Amazon has evolved into such a convenient, trustworthy and easy to use platform for ecommerce sales that nowadays people use it to buy everything but gas for their car. This extreme demand creates an opportunity for 3rd party resellers like me to fill the need for products that Amazon doesn’t sell themselves.  In this article I’ll break down how and why reselling works and my results after doing it for 1 year. Also, as an exclusive bonus, I will give you the top secret formula to calculate how many lambos you will be able to buy in your first year of reselling (that was total sarcasm by the way). 

What is Reselling?

If you wanted to get technical you could say that most businesses are in the reselling business. Often they buy goods from manufacturers or distributors to “resell.”. However, when most people use the term reseller they are thinking about someone like me who buys items from retailers for the purpose of reselling them online. 

The first time I heard about this reselling being done was on a “What’s your side hustle?” post in the Dave Ramsey Facebook group I’m in. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spark so my interest peaked. I then joined the Hustle Buddies Facebook group which is dedicated to educating people about getting started reselling on Amazon. I was blown away by people posting screenshots of their sales numbers for the year. I couldn’t believe how people were able to do 6 figures in sales in a year's time just by buying stuff from major retailers and reselling it on Amazon. 

If I could go buy these items in person or online for less money then why wouldn’t the reseller’s customers do that too? As someone who usually searches high and low for the best deal before purchasing anything that costs more than a cup of coffee I just couldn’t get my brain to compute the equation of reselling.  It was pointed out to me that I was missing a couple variables in the equation and that’s when the picture started coming into focus.  

A few reasons that a market for resellers exists:

  • Convenience- Who doesn’t love clicking a button and having their order appear at the front door within a couple of days. When you make a purchase from a reseller you are buying the physical item and buying the service of the reseller doing all the legwork to purchase the item themselves
  • Cost to go to the store. If you live in a major city like New York and don’t have a car, you would have to pay a cab or Uber to take you to and from the store.
  • Lack of supply- Some of the most profitable items I’ve come across in my reselling ventures are discontinued or low supply but high demand products.
  • Lower buy cost-  Resellers are able to realize a profit by stocking up on inventory during a big sale from a retailer. Many then stack even more discounts by using cash back shopping sites and by buying discounted gift cards to use for their purchases

 

How Reselling Changed My Life

If you’re reading this article I’m guessing you are looking for a way out of the rat race like I was. I have always had an entrepreneurial itch but after getting older, having kids and getting a good paying job it’s hard to walk away from that stability. Nassim Taleb famously says “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” 

The opportunity of being able to tap into Amazon’s customer base and infrastructure to start your own reselling business is absolutely unprecedented. Before the internet if you wanted to start up a business it was a much larger undertaking. You would have to do some sort of marketing or advertising to drum up customers. Not to mention that you would also need to find and pay for a physical location to sell your products. The beauty of reselling on Amazon is that you can get started for an extremely low initial investment cost. 

I started reselling in November of 2020 and I had no idea that in less than a year it would replace my $27 an hour job as a foreman carpenter. Nowadays I no longer hit the snooze button in the morning contemplating whether or not I should call in sick to work.  I actually put in more hours of “work” now but it’s work I’m excited to do. I remember time dragging at a snail's pace at my old job, except for when it was break or lunch time of course. Now my whole day flies by like my breaks used to.

The thing I love most about reselling isn’t actually the money, it’s the freedom. I’m able to be much more flexible with my schedule now. I love being able to take the kids to and from school, attend their games and just spend more time with the family in general now. I hope I never have to rent my time out for money again. Reselling is the life for me!

It’s beginning to look a lot like... this Amazon thing is going to work!

How Much Can You Make Reselling on Amazon?

In November of 2020 I started my Amazon reselling journey by listing some stuff I had laying around the house and a few things from the clearance aisle of my local Walmart. At the end of that first month I had $304 in sales. The sporadic sales reminded me of the small amount of selling that I’ve done on Ebay. Then on December 3rd 2020 it happened. It started in the morning with a few “cha-chings” from the Amazon Seller app. I thought “Oh cool, I found something that is a bit more steady in sales.” The Amazon Seller App “cha-chinged” at me, indicating a sale, over 30 times before I had even made it to my lunch break that day. I was texting back and forth with my fiance in excitement and disbelief. That string of sales felt like I was hitting a never ending all day casino jackpot. My eyes were truly opened to the potential of Amazon that day as I realized this Amazon thing wasn’t your grandparent’s e-commerce sales platform. I ended up with 73 sales that day which totaled up to $1,285.02, $318.16 of that being net profit. The total of my second month reselling ended with $13,435.68 in sales and $4,811 of that being profit. Saying I was hooked might be considered the understatement of the century. So how much can you make? The limit is truly up to you! 

      The first big day of sales - 12/03/21 



 

                          My Sellerboard account statistics for my second month

In a couple weeks it will mark my 1 year anniversary of selling on Amazon.  I am astounded that I was able to reach over $200,000 in sales with a 32% profit margin the very first year. I am even more excited about the potential I see in this business moving forward. If you want to learn more about reselling on Amazon you should check out the other blog articles posted on oahunt.com 


 

Someone pinch me I must be dreaming!


 

Some of the orders from that first big day of sales and my helpers sleeping on the job


 

Getting ready to make our first big USPS drop off




 

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