For online arbitrage, ArbiSource helps you find retailer-to-Amazon deals quickly, then SellerAmp SAS checks whether the numbers hold up. A promising price gap still needs product verification before you commit your money.
Check out this walkthrough from pro seller Jas where she pairs automated sourcing with checks on eligibility, competition, and profit.
Key Takeaways
- Use ArbiSource’s Price Drops and Scans features to find retailer-to-Amazon leads, then apply filters for profit, ROI, sales, and restrictions.
- Verify that the source product matches the Amazon listing exactly, including size, color, quantity, and bundle details.
- Use SellerAmp SAS to check eligibility, fees, competition, price history, break-even cost, and estimated profit before buying.
- Treat sales-based order sizes and profit estimates as rough models; account for taxes, discounts, fulfillment, and shipping costs.
- A high ROI depends on verified costs and a realistic selling price, so don’t rely on a lead’s initial price gap alone.
Set up for online arbitrage
ArbiSource does the hard work for you and finds products from across the web that priced lower at other retailers than on Amazon, so you can check out the promising leads in SellerAmp SAS for closer analysis. A great place to start is the Price Drop section from the left hand menu of your ArbiSource dashboard.
Pro Tip: Connecting Seller Central lets you check selling eligibility, but you still need the restriction filter enabled to exclude gated products.
Narrow your Price Drops results
Price Drops gives you a broad selection of leads. Filters let you remove unwanted results or fine tune your product requirements.
Jas’s example uses these settings:
- Set minimum profit to $2 and minimum ROI to 25%.
- Raise estimated monthly sales from 50 to 100.
- Exclude listings without a Buy Box, BSR, or fee data.
- Remove results where Amazon is selling, plus out-of-stock products.
- Exclude Hazmat products if you’re selling FBA without Hazmat approval.
Don’t forget: suppressed listings need further research and likewise, missing fees leave your profitability calculation incomplete, so make sure to add them all in.
Verify the product before analyzing profit
Your first check is whether the retailer’s product matches Amazon’s listing exactly, including capsule counts and bundle listings.
An Allstar Health activated-charcoal lead initially shows a $10.99 source price and a $34.30 Amazon price. However, Jas shows why it’s so important to do your due diligence when it comes to product details. What initially looks like a deal with potential is quickly ruled out by a quick manual comparison. Though at first glance both results appear to be the same product, one option is a 100-capsule bottle and the other is a 360-capsule bottle, with the larger version actually priced at source for $27.99. A different capsule count changes the deal, even when the brand and product name look right, so Jas moves on to the next result.
The next product is a Stanley item at Dick’s Sporting Goods which is on sale for $18. Jas repeats the initial comparison checks for color, type, size etc and everything matches. Entering an $18 cost and $39.99 selling price into SellerAmp SAS shows $8.99 estimated profit and 49% ROI, so this product can be shortlisted as a potential purchase for further investigation.
Pro Tip: Check out SellerAmp’s YouTube channel for a wealth of instructional videos on how to use each of the features, like the Charts panel for example.
Scan categories and check restrictions
ArbiSource’s Scans feature also lets you focus on individual categories by selecting from an extensive list. This can be a great way to only focus on categories that you know you’re ungated in and disregard categories you aren’t interested in selling.
For this video Jas selects the the ‘Grocery and Gourmet Foods’ category and runs the scan, which returns 824 results before filtering. You can then apply whichever filters you want, but Jas uses the same profit, ROI, and sales requirements as in her previous examples and then excludes restricted products to narrow down the results.
With the list of results that appear, try sorting by profit, estimated sales, or deal score help to organize the remaining leads, then head over to SellerAmp SAS for a more in depth analysis of the data.
Pro Tip: For meltable products, check eligibility and handling requirements separately!
Review the lead’s competition
After spotting a listing where the brand is the only seller, Jas raises the minimum seller count to four Amazon sellers for better chance of being able to get on the listing herself.
Top of the resulting list is a tea which ArbiSource indicates costs $20 at the source and sells for roughly $38 on Amazon. Checking the product out in SellerAmp SAS gives a clearer picture of the estimated monthly sales, current sellers, offer counts, and Buy Box history.
In this example, the three-month low is $29.56, above the $26.82 break-even price Jas required and although prices are rising according to the Charts data, she compares the modeled $41 selling price with price history and break-even cost to assess profit margins.
Recalculate after discounts and tax
People often forget to use vouchers and discounts, so make sure you’re checking for any that could boost your profit margins! Jas noticed that on the source website the tea has a 15% Subscribe & Save discount, which lowers the cost from $20 to $17. Adding the example’s 7% tax brings the cost to $18.19.
You can also check whether the retailer accepts tax-exempt purchases and in this case, an email signup offer adds another 15% discount in the modeled calculation, lowering the cost even further to $15.46. Discounted gift cards can reduce sourcing costs further if you have and use them, but they aren’t included here.
With that additional discount entered, estimated profit reaches $14.79 per unit and 95% ROI. Enter your order quantity in SellerAmp SAS’s Profit Calculator to see estimated total profit. If you use merchant fulfillment, account for FBM shipping and other shipping costs before relying on the estimate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does ArbiSource do for online arbitrage?
ArbiSource finds products at other retailers that may be priced below their Amazon selling price. Its Price Drops and Scans features help you filter and organize potential leads.
How does SellerAmp SAS fit into the workflow?
SellerAmp SAS helps you analyze a lead by checking eligibility, fees, competition, price history, and estimated returns.
Why should I verify the product match before calculating profit?
A difference in size, capsule count, color, or bundle contents can make a lead unsuitable, even when the brand and product name look similar. Compare the retailer item with the exact Amazon listing before proceeding.
Are SellerAmp SAS’s profit and sales estimates guaranteed?
No. They are estimates based on the information entered and available sales and pricing data; actual sales, costs, and selling prices can differ. Include taxes, discounts, fulfillment, and shipping costs in your own calculations.
Turn leads into checked opportunities
ArbiSource speeds up the arbitrage workflow with scans and filters. SellerAmp SAS helps you verify the product match, selling eligibility, and estimated returns before buying.
If you want to try out sourcing for yourself, right now is a great time to do it. With Amazon’s Prime Big Deal days providing a potential goldmine for profit, take a look at our tips for making the most of it in our ‘Prime Day Arbitrage: Buy or Pass?‘ article.
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