clothing on Amazon? Because it takes extra effort and that sets me apart from other sellers. Plus the clothing market on Amazon is one of its fastest growing segments (actually found this out while taking a tour of an Amazon warehouse a few years back).

Over the years, I have made a good sum of money buying and selling clothes products on Amazon. People love buying clothes on Amazon because it is easy to do, returns are easy, and the selection is incredible.

Understanding how to sell clothes can open up new doors and opportunities for those selling on Amazon.

However, a seller must first understand how selling clothing on Amazon works before venturing into the business. It’s a little trickier than just scanning an item in a store and sending it into a warehouse. But if you learn the ropes, you can start setting yourself apart from other sellers.

That’s why I decided to create this guide. To provide anyone looking to sell clothes on Amazon a guide that can help them get started and avoid a few of the mistakes I have made along the way.

So let’s get started on how to sell clothing. Here is your ultimate guide to selling clothes on Amazon.

Why You Should Start Reselling Clothes On Amazon

Well. To be frank, there is a lot of money to be made by reselling clothes on Amazon. We are going to take this section to dive a little deeper into the reasons there is a high demand for clothing on Amazon and why sellers on Amazon have the opportunity to profit from it.

Over the past 5 years, there has been a massive shift from a retail environment to an online one (just take a look at the current state of malls and retail stores across the country). This shift has changed the way people buy clothes and more and more people are searching the web for their next outfit.

When someone searches online for clothes, they are most likely going to go to their favorite online retailer. For most, that means Amazon.

Since there is a demand for clothing on Amazon, sellers who take advantage of fulfilling the supply side of the equation are able to make some money. If you are able to provide the customer with a product they like and in their size, you have the opportunity to land a sale.

Amazon does most of the heavy lifting for you with the advertising, promotion, and even order handling, and all you have to do is ship the clothes to the customer.

Sounds like fun (and a money maker)…right?

I started selling clothing online a few years back by venturing into the world of t-shirts. If you take a look at my t-shirt draw at my house, you would most likely agree with my wife that I have way too many t-shirts.

I have everything from Indiana brewery shirts to shirts with stupid sayings on them. Since me, a fashion master (heavy sarcasm here), is willing to drop $15 on a shirt, there has to be a market for shirts on Amazon.

After a few months of selling shirts, I realized there was INDEED a market on Amazon and I was able to make some serious cash. Since then, I have expanded into additional products and have clothing as one of main categories in my portfolio.

So why should you start selling clothes on Amazon? Why not?

How To Start Selling Clothing On Amazon

It looks like I convinced you to start selling clothing on Amazon (I can tell I really had to twist your arm). Now it’s time to get everything set up on Amazon to get started.

First, you need to open a seller account on Amazon (that can be done here). Amazon does a pretty good job of walking you through the steps, but make sure to read everything as you sign up.

Now that you have an account, you would assume you are good to go….right? Not quite. To provide customers with a high quality shopping experience, Amazon requires approval to sell in certain categories before you can start selling those items.

Clothing is one of those categories (which isn’t surprising), so you will have to request and receive approval before you are able to sell any clothes on Amazon.

Applying for approval is pretty straightforward, but it does take a little bit of time. If you need to apply for approval, you can do that here. Provide Amazon with all of the requested information and you should be good to go.

You just have to sit around and wait until you get approved (if you have nothing else to do, you might want to take some time to read this article)

Once you get your approval, you are good to go! All you need to do is find a product, list it through Seller Central, and wait for sales to start rolling in. Sometimes this happens really quick and sometimes it takes quite a bit of time to get sales trickling in.

You want to consider optimizing your listing when you create them if you want to speed up the process. This makes it easier for potential customers to find your products and hopefully help with conversions.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your Amazon profile and listings that you create:

Make good use of highly-rated keywords
Write well-structured listings for your clothing
Display reviews from successful sales, as good reviews also boost your selling reputation to attract buyers
You can also get more reviews to attract more customers

Most importantly, ensure the clothes you offer for sale are always of high quality and also provide good customer services or support when it is needed.

Pros And Cons Of Selling Clothes On Amazon

Like selling in any category, there are some pros and cons that come along with selling clothes on Amazon. Below, we take a look at both sides so you can have a full understanding before you hop into purchasing inventory and trying to sell it on Amazon.

Pros

Larger Customer Base

The Amazon site has millions of visitors daily, and this gives sellers access to many customers. This is a huge plus if you are trying to sell clothes online.

You could spend the time creating your own website and hoping people stumble across your items, or you can use Amazon’s brand and platform to reach customers where they are already shopping.

Plus you can also sell internationally – This is a huge plus since you have the ability to reach people you most likely will never meet or see in your lifetime.

Fulfillment Options

When you sell an item on Amazon, you have two different options on how you end up shipping the said item to the customer. The two options are: Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM). Each has their own perks, but let’s explain them in a little more detail.

In the Amazon fulfillment option (FBA), you ship your product to the Amazon warehouse. Amazon takes over from there and ships the product to the customers when product orders are placed. Once the sale of your product is complete, Amazon FBA also handles any customer service issues and any possible returns.

