You guys know that I have a deep fascination with people who buy items from Walmart and Target and resell on Amazon. As I sell old shoes and rusty lamps, I’m always watching the retail arbitrage world. Two things have changed this week for folks doing Retail Arbitrage on Amazon.
- Profit Bandit is now charging a $10 monthly subscription fee regardless if you’ve bought the app already or not.
- As mentioned on the last podcast, Amazon has now created an approval process in order to sell in the Grocery, Beauty, and Health and Personal Care categories.
We use Profit Bandit to scan items we see in retail stores. I’ve never seen more than $2-3 profit on any item so it’s never has made sense to buy retail. The app was a one time fee ($15) so it was a fun tool. But now that they expect a monthly fee, we’ll no longer use it. I’m sure for the Arbitragers, the monthly $10 is a just a cost of doing business.
When you watch YouTube videos about selling online, everyone gets excited about selling Amazon FBA. Food, Beauty Products and Toys are the gateway drugs because these items are often on clearance at the big box stores. I wonder if Amazon is trying to slow the flood of food sellers by making sellers become certified. So interesting. Did the big corporations start getting mad at all the reselling? Our friend, Ryan Grant from OnlineSellingExperiment.com, has a great post about being at the mercy of Amazon and their rules and how he hedges his bets.
As eBayers, we go through changes each year to the rules. All we can do is flow with it. The good news is eBay started with people selling vintage and one-of-a-kind items and hopefully will continue to remain the biggest online flea market on the planet.