Where to buy Wholesale products to sell on Amazon in 2023: the definitive guide

What to consider when choosing a wholesale product?

Think about the size of your product

Again, this might sound simple, but the bigger your product, the more you’re likely to pay in shipping and fees, and it’s important to remember you are going to be buying these products in bulk so these costs can quickly add up.

You’re also going to need to think about where you’re going to store your products before shipping them to Amazon or your customers. If you’re going to be using FBA, this might not be a problem because Amazon will store the items for you (although you need to be sure you can sell products relatively quickly, as products that hang around in Amazon warehouses get hit with storage fees). If you’re going to be fulfilling your orders yourself from home, you need to know you’ll have space to store them before they sell.

Because of this you might want to consider starting out small with your products to begin with and then as your business grows, consider moving on to larger bulkier items.

Choose something sturdy

As with any online sales business, you want to reduce the amount of returns you get as these can affect your seller rating, your reputation and impact your margin. You should therefore consider how your product will stand up to being transported over long distances.

If your chosen item could easily be damaged during transit either from the wholesaler to you, or from you to your customer, it might not be the best fit. Damaged items will end up costing you money in the long run as it’s likely they will need to be returned or refunded.

You should therefore try to avoid choosing a product which is overly delicate or fragile as these are more likely to get broken in transit. This is also true for mechanically complex products such as computer printers, which due to the number of components in them are more likely to go wrong and stop working, leading to refunds and returns.

Consider selling in gated categories

Amazon has a list of categories which have certain restrictions on them meaning you can’t sell products in those categories unless you meet a certain criteria, these are known as gated or restricted categories.

One of the main benefits of choosing a product from a gated category is that because of the approval process, there will be fewer other sellers competing against you for sales. This means your product is more likely to be seen by potential buyers increasing your likelihood of a sale.

One of the main things you’ve got going for you running a wholesale business on Amazon is that for many gated categories, particularly branded goods such as Lego, you need to be able to demonstrate you have a relationship with a wholesaler before you will get approved to sell there.

It’s worth taking a look at the Amazon brand registry to find out more about how Amazon protects branded products being sold on the platform and what their criteria is for people that want to sell them.

Take a look at Amazon

A great place to start when trying to find your product to sell is to take a look at some of the categories Amazon already has in place, such as the “Best Sellers”, “New Releases” and “Movers and Shakers” category.

These categories can be a valuable source of information about the types of products people are buying regularly or are starting to become more popular with customers shopping on Amazon. You’re able to break these categories down further into subcategories like ‘Toys and Games’ or ‘Electronics’ to find something that you think might suit your needs.

It’s worth remembering though, that just because a certain product is already selling well it doesn’t mean you’ll instantly be able to find a supplier of a similar product and start selling it yourself with as much success, but it gives you an idea where to start.

Categories worth exploring for your Amazon wholesale business

By using the guidance above, you should be able to find a suitable product to sell on Amazon, but if you’re still not sure where to start, there are some tried and tested categories that are suitable for a wholesale model that are sure to point you in the right direction.

Toys and Games

This is a great category to get into because it’s popular all year round due to birthdays or other gifting occasions. You’ve also got the option of breaking into more seasonal sub-categories such as water guns for summer.

Pet supplies

People love spoiling their pets. With 65 million dog owners in the US alone, there’s enormous demand for products that fall into this category. From treats and toys to more practical items such as leashes, there will always be a need for products all year round.

Craft supplies

Craft supplies are usually cheap to buy in bulk, are small and don’t break easily. On top of that they are popular all year round. If you can find seasonal craft supplies for Easter or Christmas, that’s even better as they can help give your sales a boost during these busy periods.

Electronics

This category is huge. This means there’s huge potential to find competitive products. Remember what we said earlier though try and avoid fragile or bulky products to begin with. Items like headphones are always popular in this category and are less likely to break.

Jewelry

You don’t have to be selling the finest diamond engagement rings. Inexpensive fashion accessories and jewelry are incredibly popular on Amazon. On top of that these items are usually quite small, meaning they’re easier to ship and don’t take up a lot of space in your home if you’re using FBM.

