How To Find Products For Sale On Amazon FBA

So you have registered as an Amazon FBA seller, what's next? Finding suitable products to sell of course! Having the right products to sell on Amazon will determine your success or failure in your eCommerce venture.

As an non US citizen selling on Amazon, I have to ship my products from Malaysia by air courier like FedEx or DHL to Amazon's fulfillment centers in US which can be expensive. One cartoon of 20 kg can cost as much as RM 700. Shipping fee from China to US is cheaper by around 50%. So I mostly sell products that are light and small of less than 300 gm and can be sold for US$ 10 and above. My shipment can reach Amazon in 3 to 4 days so I only have to keep about one month's stock in my inventory.

China is by far the best place to source for products, because of vast range and low prices. Most people use Alibaba.com to source products online. But the problem with Alibaba is that they usually require high minimum order quantity like 1000 units, and you have to negotiate with a number of sellers to get a good price. This takes time, high capital and huge risk. You may have to invest as much as US$2000 to US$5000 just to try one products. Typically only 1 in 5 product will do well on Amazon marketplace due to intense competition.

1688.com is a wholesale site under the Alibaba group. It is mainly for China manufacturers and wholesalers selling to retailers in China. Although the site is in Chinese, by using Google translate you can still navigate even if you don't know any Chinese. The great thing about the site is that most sellers keep ready stock and sell with no or low minimum order and at a fixed price with quantity discount. By listing their products on 1688, a manufacturer in China can reach the whole China market. There are at least 200 million products listed at any one time so the price competition among the sellers are very intense.

With 1688.com, you can easily source for China products without leaving your home. I use a China agent service where they will purchase products and prepare them and ship direct to Amazon FC for me. This saves me time and a great deal of shipping cost. 

My business model is that I only send 10 to 20 units of any new products to Amazon to try out how well they will perform in the marketplace. It takes usually less than RM 1500 to try out 10 products of 10 units each. This will minimize the capital outlay and risk. 

Contact me if you have any questions on how to start your own Amazon FBA business and sell to direct to US consumers, the richest and biggest market in the world. This is a great eCommerce opportunity many in Malaysia are not even aware of.