The real challenges of Amazon wholesale, and how sellers get past them

We build software for Amazon wholesale sellers, so it would be easy for us to make this business sound simple. It isn't. What we can say is that the hard parts are well known, and most of them show up in a predictable order, because the business itself runs in order: set up, check the numbers, get approved, find a supplier, buy, prep, sell, reorder. Each challenge below points to the part of this site that deals with it in depth.

This page is about reselling: buying other brands' products from a brand or a distributor and selling them on Amazon as a third-party seller. If you're a brand that sells its own products to Amazon as a vendor, that's a different business with different problems.

Where we quote Stef, who teaches Apex University, the passage comes from one of his recorded lessons and describes his own experience as a seller. Each one is labeled with the lesson and the time, so you can watch it in context.

Is Amazon wholesale hard?

Yes, at the start, but not in a technical way. Nothing in wholesale needs a special talent. It needs persistence with suppliers, patience with numbers, and the habit of running the same checks on every product.

Amazon's own guide to reselling is candid about the downsides. It warns that reselling can be competitive and that "some sellers find themselves in a race to the bottom with prices, which can hurt your profitability." It also notes that buying from many different sources can lead to quality problems and returns.

Stef describes the day-to-day side of it:

"This work is a work of consistency and also repetition. We will do the same type of product research for every single SKU that comes in our hands."

From Stef's lesson, The Checklist at 7:16

His point in the same passage is that it gets easier. The more products you analyze and the more orders you place, the more familiar the routine becomes. So the answer is that wholesale is hard at the start and repetitive after that. The rest of this page takes the hard parts one at a time.

The challenges at a glance

Each challenge belongs to one stage of the Amazon wholesale roadmap. Here's where to start on each one.

Expecting it to run itself

Many people meet Amazon selling through videos and ads that make it sound like income on autopilot. Real wholesale has a lot of handwork in it: emailing suppliers, checking price lists, placing orders, getting stock prepped, reordering and keeping records. FBA takes over storage, packing, shipping and customer service. It doesn't take over the buying.

There's a second expectation to reset. In wholesale you sell other companies' brands, so the store you build doesn't become a brand you own. In exchange, you sell products that already have demand, instead of creating it from nothing.

What helps:

• Decide which model you're actually doing before you spend anything. Reselling on Amazon compares wholesale, arbitrage and private label side by side.
• Be wary of anyone selling an Amazon store that runs itself. Is Amazon FBA worth it? covers who should and shouldn't start, and how long your money is gone once you buy.

Getting suppliers to take you seriously

Distributors sell to businesses, not to shoppers. Before most of them will open an account, they want to see a registered business and a tax ID, and many ask for a resale certificate so they don't have to charge you sales tax.

Amazon's own guide to finding wholesalers says you'll typically need "a registered business like an LLC to buy products from a wholesaler," and that you might also need a reseller license, permits or other certifying documents.

"Those companies do not wanna do business with an individual. They want to do business and work with other companies."

From Stef's lesson, The Checklist at 0:56

In his checklist the order is: the business entity and an EIN, then a business bank account, then a Professional selling account on Amazon, then the wholesale paperwork. He also uses an email address on the business's own domain, because in his experience distributors filter out applications sent from Gmail or Yahoo addresses.

What helps:

• Set up the business before you contact anyone. How to start Amazon wholesale walks through it step by step.
• Get a resale certificate for your state. Stef calls it a mandatory step for most suppliers.
• Know what a distributor's application asks for before you fill one in. How to open a wholesale account covers it, including whether you need an LLC.
• Price the setup so it doesn't eat your inventory budget. What it costs to start breaks it down.

Margins thinner than they look

A product's sale price isn't your income. Amazon takes a referral fee on every sale, a fulfillment fee on every FBA unit, monthly storage for the space your units take, and an inbound placement fee that depends on how you split your shipments. Then come your own costs: the supplier's price, freight, prep and labels, and the trip to Amazon. A product that looks like a few dollars of profit at today's price can be close to break-even once everything is counted.

"And of course, due to the nature of this business model, it is lower margin, but still profitable."

From Stef's lesson, The Game at 4:52

Lower margin means less room for mistakes. The second trap is price. Today's Buy Box price can be a spike, and in his Purchasing lesson (at 10:22) Stef skips a product that shows a good profit at its current price, because its 90-day average price is far lower and buying off today's price could mean a loss. Reading Keepa charts shows how to see that history.

What helps:

• Amazon FBA fees explained covers every fee, and Amazon referral fees by category has Amazon's full table.
• The profit calculator also works backward, from the return you want to the most you can pay the supplier.
• For what a healthy margin looks like, see wholesale profit margins.