Books

Remember when Amazon only sold books? That’s how they started out in 1995 and the category has remained popular ever since. Books can be a great place to start because they’re small, sturdy and also can be bought quite cheaply at wholesale prices.

Now you’ve got an idea on the type of product you should be looking for on Amazon, let’s take a look at finding a supplier.

How to find a Wholesale supplier

Choosing a wholesale supplier can be daunting at first as there are so many out there. Remember – the game here is to try and make as much profit as possible. You’ll need to have a concrete idea of what your costs are before you even think about placing an order for anything.

You need to find a reliable supplier that can consistently keep up with the demand of the product you’re trying to sell. Gaps in your supply chain can cause serious problems for your seller rating and your profitability, so having a supplier that can keep the product flowing if you get a sudden surge in sales is crucial.

There’s a few things you should try to find out whilst speaking to suppliers:

• What’s your budget? You need to understand what you can or can’t afford to buy before approaching your wholesaler.
• What is the cost per unit? This is the base price each unit of stock will cost you.
• Are there minimum order quantities? Some suppliers may require you to purchase a minimum number of units to fulfill your order.
• Is there a scaling discount? If you buy more of that product will your cost per unit go down?
• How quickly do they ship, and can they do rush orders?
• Are there any additional fees? Consider things like shipping costs at this point.
• Some wholesalers may ask that you provide a business licence or tax identification number before selling you a product, so you should have that to hand if you have one.
• How far away are they, and how quickly can they ship items either to you or to Amazon on your behalf?

It’s now time to start looking for potential suppliers, there’s several ways you can do this. So we’ll run through some of the most common ones.

Using China sourcing websites – Alibaba, DHGate, etc

There are a number of wholesale gateways that will put you directly in touch with factories in China, and they have an enormous range of products available across most of the categories you’ll find on Amazon, including electronics, homewares, jewelry and toys.

You need to register to use these sites, but once you’ve done this and you’ve found a potential product, you can then contact the manufacturer of your product directly to make your purchase. In most cases the product listings will display useful information such as minimum order quantity (MOQ), price range, and also show you reviews of that product and factory. These reviews aren’t vetted, so it’s worth taking these with a pinch of salt.

For generic products such as sports water bottles or garden accessories you should be okay ordering from these wholesale sourcing sites. Do NOT buy branded products. In every single case, without exception, these will be counterfeit products. If you’re caught importing fakes into the US the police will likely be paying you a visit. Even if your counterfeit items don’t get caught by customs on arrival, if Amazon finds out your items are fake they will remove your listing and suspend your account – and that’s if the lawyers of the product you’re counterfeiting don’t get to you first.

Also, factor in long lead times unless you’re willing to pay for air freight – it isn’t unheard of for items to take 30 – 50 days to arrive from China by sea.

Use Google to find domestic wholesalers

So, this may sound basic, but if you’ve got a specific product in mind, completing a search using Google may be enough to help you find a supplier for your product.

There are some pros and cons which come from doing this. As a positive, you should be able to pick and choose from a range of suppliers that appear on Google, giving you plenty of options to consider. On the downside, none of these are vetted, so you don’t know how trustworthy they are and also it’s going to take you way too long to approach them all individually.

Ensure you shop around – there are loads of domestic wholesalers that can sell you products at a competitive price.

Approach manufacturers directly

This option isn’t for everyone and to be honest, usually only works if you’re going to be buying your products in very large quantities. You basically cut out the wholesaler completely and you approach the manufacturer directly. Firstly you’ll need to see if you can find out who makes your particular product, then you’ll need to approach them and see if they’ll consider selling it to you directly rather than making you go through a wholesaler.

If you do decide to attempt working with a supplier like this, you may want to consider starting a private label business. This is where you create your own brand by working with the supplier to build a range of products under your own label. This can be lucrative in the long run because you can develop and tweak your products based on the needs of your customer, but it can be very costly to start up and involves a considerable amount of product research and brand development.

This option isn’t really for beginners and there are other low cost alternatives available so should probably be avoided until you’ve started to build a wholesale business using other suppliers first.

