"Wait, I need insurance?"

We remember first realizing our little Amazon business needed insurance and feeling so irrationally intimidated by it. It seemed like such a "big kid" concept that couldn't possibly apply to our little side hustle. But lo and behold, Amazon was requiring us to get it.

Understanding the specific requirements, what this insurance covers, and how much it typically costs can give you a bit of confidence when searching for quotes and nailing down the coverage for your Amazon business at any stage, really.

With this post, we'll cover what you need to know when it comes to Amazon seller insurance and how to decide what coverage you need.

Intro to Amazon Seller Insurance

Why Does Every Amazon Seller Need Insurance?

Here's the thing about Amazon Seller Insurance: it isn't just about complying with Amazon's rules—it's a genuine need to protect your business. Imagine a customer gets injured using your product, or there's a lawsuit alleging that your product caused property damage. Without insurance, you could be facing huge out-of-pocket costs that could cripple your business.

Side note: This is another reason to properly setup your business entity and not run it as an individual.

Amazon Seller Insurance can act as a safety net, covering legal fees and damages up to the policy limit. This means you focus on growing your Amazon business, rather than worrying about potential financial disasters. Plus, if you're in wholesale, occassionally you'll get a supplier that asks if you have insurance. Not carrying insurance would be a red flag to say the least.

Basics of Amazon Seller Insurance

Amazon Seller Insurance is essentially a Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy. It's designed to protect Amazon sellers from financial losses related to their business activities. This type of insurance typically covers legal fees, settlements, and medical expenses if someone is harmed by a product you sell. It also covers you in case of property damage claims.

To meet Amazon's requirements, your policy must have at least $1 million in coverage per occurrence, including product liability and bodily injury. The insurance must be valid globally and list “Amazon.com Services LLC., and its affiliates and assignees” as additional insureds.

It's important to understand that Amazon will not cover these liabilities, so having your own insurance is crucial from a risk management perspective as you operate your business on their platform.

Note: Always check Amazon's Seller Insurance Policy for the latest requirements.

Requirements for Amazon Seller Insurance

Understanding Amazon's Requirements

Amazon mandates that sellers who exceed $10,000 in monthly sales obtain insurance.

• The policy needs at least $1 million in coverage for each occurrence, covering liabilities such as products, operations, and bodily injuries.

• This insurance must be an occurrence-based policy, not a claims-made policy, meaning it covers incidents that occur during the policy period, regardless of when the claim is filed.

• The insurer must be rated A- or better, capable of handling claims worldwide.

Details like the deductible, which cannot exceed $10,000, and the need for the policy to name Amazon as an additional insured, are also part of the requirements. You need to review these requirements and make sure your policy complies, as failure to do so could result in your seller account being suspended.

Common Misconceptions

There are several myths or misconceptions our there about Amazon's insurance requirements.

• A common one is that only large sellers need insurance. In reality, once you cross the $10,000 sales threshold, insurance becomes a requirement, no matter the size of your business.

• Another misunderstanding is that Amazon will protect sellers from all liabilities, which is not true. Something like Amazon's A-to-Z Guarantee may cover claims under $1,000, but beyond that, sellers are responsible for damages and legal fees.

• Some sellers also mistakenly believe that their homeowner's insurance will cover their Amazon business; however, commercial activity typically requires a separate policy.

• Lastly, there's the false assumption that obtaining insurance is a complex and costly process. It's actually very straightforward, and the cost of insurance is relatively small compared to the financial protection it offers.

What Amazon Seller Insurance Covers

Typical Coverages in Amazon Seller Insurance

Amazon Seller Insurance generally includes a range of coverages to protect your business.

• The most important is product liability, which shields you if a product you sell causes harm or injury. This coverage usually includes both legal defense costs and any settlements or judgments against you.

• Another key coverage is bodily injury and property damage, which provides protection if someone is hurt or their property is damaged as a result of your business operations.

• Your policy may also cover personal and advertising injury claims, such as slander or copyright infringement.

• It's also common for these policies to cover the costs associated with legal defense, regardless of the outcome of the claim.

Some policies may provide coverage for inventory loss due to theft, damage, or other disasters, which adds an extra layer of security for your physical assets. Beyond Amazon's policy, we can't tell you what you need covered. That's a personal decision you will have to make based on what you're selling and your risk tolerance. But understanding these coverages can help you choose the right policy for your business.

Breaking Down the Cost of Amazon Seller Insurance

How Much Does Amazon Business Insurance Typically Cost?

The big question for those with limited funds will of course be, "How much is Amazon business insurance?" The answer can vary, but typically, the annual premium for Amazon Seller Insurance ranges from $500 to $1,000.

Factors influencing the cost include your product categories, estimated annual revenue, and the risks associated with your products. For instance, electronics might carry higher premiums due to their potential hazards (e.g., lithium batteries go boom) compared to more benign goods like clothing. Some insurance providers offer policies starting at around $300 per year, particularly for lower-risk businesses.

Honestly, given the potential financial risks of operating without insurance, this cost is relatively minor—especially as you operate at a much larger scale. Keep in mind that this is an investment in your business's longevity, and skimping on coverage to save on premiums could cost you way more in the long run.

Other Cost Factors

Beyond the base premium, there are additional factors that can influence the cost of your Amazon Seller Insurance. Quite frankly, we doubt it will sway costs by much, but just listing for the sake of it.

• Your business's claims history can play a role—if you've had previous claims, insurers may view your business as higher risk, leading to increased premiums.

• Your experience in the market and the length of time you've been selling on Amazon may also be considered, with more established sellers sometimes receiving more favorable rates.

Two other super obvious ones, but listing anyway:

• The level of deductible you choose can affect your costs; a higher deductible typically results in lower premiums, but it means you'll pay more out of pocket if a claim arises.

• The specific terms and conditions of your policy, such as coverage limits and exclusions, can impact the cost (no duh).

Choosing the Right Amazon Seller Insurance

How to Choose Your Amazon Insurance Provider

Do not just search for a business insurance provider. You want to find someone that specifically has experience dealing with Amazon, as they will know Amazon's requirements and get you the right documentation for Amazon. Also check the insurer's reputation and financial stability. Look for companies with strong ratings from agencies like S&P or AM Best.

Of course, review the policy details, such as coverage limits, deductibles, and exclusions, to make sure they align with your risk profile. Some policies may offer extra features or add-ons that could be beneficial. Lastly, compare quotes from multiple insurers to find the best coverage at a competitive price.

Popular Insurance Providers for Amazon Sellers

These are not endorsements of any of these insurance providers. However, below are some of the more popular companies we've seen for Amazon seller insurance:

• Assureful

• Well Insurance

• Next Insurance

• Bunker Insurance

Amazon will also push their "Amazon Insurance Accelerator" program. The program will basically push you to Marsh, which is a site that aggregates quotes from insurance providers (including the ones above). In our opinion, this is a pretty safe way to find a provider and will likely be the best route for most newer sellers.

Disclaimer: This guide is intended to provide general information about Amazon Seller Insurance. It is not legal or financial advice and should not be taken as such. Always consult with a qualified legal or financial professional before making decisions related to insurance and risk management for your business. The author and publisher are not liable for any outcomes resulting from decisions made based on information provided here.

More from BowTied Slinger

• To learn more about sourcing, read Amazon sourcing posts from BowTied Slinger

• To read more FBA guides, read the full Substack

• To get more Amazon FBA tips, follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter

In this post, we’ll cover a few options available to request payouts more frequently and have the money hit your account faster to improve cash flow.

The Benefits of More Frequent Payouts

Cash Flow Management

Daily payouts give you a constant flow of cash, allowing you to reinvest quickly, manage everyday expenses, and keep your business humming without the 2 week lull.

Anyone that says they prefer the 2-week payments just because they like seeing bigger sums of cash hit their bank account is simply fooling themselves. Any rational seller will want whatever cash they can get back into their account immediately. This is how you snowball your funds faster.

Financial Flexibility

Things move quickly in e-commerce, and so should your funds. You have no idea when the next big wholesale deal or closeout sale opportunity might come. Daily payouts mean you’re not stuck waiting for the next influx of liquidity to make time-sensitive decisions.

Yes, we realize there’s a thing called credit. But sometimes credit will not be an option.

How to Request More Frequent Payouts

What Are Amazon Daily Payouts?

The “Request Transfer” function is something I’m always shocked more sellers don’t know about. But, given how confusing Amazon’s UI can be at times, guess we don’t blame folks for not exploring all the screens. Manually requesting your funds is a feature within Seller Central that you can manually trigger to request available funds from your account immediately, rather than waiting on the next bi-weekly payment window. Again, this is something you have to manually do. It’s not a feature you can turn on to have Amazon do automatically.

Also to be clear, Amazon still needs to make the funds available to you first. So, just because you have a balance of $5,000 doesn’t mean that Amazon will allow you to request the full $5,000. Amazon will likely have an Account Level Reserve (more on that below) for a certain percentage of the funds.

How to Request Payouts Daily in Amazon Seller Central

Ready to punch yourself in the face with how easy this is?

1. Go to Payments

2. Select “Request Payment” under the “Funds Available” tile

3. Select the blue “Request Disbursement” button

And that’s it! If you have funds available, you’re payment will be initiated. Same process for desktop and mobile.

Request Disbursements Button Greyed Out?

