5 Tips For Using A Sourcing List For Amazon FBA Sellers
By The Selling Family
There are a lot of services available (including our own) that will send you product finds that have been found online from various vendors. The basic premise is that you pay to get access to an online sourcing virtual assistant, and share the cost with multiple members to bring down the per person cost. Not only does your cost come down versus having a full time virtual assistant, you don’t have to worry about hiring, training or keeping track of your own team.
We have found benefits to both having your own online sourcing virtual assistant as well as using a group sourcing list.
Today, we wanted to share some tips with you on how to best utilize a sourcing / finds list to the best of your ability.
1. Remember to do your own due diligence on any products that you consider purchasing. One of the misconceptions of using a finds list, is that you should just purchase every item on the list without doing further research. No matter how careful the list owner is, there are items that will slip through that are not good. Sometimes items are considered hazmat by Amazon, but don’t raise any red flags to us that they would not be allowed FBA. Other times, there are mistakes in the listings, be it the weight is off, the packaging has changed, or there are multiple listings. One of the big benefits of our list is that we have 3 people checking every item before it makes it to your inbox. Unfortunately, there are still things that slip by for one reason or another. Ultimately, you are responsible for the items that you purchase, so you want to just use any of these services as a starting point.
2. Research the products history for rank and price. This is a spin off of doing your own due diligence. Before making any purchase online, be it from a list or from your own research, it is important to check out the history of that item on Amazon. You can see a video of me doing this in our online sourcing course. The two tools that I use to do this are Keepa and CamelCamelCamel. I am looking for ranks that may only be low today, but that were way higher in days/weeks past. Plus, any price increases that may be temporary.
3. Remember that no deal is ever exclusive. One concern that I have seen many people have is that they see some of the same finds shared in multiple places. When virtual assistants are browsing online, it is common for them to find some of the same items because they are looking at the same stores. Or, they are specifically sourcing special sales or clearance events. When we hear about a special event at an online store we will have the virtual assistants look at them. The goal of the team is to save you time from looking at the sale yourself. So, in the same way that you and other people may come across the same deal, this happens with virtual assistants as well. This is why I always recommend going very wide with your online purchases. That way if there are changes in the marketplace, you aren’t too deep on any one items.
4. Pay attention to any notes on your finds list. With our service, we will make notations of any special coupon codes, limitations and/or product variations. Sometimes you can only link to one page of a website, but there may be multiple options available. So, it is important to make sure that you are checking the notes and comparing the Amazon page to the retail page to make certain you are getting the correct items.
5. Recalculate your profit with any extra fees that may be incurred. There are fees that are different for every seller, so it is important to make sure that you calculate them into any products you are purchasing online. With our service, we calculate the cost of the item shown on the site and any Amazon fees. There would also be inbound shipping costs, any sales tax you may incur and any shipping charges if there was no free shipping available (or you didn’t meet the minimum purchase amount).
If you are not currently using a shared product finds list, it is a great way to add in more online sourcing to your Amazon FBA business. We have used shared virtual assistants in many ways. We’ve done paid lists shared with hundreds of members, paid lists shared with small amounts of members, paid private Facebook groups sharing finds, free Facebook groups sharing finds, cost sharing multiple assistants with a small group of sellers as well as just having our own private virtual assistants. If you would like to check out our current shared virtual assistant program, you can see all the details here.
As we said in the beginning there are positives to any way of doing it. You really just need to find a system that works for you and your business. This looks different for everyone and that’s ok! What works for you today, may change over time as your business transforms too.
If you have any comments about your experiences sharing virtual assistants or using product sourcing lists we would love to hear them! Feel free to share below.
- Hope these tips help!
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