Chris Green's new book, Online Arbitrage: Sourcing Secrets for Buying Products Online to Resell for Big Profits, is already an Amazon best-seller. It includes detailed instructions from someone who really knows his stuff.
You can find some pretty amazing deals, but if you don't have the capacity to receive and ship products, it won't do you any good
In Part 1 of this series, we covered what online arbitrage is, and looked at some of this seller's strategies for sourcing products online. Here, Green describes some of his best buys, how Fulfillment by Amazon fits into all this, the online videos his book features and more.
Schepp: What have been some of your best product finds?
Green: The first deal was a double-dipping deal from Disneystore.com. They ran two promotions that overlapped for a short time. The first was 50 percent off, and then it was buy one get one free.
It didn't work at checkout, and so I called customer service. They saw what I meant, and they refunded half of my payments. If they'd said, "No," I would have still bought it. I can't prove it, but I don't think anyone else got it.
I bought one product out, and most of another. I got a lot of free items. One was small, light and cheap, and I made a good profit on each one, but I didn't make a lot of money because I had to sell a lot of them.
The middle item worked well, but the highest-priced item sold for $200 each. I made the greatest profit from those. I only sold 34 of them, but I made so much more on them than the $12 items.
That started with a FatWallet alert. I knew the deal from the day before, so I tried to see if I could stack them. It's not really complicated, but you have to follow up on things. I put a chapter in the book about how much to buy. You have to make a decision based on how much you can do.
Schepp: You're a big proponent of FBA. How does it tie in with online arbitrage?
Green: FBA makes online arbitrage truly scalable. There's no need to limit what you buy because you may run out of space.
Having access to historical pricing websites can help sellers determine the optimal time to sell
You can find some pretty amazing deals with the strategies laid out in online arbitrage, but if you don't have the capacity to receive and ship products, it won't do you any good.
There are even businesses popping up that will receive your online arbitrage orders for you and send them to your FBA account so you don't even have to touch the products yourself.
It's pretty amazing.
Schepp: Your book describes how to get the best price when you resell. What are some strategies?
Green: Having access to historical pricing websites like camelcamelcamel.com can help sellers determine the optimal time to sell, as well as predict any pricing trends.
Seasonal products are an easy example. What time of year do heaters spike in price? It's all right there on the tracking pages. I also encourage people to not be too aggressive on pricing. Products rarely sell below retail for very long.
If a surge in supply has lowered prices, just relax. That lower price will mean more sales, and as those units sell through, those sellers will sell out and the price will rise. Also, knowing how popular a product is and being able to track how often Amazon goes out of stock (and at what prices the items sell for when Amazon is out of stock) will allow you to patiently wait for the right price while your competition may be getting anxious for a quick sale at a lower profit.
Keepa.com tracks Amazon in stock or not in stock, and is available via its website or through a browser extension.
Showing real deals in real time while talking through it really helps the viewer start to understand the methods behind online arbitrage
Sometimes Amazon may be selling an item at a ridiculous price, but I don't care why they're selling them that low. I just want to buy them. Eventually, they'll put buy limits on them, but until that happens, you can buy. That's what the alerts are for.
Schepp: Your book also contains links to unlisted YouTube videos. Can you describe these?
Green: Some information is just conveyed better with examples and using videos. The book is maxed out at 480 pages, and I wanted to add a lot more information. The videos allowed me to do that.
My favorite videos are the Rabbit Trail videos where I start on one website, like a "top price drops" website, and then show the viewer exactly what I click, what I'm looking for and where I end up to find some pretty amazing deals.
Showing real deals in real time while talking through it really helps the viewer start to understand the methods behind online arbitrage. Here is a sneak peek at one of the Rabbit Trail videos.
Schepp: Private SpreeCasts are also included with the book. What are these?
Green: People who buy the book can register their purchase to receive lifetime updates. I'll also do some private SpreeCasts to answer questions and provide additional examples. SpreeCast allows me to connect with and interact with people who have bought the book. I've already added three more unlisted videos just for people who bought the book.
Schepp: Thanks, Chris!