9 Things to Remember When Sourcing Perishable Goods

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You may not think that perishable items are on many Amazon wish lists, but as time goes on, the ecommerce giant is making groceries, beauty products and other expiry-dated items more prominent on their platform. It offers its third party sellers the chance to expand their horizons – look beyond the toys, electronics and media categories to sell even more.

These products are not like the rest. When you've been selling on Amazon for a while, you can pretty much buy in autopilot in some categories. Perishables almost always need to be approached with a little more caution. However, the rewards are massive if you successfully incorporate them into your business.

Here are a few things to think about:

1. Expiry dates

Straight in with what makes these perishables, erm, perishable is that they eventually go off. They need to be sold by a certain time and that means informing Amazon when you send them in how long they're good for. When you make a shipment, Amazon instructs you to input an expiry date so they know when they have to take it down from their shelves.

If you exclusively buy and sell toys on Amazon, this will be completely alien to you. Seasoned toy sellers may even bulk buy Christmas stock for the following Q4. You need a completely different game plan with these products.

2. Timing is everything

Obviously demand has it's fair share of fluctuation, but there's so much data available to see when people want particular products. There are so many things that people buy in abundance in some seasons and not at all in others (sun cream, Easter eggs, advent calendars). Perishables require you to be a tad more wary of this.

As long as it's safe, Amazon will pretty much let you sell it. You know what isn't safe? Chocolate in summer. Amazon has a window of opportunity for chocolate sellers, only allowing UK sellers to send it in during the cold months in the year. In summer, they're not having it. Prepare yourself for season changes like this and take advantage of low-competition pockets of the site like that.

3. Lower item value

It gets tempting to shoot for high value products on Amazon, as it makes your sales stats very impressive. However, if your profit hasn't grown with it, it's all vanity. Perishables often tend to be a lot lower value, which makes it easier for a beginner to get into.

What you will also find is that you're a lot less concerned when a few units are damaged in transit, as you know you're only losing a few pounds, compared to much potentially higher amounts with other product types.

4. Geography matters

The international aisle of a supermarket is a gold mine. They vary massively based on where in the country you are, based on the communities that live there. For those that don't have the food that caters to them, they have to resort to places like Amazon to get their hands on them.

If you know you have access to products that people elsewhere can't get to, it's a massive opportunity. One of my big wins was stumbling on a particular South African snack. Go find the thing that people desperately want, so will pay more than they have to for it.

5. There may be more prep

One of the downsides to some perishables is the added work that goes into selling them. You may have to spend a little more time than you would like polybagging and bubble wrapping.

Over time you will figure out ways to make prepping more efficient and phase out the ones that don't bring in enough profit to warrant the effort.

6. Don't get high off your own supply

Once you've got to grips with buying and selling, you see products in a different light. In the past you may have been tempted to crack open that Xbox game you just bought, but now all you see is stock with profit potential. It's hard with perishables though.

Back to the Xbox example, you may have removed the temptation. You no longer own the console, so you're fully able to control your desires to write the stock off. When you're buying food, resisting may be a bit more difficult. For example, I would love to know the hype about this spread I've been selling 2-6 of every week since October. You have to have boundaries and stick to them.

7. Deals are plentiful

Sourced for grocery products before? If so you will know the deals change every single week. There's always something new to put up, based on whatever promotion a supermarket is running.

It's easy to get frustrated when you can't find profitable products to sell, but a quick scan over mySupermarket always produce something you can take advantage of.

8. Replenishables are everywhere

Replenishables are products that people buy repeatedly, giving you a reason to replenish your inventory with yet more of them. Think about your monthly food shop and how many times you end up buying the same things time and again.

There really are people buying their food shopping from Amazon now, and they're creatures of habit. Just make sure you're in stock the next time they start filing their basket.

9. Returns are lower

Returns can properly eat into your profit. For those buying toys, you may find that a handful end up being sent back to an Amazon fulfilment centre because the buyer changed their mind. For those that sell clothes, it's an even bigger problem with people buying multiple sizes in the knowledge they can easily return the ones that didn't make the cut. Unfortunate for you, that often means the item is rendered unsellable.

It's a different story with perishables. The vast majority of people are not going to return a perishable item unless there's something wrong with them. It's too much effort. The products are generally quite cheap. It just doesn't make sense to go through the whole process for such little cash in return.