Wholesale on Amazon FBA for Beginners: When to Start? How to Start?

This blog post will share talking all things wholesale in your Amazon FBA business, specifically answering the questions, when to start wholesale and how to start wholesale.  

This blog post is for those who are potentially wanting to get started in wholesale, and if you have never sold in your Amazon FBA wholesale before, this is going to give you some great advice and tips that Kev has personally learnt over the past nearly 6 years building his Amazon FBA business.  

When Should You Start Wholesale in Your Amazon FBA Business? 

The quick and straightforward answer to this question is immediately – start wholesale as soon as you can. It all ultimately comes down to what your goals are. What are your goals? Is your goal your Amazon FBA business to be your business, where you can build it into an asset for you to maybe gain some freedom and quit your job and to be able to build a team?  

check out our blog post down below, where we talk about some considerations to make before quitting your job.

https://www.systemisefulfilment.co.uk/blog/8-considerations-if-you-are-going-to-quit-your-job-for-your-business

Then, wholesale has never been more important than it is at the current age to start, because a lot of things have changed over the past few years. Especially on Amazon, where there have been a lot of adjustments to the rules, lots of different updates which have come out over the last few years, and since COVID-19 started, there have been a lot of changes and things going on with Amazon FBA.   

But, if you have got the ambition of building a multiple (5,6,7,8) figure business, then wholesale is an amazing way to do that.  

Remember the Difference... 

The big difference between online arbitrage and wholesale is if you are an online arbitrage seller or you have had experience with online arbitrage, you must remember that wholesale is not online arbitrage. Those who fail to get started with wholesale and start shipping with volume and pallets, is they see wholesale as online arbitrage. They are trying to open accounts and get a price-list, then they are trying to find those winners, but wholesales are very different. Wholesales give you the potential to build relationships with suppliers and have people who you can talk to on the phone, via email go to trade shows and message them. With wholesale, you are speaking to people, whereas with online arbitrage, you are not, you are just placing an order online.  

Online arbitrage is taking advantage of online stores, which are businesses to consumer businesses (B2C), whereas wholesale is business to business (B2B), you have got an account with them.  

If you would like to learn more about online arbitrage (OA), we have multiple blog posts and videos on our YouTube channel which can certainly help you.
Click the links below for more information!

https://www.systemisefulfilment.co.uk/blog/ultimate-online-arbitrage-free-course-on-amazon-fba

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfgNHqq9IfmSfj3JsvTIoTQ

How to Start? 

The most effective way is by going to trade shows. If you can go to a trade show, search for local trade shows or national trade shows which you can attend and see when they are available and go, because this gives you the potential to meet lots of suppliers.  

Go with a business card. 

Go all dressed up.  

 Go with a story.  

Share yourself and your background.  

Share your ambitions. 

Doing all this shows that you are excited will show your excitement for working for them. Trade shows are the best way of doing things, but because as you all know, because of things which are going on right now, this is not exactly easy. However, there are other things which you can do such as going onto the trade show website, go onto the exhibit list and it will show you all those exhibiters who were going to these trade shows – they have got contact details, websites and social media pages, where you are able to find those area managers and sales managers and start speaking to them on there and to start building a relationship with them. This is so important when it comes to wholesale. Going through the stock list and store list and looking at it from a different point of view. 

We could open the same wholesale accounts, and I see it as a lot of winners, and you see it as a lot of losers. Why is this?  

Well... One of the things when it comes to wholesale is you can now build relationships, then you can start to negotiate different discounts. There are many different reasons why a stock list would be different for two different people, but what you should do is look at the stock list and see it in terms of discounts, look at it as if you have a 5% discount, 10 percent discount, or 15% discount. See it in terms of what you want. Start looking through the stock list based on discounts as well as the current number. 

One of the most important and powerful things is volume-based discounts. If for an example, you look at a stock list and you have an order which you want to place which is £700, then you look at it from a 5% discount point of view, you may now be thinking that you can place a £3,500 order. You want to start filtering that in conversations, you want to say, “Hey, that is an amazing stock list, but could I get a 3% discount or a 5% discount”, that is going to be powerful, because they may not want to do this, or they may be like, “Place this 3,4,5,6 thousand pound order today with that 3% discount and you have got yourself a deal”, it all depends on the relationship which you have with them.  

This is just ultimately a great way to get started and to just get your foot through that door.  

Further Reading:

At Least 6 Online Business Models To Build Alongside Amazon FBA For Multiple Streams Of Income

Top 10 Wholesale Tips for Attending Trade Shows and Opening New Accounts With Suppliers

13 Reasons Why People Fail to Build A Successful Online Business