Lately, I’ve been experimenting with selling consumable goods with Fulfillment by Amazon. In other words, these are items that are used up and must be replenished. This method offers several advantages.
1) You get repeat business from the same buyer
2) Buyers will order more than one of the same item
3) Consumables are often discontinued and sell at ridiculous prices
For example, I was surprised that my local grocery store did not carry my favorite drink: Sobe Fruit Punch.
So I checked online and found the prices to be ridiculously high (which obviously got my wheels turning).
After a Google search, I finally found that my local Kmart had the product, and they were selling it for $1 a bottle. So, I bought 20 bottles and listed a 12-pack online for $69:
Would someone really pay over $5 a bottle when Kmart is selling for $1? Well let’s see. What are the odds out of 300 million people that:
1) Their favorite drink is SoBe Fruit Punch
2) They are an Amazon Customer
3) They are an Amazon Prime Customer
4) They want 12 bottles of Sobe at their doorstep in 2 days.
5) They are not necessarily price conscious
6) Their local supermarket or Kmart may not carry this (or they are not aware of it)
Apparently pretty good. It sold within a week of being listed on Amazon.
Now, 12 bottles of fruit juice is pretty heavy (21 pounds). That’s like shipping 3 gallons of milk. With all the FBA fees and the inbound and outbound shipping, I cleared about $38 after all the fees. So, I made about a $26 profit.
Remember, this is a consumable good. Meaning that “Suzie” in California might finish the entire 12 pack in 12 days. If she’s happy with the service and product, she might buy more (hopefully from me).
So look around your house. What items are you interested in? Are they available at your local Kmart? Is it a consumable good? Finding FBA items might be closer than you think.
Can I ask how you packaged that for FBA? That would be my stumbling block.
While I was at Kmart, I just found a box to put all 12 SoBe bottles in there. I also bought a slightly bigger box as well.
When I got home, I packed the 12 bottles tightly into the smaller box. Put the FBA barcode label on it. Then put that box into the bigger box.
I then put the shipping label on the bigger box and sent it to Amazon’s Fulfillment Center.
Hi nathan! Always enjoy your emails! Just to be clear, though, didn’t you have to create a brand-new product page which was for a 12-pack of these? And what did you do when amazon asked for a upc number? This is always a stumbling block for me! Keep up the great work, james
James,
There was already a listing for the 12 pack of SoBe, so I didn’t need to create a new one.
If I do need to create a new listing, I just buy a UPC number at barcodestalk.com. It costs around $10.
Nathan
Hi Nathan – Thanks for sharing this very helpful and thought-provoking post. Curious about if with your experience, the sales rank is reflective of how fast you’ll sell in Grocery if you’re the only FBA and priced well against non-FBA.
Thanks!
One potential problem: expiration dates. If you follow the letter of amazon’s policy it can get pretty complicated. Two key points:
1. “A product that has an expiration date may be listed with FBA as long as the unit is lot-controlled and the remaining shelf life is greater than 90 days from the time of receipt by Amazon.”
Much of the Sobe I found expires in the next couple months. About a year ago I sent some coffee to FBA that was close to the expiration date and I got away with it but I’m not willing to continue to take a chance.
2. “Products that expire and are contained in packaging that requires additional prep, such as glass jars or bottles, must be prepped to ensure that the expiration date is accessible for Amazon associates during the receive process. You are required to include the expiration date on the outside of the prepped product. The expiration date must be printed on a label in a human-readable font, in the required format, MM-DD-YYYY”
So, apparently, after you pack up the 12 bottles in the smaller box, you’re supposed to put the expiration date on a label on the outside of that box.
Things you think won’t sell do, and some things you think will sell right away don’t. It’s really odd how it all works. I bought a book for $14.95 new, and it sold for $45. I wish I had bought all three.
Thanks for the info on the expiration dates.
-Nathan
Great post Nathan.
I’ve been playing around with consumables on FBA too and the only problem I have had is this:
I received two very negative feedbacks from people who bought an item and then used the feedback forum to rant about my “outrageous” prices (even though my price was the lowest most of the time). I contacted seller support about this, but no luck getting the feedback removed.
Other than that, I am very happy with about 80%-90% of the consumables I’ve sent in.
Didn’t I read that Amzon will not accept anything that is packaged in Glass containers?
The Sobe bottles are plastic. I’m not sure on the policy about glass.