Many people get tempted to start their own Amazon FBA side hustle after they see some random TikTok video, which is just trying to get views rather than actually teaching you anything. In this article, we will find out if infact, Amazon FBA is a good side hustle and what you can expect if you start this side Hustle.
What Is Amazon FBA?
Amazon FBA ( Fulfillment by Amazon ) is a program offered by Amazon where you can send your products to amazon’s warehouse, and they will ship the product to the customer when it sells on their site. You can also send the product yourself when you receive a sale as an Amazon Seller, but your product won’t be eligible for “PRIME” and on top of that, if your product is not delivered on timely fashion, Amazon may penalize you by closing your account, so people opt-in to use the “Fulfillment by Amazon”.
Amazon will also offer customer service if needed. This lets you focus on finding good products, but they do take a fee.
Pros of Amazon FBA Side Hustle
Convenience
The biggest pro of Amazon FBA is that you don’t need to worry about storage, or shipping or customer support. For this reason, people choose to use the FBA so that they don’t have to worry about this
Customer Base
With Amazon FBA, you don’t need to worry about finding customer base. Amazon has millions of customers who are looking for the product that you are selling. This gives you a big advantage because if you start your own eCommerce site then you will have to rely on ads to find audience for your products.
Prime Eligibility
When you join Amazon FBA, your product is also eligible to be listed as a “PRIME” product, which means that people will choose that over “non-prime” because they can get your product within 1-2 days- This gives you another leverage to get more sales.
Cons of Amazon FBA Side Hustle
Competition
Since almost 90% of Amazon sellers are opting for “Amazon FBA”, you will have competitors who are selling the same product as you. Due to this reason, you will need to find unique products with unique selling points so that you stand out from the rest.
High Fees
While there are many benefits of using Amazon FBA, it also comes with hefty price. You will need to pay for storage fees, handling fees, and shipping fees. These are normal fees, but it could leave you with no profits or very little profit to make the entire side hustle worthwhile. Therefore, make sure you do your math to make sure that you will stay profitable after all these fees.
Limited Control Over Customers
When you sell with Amazon FBA, Amazon is pretty much lending you their customer base to bring in sales. You will NOT be able to get your customer’s information or handle how customer support. This could be a “PRO” for some people, but remember, unless you own your own customer’s data, you can be wiped out by the platform leaving you with nothing. So, when possible, try to give customers a bonus or coupons by offering coupons or have them opt-in to your newsletter for discounts and goodies or even contents. This way, if platform does remove you, you can still sell via Email marketing.
So, Is Amazon FBA A Good Side Hustle?
Overall, Amazon FBA is a great side hustle for bringing in income as long as you are ok with giving up control of customer support and access to your customer data, However those “cons” can be overlapped with the “pros” which you would not have if you were not working with amazon.