Top 5 Retail Stores for Arbitrage
A lot of people feel that finding retail stores to start their online or retail arbitrage a bit of a pain, but in reality it’s actually quite easy. With enough dedication and scanning, you’ll more than likely find AT LEAST one product in a store you’ve visited to shop for your family.
Before we jump into this guide, I suggest checking out our previous blog posts on Amazon FBA and selling via online marketplaces.
- How to Ungate in Toys for Amazon
- eBay, Amazon or Etsy, what marketplace is best?
- What supplies do you need to sell online?
- What is retail arbitrage on Amazon?
Top 5 Retail Stores for Arbitrage
In this post we’ll go over the top 5 stores for arbitrage to help you start your journey into working for yourself and not “the man”.
5. Target
In my opinion, Target is fairly hard to find products to sell for a profit due to their higher prices compared to a lot of other stores. The good thing about this generation is that there are a lot of products that are released, only to receive an update or packaging change not long after which will then push them into clearance. This is when you take advantage of this and scan every item you find that has a clearance tag.
4. Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s is the place to go if you’re ungated in groceries. They’re not a fan of people who resell but if you don’t make it obvious, there’s some really good profit to be made. People are suckers for off-brand and specialty products. A lot of what Trader Joe’s carries cannot be found in other stores which is why it’s such a big market on Amazon.
3. Marshalls/TJ Maxx
Marshalls is one of my favorite stores to source from when it comes to finding products to sell on Amazon via FBA. They have a huge selection of products ranging throughout difference categories such as toys, clothing, shoes, kitchen and homewares. I tend to lean towards the clothing and toy section in Marshalls as a lot of their products are hugely discounter compared to other stores.
2. Ross
Much like Marshalls, Ross is another of my favorites due to their huge selection of products. The down side to ross is that buying shoes to sell on Amazon is a no go as they do not come with the original box, though you may find some good deals to sell via eBay instead. My favorite section for Ross has got to be toys, a lot of the time they’ll have multiple of the same toy and if you find one or two that make you a decent profit, you’re laughing your way to the bank.
1. Walmart
I’ve ranked Walmart is number one due to their huge selection of products along with their clearance section. Walmart tends to add products to their clearance section on a daily basis which is super nice for any reseller using the retail arbitrage model. Walmart also has what you call “hidden clearance”, this is where products are listed at clearance but not labeled in store, you would need to scan the item with your walmart app to find something as hidden clearance. There is also a website a lot of people use called Brickseek that tends to list a lot of the hidden clearance to save you time, the down side to this is that A LOT of people use this website, so when a product is listed you need to head to the store asap to beat out the competition. Not only can their clearance section make you good profit, but you can also find products at retail price which could make you profit as well. This is why it’s important to pick a section of the store and scan every products within that section.
