Admission: I Haven't Done Retail Arbitrage Since 2017

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I’ve had the same single sourcing spreadsheet since 2016. It contains a full list of every single purchase I made to resell via Amazon FBA, and has made it very easy to keep track of how my sourcing has developed over the years. I can see the points at which I was heavy on eBay sourcing, charity shop exploration and the times when I found my groove at Amazon-to-Amazon flips. One major thing that this spreadsheet can tell me is that I have not done any form of retail arbitrage since 2017.

I know, it’s crazy.

My life completely changed in 2017, as on 1^st January of that year my first son was born. It meant that I had to make a number of alterations to the way that I was making money online, and a key part of that was to minimise the amount of time that I was away from the computer. Too much money can be made when I’m sat in front of a computer screen and it’s far more convenient to stay there, rather than go out and literally hunt for deals by scanning and whatnot.

As time went on, I just gradually phased it out of my sourcing, as I was able to get a lot more stock a lot more reliably from purely focusing on online arbitrage. There are so many websites to explore and although you can find exclusive discounts by going in-store, there have been easily enough to sustain myself through all this time without having to resort to retail arbitrage.

It’s important to note that I was doing retail arbitrage through the majority of 2017; it wasn’t until late in the year that I stopped. I enjoyed being able to literally go to my local Tesco and fill up a second trolley with toiletries, seasonal confectionary, biscuit spread, toys and all these other things on our weekly shop. Gradually the profit margin on those replenishable diminished and I didn’t have enough incentive to search for alternatives.

I had a full-time job at the time, a baby, and I wasn’t going to spend my free time searching around physical shops, when I could do it online instead. It didn’t matter that I could get some major, unexpectedly profitable deals from places like TK Maxx, when the internet was sat there.

Since I started working for myself in 2018, it felt as though there was even less of a reason to return to that kind of activity. It just felt counterproductive, when I had improved on my online arbitrage skills by investing in better tools, VAs and time focused on one method. Yes, more sourcing methods help, but I just found retail arbitrage to be massively inefficient. It was fine when I was only sourcing on my weekly shop (that I was doing anyway), but not if was the only reason I was leaving the house.

If you’re someone that specialises in retail arbitrage, I’m sure that the Coronavirus outbreak made you rethink how much time you commit to it, as literally anything could happen to throw you off-track. I focused on streamlining process when I had full control and I was able to easily expand. I’m sure that there are people that are making a killing from retail arbitrage alone, but you can rest assured that I’m not going to rejoin you anytime soon. (Even if BuyBotPro has a specialist mobile tool now).

I would advise that you get your head around Tactical Arbitrage and use that to guide your sourcing decisions from that point onwards.