- HubPages»
- Business and Employment»
- Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs»
- Home-Based Businesses
Best Items to Sell on Amazon
There are a couple of different product 'types' you can sell on Amazon. The first are brand things like Nike, Adidas, Reebok trainers and clothes, GHD hair straighteners , Calvin Klein perfumes and so on, basically a well known product with a brand name, that many people recognize.
The next items would be the unique and non-branded type of items, those things without a well-known name on them, that are half the price of similar branded items.
This is where everyone should start, when trying to sell on Amazon for the first time, unless you have really good contacts and getting cheap branded stock.
You see, non-branded items that are similar or better quality to branded products will have a much better selling rate on Amazon. The problem with selling well known brands on Amazon is you will always end up competing with Amazon itself, as they sell there own products, of course there's other sellers who are probably bigger and better financed than you are, that will get in your way for sure, as these sellers get there stock very cheap, because they either know where to go, or they are just better financed than everyone else.
This is not a problem if you can get the items at super-cheap prices for example surplus prices, but if you're buying from similar suppliers, then you have got no chance of competing against these big dogs.
The way round this is to buy yourself unique and non-branded type of items, you will get the items cheap if they don't come with a brand, but very much sell-able on Amazon, you should try to match the non-branded items to the ones that are branded, ( example: Colgates toothbrush, you would look for a non-branded tooth brush that would look like it.
These are the kinds of items I recommend to a beginner, if they plan to start selling on Amazon, stick with the non-branded and you will do much better, as these items have a good selling rate, you will also be able to pick these items up at discounted rates, at wholesale websites, or local wholesalers. This will allow you to compete with others if needed.
Fulfilment by Amazon
Here's a couple of things you should know about selling on amazon...
1) You must be and have a Pro Seller account to sell on amazon, which will cost you a monthly charge of about £28 a month. But, the last time i checked it was free for the first month. So you can test it out for no charge, this could be very help-full for you.
2) You will have to buy a UPC code for your items, otherwise this will not work. (I will post a few videos from you-tube at the bottom of page to cover UPC code ). But for now I think I've answered the question posed in today's subject line. If you cant wait search Google it will explain it to you....... I honestly do prefer to buy non-branded and unique-type items over the branded stock that's out there, when you sell on Amazon.co.uk you control the product. You get the good reviews (assuming it's decent). You can sell those customers other products along a similar theme later on in your business.
Just think about it, if you buy cheap non-branded items similar to ones that are branded, that serve the same purpose, your profit margins are going to be much higher. This way there's no direct competition.
You could of course use 'Fulfillment by Amazon' to do all the shipping for you, if you haven't heard of this before let me explain to you real quickly what it is, basically you buy you items from your supplier, sign up for 'Fulfilment by Amazon', if you already a seller then you still have to sign up, you send your items to Amazon, who then sell, package and post the item for you, for a small fee at the end of each sale.
And the coolest thing about this is that all your items qualify for free delivery, also you wont have to do much, just sit back and watch the sales come in. I have and will always recommend this 'non-branded' approach over the alternative that everyone else seems to be in favour of going after the 'brands'that are brutally price-competitive.
Thanks for reading.... any question please comment below.
© 2011 Fernando Forjaz De Lacerda