What are the best categories for new Amazon sellers to sell in?

When starting off as a new Amazon seller, it can be pretty difficult to narrow your focus down with all of the information available online. You may have been inspired by seeing someone’s results on Amazon and decided to give Amazon a try. Although the early stages of excitement on Amazon are fun, you need to take a measured approach on what you actually have to start doing to get sales.

When new sellers join Amazon’s platform, they are restricted (aka gated) from selling in some specific categories. Amazon does this to ensure that they have reputable sellers in the gated categories instead of giving free reign to any new seller who joins the platform. 

Being aware of the categories you can sell in is crucial because you can save a lot of wasted time and money. There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve found a great deal and buying inventory just to find out you can’t sell it on Amazon.

You need to be aware of how category management affects your sales in and how you can maximize the ROI of your time and money to start growing. This will allow you to start making sales immediately and start building systems for your business. 

To any seller who wants to get ungated, you’ll need to produce invoices and other proofs to show you’re a legitimate business. This can take some time, so new Amazon sellers should focus on selling in categories that Amazon allows them to. Below are some of the best categories that new sellers can get started with immediately and start generating success on Amazon. 

Books

Books are one of the best categories for new Amazon sellers because the vast majority of books are ungated for new sellers. Many Amazon sellers who have ventured off in other business models like wholesaling, private label, etc. started off with books. Books are a great category for new sellers because most sellers have free inventory in their house right now.

Many households have a place where there are tens if not hundreds of books. A good portion of those books have some value on Amazon. Sellers can literally start scanning the books in their house and ship them to Amazon to start making their first sales.

Books as a category is the most flexible on Amazon. It’s Amazon’s largest category by far and it also produces a huge portion of Amazon’s revenue. Sellers can truly capitalize on books by using Amazon’s FBA network. When you sell a product on Amazon, you have two fulfillment options: fulfillment by merchant (FBM) and fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).

When you decide to use fulfillment by Amazon, all you have to do as a seller is find and ship books. Amazon will take care of everything else including returns, customer service and more. This allows sellers to scale because they can send literally thousands of books to Amazon and get sales without all of the overhead.

Additionally, books are super easy to find and Amazon allows sellers to sell them in used conditions. Sellers can find books to sell on Amazon in their homes, at retailers, discount stores, library sales, garage sales and more. The options for sourcing books are virtually endless and the prices for used books are generally very low.

Amazon provides discounted shipping and you can send boxes of tens of books at a time to Amazon. All of this reduces the cost of goods for sellers and allows them to have a higher profit margin. This is a huge opportunity for new sellers because there’s little barrier to entry. 

Toys:

Toys are great products for Amazon sellers to start with. Amazon is the second  biggest toy retailer in the world, just behind Walmart. With many legacy toy retailers like Toys R Us disappearing, Amazon’s market share on toys continues to increase. This means more sales for sellers on Amazon. The toys category is a good category for sellers to get started off with because many sellers are familiar with toys.

Toys can be easily sourced locally from retailers or other stores that sell only toys. Additionally, toys sell great year-round and they are astronomical in the holiday seasons. Advanced toy sellers use strategies like buying toys in the summer and waiting till the winter to sell them on Amazon for a huge profit. 

There are virtually endless ways to source and sell toys on Amazon. As a category, toys is one of the best selling and it is very scalable for many sellers. This also means that it’s one of the most competitive categories on Amazon. The best sellers in the toys category are experts in seasonality, sourcing and managing competition.

New sellers can easily find good products to start selling and make profits immediately. Just like with any other category, it will take time for new sellers to find out the best strategies for sourcing and making the best margins on sales. 

Considerations for toys:

The toys category is unique because many of the best opportunities within toys are gated. This is because the best opportunities within toys are big name brands like Barbie, Lego and Mattel. Amazon is stringent with those brands because they sell extremely well and the profit margins can be huge. To really succeed in the toys category, you will eventually need to get ungated in these brands. There are sellers who literally make their entire living off of selling these brands to Amazon customers. 

Getting some experience with selling other toy products is a good way to get some experience under your belt and improve the chances you’ll get your application approved for selling in branded toys. Once you have a track record of selling toys, you can start applying to brands one by one and see what Amazon says.

It’s often best to join a group of sellers who have already done this, so you can get some guidance and avoid the mistakes they made. Becoming an expert in toys can be a fast track way to making a full-time income on Amazon. 

 Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics are another category that new sellers can look into. The category as a whole is ungated, but some specific products and sub categories require additional approval. Electronics is one of the most flexible categories for Amazon sellers because Amazon allows sellers to sell products in new, used and refurbished conditions. New sellers should stick to only new condition products to avoid any hassle from Amazon. 

The consumer electronics category is great for sellers because it’s so broad. Sellers can find consumer electronic items in virtually every store that they source in. Additionally, there’s very high demand for consumer electronics as a category on Amazon. Sellers who sell consumer electronics can source online, in store and basically every place imaginable. Sellers who can get creative and use a variety of clearance, cash back, coupons, etc. can have very high profit margins. 

Although consumer electronics is ungated and a good category for most new sellers, it’s also one of the most competitive. Sellers need to get a good understanding of how competition works on Amazon’s listing to maximize their profits and avoid a price race between other sellers. As a seller, you should not list any product that Amazon is selling. This is a great way to lose your money. It’s impossible to beat Amazon on price because their algorithm will get into a price war with you and you will lose every time.

If you find a consumer electronics product without Amazon as a competitor, check the sales volume of the product on Jungle Scout. If the product is selling well, you can likely keep a good price because the sellers competing with you will run out of inventory. It’s also a good idea to use FBA because you will get sales faster and you will be able to charge higher prices for your products. 

 Office products:

Office products are a great category that is often overlooked by most sellers. When sellers join Amazon, they often try to find products that they are comfortable with or they have seen other sellers sell. Office products can be a gold mine if you can find a good retailer near you with low prices. Amazon allows sellers to sell used/refurbished office products, but I would recommend new sellers stay away from that and only sell new products. The majority of office products are ungated, but there are certain brands and sub categories that will need approval to sell. 

Sellers can source office products from big box retailers or look for deals at stores that specialize in office products like OfficeMax or Staples. Office products sell pretty great year-round, but they do even better around the start of each semester during the school year. This is because the demand for office products is amplified by the influx of students that are looking for various school supplies. 

Health and personal care:

The health and personal care category is one of the best selling categories for sellers on Amazon. It generates well over $5 billion in revenue for Amazon every year. This category is filled with products that Amazon customers use routinely, so there’s a huge opportunity for repeat sales.

Some of the products you can expect to see in this category include household essentials, personal hygiene products, dietary supplements and more. There’s a huge opportunity for sellers to find profitable products in this niche and continue re-ordering them and build a substantial business. 

This category is great for new sellers because it is ungated and the profit margins are relatively good. Unlike a category like books, there’s not too many specific stores that specialize in what Amazon refers to as health and household. Sellers can go source for these products at specific sections in major retailers’ stores.

For example, a seller can go to Walmart and scan products in the personal hygiene isles or the household items isles. Once you scan a product, you will see which category it is on Amazon and whether you can sell it or not. 

Amazon does not require approval for sellers that are in the health and personal care category. It does require approval for specific sub categories in the health and personal care category though. Amazon requires all sellers in this category to sell new products; under no circumstances should you as a seller send in a used health and personal care product. This is a quick way to get your Amazon seller account suspended. 

Beauty: 

The Beauty category is one of the most lucrative categories for Amazon sellers. Amazon generated over $10 billion in 2020 on the beauty category alone.  This shows how big the market size is for beauty and sellers are generating over half of those sales. Although this category is lucrative, there are a ton of brands that sellers need to get ungated for.

Getting your feet wet with a few sales in beauty can be a good start before chasing the big name brands with good margins. Once you get approved in some of the popular brands, you will see how valuable the beauty category is. Some of the unique characteristics that makes beauty a great category for sellers include:

  • Repeat purchases: Anyone who buys beauty products knows that buying one product is not going to do much. Beauty products are often used over long periods of time and customers often make repeat orders on their favorite products. Amazon also has a feature where customers can subscribe to auto-deliveries of beauty products. This feature incentivizes customers to make automatic repeat orders and that grows the sales for sellers.
  • Luxury brands: Customers who often shop for beauty products can easily name the brands they love. Sellers who become familiar with the beauty market can get a chance to sell in luxury brands. Luxury brands are great for sellers because they offer sellers the chance to make luxury margins. Since many luxury brands are gated, there’s less competition. Sellers who become experts in this niche can get ungated and enjoy great margins for each product sold.
  • Growth: The beauty category is primed for growth over the next decade. Current categories within beauty include oral health, skin care, make up, hair care, fragrances, shaving, personal care and more. There are a ton of business strategies that can thrive in the beauty category. Sellers can keep selling other brands’ products or they can opt to build their own brand within the beauty category. This opens up a lot of opportunities for sellers who are passionate about beauty and want to build and grow a sustainable business in the beauty niche.

