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My Experience
I’m now nearly two years removed from when I was working a full-time job. The way I managed to escape it was mostly down to a business I got into around 18 months before I left. That business? Amazon online arbitrage; a process whereby you buy products from online retailers and resell them using Amazon’s FBA programme. Of the many types of businesses I entered into in the years prior, this one garnered the most consistent stream of cashflow, but was particularly effective because of the amount of time I needed to put into it.
The reason I believe that online arbitrage is such a good way for working people to generate cash on the side – one that could end up being their #1 income source – is because so much of the process can be automated by tools. Once you’ve learned how to find good products by yourself, there are so many things you can use that will
Efficiency is the number one factor here. If you’re looking for something that you can use alongside your time at a day job, you need something that can run in the background without your input. I made good money with freelance copywriting, but after a day’s work and commuting over an hour each way, it’s not something I’m in the mood to do in my ‘free time’. With online arbitrage, most of the difficult stuff can be handled before you leave for work, when you return from work and a little time on the weekends.
The Tools
Sourcing – Tactical Arbitrage
Let’s start by finding the actual products we’re going to buy. Let me tell you that it takes absolutely hours to do this by hand. I started off by just hunting around and manually checking Amazon prices, but there’s no way that I would have been able to sustainably grow my business to the point I could leave my job. With Tactical Arbitrage, you tell it the kind of products you’re interested in, what online stores to look in, and you leave it to do its job. By the time you get home from work, you’ll be able to pick out the best products and move onto the next tool to verify that it’s worth buying.
Product Analysis – BuyBotPro
I used Keepa by itself for a long time, but when the time was right I made the switch over to significantly more advanced tool called BuyBotPro. This is able to tell you all the Buy Box and sales history that you get from Keepa, but it does so much more to tell you about prospective purchases, including HAZMAT status, whether it’s likely to lead to brand disputes and how many units you should purchase.
Repricing – Bqool
I remember the brief time I went without a repricer and it sapped so much time from me.
I tried Amazon’s in-built free repricer and it was just no good. Since I upgraded to this, I don’t believe I’ve used anything else. I just wouldn’t need to when this has been so effective. Once you’ve set up all of your rules and you can see that things are selling in the way you want, you can pretty much leave it to do its thing. It’s the key to ensure your sales keep coming in while you’re busy working or doing whatever else.
The Rest
There are a few other things that I use from time to time – detailed here – but to keep costs low and to simplify things, I could comfortably run my online arbitrage business with these tools alone.
In my case (which I don’t think is the case with most others in this field) I heavily rely on products bought from eBay. As a result there are two other things that I have to use to make sure I’m able to source in the quantity that I desire. Those things are SearchDome – an advanced eBay search tool – and Gixen – a freemium eBay sniper.
My Typical Week
I used to work 9-5, Monday to Friday. I’m sure this is pretty standard for most. My online arbitrage week consisted of:
Monday AM – drop off boxes at UPS, set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Monday PM – set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Tuesday AM – set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Tuesday PM – check search results and purchase
Wednesday AM – set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Wednesday PM – check search results and purchase
Thursday AM – set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Thursday PM – check search results and purchase
Friday AM – set up Tactical Arbitrage searches
Friday PM – check search results and purchase
Saturday AM – collect deliveries from Royal Mail depo
Saturday PM – repricing, set up searches
Sunday AM – check search results and purchase
Sunday PM – prepare boxes
It was all very straight forward and worked like clockwork, because I found my rhythm. And I managed this with a brand new baby. I feel like most other online businesses wouldn’t allow you to generate as much money with as little work as this. It may look like a lot because there’s something every day, but the more money you spend on products, the more income you can make. So the cycle continues.
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