Amazon FBA Online Arbitrage Essentials

I’ve been an Amazon FBA online arbitrage seller on the UK marketplace since 2016. In that time, I’ve learned what prep tools, Chrome extensions and software is and isn’t needed to run an efficient and successful business.

Amazon FBA UK Prep Tools

The type of tools you require for your business will depend on the volume of stock you send to Amazon, whether or not you bundle, and the categories you sell within. For instance, I no longer have use for a USB scanner, whereas others see it as an absolute necessity. Similarly, others may not have a need for impulse sealers and polybags.

Below I list all of the tools I use, and where I get them from:

Boxes: free (from OA purchases, Freecycle, in-store at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi or Lidl)
Brown tape: x6 Prima tape
Laserjet printer: Brother mono model from Amazon
Printer cartridges: The ones that go with the above
Product labels: x2,700 product labels; 27 per page
Box labels: x100 shipping labels; 2 per page
Suffocation warning labels: x480 stickers; 30 per page
Bubblewrap: free (from OA purchases, Freecycle)
Sticker remover: 151 Remover Kit
Scales: large Salter bathroom scales
Polybags: x100 8×11 sealable polybags
Shrink wrap bags: x50 40x46cm shrink wrap bags
Heat gun: 2000W heat gun
Impulse sealer: 40cm Impulse sealer

Sourcing

Sourcing is the act of finding products to buy. The copy and paste method is free, but no one has time to do all of that themselves if they want to scale up. I’ve used two different bits of software for scraping retail sites for arbitrage opportunities. While FBA Wizard Pro is good, the first one is a level up:

Tactical Arbitrage; product sourcing suite: $107/month – review / sign up with a 10-day free trial with code: CHIINO
One Good Deal; sourcing sheets: from £49.99 – review / sign up
Gixen; freemium eBay auction sniper: review / download
Search Dome; free automated eBay search: review / site
Link Klipper; free URL extractor: download

Analysis

Sourcing software only gets you part of the way; without additional tools, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying stock that either sells too slowly or doesn’t sell at all. There is a whole array of Chrome extensions for UK-based sellers now.

These are the ones I use:

BuyBotPro; deal analysis, profit calculator, eligibility checker – £24.95/month: info / download
Keepa; freemium price and sales rank history checker – €12/month: info / download
Buy Box Checker Pro; free Buy Box status checker: download
AZ 90 Day; free average 90-day price and sales rank checker: download

Repricing

Once your stock is with Amazon, your work is not done. If you don’t want to be the one doing that work, then get yourself a repricer that automatically adjusts things, to help you sell your inventory quicker and retain as much profit as possible.

This is my repricer of choice:

BQool; automated repricer with 14 day trial: sign up from $25/month

Cashback

Any time you buy anything online, you should always check to see whether there are any cashback options available. Free money is sat there, and can be claimed as long as you click through to the retailer from their sites.
I tried the big ones, and have settled for the following:

TopCashback: sign up
iMutual: sign up

Gift Cards

Much like cashback, gift cards allow you to shave off extra cost to all of your online purchases. Once you have a reliable list of sites to source from, it’s then your job to keep an eye out for any cheap gift cards.

Here are the best places to get under-priced gift cards:

eBay: shop now

Outsourcing

Why do all of the work, when you don’t have to? Competent online arbitragers should be able to create training plans to teach someone else up on how you find products. Just pay them to do it for you, and claim your valuable time back. Online arbitrage virtual assistants can be found for cheap. Get them to do one-off tasks, like creating Tactical Arbitrage lists, or have them on an hourly rate doing copy-and-paste sourcing while you work on business development.

Here are a handful of the places I find online arbitrage VAs:

People Per Hour; UK-based freelancer marketplace: sign up with a FREE £30 to spend
Fiverr; global freelancer marketplace with prices from £4: sign up

Sources

In the UK, there is a real abundance of online arbitrage opportunities, yet many start off with the same handful of big name stores. While I’m guilty of it, the size of them means there’s space for everyone to find something on there.

Want to find your first Amazon FBA online arbitrage flips? Head over to these two sites:

eBay: shop now
Amazon: shop now (and I’ve done a post all about it)