For some of you, this feature will be greyed out. This is likely because:

• You’re a very new seller. Just keep selling and you’ll eventually see this option enabled. If we had to guess, it’s because your account is considered higher risk to Amazon. Sorry, this is a common theme with Amazon

• You already requested a payment within 24 hours. This is an obvious one but if you requested within the last 24 hours, you won’t see the option enabled until that period ends.

• You did something to get your account flagged. Occassionally, a seller who previously had daily payouts enabled gets restricted to 2-week payments again. We’re not exactly sure why this happens, but would venture to guess it could relate to high return rates or Amazon has had to frequently claw money back from you. Complete guess, but worth an email to Amazon if it happens to you.

Amazon Account-Level Reserves

Understanding Account Level Reserves

Account Level Reserves are something you’re not going to be able to avoid. They serve a valid purpose as they are there to shield you from uncertain an influx in customer returns and protects Amazon from shady sellers.

Amazon can hold funds in your reserve for 14 days after the sale. They may continue to hold funds if you have pending chargebacks or A-to-Z claims. The only thing you can do to prevent higher than normal reserves is to keep your return rate and order defect rate (ODR) low. So, don’t sell garbage inventory.

Getting Paid Even Faster with Express Payouts

What are Amazon’s Express Payouts?

Express Payouts are new feature to help funds hit your bank account faster after requesting payment. Instead of waiting 5 days for funds to hit, you’ll get payments the next day in your bank account.

Eligibility requirements, per Amazon:

• Have an account with an in-network U.S. bank routing number.

• Have a business address in one of the 50 U.S. states. Sellers in U.S. territories are ineligible.

• Have transactions of $1MM or below at the time of the payment initiation.

You can enable Express Payouts from the Deposit Methods screen in Amazon Seller Central. You can read more about Express Payouts from Amazon’s Express Payouts FAQ.

Summary

Again, for those that have been using Amazon for a bit now, we’re hoping this isn’t new info. But for newer sellers, hopefully this helps you get cash back into your account sooner so you can snowball even faster.

To recap:

• Start requesting payouts from Amazon on a daily basis through the Payments menu

• Enable Express Payouts through the Deposit Methods menu

• Keep return rates and defect rates low to avoid higher Account Level Reserves

You’ll notice we didn’t talk about any third-party services to get even faster payments, such as Payability. For most of you, using a service like this won’t make much sense. These services charge very high fees for these services that often isn’t worth it, in our humble opinion.

Until next time!

More from BowTied Slinger

• To learn more about sourcing, read Amazon sourcing posts from BowTied Slinger

• To read more FBA guides, read the full Substack

• To get more Amazon FBA tips, follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter

If you’re like the old me, you need to stop this perpetual cycle of procrastination (and likely shotty bookkeeping). If this is just some hustl…

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Happy Cyber Monday! Hopefully ya’ll had a great Thanksgiving (if you’re celebrating in the States) and enjoyed some Black Friday sales.

A timely post here on two common Q4 questions: When do I stop sending inventory in for FBA? What should I FBA vs FBM?

First of all, you should never completely stop sending inventory to FBA. If you just stop sending inventory in for the entire month of December, you shoot yourself in the foot for January because you’ll have no inventory left to sell. Then you’re scrambling to restock and you’re already off to a rocky start for the year. No good.

Instead of thinking of it as FBA or FBM, think of it as simply a much heavier mix of FBM and FBA than you normally would. You’re both stocking up for January at great prices while taking advantage of easy profits on items you wouldn’t normally buy.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• The latest date to send inventory for Christmas sales

• Why FBM is advantageous in Q4

• What inventory you should keep FBA-ing throughout December

Let’s get into it!

Sidebar: Yesterday we saw an X post of someone with hundreds of FBM orders and three FBA orders. Unless they are an FBM-based business, this person is going to be scrambling for FBA stock at the end of January.

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This post is long overdue since Keepa is so fundamental to sourcing products on Amazon. In fact, if there’s one skill you should learn, it’s how to read a Keepa graph. This post will be for both new and veteran sellers, covering the most common types of graphs you should be able to recognize quickly.

What is Keepa? Keepa is a service that visualizes price and seller data over time for Amazon product listings. Thanks to Keepa, you can see whether the price and sales rank you are seeing is a temporary spike or is the true demand and price of the product. Keepa is essential to avoiding products that tank.

As you become fluent in reading Keepa graphs, it will be the first thing you look at to vet a product. But to become fluent, you need practice.

In this post, we’ll review the basics of how to setup your graph + 7 graphs to recognize. Yes, there are other types of graphs you’ll encounter and some advanced nuance we can cover in future posts. But these will get you 90% of the way there.

Read more: Looking for Keepa Product Finder? Check out our other guide.

Basics of Keepa graphs

Keepa is like the Swiss Army Knife of Amazon tools, and its graphs are the blades. At first glance, they can seem overwhelming with lines crisscrossing like spaghetti on a plate. But once you understand the elements, it becomes second nature.

Keepa graphs show three main elements:

• Price History - changes in price of a specific product over a set period of time. It allows you to track the pricing trends of the product on Amazon.

• Sales Rank - reflects the popularity of a product compared to other products within the same category or subcategory on Amazon. It's calculated based on recent and historical sales data of the product.

• Competition History (Availability) - the number of new and used listings at any given point in time.

Setting up your graph

When you first load up a Keepa graph, you’ll notice it comes with a lot of data points. But we only really need a few of them.

On the right hand side of the graph, start by turning off everything. Then, only leave the following data points turned on:

• Sales rank

• Amazon

• Buy Box

• New, 3rd Party FBA

  • If you’re mainly an FBM seller, you would turn on New, 3rd Part FBM instead.

What to look for in graphs

• Amazon out of stock

• A stable or upward trending price

• Sales rank within your range, with a lot of drops

• Stable or downward trending number of listings

Keepa graphs to look for

Stable price and demand

Steady, fluctuating price + steady, fluctuating sales rank

Pricing: If we were to hover over these FBA prices on this graph, you’d see price fluctuating within a $3-4 range over the span of several months. This represents price stability that we can feel confident with.

Even if there were temporary dips in price, as long as we see pricing rebound quickly then that’s okay. That typically represents a single seller unloading their stock.

Demand: Also note the sales rank (green line) here. It’s well within our target for this category. It has a lot of fluctuation/dips, which represents sales activity. It fluctuates within a consistent range (15k-30k).

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There’s a common fear that the Amazon fees will eat you alive. This, of course, is ridiculous since you can accurately estimate your fees before you purchase your inventory.

In this article, we'll break down the major expenses, including: account fees, software, product, shipping, and other miscellaneous costs.

Amazon Seller Account Fees

First, you'll need to pay for an Amazon Seller Central account. This allows you to sell products on Amazon.

• Amazon Professional Selling Plan: $39.99 per month

Yes, there is a free plan that adds an extra dollar fee per unit sold. But realistically, you should be using the professional plan within your first month selling.

Software Costs

Running an FBA business takes more than just an Amazon seller account. You'll need software to efficiently list products, analyze competition, manage inventory, and more. Here are some common FBA software costs:

• Listing analyzer like SellerAmp or RevSeller: $15-20 per month

• Keepa for product tracking: $20 per month

• Repricing tool like Aura or Bqool: $50-100 per month

• Inventory/Bookkeeping tool like InventoryLab or Quickbooks: $15-75 per month

If you’re starting bare bones, all you need is a listing analyzer and Keepa. As you start to move higher volume, InventoryLab would be next on the list. Then a repricer. Over time you may add more tools, but expect around $40 per month to start and $250 per month once you’re stable.

Pro tip: For existing sellers, audit your software expenses often. There’s a lot of shiny tools you might try out and then stop using. Don’t let them leach at your bottom line.

Product Purchasing Costs

Naturally, you need inventory to sell on Amazon. Product purchase costs vary widely based on your sourcing strategy.

If doing retail arbitrage, visiting thrift stores and discount retailers to find merchandise can require time and gas money. Sourcing wholesale products involves paying wholesale prices, which are lower but add up with large inventory purchases.

To ballpark, many new sellers invest around $500-1000 to purchase initial inventory when starting their FBA business.

Amazon Selling Fees

When your products sell on Amazon, the company takes a cut. These are the main fees to be aware of:

• Referral fee - this is a percentage of the total sale price paid to Amazon. Ranges from 8-15% depending on the product category.

• FBA pick & pack fee - Fees for Amazon to pick, pack, and ship your orders. Around $2-5 per unit.

• FBA storage fees - Charges for storing your inventory in Amazon's warehouses. Varies by product size/weight.

• FBA prep service charges - If using Amazon's prep services for labeling, packaging, etc. these services cost extra.

Amazon's fee calculator helps estimate total fees. Expect 15-30% of each sale to go to fees.

Shipping Costs

As an FBA seller, you cover the costs of shipping your inventory to Amazon's warehouses. This includes:

• Cartons, bubble wrap, tape for safe packaging

• Printer and label paper for FNSKUs

• Pallet/freight costs or couriers if shipping larger quantities

You’ll likely Amazon partnered carriers which offer discounted shipping rates. Budget around $0.50-0.65/lb to ship inventory in. Plus less than a $1 per unit of prep for materials. Potentially more if you’re sending in prep intensive units such as fragile items.