Using Amazon FBA is a more convenient option, even though it comes with additional fees. From my time with Amazon, selling on FBA is worth the extra fees for the convenience. I like to account for the cost of Amazon FBA upfront and then I don’t worry about cost after that.

The other method of selling on Amazon is Fulfillment by Merchant. Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM) requires an Amazon seller to make arrangements for fulfilling sales orders. This involves product prepping, packing, shipping, and handling any customer service issues.

Normally, I would tell people to always go with FBA for ease, but with clothing products it’s a toss up. Since most clothing is light and easy to ship, you might be able to get by handling the shipping yourself (if you buy some polybags and sticky shipping labels).

It’s your call, but make sure you decide before you start purchasing products or making clothing items to ensure you have the right supplies on hand.

Advertising

It’s one thing to list clothes online and hope that people find them. It’s another to create advertisements and purposeful direct traffic to listings to encourage sales. Amazon offers advertising services to those that want help to boost their traffic and sales.

I have used this tool when I was launching specific products (where getting as many sales as possible as quickly as possible is important). There are various marketing services available like advertising, global advertising for better international reach, visibility, and placements.

Depending on the product, Amazon has a method of advertising that can help launch a product with a few clicks.

Cons

Fees

Regardless if you realize it or not, Amazon isn’t letting people just sell on its platform because they are a great company. They are making money each time an item sells. This comes out of your pocket and can result in a lower profit level than you first expected.

Although this sucks, you have to remember that you most likely would have no buyers if you weren’t selling on Amazon. Amazon’s fees are a small price to pay for access to the largest online retailer in the USA.

Buy Box

Some of you might be wondering why Buy Box is in the cons category. Others might be wondering what in the world the Buy Box even is. It’s the box on the right hand side of an Amazon listing that allows buyers to add something to their cart or buy it now.

If your product is in the buy box, you are in the money. 80%+ of sales happen in the buy box.

If your product is not in the buy box, that is where the con comes in. Your sales are greatly hampered and you don’t have a chance to really sell your product to the masses.

The work you have to do to compete and stay in the buy box takes some effort, but it can make all of the difference in the world.

Here are some tips for winning the buy box on Amazon:

Maintain top-notch performance
Attain Prime eligibility by using Fulfillment by Amazon
Keep good reviews and customer ratings
Make sure your brand and listings are optimized

High competition

You can’t think you are the only one out there who wants to make some money by selling clothes on Amazon. There are thousands of other sellers who you will be competing with to get a sale. Some will be direct competitors, some will be copycats, and some will never cross your path.

You have to utilize excellent strategies to stand out from the competition. Otherwise, you start losing ground on Amazon. You need to make sure your products are in stock, in demand, and your customer service needs to be out of this world.

You need to be the seller you would want to buy from if you were shopping on Amazon. If you do this, you will become a top seller who will sell products on Amazon for years to come.

Finding Clothes To Sell On Amazon

As much as I would like to tell you to start in your closet, you can’t sell used clothes on Amazon, so we need to start looking in other locations. You will need a steady supply of good quality items at discounted or reasonable prices from reliable sources to resell on Amazon and make good profit.

From personal experience, I think there are two paths you can take when looking for clothes.

Retail arbitrage at outlet stores and stores with extreme discounts
Online arbitrage

If you decide to go the retail arbitrage route, I recommend starting by sourcing at TJ Maxx and Kohls. These are two of my favorite stores to source and find some great items.

It takes a lot of effort to find deals in each of these stores, but when you do, it’s big money.

If you don’t want to spend hours scanning bras and underwear in a store, you might want to go with option number 2 (online arbitrage). This allows you to search a ton of different stores online and have the products shipped straight to your doorstep.

If you have never done online arbitrage before, you will want to check out our epic sourcing guide here. It will literally walk you step by step through how to find deals online and start making money ASAP.

If you want a summary of the post, here it is: There is an easy way and a hard way to source online. The hard way is to do it manually. The easy way is to use a tool like Tactical Arbitrage.

Tactical Arbitrage is an advanced software program designed to help you find several reliable sources for clothes products to resell on Amazon and make good profit.

This software solution features fast and advanced algorithms to help you make quick calculations to sell on Amazon. These include fees, source discounts, cash back, and shipping costs to provide accurate data for your profits and Return on Investment (ROI.)

In short, it makes life easy and it can find possible deals while you sleep.

Regardless of the way you find the deals, make sure to always keep your eyes out for opportunities.

Final Thoughts

I am no fashion guru, but I do know that selling clothes online can make you some serious money. I got my start selling t-shirts and now I sell everything under the sun. You can start selling clothing products too if you put on your big boy pants (pun intended) and get to it.

Amazon is going to be your best bet to sell clothes online and it’s pretty easy to get started. Just open an account, request approval to sell in clothes, and start listing away!

Once you get that going, you need to start looking for products & clothing items via retail or online arbitrage.

If you really want to get moving, you will want to get your hands on Tactical Arbitrage. It will make your product sourcing even easier and help you sell Amazon clothing like a champ.

So what are you waiting on? Get started and sell clothes on Amazon today!

Best of luck!