hi and welcome back to another amazon selling video my name is nikki kirk and i've been
selling on amazon doing retail arbitrage fba for the last three years from this rv
now i've recently gotten into oa which is online arbitrage that's not true i've actually done it
a while but not as in-depth as i have these past few months i've been basically doing videos since
i started selling on amazon and i get a lot of common questions so i went ahead and just asked on
my youtube channel what are some of the questions you have for me and i'm going to answer a few of
those today the first question is from mike and he's asking how do you know what to scan so the
simple answer is you scan everything everything especially when you're starting out because you
don't know what you can sell so you want to make sure you can scan as much as you possibly can
when i started i was scanning at walmart and i went straight for the clearance aisle i scanned
literally everything and at the time i think it was in july and so they were doing the seasonal
change over and there was so much stuff to scan so first scan everything after you've been scanning
a little bit you'll notice like what you can sell and what you can't so for example i shop
at tj maxx marshall's grocery outlet those kind of stores where they're always something new on shelf
and since i scan there so often every week i know what i've already scanned before and what's new
so you just kind of get a feel for it oh that's new and i'll scan it sometimes like there's some
neutrogena products that get discontinued they're usually there for a while and so i'll scan it and
be like oh i'm going to keep scanning this because i know it's going to make a profit eventually and
it usually does but sometimes i'll scan things for a year sometimes i've sold things then the profit
just tanks because people tank the price and then all of a sudden it's still at tj maxx so i scan it
again just to see and lo behold the price has gone back up so i'll buy it again this happens a lot
so scan everything if you scanned it before scan it again you just never know so i said i scanned
the walmart clearance aisle and that is such a good place to start because i found things even
not even a month ago in the clearance aisle at one walmart but on shelf in another so for
example when i first started i found odor readers in the walmart clearance aisle and they were
brand new product but for whatever the reason that walmart didn't want to put them in aisle
probably because they didn't have space on the aisle so they ended up just throwing them in
the clearance i scanned it it was making crazy money and so i literally went all over i think
we were in ohio at the time i went all over ohio walmart's buying up old readers i said
recently i found another thing this way it was a protein meal bar it was at the clearance aisle in
walmart for five dollars but on shelf it's only six dollars so really it's
not that different so i went and looked in all the different walmarts looking for it
and bought it and sold it and over time you really will kind of know like what you could sell and
what you can't so when i first started i couldn't sell a lot of toys like legos and disney princess
uh star wars so i just wouldn't even go down those aisles so you learn which aisles like
it's not worth your time if you can't sell star wars to go scan star wars so you kind of learn
those things as you go another question here kara is asking what categories do you recommend for new
sellers it seems like all that i'm not restricted in is kitchen and dining if you're a brand new
seller you are likely restricted in a lot of stuff things to try are office products health and
beauty not all of it most of it will be restricted but for example i was selling this uh wonder woman
cosmetic pouch that i had found at cvs now this was three years ago it's still online but the rank
is just garbage now so you wouldn't want to sell it but this is something that i was able to sell
i was also able to sell backpacks like i mentioned the odor eaters i sold toilet cleaner which i
think fell into the office category i sold a pc game i sold the my life as dolls from walmart
target has their own i think it's our generation dolls so toys that are store specific you can
usually sell because they're not the bigger brands now with that if you're just starting out you're
probably gated in topicals grocery and toys and some of the other subcategories and if you are
financially able which is not a whole lot but when you're starting i know it is because it was for me
you really want to get ungated and if you're just have a little bit amount of money to spend i
really recommend the topical and grocery un-gating guide that i wrote because it's super affordable
and you only have to spend so you buy the guide and on top of that you'll probably only spend 200
maybe 300 to get ungated in a ton of categories that make a lot of profit you probably are
scanning a lot of these items and you're like oh i'm restricted this is why it's so beneficial i
think i waited something like six to eight months before i finally got engaged in grocery and i was
kicking myself because there's so much profit out there if you can sell in the category so honestly
if you're in this business to make money it's worth this small investment to get ungated 100
i've never regretted it so on top of that question kara asked how many sales do you have to have
before you can get ungated i have had new sellers brand new get ungated so i don't think there's
any number that you have to have you're buying real product from a distributor you're getting
an actual invoice you are a real company like it's it's legit so there's nothing to be worried about
my un gating guides come with facebook groups which i'm in there other sellers are in there