Home & Garden: 

Home & garden is an overlooked category within Amazon, but it generates billions annually from sellers. It has steadily increased year over year and it’s primed for more growth with the rising age of millennials. Some of the subcategories within home & garden include:

  • Patio, lawn and garden
  • Heating, cooling & air quality
  • Furniture and décor
  • Kitchen and dining
  • Bedding, bath and more

These kinds of products are typically bough from retail stores, but the embrace of ecommerce is skyrocketing online sales for these products. Sellers who specialize in this category can make great profits because there’s less competition in comparison to other categories like books, electronics and video games. The margins that sellers can make on these profits can be high because the average purchase orders for these products are higher.

For example, an electronic item on Amazon can sell for tens of dollars. A furniture or kitchen product can easily sell for hundreds of dollars, if not thousands. Millions of Amazon customers who live in rural areas love to use Amazon to buy home & garden products because there’s no great retailer near their area.

Video games:

One of the most exciting categories for sellers to sell in is video games. Video games are one of the best categories on Amazon for several reasons.  The pandemic has made video games sales increase dramatically and the momentum has not slowed down in 2021. For new sellers, video games is a great category because sellers can sell both new and used video games.

This means that sellers can make their first few hundred dollars from selling their own video games. Additionally, since many sellers are already aware about video games, where to purchase them, etc, this lowers the learning curve and enables them to increase sales. Some places that sellers can go to source video games include local retailers, thrift stores, online sites and more.

There are a ton of different kinds of video games sellers can sell on Amazon. Since there are a lot of video game consoles, a single video game can be sold in many variations. For example, Grand Theft Auto V can be sold for PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and more. This opens a lot of opportunity for sellers because there is demand on many consoles for video games.

If you are planning on selling used video games, it’s important to mention the quality of the game. This applies to selling basically any used item on Amazon. Always under-promise and over-deliver. This will allow you to get better reviews from customers and prevent your account getting suspended due to a claim from a customer.

New Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has noted his commitment to video games over the next decade. Amazon has expanded its gaming studios and expects to be the market leader in video games sales.

Is there really a “best” category for sellers to sell in?

The categories mentioned above are all popular categories for new sellers on Amazon. You may hear one source says one category is better than another, but that’s not definitive. Some categories are much easier to source for, but you as a seller have to focus on what’s most effective for you.

For example, books are an awesome category to start off with because many people have books lying around their house. You can easily list them and ship them to Amazon for your first few sales. Books will not be the best category for you if you don’t have books at home. You have to use your own judgement and figure out what advantages you specifically have to sell products.

There are so many great categories in Amazon that you can specialize and focus on what you actually know. If your family has a business like a grocery store, you probably already know a ton of information about groceries. Focusing on that will give you a clear advantage over other sellers who are brand new to that category.

Basically, the best category for you specifically is subjective because it depends on how much you can leverage your previous experiences. You can always start with any category and decide to become an expert later on. The important thing is you just get started and build momentum and sales.

Final thoughts

This covers  some of the best categories that new sellers on Amazon can get started with. Since they are mostly ungated, most of the products you will find while sourcing will be products you can sell on Amazon. It’s important to focus and narrow down your goals as a new seller. For example, you can narrow down and make a goal of sending in 10-20 profitable used books to Amazon.

This is a very doable goal for a new seller and it will allow you to think about how you can scale your efforts. Once you can send in 10-20 books, you’ll have an idea of what it took you to source the books, prep them, list them and ship them to Amazon. You basically have your own system now and you can reuse that to sell more products.

It’s best for new sellers to just go into a retailer near them and start scanning. Unless you’re going to specialize in a category like books, there’s no need to just target a specific category. Make sure the only used products you are ever sending in to Amazon are books and nothing else.  You can just start scanning in a variety of isles and see if the product you scanned can be sold by you on Amazon. This is probably the best way for new sellers to get experience and hit the ground running. 

 To learn more about which categories you can and can’t sell in, check out this blog here

 

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