- Hi and welcome back to another Amazon selling video.
If your new to my channel name is Nicki Kirk,
and for the last three and a half years,
I've been selling on Amazon doing retail arbitrage all from
this RV right here.
So on a video a couple of days ago,
I got this question and I thought it was a really great
opportunity to just talk about retail arbitrage
and why it works.
So you never know how common go on YouTube,
but I'm assuming this is just a polite question.
So Wendy asked,
why would anyone willingly purchase an item for sometimes
double the price from you when we can walk into the store
and get it for the price you purchased it at.
Great question Wendy why would you?
They're so many reasons why retail arbitrage works and
I'll just explain five of them to you here,
but the main one is convenience.
Have you purchased something from Amazon?
Why did you purchase it from Amazon?
That is the same reasons why other people are purchasing
from Amazon.
People don't wanna walk into a store and that's not just
this year but like in general,
people don't wanna leave their house
if they don't have to if you have Prime
you can get it in two-day delivery sometimes even sooner,
and it's all about having the convenience of it
right to your door easy.
It's the same reason why
if you're driving down the highway
gas or diesel is more expensive than if you were into go
into town a little further.
It's usually cheaper.
It's all about convenience.
The second reason is sometimes things are just hard to find
a lot of what I sell is toys and beauty items that are
discontinued,
or they're no longer selling them at Walmarts and targets,
and now people don't know how to find their favorite thing.
I don't know if you have a face cream or a lotion that you
just love,
but that's the problem.
When companies stopped making them they get harder to find,
and if you can find them
you can sell them for a lot more on Amazon.
There's a couple of different examples I've given,
but this summer at the beginning of the summer
I was in Texas and it's hot in Texas,
and it was really hard to find like inflatables
because I don't know if you know this
but I'm a pool inflatable junkie,
even though I don't have a pool
I have a whole collection of probably like 20 inflatables
in this RV.
I used to have a giant Swan,
but I got rid of it that I've got all kinds of pool
inflatables.
Those are hard to find in Texas where everyone has a pool or
a lake and they are using them.
It is not so hard to find out in areas where it doesn't get
as hot So if I was sourcing in those areas
I would be able to sell pool toys for a lot of profit
recent example.
If you've been watching my videos and you know
I'm after this canning item,
it was a canning item that I could find relatively easily in
the small town I was in,
but everywhere if that went into any other Walmarts
they were sold out,
but for whatever reason
I did find 12 of them at one Walmart.
So that is why sometimes things are hard to find or
they're just sold out and so if you can find them
you can sell them for more money because other people can't
find them, but they want them.
That's the demand if they want it,
then they're going to pay for it.
The third reason is just the dynamics of where people live.
I think if you have a Walmart in your area,
you probably take this for granted,
but for 12 years,
when I lived in Los Angeles
I never stepped foot inside of a Walmart because there
wasn't a Walmart convenient.
People literally can't just go walk and get the thing
they want in some cases,
So if you have Walmart by you,
you can buy things that people in the city don't know about,
and you guys there's a lot of people who live in the city,
so they don't know that they can just walk into a Walmart if
they had one near them and grab it.
So I think that's one big factor that people don't tend to
realize is that Walmart while it is massive,
it's not everywhere,
and even if it is,
there's a lot of people who just won't go to one,
another example I have is TJ Maxx.
If you use to shop TJ Maxx or Marshall's before you did RA,
were you kind of surprised how much there is actually in
TJ Maxx And Marshall's,
I had no idea they had all these shampoos and beauty items,
or toys because when I went shopping there,
before I started doing RA,
I was going for clothing.
I never went anywhere else except for clothing,
and I very rarely even went to those stores anyways,
a lot of people don't know that these kinds of things are
actually in these stores,
So as an RA seller,
you are going out and getting the stuff that people want,
and then you are being paid for it with the profits,
and then my last example of why anyone would pay double the
price for me when they can just walk into a store
if they wanted to and get it is that Amazon is a one-stop
shop of convenience.
It is a giant 7-Eleven .
You guys if you haven't noticed that it absolutely is.
So you're paying for the convenience of
I can buy my soy curls for my tacos which are really good,
and I can buy the poly bags I need ,
and I can buy,
suntan that I like all the different things in one order,
it is a giant one-stop shop of millions of items.
I'm sure you already know this,
but just for those of you who don't know,
it's that convenience that if you're asking me
this question you're probably taking it for,
granted that it's that easy,
but people are willing to pay for their time.
It's my time that I'm going to the store to provide it to
the customers
and they're just paying me for my time of going to do that
for them.
So the next time you shop on Amazon,
think of us third party sellers,
as your personal assistance there to get you what you need.
So you don't have to.
Occasionally I get a snarky comment on YouTube,
and so I just thought that was a perfect example to show why
RA works because not everyone is like you,
not everyone will walk into the store,
and that is the beauty of how Amazon works.
Not everyone can do it.
Not everyone has the time and energy to make RA a living,
but for those who do the profits are there.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I hope this video was helpful or entertaining or anything at
all as always I'm here.
If you have any questions or needed any help,
feel free to reach out until next time.
Happy sourcing.
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