Miscellaneous Costs

Some other costs that you may or may not need:

• Accountant fees to handle taxes on sales and business write-offs

• Business liability insurance in case of defects, lawsuits, etc.

• Business licenses in states you operate

• Trademark registration for branding assets and intellectual property (private label sellers only)

• Registering your brand with Amazon Brand Registry (private label sellers only)

Total Costs

In total, you’re looking at ~$600-1100 in startup costs, with ~$80 in recurring monthly fees. Of course, you can increase the amount of startup inventory to your liking. Over time, your costs are sure to go up as you outsource specific services to virtual assistants, prep centers, accountants, staff, etc.

Regardless, it’s pretty incredible to think you can start a business with this little—especially compared to traditional businesses that would cost a minimum of $50,000.

Hope this helped and more startup posts to come.

More from BowTied Slinger

• To get more Amazon FBA tips, follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter

• To read more FBA guides, read the full Substack

Have I hammered that home enough? Great. Let’s get into it.

Quick note on future posts: Next week, we’ll finally release the Keepa guide and then we’ll put it all these methods together in a routine you can use to source.

How storefront stalking works

If you’ve read our previous posts, you know how much we like to emphasize reverse sourcing. This approach is reverse sourcing but with a more narrow scope.

Read more:

• An introduction to reverse sourcing for online arbitrage and wholesale

• Reverse sourcing with Keepa Product Finder

Storefront stalking is the process of analysing a competitor’s products and reverse sourcing them. You pull up their store, look through their products, and then go try to find somewhere to buy those products.

The advantage of storefront stalking over normal reverse sourcing is your competitor has done the legwork of analysing the product and taking the purchase risk for you. Now, you get to confirm how those products have done for them and decide if you’d also like to sell them. And we do this using data, of course.

This method works really well for finding replenishables (products you can source repeatedly) and wholesale products. Not so much for “hot” products with inflated prices because by the time you source it, price will probably have crashed or you missed the sale.

What you’ll need to use this method

To use this method, you’ll need a few of the tools we mentioned in the ‘What FBA Software Do You Actually Need?’ post. Specicially we’d recommend:

• Keepa

• Seller Amp

  • Yes, there are other Buy Box analysis tools out there but we specifically like Seller Amp for storefront stalking because of their storefront analysis page.

That’s it. There’s other shiny storefront stalking software out there. We don’t recommend most.

Let’s move on to how to find the right competitors to source.

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We don’t know how much of a factor feedback is (nobody does except Amazon), however, we know it’s significant enough to care. Go on any listing on Amazon and check the Keepa data. You’ll see sellers below 80% positive feedback typically are getting less Buy Box rotations.

What matters more—number of reviews or percentage of positive reviews?

Before we have to hear it, yes—the number of reviews your storefront has will have a higher correlation with more Buy Box rotations. This means a storefront with 10,000 reviews at 85% positive feedback will dominate a storefront with 100 reviews and 100% positive feedback.

However, we’d argue that more reviews is also the result of simply being a bigger seller and selling more units. This means in addition to more reviews, you have a lot going for you beyond review count (e.g., more units sold per month, longer seller history, higher inventory levels, etc.).

For that reason, if you have <1000 reviews, rather than worrying about which software to choose to improve your review rate by 1%, focus on keeping the reviews you do get positive. Since you have less total reviews, one negative review can have a huge impact because…. maths. e.g., 1 negative review out of 20 total reviews = 5% impact.

With that out of the way, let’s focus on swatting down those negative reviews.

FBA: Automatically remove feedback

If you’re an FBA seller, your life is a lot easier when it comes to negative feedback. This is because if a customer leaves a negative review on an order that was fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), Amazon will take responsibility for the issue. When this happens, Amazon will strikethrough the feedback on your strorefront.

What does a strikethrough mean? The review will remain visible on your storefront but with a a strikethrough and disclaimer note from Amazon. The review will not count as negative feedback against your account.

This process is mostly automated now and no action will be needed on your part. Amazon detects certain feedback is invalid based on keywords and phrases the customer uses. They’ll automatically strikethrough it and you will probably never notice unless you click your feedback page.

FBA & FBM: Ask Amazon to remove feedback

For FBA orders, start by requesting a secondary automatic removal

In the event that Amazon doesn’t automatically strikethrough the feedback, you can request the feedback is removed yourself. To do this, access they Feedback page in your Seller Central account (Performance > Feedback).

From here, you’ll see a page of all your storefront reviews. Locate the negative feedback and select “Request removal” from the dropdown to the right of the review.

If it’s an FBA order, Amazon will prompt you with acceptable removal requests. If it fits the bill (be liberal here), go ahead and proceed with the request.

Amazon will once again perform an automated check of some kind. 9x out of 10, the review will be removed on the spot. We don’t quite understand why this secondary automated check isn’t performed the first time, but…. this is the way.

If this fails, move onto submitting a ticket.

For FBA and FBM orders, submit a ticket to Seller Support

For FBA orders, sometimes that secondary auto review won’t quite work and Amazon’s system will reject your request. Honestly, it’s been so long since this happened to us that we don’t even have a screenshot to show you. However, you should get a message from Amazon stating why they couldn’t review the feedback.

If this is the case, you will need to submit a Seller Support ticket. If it’s an FBM order, this is your primary means of removing feedback. Amazon may provide a link or message box for you to do so directly from that Feedback screen. If not, jump to the Help Hub and submit a ticket there.

In your message, provide a direct explanation for why the feedback mentioned meets the criteria for removal. This is usually one of two reasons:

1. If FBA, the feedback describes a fulfillment issue. This is probably a damaged product (blame Amazon’s warehouse) or late/missing delivery (blame Amazon’s carrier).

2. If FBA or FBM, the feedback is more of a product review rather than a seller issue. If the customer is complaining about the quality of the product in any way, that’s not on you as a seller. Those reviews should be made on the product page vs the seller’s storefront.

In either of these scenarios, Amazon should strikethrough and remove the feedback.

FBM & FBA: Respond to the buyer directly

If you can’t get Amazon to remove the feedback, your last hope is to ask the customer to remove their feedback. Here’s how to approach this the right way.

• First, send a message to the to the customer apologizing for the issue and taking responsibility.

  • Be the adult in the room. The customer blames you. Don’t waste time and get them distracted attempting to convince them USPS is to blame. Owning up to the issue diffuses the customer and makes them feel heard.

  • Note: Obviously, use your judgement on the taking responsibility bit. If the complaint is something serious like the customer being injured by the product, probably not in your best interest to admit fault without legal counsel.

• Next, resolve their issue immediately—either via a refund or replacement.

  • If you really want that feedback gone, do this regardless of if the customer is right or if you are to blame. If you want to be stingy and ding them a restocking fee or whatever, don’t be surprised when they write an even worse review.

  • Typically the customer tells you what they want upfront (refund or replacement). Do whichever they ask if reasonable.

  • If you sell high end items and the customer isn’t actually entitled to a refund, it’s your call. Maybe one negative review isn’t worth the expense.

• Finally, acknowledge the negative feedback, communicate that you’re a small business, and ask the customer to reconsider their review.

  • When a customer leaves negative feedback, they are either using it as a tool to get a refund/replacement or seeking revenge against what they perceive to be an evil company.

  • By taking this step, we are reminding the customer that we are human and we truly do care about that negative review and we are giving them time to reconsider.

Putting this all together looks something like this…

“Hi [First name] -

Oh no! I saw your review and we’re so sorry to hear your product arrived damaged. That’s certainly not the experience we strive for with our customers.

As requested, I’ve immediately issued a replacement product, which is on it’s way now. I’ve also expedited the shipping to get it to you sooner. You can track the replacement item here: [Shipping details/link].

Again, I do apologize on behalf of [Store name] for the inconvenience! We’re a small business and every customer review means so much to us. In fact, this is the first negative review we’ve received, so we’re committed to doing everything we can to make it right!

If you feel like we’ve corrected the issue and you’d consider removing or modifying your review, it’d go a long way for our store. If not, we completely understand and appreciate you giving us a chance.

Have a wonderful rest of your day!

- [First name]”

Notice how over-the-top that is? That response goes above and beyond. Notice the tone as well. It sounds like it’s coming from friend, rather than a big company. That’s very intentional. We want to invoke some sort of emotional response.

Feel free to modify the above to your liking. Again, as you get more and more reviews, you may be more comfortable taking your chances and offering a more standard response.

If all else fails, you can post a public reply

If you try everything above and you still can’t get the feedback removed, a completely optional step would be to respond to the customer’s feedback publicly. This reply will be posted on your storefront when other customers read your reviews.

I say it’s optional because this won’t help with Buy Box rotation. It really only helps if you sell expensive items and customer’s double check your reputation.

Plus, once you sell more and get more reviews, that negative review will be hidden from the first page of your storefront, which is what most customers look at.

Similar script as above with the public reply. Accept responsibility and communicate what you did to resolve the issue. This signals to future customers that if they have an issue with you, it will get resolved.

Conclusion

In conclusion:

• If FBA, most feedback is removed automatically.

• If FBA and it’s not removed autoamtically, you can request removal by clicking the dropdown menu next to the review.

• If FBA or FBM, you can also submit a ticket to Seller Support and justify why the feedback is removed either on the basis of FBA fulfillment issue or because the review is a product review.

