Most aspiring Amazon FBA merchants start with motivation, but after hours on YouTube they end up in a sea of videos, opinions and contradictory strategies. Everyone tells a different story, each method seems more complicated than the last and often nothing happens in the end.
This guide clears the air. No jargon, no gimmicks, just a clear roadmap on how to get started with Amazon FBA in 2026, choose your first product, understand your numbers and grow your business one step at a time.
At its core, everything revolves around four building blocks:
If you have these four points under control, you will get off to a solid start and avoid the typical costly rookie mistakes.
Tip: Read the article with pen and paper and write down products, ideas and key figures that come to mind. If you take notes, you'll get into action faster.
Without a good product, the best theory is useless. The good news is that there are thousands of suitable products on Amazon, and new ones are added every week. Your goal is not to find the one perfect product for all times, but many good products that will reliably bring you profit.
Basically, products that you sell on Amazon FBA can be divided into three groups: Arbitrage, Wholesale and Private Label.
With arbitrage, you buy products cheaply in retail stores or from online retailers and sell them on at a higher price on Amazon. In other words, you take advantage of price differences between different points of sale.
A live example from the video:
If you sell just 100 units a month, you're already making a profit of around £600, and that's with a single product.
With wholesale, you buy branded products from wholesalers or directly from the manufacturer, usually in larger quantities, and resell them as a retailer on existing Amazon listings.
Example:
Here you take advantage of the fact that the brand and demand already exist. You don't have to set up a new listing, but attach yourself to an existing one.
With a private label, you have a product manufactured or "label" an existing product with your own brand, for example via platforms such as Alibaba.
Example from the video:
The range sounds tempting. But you have to set up the brand, listing, images, marketing, reviews and much more yourself. This is more time-consuming and error-prone, especially at the beginning.
Recommendation for beginners: Concentrate on arbitrage and wholesale at the start. These products are already selling on Amazon, which means you use existing listings, existing demand and don't need advertising or your own brand at the beginning.
A practical example: A single product for which the seller is not the brand owner generates between £6,000 and £8,000 in sales per month. Without any branding of its own, just by clever purchasing and selling via an existing listing.
Many beginners get bogged down in niche searches and overly complex criteria. For arbitrage and wholesale, the view is simpler: numbers and demand are decisive.
No rigid niche thinking
Almost everything sells on Amazon. If you only focus on a fixed niche, you will overlook many opportunities in other categories. The following therefore applies to arbitrage and wholesale: open search instead of a fixed niche. You need several good products, not just one perfect one.
Yield: At least 30 percent
A key criterion is the return on your invested capital, i.e. your return on investment (ROI). A good guideline is at least 30 percent.
A simple example:
You can make such calculations with simple online ROI calculators. It is important to note that you always calculate after deducting Amazon fees, shipping costs and other costs.
Practical example from the video
One product was purchased several times, both 100 units as a test purchase and 1,000 units. Due to the larger quantity, the purchase price fell to around £3.10 per unit.
Such figures are very attractive for beginners because your invested capital increases quickly. At the bank, you might get 0.5 percent a year on your money. Here you get a multiple of that, month after month.
Check that it is not a private label
With wholesale in particular, it is important not to accidentally enter a listing that someone has set up as a private label. A simple check: If at least three sellers are listed in the offer, it is usually not a pure private label brand, but a product that several retailers sell.
The path to good products is simple, but not easy. It requires time and patience.
A typical process:
In the beginning, you will probably find more "okay" than "wow" products. That's normal. With practice, you'll quickly learn what to look out for and find more and more very profitable items.
Just because a product looks good at first glance does not mean that it will actually sell. Before you buy, you need to check whether there is demand and whether your profit remains high enough after all costs.
The BSR is a number that shows how well a product is selling in its category. You can find it in the "Product information" section on the Amazon product page.
Basic rule:
For beginners, it is enough to check this value manually before you jump into expensive software. This will give you a feel for the correlation between BSR and actual sales.
Weight and dimensions are directly linked to Amazon FBA fees. The larger and heavier a product, the higher the storage fees, shipping costs and FBA fees.
Practical points:
A seemingly profitable product can quickly become unattractive due to high fees. Therefore, before purchasing, check which FBA fee class your product falls into.
A common mistake is buying seasonal goods that only sell well for a few weeks of the year. The rest of the year, your capital sits in storage.
Signs for seasonal products:
Google Trends can be used to check this. You enter the main keyword of your product there, for example "reindeer" for reindeer products. If the curve only shows a strong spike in December and is rather flat the rest of the year, it is clearly a seasonal topic.
For beginners, products that sell steadily throughout the year are better.
Before you go shopping, you can ask yourself three simple questions:
If you can answer yes to these three points and your return calculation is correct, you have a solid basis for your purchase.
There are many good products. The real leverage often lies in the supplier. A favorable and reliable supplier determines whether you make a lasting profit and get supplies when things are going well.
You can replace a product if necessary, but a good supplier is not so easy. He makes sure that
The lower your purchase price for the same quality, the more profit you make per sale. At the same time, you need someone who delivers reliably and doesn't fail at the slightest problem.
Both sides have advantages and disadvantages.
Major suppliers:
Smaller suppliers:
What fits better depends on your product, your volume and your style. In the long term, a mixture of both can make sense.
The first step is often a simple internet search.
A typical process:
An important practical tip: Don't just rely on emails. A phone call is often quicker, more personal and more likely to lead to good conditions. You also build trust, which helps with repeat orders and special requests.
Over time, you will work with several suppliers. From experience, a favorite usually emerges with whom the collaboration works particularly well.
Many FBA merchants manage to make the first few thousand euros or pounds in sales per month. Then they get stuck because they run out of time or pull all their money out of the business.
This is where three simple but powerful levers come into play: handing over tasks, reinvesting profits and learning from others.
If you do everything on your own, you and your day will quickly reach their limits. This is often particularly time-consuming:
This work does not generate new money, it just maintains the status quo. As soon as you can afford it, it is worth delegating these tasks, for example to an external warehouse, prep center or auxiliary staff.
The big advantage: you can invest your freed-up time in what makes your business grow, for example
Especially if you start with rather small amounts, such as 2,000 to 5,000 euros or pounds, it is tempting to pay out your first winnings straight away. This slows down your growth considerably.
To get started, it usually makes sense to leave all the profits in the store and keep buying new goods. With Amazon, the more good stock you buy, the more profit you make.
The faster you reinvest your profits, the faster your stock of good products grows and the less dependent you are on individual items.
The third lever is knowledge. You can teach yourself a lot, but it costs time and often money in the form of mistakes.
A mentor or experienced dealer can help you,
Whether you pay for this or build up a network of other traders is your decision. The important thing is that you don't work stubbornly on your own, but benefit from the experience already gained.
Amazon FBA will remain a strong way for retailers to build a scalable business with physical products in 2026. The key lies not in the next "secret trick", but in solid fundamentals.
A brief summary of the four building blocks:
If you write down these points step by step, carry out your first small tests and consistently do the math, you will get your first order, your first sales and a stable foundation for your Amazon business much faster.
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