Visit trade shows

Another way to find wholesale suppliers would be to consider visiting trade shows. At trade shows you will often find a range of different suppliers trying to advertise their own unique product offerings. It can be a great way to find interesting variants of products that may already exist in the market that could give you an advantage over other Amazon sellers.

At the very least, they’re a great way to network with suppliers that you could eventually contact directly, even if they aren’t suitable for you to use right now.

Fulfilling your orders

Now you’ve decided what product you’re going to sell and which supplier you want to use, the final thing you need to consider is how you’re going to fulfill your orders. Depending on the approach you want to take there are a few options for you to consider.

Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM)

FBM relies on you getting products shipped from your Wholesaler to your home or business address and storing the goods yourself. As orders get placed for your products, you ship them to the customer yourself.

Using FBM means you also have to handle the customer service yourself, such as delivery queries or returns, which can be a little more work. However, unlike FBA (see below), there’s no additional Amazon storage or processing costs which will eat into your overall profit.

This method of fulfillment is ideal for people that are just starting their Wholesale business and need to test the waters to see if they can make money breaking into this lucrative type of business.

Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA)

You can probably already guess the difference here. In this model, it’s not you, but Amazon that handles all the fulfillment. You send stock into Amazon and as orders are placed for your products, they pack them and ship them for you instead. They’ll also handle all the customer service and returns for you, so you don’t need to worry about that either.

Although this sounds great, Amazon isn’t doing this out of the kindness of their heart, they will charge you for storage and shipping and this will change depending on the weight and size of the product you’re selling.

This method of fulfillment is useful for sellers that have grown their business and can’t support the quantity of orders they’re sending out themselves or can no longer store the items they’re selling. That’s not to say it can’t be used by the smaller seller, but the costs incurred will impact the profitability of your business.

One thing to consider is that by using Amazon FBA, you will need to get your product to the Amazon warehouse in bulk. Using the Amazon Global Logistics program you can get your products shipped directly from your wholesaler to an Amazon facility. Ensure that your wholesaler has experience in shipping products to Amazon, as if they get it wrong, you could end up with a big bill for returning your items to the wholesaler. We’ve written a full guide on how to ship items to Amazon FBA, which you should check out if you’re planning to go down this route.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is where you get your chosen supplier to send the product directly to your customer when they place an order with you. This method of fulfillment is very risky.

When dropshipping, you hand over all responsibility for shipping and delivery to your supplier. You have no control over the condition of the package or whether they’ve even dispatched the correct product to the customer.

If your supplier fails at any point in this process, it’s your responsibility as the seller to resolve any issues and compensate the customer accordingly.

We’ve written a comprehensive article about the viability of dropshipping on Amazon, and we’d recommend you check it out.

Summing up

Using a wholesale business model is an excellent way to grow your own online Amazon business, but as with all businesses you need to put in time and effort to make sure they succeed. This is especially important when choosing the right wholesaler to supply your product.

It’s important that you take the time to research your product thoroughly when deciding which wholesale items to sell. This will allow you to approach the right kind of wholesaler based on your specific product, and don’t be afraid to research multiple different wholesale suppliers before you make your final decision.

If you’re an inexperienced seller with minimal experience on the Amazon marketplace, you might want to consider starting off small by buying the minimum quantities of the product that your wholesaler will sell you, and scaling up form there as your business grows. Initially this won’t make you the biggest profit, but it does let you understand the process better.

How can SourceMogul help with your Amazon wholesale business?

Once you’ve found the type of product you want to sell and have approached your suppliers, it can be difficult to work out which of their products you should be selling.

As we said earlier, the goal with your wholesale business is to buy in bulk and make as much profit on each item as you can, but how do you decide which items are going to be the most profitable? You could manually compare all products your suppliers are selling with the same products on Amazon to work out which could make you a profit, but that’s going to waste time that you could spend on selling your product.

This is where SourceMogul can really help. SourceMogul has a useful feature which allows you to upload your chosen wholesalers inventory lists, it then compares their prices with hundreds of other similar items on Amazon and shows you which are the most profitable. It even lets you add taxes and additional fees that you might incur, allowing you to  better understand what your final profit will be.

You can sign up for a free 7 day trial with SourceMogul by clicking on the button below.