• If FBM, your next best chance is to request the buyer remove the feedback by resolving their issue promptly.

As a final note, if you go through all these steps and come up empty, don’t take it personally and get emotional. In the long run, you can easily drown out negative reviews with positive ones. Keep your head down, sell more, and everything will sort itself out on its own in time.

More from BowTied Slinger

• To get more Amazon FBA tips, follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter

• To read more FBA guides, read the full Substack

An Amazon prep center is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a service that receives your inventory shipments (either from wholesale suppliers or retailers), preps them for Amazon FBA, and then sends them into Amazon’s warehouse. Those prep services include any work you’d typically do yourself, such as labeling, bubble wrap, poly bagging, bundling, palletizing, etc.

How does it work?

Each prep center will have its own intake process, but it generally goes as follows:

1. You ship your inventory directly to the prep center from your supplier or retailer. Usually, the prep center will give you a specific suite # to include in your address field to help quickly identify the shipment as yours when it’s received.

2. You tell your prep center about the shipment. Most will have an intake form or online system where you’ll enter the details about the items (UPC, model #, quantity, tracking info, ASIN, sales price, and prep services required).

3. Your prep center receives, inspects, and preps the shipment. They’ll check for damage and then prepare your shipment as requested, including labeling.

4. Your prep center lists and ships your inventory within your Amazon account. This means you’ll need to provide limited access to your Amazon account. Your prep center can tell you the permissions needed but it’s typically just the ability to access your inventory information and shipments. Never grant permission to payments or account settings.

From there, your prep center will bill you for the work and then you’ll monitor the shipment as you normally would.

What does it cost?

Per unit fees

You can expect to pay anywhere from $0.50 - $1.50/unit depending on how much volume you’re sending in and the amount of prep needed. You can expect that to run higher for additional prep services like bundling, bubble wrap, oversize items, etc.

I realize I gave a $1 range, which is pretty massive per unit. Truth be told, I’ve seen prices up to $2.50/unit. This is almost always because a prep center may charge more if you send a low volume of units per month. You will almost always get better rates if you can send a higher volume (500+ units). I would target under $1.50 if you’re a low-volume seller.

Note: You may also see prep centers charge more for arbitrage orders vs wholesale/private orders. This is because arbitrage is more of a pain for them to process.

Monthly fees

Some prep centers will charge a monthly fee to make sure your account is worth the overhead. They may void the fee if you can send in a certain minimum per month. Prep centers with a monthly fee may also offer lower per-unit prices. Therefore, you can do the math based on the number of units you send in to figure out if it’s worth it.

I personally avoid prep centers with a monthly fee. However, it’s not a terrible option if they offer lower per-unit fees and have an outstanding track record.

Miscellaneous fees and services

Aside from the basics, your prep center may charge for:

• Freight forwarding

• Amazon removal order processing

• Monthly storage

• Bundling (bigger bundles cost more)

• Packaging inserts

• Supplies (pallets and boxes)

These rates will vary quite a bit from prep center to prep center. I recommend focusing on the per-unit fee unless you have a high volume of a special service, such as bundling.

Note: Storage can be a nice option to have if you run into an issue with Amazon capacity limits or another odd scenario. However, pricing will be much more than you’d pay for a 3PL or even Amazon’s warehouse storage (not fulfillment center). So, only use storage for a short-term scenario (unless they happen to have great pricing).

But do you really need a prep center?

To answer this question, I’m going to assume you’re currently receiving arbitrage or wholesale shipments to your home. In the beginning, you should do all prep work yourself if you can. This will help you learn Amazon’s processes and systems, which is critical. It also helps you make the most of your limited capital.

But eventually, you will reach a breakpoint. Maybe you are starting to receive bigger shipments (pallets) and you can’t receive them at your apartment or neighborhood. Maybe your supplier won’t ship to residential addresses. Or maybe your family is simply fed up with the constant flow of boxes and the growing death pile of inventory.

Either way, you reach a point where you need to decide whether you need to start accepting shipments elsewhere. For most of you, your choices are using a prep center or renting your own warehouse space.

Your own warehouse or prep center to start

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For me, wholesale was the first time I felt like I was running a “real business”. This isn’t meant to say arbitrage isn’t a real business. It is. And I love it. But I can’t ignore the sense of entering the big leagues as I started placing my first purchase orders.

Now, let's dive in.

Normal sourcing vs. reverse Sourcing

Wholesale sourcing follows the same principles as online and retail arbitrage. You can choose between normal sourcing and reverse sourcing.

Normal Sourcing: Involves finding suppliers first and then sifting through their product catalogs to identify profitable products.

Reverse Sourcing: Begins by finding a successful product already selling well on Amazon, and then searching for a supplier that offers it at the right price.

I prefer reverse sourcing because it has a higher success rate and is more time-efficient. With reverse sourcing, I know I have a profitable product, and I just need to find a supplier offering it at the right price.

Normal sourcing methods

With that said, let's run through the list of normal sourcing methods to let you see for yourself:

1. Google Search: Use Google to search for suppliers online, pairing the keywords with a niche or category. For example, search for "automotive suppliers" or "automotive dealers." Refine your search by adding your location, such as "automotive suppliers near me" or "automotive suppliers [city name]." Use keywords like "supplier," "distributor," "wholesaler," or "dealer" for better results. Experiment with different search variations to find targeted outcomes.

2. Wholesale Directories: Explore wholesale directories like Wholesale Central and Top 10 Wholesale. While these directories are widely known, you may still find a decent supplier through them. We have a couple of suppliers from these we still work with every now and then. However, this method may not be the most time-efficient.

3. Trade Show Listings: Check trade show listings specific to your industry. Attending trade shows in person allows you to network and establish connections. If you can't attend, access the list of vendors or exhibitors from the trade show's website. Reach out to these exhibitors after the trade show and express interest in their business. Some sellers go as far as pretending they were at the trade show when they reach out.

4. Local Area Sourcing: Physically explore commercial or warehouse districts in your city or suburbs. Look for clusters of warehouses and businesses, and visit their premises. We’ve personally not found success with this method, but it seems someone on Twitter always mentions it. So there you go.

Reverse sourcing

Now, let's move on to reverse sourcing, which is our preferred method:

Read more

For those familiar with Keepa already, you’re probably used to using the Keepa Chrome extension, which overlays data graphs onto Amazon listing pages. But not many take the time to explore the tools available to you on Keepa’s own website, including Product Finder.

Product Finder is an excellent tool for reverse sourcing because it lets you use filters made specifically for Amazon sellers. You can filter by Sales Rank, how often Amazon is in-stock, FBA prices, number of sellers, brand names, and more. It’s Amazon search on steroids.

By the way, are you following us on Twitter yet? Get unfiltered takes progress updates on our own business.

Follow on Twitter

While the concept of the tool is pretty straight forward, it’s easy to get lost in the sauce. Most of you will fire away with searches and click aimlessly away at the results pages without any real idea of what you’re looking for. These steps will help you stay organized and source with intent.

Online arbitrage with Product Finder

If you’re an arbitrage seller, this is a relatively simply process: find “good” products that are already selling well using Product Finder, then Google them to see if you can source them cheaper and make a profit.

The following steps will walk through how to conduct your sourcing session and use Product Finder’s filters.

Create a spreadsheet to track your searches

Start by creating a search log in Excel or Google Sheets. In your spreadsheet, create the following headers:

• Search name: (e.g., Discontinuing toys)

• Last searched date: (e.g., 11/25/2022)

• Category/Brands: (e.g., Toys & Games)

• Description: (e.g., Toys with Amazon in-stock rate 10-60% that have been listed >2 yrs)

• Search URL: (e.g., https://keepa.com/finder/[search-parameters])

• Notes: (e.g., Reduce sales rank next time. Too many slow movers in the mix)

Maintain this log with every search session you start. This will prevent you from running the same searches over and over. It will also help you pick back up where you left off if you need to continue the same search a different day.

Adjust your search filters based on your use case

The following is a list of filters we use on a regular basis. This does not mean you have to set every single one of these filters on each search. Use as many has you need to get a reasonable number of search results back (under 5000).

• Sales Rank: Either set a max Sales Rank or don’t set one at all. Sales Rank will vary by category. If you’re new to Sales Ranks, check out Jungle Scout Sales Estimator to get a sense of demand. You want a minimum of 60 sales per month.

• Amazon price: Check that Amazon is out of stock unless you have a specific use to source Amazon products.

• New, 3rd Party FBA price: Sets your target sales price. Anything under the $20 range can be more difficult to source. This can vary depending on the category and your success with different price points.

• Used, 3rd Party FBA price: Important if you're flipping used goods from places like eBay or the Facebook marketplace.

• Root and sub categories: We almost always organize our reverse sourcing sessions by a category or subcategory.

• Brand: See the Sourcing wholesale with Product Finder section below.

• Text fields: Helps find special circumstances of products that you know sell well and share a common word in the title. Examples include "discontinued", "Walmart exclusive", and "bundle".

• Count of retrieved live offers

  • 0 sellers - this is an OOS listing you might be able to revive

  • 1 seller - high chances these listings are private label or IP restricted

  • 0 FBA sellers, 1+ FBM sellers - you’ve got a chance to convert this listing to FBA, charge a higher price, and capture Buy Box

  • 40+ sellers - This listing is very high competition and better sell like absolute hot cakes to source it

• Variations: Choose no variations if you're newer and have trouble sourcing these.

