If you want to start selling products for profit, you can set that up from home with relatively little trouble. Just order the products wholesale and then deliver them to your buyers when they buy them from you.
This might make you question why you would need a service like Fulfillment by Amazon that handles the delivery for you.
Here’s why.
In a typical reseller business model, a business owner or entrepreneur would first identify a product they liked the looks of, then go directly to the manufacturers/wholesalers. They’d next put in an order for 100 units (or thereabouts) which would get delivered to their own premises.
A small entrepreneur might keep the stock in their front room, while a bigger business might own a warehouse. Either way, the individual then markets the product themselves, and makes sales. Each time they sell something, they will package up the product, place a label on it, and pop it in the post.
When you buy wholesale, you will typically be able to get products at a discount. Usually this is a very significant discount, as the sellers see the value in guaranteed sales and thus are able to offer the low price.
This means that for every pair of jeans, blank CD, or set of dumbbells you buy for $5, you can sell them onward for $10 or $15. Sell off your entire inventory, and it’s normal to make a solid 100% profit or more.
Except not quite: because you also have to think about things like storage and fulfilment. This is where things can become significantly more challenging. Many independent entrepreneurs, for example, are not going to have the funds to afford a warehouse for storage, nor are they going to hire staff to attach labels. Therefore, it becomes their job to store all those items in their own homes, while making sure they keep track of how many items are in their inventory (and preventing things like moisture and mold from destroying their goods.
Delivery is complicated, too. You’ll now need to calculate the cost of the delivery, find the best couriers for buyers in all markets (including overseas in most cases), and make sure you have a smooth process capable of handling large influxes of orders without missing deliveries! Imagine if you have a sale and you sell 250 units. Would you be able to manually package and deliver all those items?
That’s where Fulfilment By Amazon comes in. (And yes, Fulfillment By Amazon does translate to Amazon Fulfilment By Amazon.)
