MasterOfAllHeSurveyz
All Star
I'll pick a brand and head to LinkedIn and look at the people who identify themselves as employees. I'll look for anyone sales related. I'll send a message (if not 3p) or look up their company contact information on Google. I'll call them and ask for a list of their distributors. Next, I'll look on Google for their (distributors) web presence. If they have a cart or have an ability to purchase anything on their site, I mark them off my list as they're most likely not real distributors/wholesalers. They're most likely doing liquidation, which can be good for the short term, but what happens when they run out of product when you need to restock?
I take that list and send a personal email to each asking if they have a spreadsheet list of their inventory for wholesalers. I also ask them if there are any restrictions selling their inventory on Amazon. I always include my Sales & Use/Resale/Wholesale # in the email and the state it's issued. They can go to the Department of Revenue website for the particular state and look it up #. I know for sure that you can do it in NC. 99% of wholesalers will ignore you if you don't have one.
Finally, I ask what's their MOQ (minimum order quantity), and if there's an ungating requirement, can I do minimum 10 item quantity purchases for an invoice. Refer to the one I uploaded in one of my earlier posts as an example.
If they send me a list in spreadsheet format already prepared? Great!
If it's just a text file with a list? That's OK too. I'm just looking for the UPC and the price per item that I can put in a .csv/.txt file that I run in Analyzer Tools. It scans Amazon, using your login details, and identifies items that can turn a profit based on criteria that you set. One of the most important "secrets" to FBA, NO PRODUCTS THAT SELL FOR UNDER $25. You can get hit with the add-on label if your product sells for 24.99 and lower. You don't want that under any circumstances. I wish I could properly credit where I heard that from (it was either a podcast or course I downloaded).
I then export the "green" products into a file and look them up on Amazon. I have a monthly subscription to the Keepa and FBAMultitool extensions and I paid about $20 for the DS Amazon Quick View Extension.
With Keepa, I only have Amazon, New, Sales Rank, New - 3rd Party FBA, Buy Box, New Offer Count, Rating & Review Count enabled. If I see a sustained sea of orange across of history, I throw that item in the trash as Amazon is selling on the listing. However, if there are a lot of gaps in there and Amazon isn't consistent with restocking, I'll look and see how much inventory Amazon has currently. If it's low, I'll mark it for potential.
If Amazon is not on the list, it has more weighted potential. I click on the Sales Data button in the FBAMultitool extension which will give me a list of FBA/FBM sellers. FBAMT gives me an estimate of monthly sales based on the BSR (seller rank). Let's say a product sells 400 items in a month and there are only 3 FBA sellers on the list. I divide 400/4 which equals 100 sales for me approximately. I put the individual item wholesale cost for me + $1.75 (labeling, prepping and shipping per item costs) in FBAMT's FBA Calculator and click the Calculate Profit button. I look up the dimensions of the item to estimate the monthly storage fee and add that as well. I look for a minimum or close to 33% profit. I give myself plenty of leg room.
I usually don't mess with a listing that has more than 8 FBA sellers but 3 or less usually is my sweet spot. It all depends on the inventory that each individual FBAer is carrying based on what's described below. However, if there's one or several FBAers matching the lowest price but the others have their prices above the lowest, I might jump in because, in most cases, it's obvious the other FBAers don't know how the Buy Box works.
Another plus of the FBAMT tool is that it implements the "999" cart trick to see other seller's inventory. If it's low, there a lot of potential to exploit as they could be running out of inventory and have no intentions to restock. You could win the Buy Box the majority of time.
I then look at the product and seller ratings, specifically the 1s and 2s for products. I'm looking for 4 and above unless I see some shenanigans with a list as I described in my earlier posts where the item with good ratings was mixed with other items with shyt ratings.
That's about it. I can't think of anything else as of right now. If anything else comes to me, I'll add to this specific post.
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However, I found a gem in this first product and did about a week or two of research before I pulled the trigger. By removing it from the parent ASIN, I became the sole seller and had a 5 star rating out of the gate with no negative ratings.
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