• Listed since: Use this filter to find older or discontinued products—usually toys. It is more reliable than the Release Date since the latter is user-generated.

• 90 days out of stock percentage (OOS%): Set the Amazon percentages to find products that Amazon is either completely out of stock on (meaning no competition) or has trouble keeping in stock (indicating high demand or low supply). This can be especially useful for discontinuing products or during Q4 holiday sales. You can uncheck “Amazon Out of Stock” on the price filter if using this one.

• Sales Rank drops: More drops indicate more sales activity. This can be overkill if you've already set Sales Rank. If you do set this, we usually do a min. of 30.

• Rating: Setting this to 4+ can help reduce the likelihood of high return volume.

• Review count: Useful for cutting down search results. Set a minimum of 50+ reviews. The higher, the better. But keep in mind your Sales Rank settings.

When you’ve adjusted your filters as you like, select “Find Products” at the bottom right.

Analyze your results

Copy the URL

Before diving in, copy the URL on the results screen into your spreadsheet. This is a URL you can revisit without having to reset all of the filters. Especially helpful if you accidentally hit the back button on your browser. It should look something like this:

https://keepa.com/#!finder/%7B%22f%22%3A%7B%22SALES_current%22%3A%7B%22filterType%22%3A%22number%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22inRange%22%2C%22filter%22%3A1%2C%22filterTo%22%3A10000%7D%2C%22BUY_BOX_SHIPPING_current%22%3A%7B%22filterType%22%3A%22number%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22greaterThanOrEqual%22%2C%22filter%22%3A20%2C%22filterTo%22%3Anull%7D%2C%22AMAZON_outOfStock%22%3A%7B%22filterType%22%3A%22boolean%22%2C%22filter%22%3A%22on%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22equals%22%7D%2C%22offerCountFBA%22%3A%7B%22filterType%22%3A%22number%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22inRange%22%2C%22filter%22%3A3%2C%22filterTo%22%3A40%7D%2C%22rootCategory%22%3A%7B%22filterType%22%3A%22singleChoice%22%2C%22filter%22%3A%22165793011%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22equals%22%7D%7D%2C%22s%22%3A%5B%7B%22colId%22%3A%22SALES_current%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%22asc%22%7D%5D%2C%22t%22%3A%22g%22%7D

Configure your columns

Now, the first thing you’ll notice on the results screen is a lot of columns. Let’s kill the noise and only show the columns we care about. Select “Configure Columns”, de-select all, and then select the following:

• Image

• Title

• Sales Rank

  • 30 day avg

  • Drops last 30 days

• Review count

• Amazon: 90 days OOS

• Buy Box Seller

• Brand

• Count of retrieved live offers

  • New, FBA

  • New, FBM

• Buy Box

  • Current

  • 90 days avg.

This will give you just the minimum you need to make quick decisions from the listings page, rather than clicking into every listing. Feel free to adjust these to your own use case if you’re looking for something specific.

Avoid red flag listings

The name of the game here is to avoid clicking into and analyzing 10,000 listings. So here are red flags you want to watch for.

Buy Box seller matches the brand name

If the brand name and and the Buy Box seller have very similar names, chances are this is a private label seller. You’ll see this with small PL sellers as well as bigger brands, such as Disney.

Huge difference in current price vs 90 day average price

Unless you’re hunting for discontinued products, this is usually a temporary supply issue that will be corrected.

Example: The main sellers of an item have a price of $10. They sellout and the next available seller has a price of $20. At $20, you could make a $5 profit on this item and think this is a good buy. However, by the time you send in your inventory to FBA, the other sellers are likely to re-stock and price is likely to return to $10—leaving you to eat the loss.

Again, there are exceptions where you will be okay with this difference (e.g., discontinued products, Q4 sales, etc.). But most of the time, we are looking for price stability. So we want the 90 day price and the current price to be somewhat similar.

Huge increase in current Sales Rank vs 90 day average Sales Rank

Not necessarily a red flag but should definitely spark suspicion. If the Sales Rank suddenly increases substantially, that means sales have slowed. You’ll want to learn why. It could be because… 1.) the price increased substantially; 2.) sellers went out-of-stock; 3.) temporary demand has died out (seasonal or viral product).

Either way, this means you have some homework to do. On the other hand, if a product with really high sales rank is suddenly low, you could be catching a product that is catching a new wave of demand.

Picking winning products

Next, click into the products you’d like to analyze.

When looking at Keepa graphs, the goal is to validate that our filter criteria holds up over time (min. 3 months). We want to look for stability or emerging trends in price, demand (Sales Rank), and supply (new offer count). Here’s what to look for:

• Price: Stable or slowly increasing price over time (e.g., not a lot of fluctuation over last 3 months)

• Demand: Stable or decreasing Sales Rank (lower number = more demand)

• Supply: Stable or decreasing new offer count, with a minimum of 2 different sellers

• Amazon out-of-stock permanently

That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it.

Yes, there are some exceptions to this criteria you can use to hunt for “gems”, as covered above in the filters section.

We’ll also release a Keepa graph guide this month to walk through examples of different charts to study. But this should be more than enough to get you started.

Sourcing wholesale with Product Finder

You can also use Product Finder for wholesale. You’ll use the same filters mentioned above, but apply the brands offered by your wholesaler or dealer. This will help you find the brand’s best products and then ask the wholesaler for those products specifically.

The process goes like this…

1. Review your distributor’s website or price list to see what brands they offer.

2. Enter those brands into Product Finder and set your filter criteria for winning products. Now, analyze the results to compile a list of the “best” products from each brand.

3. Create a basic list of products that includes the brand, product title, and model number (if relevant). For your own tracking, list how many you'd be willing to buy as a test buy and then full order.

4. Check your distributor’s website or price sheet for these products. Not there? Email them to your sales rep and ask if you can special order those products. If they have a direct relationship with the manufacturer, they should be able to do so.

Voila! No need to run blanket UPC scans of price lists that yield the same 5 products everyone else is sourcing.

Wrapping up

Not as scary as you thought, right? Aside from the filter overview, if there’s one thing you remember, it’s this: stay organized. Document what filters you're using and how often you’re using them. Otherwise, it’s easy to get lost, repeating the same searches, reviewing the same set of products.

• To get more Amazon FBA tips, follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter

• To read more FBA guides, read the full Substack

And we’re back! Hope everyone enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend and took advantage any Memorial Day sales. This was the first taste of summer sales and a good chance to scoop up some inventory to start off the summer.

It was also the first time we gave paid subs a heads up on some cash back promos that were live and we’ll probably keep doing so on an occasional basis.

Summer sales events

If you didn’t do any sourcing, that’s okay. There’s plenty of other deals that pop up on a daily basis. This wasn’t a major sales event by any means.

The real “can’t miss” sales event should be sometime in July, whenever Amazon announces Prime Day. All other major retailers will follow suit and offer their own major sales events around this time as well.

We’ll most likely see another “end of summer” sales event in August as well, where you’ll see discounts on anything they didn’t move enough of (usually seasonal). Retailers will look for any excuse they can to drum up slow summer activity. This year will be especially true if market conditions worsen and spending starts to slow.

That will be the time to start building Q4 inventory **if** you have the excess capital to buy and hold. If you’re on a tight budget as it is (e.g., you’re often stagnant while you wait for sales to recoup your cash), then summer sales events will be just another cash builder—albeit for lower returns than if you held to Q4. Then, Black Friday and holiday sales will be for your Q4 inventory.

INFORM Consumers Act

The INFORM Consumers Act is a new US federal law that comes into effect on June 27, 2023. Under the law, retail marketplaces like Amazon must collect, verify, and disclose information on high-volume third-party sellers and their businesses.

What defines a high-volume third-party seller? Those of us who have sold 200+ new/unused consumer products and had $5000+ in gross revenues in any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months.

If this is you, Amazon most likely sent you an email or notice in your account telling you to provide this information. It’s a 3-step form that’s fairly easy to fill out (though some reported tech issues early on when form first went live). You’ll need to provide your business info, verify your address, and send in pictures of your ID (e.g., driver’s license). If you’re familiar with crypto exchanges, this very much felt like a KYC process.

What are they trying to do with this law?

The goal of the law is to improve transparency and accountability with online retail marketplaces. Basically, they’re trying to make it harder for anons to sell counterfeit or unsafe products on places like Amazon. Amazon and Walmart both struggle with overseas sellers on the US marketplace at times in both these departments. The law also gives consumers the ability to lookup seller information in the event that they suspect fraud.

Our take

We like the idea of the law but we’re skeptical of Amazon’s ability to strictly enforce it. Getting rid of the scammy sellers would be a welcome relief for many of the legitimate sellers on the platform. And we truly truly hope this law helps with that.

Amazon should bring in a team of trained compliance specialists and builds automations to handle enforcement. But we would be concerned if this is dumped on the existing Seller Support teams.

In that’s the case, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that ID verification will be fairly easy to circumvent. If scammers were already okay selling unsafe and counterfeit products, what makes you think they couldn’t fraudulently bypass the ID checks?

Oh, and who is enforcing Amazon? We think the FTC will be able to audit Amazon’s seller reports for completeness and accuracy? Hm.

