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- Hi, and welcome back to another Amazon selling video.
My name is Nikki Kirk, and I am outsourcing today,
doing retail arbitrage to sell on Amazon.
And I'm going to TJ Maxx,
and I thought I would just take you along
for the sourcing trip here.
I've been going to TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods
for the last couple of months.
It's a normal store that I hit.
However, I can't tell you the last time
I actually bought something because there's nothing.
The beauty aisle has got nothing,
which is normally my go-to, there's not a lot of toys yet,
and we're coming, we're in Q4.
It is today October, 19th I think, so Q4 is here
and they still don't have all their tables of toys.
So knowing that, I don't have a lot of high expectations,
but normally I do kind of just skip over the kitchen stuff
because it takes a long time to scan,
and since I'm not finding anything anyways,
I just kind of (indistinct) over the store at that point.
But here's my game plan for today.
Since I'm taking you along with me,
I'm gonna teach you things that I see
that come up throughout the sourcing trip.
But I'm gonna go to beauty, which is always my go-to.
And then I just kind of go around the perimeter
of the store, sometimes you do need to go through the middle
like the women's clothing area,
because they have weights or, not weights,
it's like water bottles, like workout stuff, weights,
workout stuff, in that area.
So I always go through and scan there.
During the summer, there was a ton of Adidas hats,
so I was scanning those all the time.
So anyways, I go through the middle, do that.
And then of course the cash wrap area is also really great.
So with that, we are going to head in and fingers crossed
that we find some good stuff today,
because I can not take another bust of TJ Maxx.
These stores are my favorite.
So anyways, I'm gonna head in and we'll see how it goes.
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I actually did pretty good in there, I'm impressed.
I think I was like scanning a little more
than I normally would.
I would probably have given up a little earlier,
but I wanted to make a good video for you.
And it ended up paying off for me,
because I did find more stuff
than I probably would have otherwise.
So I spent about $470 in there.
I used my tax exempt, retail certificate, tax license,
whatever you wanna call it that you get from your state.
So that I didn't have to pay sales tax,
which I'm sure paid off on that one.
I think the sales tax here in Oklahoma
is like 8% or something, so that saved me some money there.
This TJ Maxx really likes to put the labels over the UPC,
which is such a pain.
And it wasn't all of them, but it was most of them.
And so I just peel them off now, I don't even care.
I peel them back so I can scan the UPC.
I do try to scan the front first, if possible,
before I do that, but I just don't care.
So I was doing that a lot
and it was getting really annoying.
I went and did the hair appliances first.
Sometimes they have a lot of them, sometimes they don't.
Around Christmas and holidays,
they start having more of them.
So I scanned quite a few of those.
Like here's a Revlon example, again, the UPC is over it.
But I just scanned the front of it and I got it to come up.
So, I mean, overall the rank is good and the profit is okay,
but Amazon is selling it, so I passed on that one,
'cause I don't sell if Amazon is selling.
Then from there, I was right by the beauty items.
So I headed over to the beauty items
and just your friendly reminder
to always ask for approval in the app.
Whenever it says you can't sell it,
do not just take that as you can't sell it,
go ahead and ask for approval,
because most of the time you will be approved.
If you're not approved,
you'll see a request for an invoice or a letter,
and that is when you need to go get ungated.
I do have ungating guides to help you,
if you wanna get ungated.
They come with an amazing support group.
Like that alone is worth the cost of the guides,
but it also helps you step-by-step get ungated
and it's super affordable, new seller specific.
I made them, like literally that's how I got ungated.
So I just made a guide to help you guys.
So anyways, that's available.
But all that to say that always ask for approval.
And there's a new glitch.
I hope it's over by the time this video comes out,
but it's been going on for awhile
where it will say you're approved,
but it won't actually go away in the app.
So what you do is you go over to seller central,
copy the ASIN just like you're on your desktop,
only you're just doing it on your web browser on your phone.
From inventory, add product, copy of the ASIN over,
request approval and go through
and you'll mostly will get approved,
'cause you already were, right?
So then when you go back to the app,
it will now say you are approved in the app.
Super annoying, but if it says you're approved in the app,
even though it has that bar,
you can just do it when you get home.
But anyways, just something to know, still going on.
I did find a few beauty items, stuff, brands,
that I have been selling for years,
and I just haven't seen them in months.
So they were back, so they grabbed some of those.
And then Amazon was on a lot of the listings,
or they didn't make $5 profit,
so I didn't get a ton of beauty products,
but I did get some, I again got ungated in some.
I don't buy them if Amazon is selling them
because I don't wanna compete with Amazon.
Amazon is always gonna give the preference to themself.
Even if they share the buy box,
it's like 10% of the time they share.
You can look that up on Keepa.
It's just not worth it to go against Amazon.
