How to find wholesale products on Amazon without a supplier list

No supplier yet? Start on Amazon instead. Reverse sourcing means finding products that already sell well with room for another seller, and then finding the brand or distributor to buy them from. Here is how to find wholesale products on Amazon this way, and which listings to leave alone.

1. Search a niche, not a single product

Start with a product type you understand, such as bamboo cutting board, dog shampoo or craft paint. Short, specific searches return listings from many brands. Avoid huge, generic words like kitchen; the results are too broad to compare.

2. Throw out the listings wholesale cannot win

• One seller: usually private label or the brand itself. It will rarely sell to you.
• Amazon on the listing: Amazon often holds the Buy Box at a price third-party sellers cannot match.
• More than about 20 sellers: a crowded listing is where price wars start. See how to avoid price wars on Amazon wholesale.
• Slow sellers: fewer than about 30 sales a month for the whole listing leaves little for you once it is split between sellers.

What is left is the wholesale sweet spot: listings with 3 to 20 sellers, steady sales and a price high enough to cover the fees, roughly 15 to 80 dollars.

3. Work out what you could pay

Before you contact anyone, know your number. Take the Buy Box price, subtract the referral and FBA fees, and apply your ROI and profit targets to get your maximum buy cost. A brand whose products need a supplier price below 30 percent of the Amazon price is a hard sell; a brand where you can pay 40 to 50 percent is worth a call.

4. Group the products by brand

You buy wholesale from brands and distributors, not product by product. Group what is left by brand and rank the brands by monthly revenue on Amazon. A brand with several good listings is worth more to you than one great listing: one account, one approval and one shipment cover them all.

5. Contact the brand

• Look for a wholesale, retailer, stockist or distributor page on the brand's website. Many brands also list the distributors that carry them.
• Send a short, professional inquiry: your business, where you sell, the products you are interested in and a request for their price list and terms.
• Ask whether they allow online resellers on Amazon, and whether they have a minimum advertised price (MAP) policy. A brand that controls its resellers protects your price.

Expect many brands not to answer, and some to say no. That is normal; it is why you shortlist several brands at once. Before you buy, vet the supplier and check that you can sell the brand.

6. Scan the price list when it arrives

Once a brand sends its price list, you are back to normal wholesale: compare every price with your max buy cost and run the full analysis. See how to analyze a supplier price list. Products above your max buy cost are not lost; the gap is the discount to negotiate.

Do it with Product search

Wholesale Analyzer's Product search is a wholesale product research tool for exactly this. Search a niche and get up to 500 Amazon products with the live Buy Box price, sellers, monthly sales, payout and your max buy cost. Narrow by brand or category, use one-click filters such as Wholesale sweet spot and Low competition, and hide private label listings. The Brands to contact tab ranks the brands by revenue, finds their wholesale contact page and writes the inquiry e-mail for you. Then select the products you like and scan them for the full BUY, REVIEW or AVOID decision.