How to Ungate in Toys for Amazon FBA
The first thing on everyone’s mind when it comes to Amazon FBA is “how do I ungate in toys?” Getting approved to sell in toys is probably one of the easiest things to do when starting your Amazon FBA journey. It’s probably one of the most profitable categories on Amazon during the Q4 season and you 100% want to get yourself ready for that time of year!
In this guide, we’ll go over every step required to get your account ungated in toys along with sharing the link to the website of the wholesale/distributor.
Before we jump into this guide, I suggest checking out our previous blog posts on Amazon FBA and selling via online marketplaces.
- eBay, Amazon or Etsy, what marketplace is best?
- What supplies do you need to sell online?
- What is retail arbitrage on Amazon?
How to Ungate in Toys
The first thing you need to do in order to ungate in toys is make sure you have a Sales Tax Resale permit/license from the state you live in. Almost all distributors will require this when signing up via their application process and it’s fairly easy to get your hands on, just google resale permit and your state. You also need to understand that when making an order, you’re not expecting to make profit, you’re looking to ungate and make up for the loss in the future when taking advantage of the ungating.
Toy Distributor
The toy distributor I used along with many others within the USA is EEDistribution, do not mistake this for EntertainmentEarth, they’re the same company but one WILL NOT get you ungated on Amazon. EEDistribution now has a $250 first order requirement once signed up which you will have to meet in order to make your first order. The issue with a lot of gated categories on Amazon is that they also have sub-categories where certain things are also brand gated. This makes EEDistribution an awesome place to ungate in toys because they carry a huge amount of toy brands which will help you ungate in those brands as well!
The website to use in order to ungate in toys is: EEDistribution. Once you head to that website, simply fill out the form on the homepage, which will then lead you to their account process. Make sure that the information you use to register your account, matches to the information on your Amazon account! Amazon will not accept the invoice submitted if the name, business name and address is different in any way. You will then be asked to fill out a questionnaire, a client application, submit your business documents(you can be a sole proprietor) and then once completed you will receive a phone call from a representative walking you through their website and how everything works. This process can take up to a week or two to complete but it is 100% worth it.
Making your first order
Once you’re approved, I’m sure you want to make your first order ASAP to get things up and running. This is the part where you need to be careful and do a decent amount of research to minimize a loss and to make sure the product will actually ungate you in toys. Every product on EEDistribution will have a UPC shown in the description. You will want to open up your Amazon Seller page, hit “add a product” and paste in the UPC code from EEDistribution, it will either show you a “Apply to sell” button or give you the option to list it. Hit the apply to sell button and it’ll tell you which categories you need to be ungated in, this UPC/Product will work in ungating for this item.
Rinse and repeat for every brand/item you wish to sell. You need to order 10 of each UPC/product in order for this to work.
Submitting Documents to Amazon
Once you have made your order, Amazon will request that you send pictures/copies of your invoice along with images of the product. The invoice you can download off their website via your account. When it comes to the images of the product, you will need to wait to receive the order then capture clear pictures of every side of the product.
It usually takes Amazon a couple of hours to respond to your ungating attempt but it can take a few days. If you’re not accepted the first time around, just keep trying with the same invoice, sometimes it depends on what Amazon rep responds to your application.