so if something happens it's probably happened to them or me and we're all there to help out
so that's just another perk that i've added to these guides all right another question on
youtube what programs do you learn to use oa and oa is online arbitrage so way back three years ago
probably three and a half years ago now i bought a training from the selling family and it was
training in retail arbitrage selling fba fulfilled by amazon that training still exists and they've
actually created an update to it and now it also includes online arbitrage if you're totally new
to amazon and you want a really awesome place to learn i highly recommend the selling family
training i'll link to it below it's what i did it's how i learned i highly recommend it and
i've never regretted buying it when i bought it it didn't have oa like it does now so i learned
pretty much on my own so here's how i do it first i'll go to a store's clearance section their sales
section of the website and i'll just take my phone and literally scan the photo of the item on the
website sometimes it doesn't work sometimes you'll have to type in the item on the seller app or even
on amazon then you'll be able to see if you can sell it and what the profit is and all that so
literally that's how i do it the other thing i do is if i've sold an item like it so i'll
look for similar things so like coffee k-cups i'll go look for those on a specific site and
see if they have any that i know in the past i've sold or similar to it that's how i find a lot of
stuff i do the same thing with toys if i've sold like jojo's sue or however you say her name those
are usually items i'll go look for things that you know you've sold in the past that would be good if
you're totally new again start with the clearance area or sale area of the site i've gotten this
question about how to do oa a lot and it's really not that hard i there's no trick to it it's the
same as getting in store you just scan and look for everything i'm not saying i'm an expert at it
maybe there is a better way but that's how i do it and the last question on my youtube q a is jillian
asked how do you know how much to invest back into buying products which is a great question so when
i started i started with 500 and i just pulled cash out of my savings account and i used that to
invest in inventory over i think after a month i pulled out another 250 so 750 all in on my
starting inventory and all i did was i would buy what i could when it sold and amazon sent me my
money back i would buy more stuff and i kept doing that rolling that profit over into more inventory
until i got to the point where i had enough money to keep buying inventory and also pull out my 750
and that was around the third month and then by the fourth month i was pulling out profit
and paying myself and i've been doing that ever since so how much you reinvest into product is
totally up to you because you want to build your inventory up so when you're starting and if you're
starting with a little bit of money it's going to take a little bit longer but the more you can
roll that money over into more stuff the bigger your profits and the bigger your listings and
all that and they'll just accumulate into one so i started my first shipment i sent in august of 17
and i pulled out my profits in december of 17. and i have been doing that ever since now for whatever
reason when i started i was using cash only in the thought of using a credit card for inventory
literally never occurred to me i don't know why i think around december of that year i did
start using a credit card and it's just the same thing you use the credit card and you pay it back
whether you use a cash or credit card you definitely i i think it's wise to set a
limit like i'm not going to spend over x amount until you get a hang of what's going because you
don't want to buy stuff as you're learning and then all of a sudden it tanks like those beauty
bags i mentioned earlier those just tanked and i didn't end up making money on them so you want to
be careful when you're learning not to get too tight up into it but you just got to keep going
keep doing it and it'll build up and you will make a profit over time when you're starting out
i really recommend that you don't get too eager to pull money out too fast because you really
need to give yourself three to six months three to four months like just say to yourself okay i'm
not going to pull money out of this because it's worth it to have all the inventory pile up and
then the profits get bigger so you're like okay this is going to inventory and this is going to my
profit and then x amount is going to uh whatever tools you need to do your job better so go into
it with the expectation that it's going to take a couple months because it will take a couple months
successful sellers take a couple months like it takes a while so don't rush yourself don't put
too much pressure on yourself you're doing great keep scanning keep trying if you make a mistake
everyone makes a mistake maybe i'll make a video of all the major mistakes i've made because i've
made some so those were some of the q and a's i actually got a few on them if you have any
questions you can go ahead it's on my channel in the community section there's the question or you
can just ask a question on any of my videos you can ask it below i'll be sure to answer
them either in a video or just directly because there's no reason you can't be a successful seller
you just have to keep going and you have to do it you got to pull the trigger and just start thank
you guys so much for watching if you're interested in any of my ungaining guides or the bolo group
where we are sharing profitable items every month that you can find in stores or online go ahead and
check that out the link is below and i will see you back here for another amazon selling video
you