In time, we believe KYC services like those that crypto companies use will ultimately be the answer. But that will all depend on how smoothly the current rollout goes and how capable the FTC is to hold Amazon accountable.

Wrapping up

This week, it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming. More posts on sourcing for both our free and paid subs. Talk soon!

Connect with BowTied Slinger

Follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter for daily tips and casual musings.

In our ungate guide, we covered how to find distributors and submit invoices to ungate brands and categories. The Vault includes a list of pre-researched suppliers suppliers you can use to ungate those brands.

But what if there was an even easier, faster way?

Yes, there is.

There’s a simple way to ungate almost any brand within a week using a single supplier—and it comes from an unexpected source. We assume this method won’t be available forever, so take advantage while you can.

Warning: Do not go crazy and overspend ungating brands with this method. Ungate only what you have clear opportunities to sell.

Read more

Most sellers are taught from the start is traditional sourcing, mainly because it lends itself to retail arbitrage. While it has its merits, I firmly believe that reverse sourcing is the method you'll find yourself using more frequently in your day-to-day operations, especially if you're venturing into online arbitrage or wholesale.

In this post, we'll delve into the concept of reverse sourcing, its advantages, and how it can help you uncover profitable opportunities for your Amazon business.

Traditional sourcing vs. reverse sourcing

Traditional sourcing involves visiting retail or online stores, scanning products, and determining their profitability by looking them up on Amazon.

Reverse sourcing, on the other hand, flips the process around. Instead of starting with the retailer, we begin with Amazon itself. We identify the best-selling products and then search for a supplier who can provide those products at a profitable price point.

The key difference is that with traditional sourcing, we scan numerous products to find profitable ones, while reverse sourcing starts with Amazon's top-performing products and focuses on finding the right supplier.

Action: Follow BowTied Slinger on Twitter for daily tips and casual musings.

The appeal of reverse sourcing

Why do I prefer reverse sourcing? Simply put, it's much less exhausting than traditional sourcing. With traditional sourcing, you can spend hours scanning countless products, often without finding a profitable item. It becomes challenging to keep track of what you've scanned and when.

Traditional sourcing works well during temporary sales events or seasonal promotions. It can also work to get your feet wet if you’re new to arbitrage and trying out retail arbitrage. However, for day-to-day sourcing, reverse sourcing offers a more efficient approach.

With traditional sourcing, you are searching for a needle in a haystack of products. With reverse sourcing, you are a trained hunter, tracking your prize—the supplier. For me, this mindset shift changed how I viewed sourcing in general. With traditional, it was easy to get dejected and feel like it was impossible to find products that Amazon wasn’t already selling for the same price.

With reverse sourcing, I knew those other sellers had to have a source they were getting it from for cheaper. I was starting from a place where I knew it was possible.

How reverse sourcing works

Now that we understand the benefits of reverse sourcing, let's explore how it actually works. There are two primary methods, and we'll start with the simpler one, then delve into more advanced techniques later.

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Shiny, shiny software.

If you’re even a few months into your Amazon journey, you’ve probably been shilled a dozen different affiliate links to tools that are alleged “game changers”. But what they conveniently leave out, is you don’t actually need most of that software.

We’ll keep this post brief and cut right to the chase with the list, but first a quick ask: Follow @BowTiedSlinger on Twitter.

As we continue to grow, we’ll use Twitter to expand upon our free posts and give our informal takes on FBA hot topics.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Let’s dive into what you need and what you don’t need as soon as you think.

Side note: this post does not contain affiliate links.

Gotta have it

Keepa

Keepa is a tool that shows you the price, competition, and demand history of any Amazon listing. This is the most important software you can have. Reading a Keepa graph should be the very first thing you learn. If you can’t, you’re buying blind. You cannot confidently source without it.

Buy Box Analyzer

This is typically a Chrome extension or app that lets you quickly assess the profitability of a listing. A good one will allow you to set certain buy criteria (target ROI, sales rank, competition, etc.) to quickly identify if a product is a buy/no buy. Perhaps not as critical for retail arbitrage, but it’s a must as you start to analyze thousands of listings a week for online arbitrage.

On a budget? The Amazon Seller app or Amazon’s Revenue Calculator can estimate profitability/fees. But a paid tool will come with a lot more bells and whistles.

Examples: AZInsight, RevSeller, SellerAmp

When you’re ready

Repricer

If you’ve read our writeup on the basics of repricing, you know the power of a repricer. A repricer automatically adjusts your prices based on rules you set to get you more sales. However, if you only have a few SKUs in inventory, a repricer is overkill. No need to consider one until you’re consistently making $1,000/mo in profit.

Examples: Aura, BQool, SellerSnap

Inventory analytics and accounting

As your business grows, you’re going to need to keep a much closer look at your numbers. You have to know your inventory costs and fees. Consider getting one of these once you’re north of $50k revenue per year.

Examples: InventoryLab, Sellerboard

Probably a reach

Product research tools

Unless you’re doing large numbers or serious about private label, you really don’t need one of the fancy $150/mo product research tools. They come with a lot of features, which is great. But for newer sellers, those features are often a distraction. Unless you have a very specific purpose for using one, Keepa is all you need.

Examples: SmartScout, Helium 10, JungleScout

Advanced inventory management & logistics

These are tools that track lead times from suppliers and alert you when it’s time to restock. Such a feature is really only useful if you’re a big seller moving high volume. If you’re cranking in pallets on a weekly basis, then you will be more sensitive to fluctuations in demand and being out-of-stock for a week is incredibly costly. However, for most arbitrage sellers and new wholesale sellers, you can do most of this manually.

Otherwise, some of the inventory analytics tools in the section above have some basic features built in that should do just fine.

Examples: Restock Pro, Seller Labs

Other honorable mentions

• Online arbitrage sourcing - Some of you may be surprised not to see Tactical Arbitrage mentioned on this list. While TA is a great product, it can build some bad habits sourcing a bunch of junk that thousands of other sellers are sourcing. I only recommend TA if there’s a big storewide sale or you have a special coupon that you can bake into the crawl results.

• UPC list scanner - Useful for wholesale sellers only. If you’re contacting dozens of distributors and need to scan their product lists quickly, you’ll want a devoted UPC list scanner. But be warned, every other seller is running the same list through their own scanner. The real gems are often found but manually reviewing the list.

• Amazon PPC - Obviously, if you’re in wholesale or private label and running PPC, this one’s for you. Only recommend one of these if you’re spending more than $3,000/mo on ads. Otherwise, it’s overkill.

Wrapping up

And there you have it. Only two software tools you must have when starting out. Everything else can be a distraction and overwhelm you from building strong sourcing skills. Plus, the recurring monthly costs will quickly start to eat into your bottom line.

Pro tip: if you’re looking for my recommended software in each of these categories, you can find these in The Vault.

Frankly, I’ve never really understood why this is an argument.

Each of these models exist for a reason. Each with their own distinct set of advantages and drawbacks.

Arbitrage. Wholesale. Private label.

These are tools meant to be deployed depending on your situation and goals. They are not teams. They are not your identity. In fact, many successful sellers will use all three at some point.

Let’s dive into which model you should start with and when it’s time to transition.

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We’ve all seen it. Two competitors have their repricers set to undercut each other. Minute-by-minute we watch the repricers drive the Buy Box price down to each seller’s minimum. And what we’re left with? Slim-to-no margins.

So, we know we don’t want to be that guy. But how do we avoid it?

In our earlier post on repricing, we talked about resisting pricing strategies that simply undercut our competitors.

But what if we could undercut our competition and avoid triggering a price war?

What if we could undercut our competition without them even knowing?

Today we discuss the stealth tactic I use on a regular basis to dominate the Buy Box in stealth mode. I’ve been reluctant to cover this strategy publicly since I don’t love the thought of it being shared through various Discord groups.

But if you’re a fellow Slinger, you’ll realize pretty closely why you’ll want to keep this one close to the chest.

Let’s ride.

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When I listed my very first products on Amazon, I remember popping open the Seller Central app every day. While I awaited my first sales, I would stalk the prices of my products.

Seemingly every hour someone would undercut me by a few pennies.

$19.99.

Then $19.97.

$19.95.

And so on.

And since I sourced some slower-moving products, these guys weren’t getting bought out either. So, 2-3 times per day I’d update my price to match.

Fast forward a couple months and now I’ve got a few dozen products in the warehouse. Everyday I’m waking up and I’m updating prices one product at a time through the app. As I’m scrolling through I notice something.

“Wait a minute. I just updated that price. Someone undercut me already?”

I felt like an idiot as I realized people had automated their repricing. Of course they did. How else would huge sellers manage their prices?

But perhaps the bigger realization was how badly it was impacting my sales.

When someone would update their price within minutes of me, they were getting the Buy Box immediately. And I would only get it back if they sold out or I changed my price.

Of course, doing this manually meant I got that Buy Box for ~15 minutes, 2-3 times per day, when I updated my pricing.

In other words, a max window of 45 minutes per day to sell my items.

Needless to say, it was painfully obvious I needed something to manage my repricing now that I had more SKUs and deeper inventory levels. Manually repricing is fine in the early stages for an Amazon seller, but actively repricing your products is how you move inventory quickly and efficiently—especially on high competition listings.

Let’s dive in.

