Posted on September 22nd, 2022

Retail Arbitrage is a very accessible and easy-to-start way to source products to sell on Amazon.

Being able to get your hands on merchandise quickly and to be able to research them while they're in your hand and eventually send them off to Amazon can get your Amazon career off to a fast start.

One of the benefits of Retail Arbitrage is that when you do locate an item that is profitable for you to sell, you can then typically go to other stores in your city or even other cities and repeat the process without having to scan and research, you can just walk in the door grab a buggy and start picking items off the shelf.

There are many, many different stores that you can go to but this is my top five list of stores to do Retail Arbitrage with.

#1 BIG LOTS

‌With 1,400 stores all across America, there are a lot of Big Lots available for you to shop at often 5 or 10 or more in a metropolitan city.

Big Lots is half of a standard retail store, and the other half is a discount store where they have bought closeouts from other closing stores, discontinued items from manufacturers, or even products that were overproduced.

Big Lots does offer quite a few replenishable items that they keep in stock year-round that you can go in and buy over and over and over again, but one of the best things about Big Lots and what I love about them most, and s as in the above picture, they have BIG BUY ALERTS. Just about every aisle in Big Lots has an area for BIG BUY ALERTS, and they are designated by a red strip along the front of the shelf that says "BIG BUY ALERT". The items on those shelves are heavily discounted and typically are not kept in stock all year round. A lot of that merchandise is discontinued merchandise, and there are a lot of people shopping for items that have been discontinued that they absolutely love and will pay a higher price for if they can find them on Amazon. It is not uncommon to source merchandise on the shelves that will give you upwards of 200 or 300% ROI per sale.

#2 Ollie's Bargain Market

Ollie's, like the name implies, is a giant Bargain Market almost everything that they have for sale at Ollie's is a closeout, a buyout of some sort. They do not for the most part keep the same items in stock, and there will always be something new for sale at all times, so it is a good idea to check them weekly, or bi-weekly, or find out when they are receiving their trucks to be able to get to the merchandise before anyone else.

Ollie's offers steep discounts in almost every major category, from books, to toys, to housewares, to automotive, to sporting goods, to grocery, to health and beauty, to Home Improvement. They carry a very large variety of merchandise at very very low prices.

One vital aspect of Ollie's, especially if you're going to buy merchandise to sell on Amazon, is that you need to make sure that you take a picture of the orange price tag on the item when you're buying because Ollie's receipts are not very detailed with the descriptions and if you have an IP complaint through Amazon you won't be able to match your receipt to the item because they use their proprietary numbering system and not the UPC to keep track of merchandise, but their number on the receipt will match the orange price tag, so make sure that you take a picture of everything that you buy from Ollie's.

One other minor issue you may run into while shopping at Ollie's is that sometimes they have an enormous amount of the same product that shows up as a very profitable deal. The problem with that is that there are many Ollie's across the United States. If you can find an excellent deal, the chances of other sellers also seeing that same deal is pretty high, and if there is a large quantity of merchandise available, it is it has a chance for that item to become saturated, and the profit drops out.

#3 Kroger

As the nation’s largest grocer with nearly 2,800 stores in 35 states operating under 28 different names, there is a good chance there is a Kroger near you.

Kroger is one of my favorite stores because they offer a little bit of everything. They have a clearance section, and they also have clearance in the aisles, but one of the unique aspects of Kroger is their sales, and sometimes they have very, very good sales like their "Buy Five Save $5" sales which are some of my favorites to look for whenever I see them advertised in the paper or online.

Buying five items and saving $5 on those items is a really great thing, but one of the best aspects of the sale is when they apply that "Buy Five Save $5" discount to items that they have already put on sale and you save an additional $1 off of each item. For example, they may have a box of cereal that is usually $6.99 that they have put on sale for $4.99, which already saves you $2 on your buy cost, but being on the "Buy Five Save $5“ sale, you'll save an additional $1, dropping the cereal from $6.99 to $3.99. Sourcing like this builds profit into products that would otherwise be unprofitable or have so little profit that it wouldn't be worth your time.

An absolute favorite part of shopping at Kroger is the points that you get for fuel discounts. For every 100 dollars you spend or 100 fuel points; you save 10 cents on a gallon of gas. I spend thousands of dollars shopping at Kroger, and for everyone with 1000 points, you save $1 per gallon on fuel by buying merchandise for your business. I also like to purchase gift cards from Kroger for items that I would generally use anyways, like fast food gift cards or gift cards for Best Buy, Home Depot, or hundreds of other restaurants and companies, and when you do buy a gift card from Kroger, you get double fuel points. Every now and then throughout the year, they offer four times fuel points for gift cards and sometimes double fuel points if you do shopping on the weekends and those points add up quickly.

#4 Walmart

Walmart, yes, Walmart is the nation's largest retailer. It does not matter where you live in the country. You could live in a Podunk town with one stop sign I guarantee there is a Walmart in your city somewhere.

I like Walmart for basically two reasons one, they just have a massive selection of products at typically reasonable prices. Many of my replenishable items, the items that I can buy off the shelf any day of the week and send to Amazon any month of the year and they sell over and over and over again, come from Walmart. Many of my small and light program items come from Walmart, and I get small and light program-eligible items from many different departments. I have some in Grocery, Housewares, Office, Home Improvement, and Sporting goods.

The other aspect that I like about shopping at Walmart is their clearance. Although, you need to do research and be careful about the clearance that you buy from Walmart, as typically, whatever is on clearance at your store will be on clearance at another seller's store across the nation, and there can be a chance for saturation of that clearance item. One good aspect is that clearance is not done nationally simultaneously. You might find something at one store, and it's 35% off, but a store across town is 75% off. I love one store nearby because they don't play when it comes to discounting their products, as they typically go 75 to 90% off straight on their first markdown.

Another nice aspect about Walmart is that there are often things you can buy online and select to pick up at the store, and they will have Walmart shoppers pick the items off the shelves and load them into your vehicle. They're delivering money to you without having to step foot into a store.

#5 Tie Publix and Target

Let's start by saying that both of these chains are not reseller friendly so have your "story" of why you're buying so many items (The Publix policy is a limit of 8 items if you get a cashier that is a stickler for the rules) ready. "I'm donating all these coloring books to local schools. I'm donating all of these bras to a women's shelter, etc.".

Now, there is only one thing that puts Publix on this list: their weekly BOGOs. Their weekly bogos are some of the best at any grocery location. I find that their everyday prices are typically higher than most other stores but when combined with their BOGO ( Buy One Get One Free) offers, some of those products end up having a meager cost of goods at a 50% discount. Unfortunately, Publix is not a national store chain and only has stores in parts of the South.

I like to shop in Target stores because they're spotless and well organized, with items on sale easily identifiable by tags on shelves. Like Walmart, you can source and buy many of their items online and have them delivered to your vehicle when you drive up.

Another significant aspect is using either their Target Red debit card or their Target credit card, and you'll automatically save an additional 5% on top of whatever sales savings you receive. To obtain more products, I like to place as large of an order as possible to pick up at their drive-thru and set a separate order for free delivery to my business address.

I typically shop at many other stores, but these are definitely in the top 5 rotation of stores that I shop in store for retail arbitrage.