There's so many other products out there
that they are not selling.
And I know if you're new, it's super frustrating
'cause it seems like they're selling it all,
or it doesn't make $5 profit,
but I promise you there is stuff out there.
So why I have my $5 profit rule is, Amazon prices fluctuate,
that is the name of the game,
it's gonna happen all the time.
So what it sells for right now, it might drop a penny,
it might drop 50 cents,
it might drop a dollar, it might drop $2,
and that is coming a direct hit to your profit.
So my $5 rule for me is because I wanna have a buffer
that even if the price drops, I'm still making a profit.
I also have a 50% rule,
but that's really when you're buying more expensive things,
like 15 to $20 or above cost items.
I wanna be making at that point 7 to $10.
I don't wanna spend $25 on something
that's only gonna make $5 if that makes sense.
So that's my rules, that's what I stick to.
You could do whatever you want,
but that's just how I play it safe
so that I don't end up losing money.
And then one last thing from the beauty aisle,
anyone guess what this is?
Don't sell this brand, do not sell Luseta.
This is your daily, weekly, whatever reminder
to not sell this brand, they will hit you with a counterfeit
or IP complaint, I can't remember which one it is,
but they will get you and it's super annoying to get off.
It can come off.
Everyone, I don't wanna say everyone in the group,
but a lot of people in the group have had this.
It can come off, you have a plan of action,
you just send it into Amazon and you can get it taken off,
but it's still just a pain to deal with, so don't buy 'em.
Then I headed over to the kitchen and the food area.
And so I just thought I would show you these tins
because it's a good example.
They cost $3.99, they make $3 on the single listing,
but there's a lot of other bundle listings out there.
So if you have the time,
go ahead and look for bundle listings.
You can normally find them by scanning the front
of the product or typing it in to search for it.
When I typed in holiday tin,
it didn't come up with anything,
so they're not on there yet, but anyways.
I also wanted to show you this just to reiterate
that packaging does not matter.
If it was a holiday tin and you're sending a non holiday one
that might matter, but if the packaging changes,
like I would have no problem sending a holiday tin right now
on a regular tin listing because it's the holiday time
and packaging changes.
However, the product has to be the same.
So like, sometimes every year a manufacturer
will change the packaging.
It doesn't matter as long as the product, the ounces,
everything is literally exactly the same,
then the packaging doesn't matter.
Here is a BOLO for you from the kitchen area,
if you wanna do the prep work.
So these turkey Thanksgiving plates,
they do make a good profit, however you need to poly bag,
however you need to bubble wrap and box them.
And I am just lazy and not up to it,
so I found them here at TJ Maxx,
I'm sure they're also at HomeGoods,
if you want to look for those.
They might be easier to FBM
just because you're already boxing them, but anyways.
So you can see they were starting to put the tables out
for all the Christmas stuff.
Some of them were like half full or just a little bit full.
They are putting stuff out,
so it's another store I'll hit every week
'cause they are putting stuff out now.
I did end up getting some paper napkins for Thanksgiving,
but that was really all the holiday stuff.
If you ever see anything anywhere that says as seen on TV,
you should steer clear.
This is my advice to you, you do what you wanna do,
but they are known to issue IP complaints,
because they're very protective of their brand, right?
They made this product and they don't want anyone to sell it
or mess with it, whatever.
Anyways, as seen on TV is another one to look out for,
for IP or counterfeit complaints, so don't sell it.
Here is another BOLO because I'm using it to show you
that the packaging must be brand new, unblemished.
Would you give this to someone as a gift?
Would you be embarrassed?
So those are all questions to ask if a packaging is okay.
So this one obviously is like messed up.
The window box is coming apart,
which is unfortunate 'cause it's a great item
and I'm gonna be on the lookout for it.
Another one that I found is some Puma slides.
I found two, actually there was a lot of different colors.
Amazon was on most of them, but these two black ones
make a good profit and they're here at TJ Maxx.
So all in all, it was pretty good.
Again, if you need help on gaining in grocery, topical, OTC,
toys, the premium brands like Adidas, Under Armour, Nike,
Puma, I have guides that can help you out with that.
If you want help with what to source in general,
I have the BOLO groups.
So it's got over 300 leads every month.
Every seller in there is sharing a different lead
of what they're finding right now this month
so that you can know what to look for
when you're out there sourcing, it's really helpful.
It's helpful for new sellers, it's helpful for me,
for experienced sellers because I found some stuff in there
from the BOLO group.
But yeah, so if you wanna join that,
that's available as always.
If you are brand new and you have not even started
or you're just barely starting,
I have the beginner FBA training course.
You're welcome to join that if we want to.
Wherever you need help with Amazon, I am there to help.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Don't forget to like and subscribe,
and I will see you back here
for another Amazon selling video.
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