The bad pricing habits you learned from COVID

If you’re a seller that started out during COVID supply chain issues, you probably picked up some terrible pricing habits. Sorry, COVID Amazon gurus.

During COVID supply chain days, you had the unique scenario where everything was in low supply. As a seller, you were conditioned to accumulate inventory, raise your price as high as possible, and hold it there. And it would work! People were paying outrageous prices for electronics, toys, etc. Unless you were price gouging essentials, you were rolling.

But now? Times have changed. In many categories, supply is now abundant. And when supply is abundant? Prices trend down.

For those still worshipping at the alter of restock bot Discord owners, you’re probably buying up inventory and watching your profits slip away as you “hold the line!!” with your top-dollar prices.

If you want to keep trying that, I wish you the best of luck. For the rest of you, we’ll break down why it pays to simply sling product and move on.

A basic example of why margin isn’t everything

At $300, your product makes $100 profit. It sells 1x a day for avg. $100/day profit.

At $280, your product makes $85 profit. It sells 1.5x a day for avg. $127.5/day profit.

At $250, your product makes $55 profit. It sells 3x a day for avg. $165/day profit.

On a monthly basis, your $300 price point will make you $3000 profit per month. Your $250 price point will make you $4950 profit per month. Of course, this scenario assumes you don’t have a finite amount of supply.

Exceptions to the rule

Before I have to hear about it, yes there are exceptions to what I talked about above. You can afford to maintain very high prices in the scenarios of imbalanced supply and demand such as:

• Q4 holiday season (high demand)

• Seasonal items (high demand)

  • Careful here. What sold like wildfire in previous years won’t necessarily sell the same next year. Shoutout to those still buying inflatable pools.

• Discontinued products (low supply)

• Hot product drops, like video games, toys, merchandise, shoes, etc. (high demand + low supply)

The power of frequent Repricing

Now, hopefully after reading my anecdote in the intro, it’s pretty obvious why you can’t just reprice products once a day. Active, frequent repricing is where the real magic happens.

Repricing every 15 minutes can make a world of difference compared to repricing once per day. Think about it—if everyone else reprices every 15 minutes and you reprice once a day—who’s going to dominate the Buy Box?

Hint: It’s not you.

On a high competition listing, you might win the Buy Box for a 15 minute window. But somebody else is going to take those other 1,425 minutes.

Automating Repricing with Repricers

Obviously, you’re not going to manually reprice every 15 minutes. We need software to do this for us. Fittingly, these software tools are called repricers.

Repricers can automatically adjust your prices based on your competitors’ pricing, your buy cost, your inventory levels, and the Buy Box history. Some popular options (in no particular order) include:

• BQool

• RepricerExpress

• Informed.co

• Aura

When searching for a repricer, consider the frequency at which it reprices + available integrations. Almost all repricers will advertise some AI or ML features. We want speed and as little hands-on work as possible. For example, if you have a lot of different SKUs, consider a repricer that integrates with your inventory management software. This means the repricer can automatically pull in your cost data and set your price minimums.

Warning: You do not need a $99/mo repricer if you just opened your Amazon account and have 4 SKUs with 25 total units. Pulling this number out of my butt, but I’d say earn your first $1000/month before considering a repricer.

For paid subscribers, you can find my personal repricer recommendation in The Vault.

Dangers of repricing like an idiot

Repricers are awesome, but they can also lead to some nasty showdowns. Imagine two sellers with repricers, both set to undercut the other's price. Next thing you know, you're in a full-blown price war (a.k.a. price tanking).

This is why we do not set our repricer to simply undercut for every product. We should have different pricing strategies for different listings.

Most commonly, we should be matching the Buy Box price. And we should have a repricer that knows how to raise the price once the Buy Box has been won, depending on the competition.

Again, for paid subscribers, we’ll cover exact repricing strategies and settings in next week’s post.

Conclusion

If you’re new to Amazon, just being aware that repricers exist will help you start to understand your competition a bit better. No need to grab a fancy repricer if you’re not already profitable. A repricer can’t fix bad sourcing.

If you have a couple hundred units in the warehouse and are earning $1000+/month, start to look at repricers. Again, consider speed and integrations.

Once you make a purchase, give it a go for a month and see what happens. Track your profitability and sell-through rates before and after.

In future posts, we’ll cover exact repricer strategies and settings. I’ll also be releasing a post on how to sneakily undercut competition without triggering a price war. Until next time!

A quick favor: If you found this post helpful or enjoyed reading, please let me know in the comments below or on Twitter: @BowTiedSlinger. Your words encourage me to keep on writing.

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Unlike marketplaces like eBay, new sellers on Amazon can’t simply sell any product they want to. Certain product categories and brands have restrictions that require special approval to sell. The process to remove those restrictions is called ungating. This guide will walk you through how to get ungated on Amazon and selling in those restricted categories.

There are two methods to get ungated on Amazon for brands and categories. The first is called auto-ungating. Auto-ungating is when Amazon lifts the restrictions on a category/brand based on a seller’s performance. As you sell for a longer time, sell more items, and collect positive feedback—restricted categories/brands will start to automatically ungate.

Of course, that doesn’t help new sellers who haven’t built up those account metrics. For new sellers, they’ll need to ungate using the invoice method. The invoice method requires obtained a purchase invoice from an authorized distributor or manufacturer and providing it to Amazon.

No idea what that means or how to get an invoice? No worries. This entire guide will focus on the invoice method.

Does this guide work for all categories and brands?

As you’re about to discover, the process to get ungated on Amazon is the same across most categories and brands. For any ungate, you’ll have to hunt down some documentation, which I’ll show you how to do. While some categories may require extra documentation aside from an invoice, I’ll do our best to flag those along the way.

This guide will focus on the process to get ungated on Amazon for certain brands and categories. While I do have a cheat sheet of distributors and suppliers you can use to ungate many brands, I can’t cover them all. If a brand isn’t covered in our cheat sheet, I hope you can use the steps outlined below to source your own distributors and suppliers, like the Amazon Pro you strive to be.

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Why does Amazon gate certain categories?

Understandably, Amazon’s restrictions on certain categories, like Toys & Games, are a major point of frustration new sellers. For folks coming over from marketplaces like eBay,  most of your frustration might be because you don’t know why Amazon restricts categories.

Is it just to make seller’s lives more difficult?

Well, no. Amazon doesn’t want to just make you suffer (usually). It’s because even though Amazon offers an individual seller plan, it’s marketplace truly doesn’t cater to individuals. Amazon only wants legitimate sellers—not to be confused with big sellers. Their obsession with providing the highest level of customer service means putting up higher barriers of entry to their marketplace.

Typically, those barriers of entry revolve around safety and authenticity.

Selling toys? Amazon needs some level of comfort that you’re not selling knockoffs that could have harmful chemicals.

Selling Nike shoes? They want to prevent a flood of counterfeit claims.

But here’s the thing — those barriers of entry are a good thing. The higher the barrier of entry on Amazon, the less competition. With less competition comes more opportunity.

Besides, this guide is designed to help you knock down those barriers.

Need to ungate a brand now?

A brief plug for The Vault, a special resource for our paid subscribers. The Vault contains a cheat sheet of 2,000+ brands you can ungate using the distributors I’ve researched for you. Check it out.

Access the distributor list

What Amazon categories are restricted?

Below is the list restricted categories according to Amazon Help Documentation.

• Postage stamps

• Collectible Coins

• Personal Safety and Household products

• Entertainment Collectibles

• Fine Art

• Toys & Games (Holiday Selling Requirements)

• Jewelry

• Join Amazon Subscription Boxes

• Made in Italy

• Music & DVD

• Requirements for selling Automotive & Powersports products

• Services

• Sports Collectibles

• Streaming Media Players

• Video, DVD, & Blu-ray

• Watches

While these categories are the ones officially listed, I have seen sellers separately restricted for additional categories such as Grocery & Gourmet or Toys & Games (beyond holiday season).

Is there a list of restricted brands?

There is no official list of gated brands on Amazon. Brands are restricted almost entirely based off of your seller performance (volume of sales, feedback, account health, etc.). While many brands will auto-ungate as you sell more, you can get ungated on Amazon for brands quicker using the invoice method discussed in this guide.

What do you need to get ungated on Amazon for categories and brands?

To start the ungating process, attempt to add a restricted product to your inventory within Seller Central. If the product falls under a restricted category or brand, you’ll see an option to Apply to Sell.

You should find yourself on a screen that lists the documents Amazon needs to ungate the category or brand. That screen should look something like this:

Depending on the product you’re trying to sell, at a minimum you’ll be asked for one of the following:

1. Invoice from an authorized distributor

2. Pictures of your purchased products

What is an authorized distributor?

This is a term a lot of people get tripped up on. In the retail supply chain, a distributor is the middle man between the manufacturer and the retailer. For example, a distributor would buy from Hasbro (manufacturer) and then sell to retailers like Target and Walmart (retailers).

You must obtain an invoice from a distributor. You cannot get ungated on Amazon using a Walmart receipt.

In order to obtain an invoice from a distributor, you’ll need to find one, apply for an account, and make a purchase once approved.

Sounds scary and intimidating? No worries – it’s a lot easier than it seems. Let’s move onto the exciting part.

How to get a distributor invoice

Step One: Find a distributor

To get an invoice from a distributor you’ll need to find a distributor first, of course. Since distributors operate within the business-to-business space, you probably don’t know of any distributors off of the top of your head.

For whatever reason, this is where I start to see new sellers doing some silly things — like paying for the name of a distributor. As you’re about to see, finding a distributor is not difficult.

But first, let’s learn to fish.

Search for distributors on Google

When in doubt, turn to Google. While this pains us a bit to type, here’s a list of Google search terms you’ll want to use when trying to find your next distributor.

• [Category or Brand Name] distributor

• [Category or Brand Name] wholesaler

• [Category or Brand Name] supplier

• [Category or Brand Name] authorized distributor

• [Category or Brand Name] distributor/wholesaler/supplier in [Local City/State]

• [Category or Brand Name] distributor/wholesaler/supplier near me

You see why I don’t want you paying for distributor names now? You’re a Google search away! So, let’s try it.

Take a look at the Google search results pages when I search for “Toy distributor”. What do you see?

With that one Google search, I see seven viable distributors that you can use to obtain an invoice. Click a few of the listings and browse their websites. If you see logos and names of major retail brands like Hasbro or Mattel, that’s a good sign.

Pro tip: Don’t ignore the paid search results. Distributors that are paying advertising dollars for new business indicate it will be relatively easy to obtain an account with them. You won’t find profitable products, but that’s okay if it’s only for ungating purposes.

Found a distributor that looks promising? Because this is B2B sales, you can’t just add a bunch of items to your cart and be on your way (yet). You’ll first need to apply for an account with the distributor.

Skip the research phase with our distributor cheat sheet

Again, you don’t have to bother with the research if you’re a paid subscriber with access to The Vault. It contains a cheat sheet of 2,000+ brands you can ungate using the distributors I’ve researched for you.

Access the distributor list

Open an account with the distributor

Look for an option to apply or open an account on the website. They’ll most likely offer an online application. While most questions are straightforward, here’s three items you’ll most likely need to apply:

1. Resale certificate (required) – If it’s a legitimate distributor, they’ll almost certainly ask for your resale certificate. A resale certificate is a special document issued by your state that allows you to purchase goods without paying sales tax, so long as you plan to resell them. As long as your resale certificate is registered to your personal name or your business name you should be good to go.

   • You only need a resale certificate for the state your business is based out of. Check out Harbor Compliance for instructions on how to obtain a resale license within your state.

2. Business name or DBA (recommended)– To improve your chances of being approved by the distributor, I recommend applying under a business name rather than your personal name. When applying under a business name, ensure the business name matches your Amazon account name. This will be important when submitting your invoice later on.

   • Do I need a DBA (Doing Business As)? A DBA is a document you file at the state-level to say you are operating under a different name than your personal/business name. For example, if you have an LLC called Bongiovanni Supply LLC, but your store name is Online Toy Outlet, you could register a DBA for “Online Toy Outlet”.

   • At this stage in the game, you probably don’t need a formal DBA just yet. Just be sure your distributor includes your Amazon store name on the Company Name line of your shipping address.

3. Business email address (recommended) – For B2B sales, is a distributor more likely to approve an account from onlinetoyoutlet@gmail.com or dbongiovanni@onlinetoyoutlet.com? Could you get away with the former? Maybe. But you’ll want that business email on your Amazon journey sooner than later.

   • Getting a business email address is affordable and you don’t need to be a tech wizard. WPBeginner has a great tutorial on how to register a business email address. I personally have my business email setup through Google WorkSpace.

With those three items, you should be all set to apply. After submitting your application, the distributor should approve and open your account within a few days.

“The sky is falling! I got rejected by my distributor!”

If you are rejected by one distributor, don’t obsess over it. It’s very common. Rather than try to convince that distributor to give you another chance, save yourself the headache and move onto the next distributor application.

Step Three: Place your first order

Once approved, it’s time to place your first order! Your supplier may take offers through an online catalog or you may be asked to submit orders via email based off an excel document. Either way, here are some things to keep in mind:

• This isn’t Walmart clearance. You’re not sourcing for profits. Ungating is an investment in your business. If you can find products where you’ll make a small profit or break even — great! However, I’ve purchased plenty of products at a $1-5/unit loss for the sake of an ungate.

• You’ll need to purchase at least 10 units (not cases). Amazon requires you to show a purchase of at least 10 units of a specific product. When purchasing from your supplier, make sure you pay attention if they case-pack shipments. For example, if they offer cases of 6 units each, you’ll only need to purchase 2 cases (12 total units).

• Make sure the product you purchase is gated on Amazon. When applying to get ungated on Amazon for a category or brand, you’re going to be submitting your application in relation to a certain product (ASIN). So, if you’re buying a specific Barbie doll from your distributor to ungate the Toys & Games category, ensure you are gated for that product on Amazon so the application aligns to the invoice.

Important: When placing your order ensure both your Amazon store name and even personal name are on the shipping address. You’ll also want to ensure the shipping address is the same as the address you have on file with Amazon.

Once you place your order, you may be issued a pro forma invoice. A pro forma invoice is the invoice issued before they actually ship your products. Typically, Amazon rejects pro forma invoices (though it depends on the reviewer). You’ll need to use the invoice issued to you once your products are shipped and paid for.

Submit your invoice and application on Amazon

Upload your invoice

Now that you have your invoice, jump back over to Amazon to submit your application.

When applying to ungate a category or brand, you’ll first be asked to identify if you are a reseller/distributor or manufacturer. Select Reseller/Distributor.

You’ll now be asked to submit a purchase invoice. Ensure your invoice matches all of the listed requirements and then upload either a PDF or picture of your invoice.

Under Optional Comments, I usually provide the number of units purchased, the corresponding ASIN, and the name of the distributor for good measure. For example, “Purchase of 12 units (ASIN: XXXXXXXX) from Toy Wholesaler Inc.”.

Take and upload product photos

Taking photos is fairly self-explanatory based on the listed requirements. Take a combination of group photos and close up individual photos.

Amazon needs to see you did, in fact, purchase the number of units you said you did. But they are also interested in verifying the manufacturer information printed on the packaging. Be sure all text is legible so they can check names, addresses, model number, product name, etc.

Obtain category-specific documentation (optional)

Certain categories or brands may request special documentation beyond an invoice or product photos. In that case, you’ll most likely need to work with your distributor to obtain those documents.

Child Protection Certificate (CPC)

A Child Protection Certificate (CPC) is a special document that proves that a toy has passed certain safety requirements for use within the United States. Occasionally, Amazon may request a CPC to ungate a certain ASIN.

To obtain a CPC, reach out to your distributor and simply ask! Most maintain CPCs on-hand for their popular products.

If they do not have the CPC handy, you can reach out to the manufacturer directly. They must have CPCs for each children’s toy they produce. Many times, CPCs are even publicly available on the manufacturer’s website. For example, Hasbro Product Safety Requests can be made directly on the Hasbro website.

FDA registration information

For certain food and drug products, Amazon may request FDA registration information. Similarly, you can work with your distributor to obtain this registration info or you can look it up yourself.

Lookup the product on the FDA website and take a screenshot of the registration information to submit to Amazon.

Wait for approval

Depending on the category or brand, approval for applications can vary wildly. I’ve seen approvals for Toys & Games take anywhere from six hours to six weeks. If it extends beyond six weeks, you can submit a follow up on your application status.

The team that reviews your application is not Amazon customer service. Be kind and be patient.

And that’s it! If all goes according to plan, you’ll wake up to an email one morning congratulating you on your approval to sell.

Troubleshoot issues with Seller Support

I get it. It can be insanely deflating to wait six weeks for approval only to have your application rejected. To add confusion and hurt to the mix, Seller Support’s reason for rejecting your application will be extremely vague. For example, “Invoice was missing required product details.”

However, this not the time to blow up and throw a tantrum at Seller Support. Nor is this the time to give up. You are so close. Here are some troubleshooting steps to consider:

1. Simply resubmit the application. Yup. Many times it’s luck of the draw on who reviews your application. There’s a good chance that the person reviewing yours simply missed the information on the invoice, misinterpreted it, or simply doesn’t understand their own requirements. Not comforting, I know. But this is the reality.

2. Annotate the invoice. Consider using a digital tool to highlight and label key information on your invoice. Again, we want to make the review process as dummy-proof as possible. Label your seller name, address, distributor name, invoice date, product name, and number of units purchased to make is incredibly clear that you meet the requirements.

3. Take clearer product photos. If you’re photos are meeting all of the requirements, it could be an issue with your picture clarity. Triple check all the text in your photos is legible.

4. Try another distributor. As a last resort, consider purchasing from another distributor. There’s a possibility that your distributor’s invoice somehow doesn’t match Amazon’s requirements or Amazon flags it for whatever reason. Again, I wouldn’t take this approach until you’ve submitted the application several times.

Conclusion

It can seem like a lot of hoops to jump through to get setup with a distributor that first time around. However, putting in that upfront work will pay back huge dividends after you’re able to source highly profitable products/brands.

Remember, everyone else is gated in these products too. While you put in this work, 95% of others give up midway through. That means less competition on the other side of this barrier. You’ve got this.

Need to ungate a brand now?

The Vault, a special resource for our paid subscribers. The Vault contains a cheat sheet of 2,000+ brands you can ungate using the distributors I’ve researched for you. Check it out.

Access the distributor list