Products you're not approved to sell

Some categories and brands need Amazon's approval before you can list them. New sellers often meet this on the very first price list they check: a product sells well, the margin works, and the listing says you need approval.

That's why approvals and suppliers are tied together. A receipt from a store isn't the invoice Amazon describes, and an invoice whose name or address doesn't match your account works against you even when the goods are genuine. Approval is also Amazon's decision, product by product, so no invoice or service can promise it.

What helps:

• Check which categories need approval before you buy: the gated categories list.
• Get the paperwork right the first time: ungating invoice requirements.
• When a brand authorizes you directly, read up on the letter of authorization.
• If you're starting in grocery, the grocery playbook walks through that category.

Suppliers who say no, or never reply

This is where many new sellers lose momentum. You find a distributor that carries the brands you want, apply, and hear nothing, or get a polite no because you're new or your order would be too small.

Stef treats a no as the start of a conversation. When a large distributor or a manufacturer turns him down, he asks who they supply that he could buy from, and he's usually given names (Finding Suppliers at 8:59). He works down the supply chain this way, from manufacturers to large redistributors to smaller distributors and wholesalers, until he finds a minimum order and a price he can work with.

"A lot of people get loss of momentum when they get rejected... but that does not mean in business that it is the end of the road. We have to understand why we got rejected in the first place, so we can make those adjustments later."

From Stef's lesson, Finding Suppliers at 9:18

He also saves time by reading a supplier's website before applying. In the same lesson (at 7:19) he drops a food distributor whose catalog is mostly meat and vegetables, which aren't products he wants to sell on Amazon.

What helps:

• Look like a business before you apply (the section above), and check that a supplier carries brands that sell on Amazon before you spend time on its application.
• Amazon's guide to finding wholesalers suggests trade shows, referrals and professional networks, and checking a supplier's business license and brand authorization letter.
• Send clear, short emails. Distributor email templates gives you wording to start from.
• Finding Amazon wholesale suppliers covers where distributors are and how to vet them, and the Distributor Vault lists distributor names by category.

Prices that start high

Getting an account is one step. Getting prices that leave you a margin is another. In Stef's experience, a new account starts on the distributor's standard prices, and better terms come after you've bought.

"Some companies, they're not going to give you the best prices from the beginning. You have to spend a few dollars."

From Stef's lesson, Finding Suppliers at 21:24

In the same passage he describes placing one or two purchase orders before a supplier takes him seriously, and only then asking about products it doesn't list. Amazon's guide to finding wholesalers agrees that it's worth asking about minimum orders and prices: it says the numbers are "probably negotiable."

What helps:

• Work out the most you can pay per unit before you ask, so you ask for a number and not for "a better price."
• Ask at the reorder, once you've paid on time and want more of something that sells. How to negotiate with distributors has scripts for it.
• Compare every reorder with your last purchase order. Prices change, and not always with an email.

Knowing what to buy, and how much

A supplier's price list can run to thousands of lines, and most of them won't work on Amazon. The skill is narrowing it down quickly: match each line to its Amazon listing, check the case pack against the listing's pack size, count every fee, check the price history, see how many sellers really compete, and leave out hazmat and meltable products until you're set up for them.

Then comes quantity. Order too little and you won't learn how the product sells. Order too much and your cash sits on a shelf.

"I always recommend, especially when doing test buys, to buy roughly twenty-four to forty-eight units of a product."

From Stef's lesson, Purchasing at 14:05

That's his rule of thumb for a first test of a product, not Amazon's rule. From there he adjusts each quantity to the product's monthly sales and the share of the Buy Box he thinks he can win, while making sure the whole order meets the supplier's minimum.

What helps:

• How to analyze a wholesale price list is the full method, with worked examples.
• Your first wholesale order covers quantities, minimums and test buys.
• The Chrome extension shows profit, return and estimated monthly sales on Amazon's own pages. It's free to install, and its numbers open when you finish Apex University.

Prep, labels and shipping to Amazon

Between the supplier and Amazon's shelves there's a whole step: receiving the goods, checking them, labeling every unit, packing boxes and creating the shipment. In 2026 that step got heavier for resellers.

• Amazon stopped offering its prep and item labeling services for US FBA shipments on January 1, 2026, according to its developer notice. Prep and labels are now your job or your prep center's.
• For inventory shipped on or after March 31, 2026, Amazon's announcement requires resellers to use Amazon barcode stickers even when a product already has a manufacturer barcode. Brand owners with the Brand Representative role in Amazon Brand Registry can keep using the manufacturer barcode instead.
• Many shipments also carry an inbound placement fee, which depends on how your shipment is split across Amazon's warehouses.

Each of those steps adds days between paying the supplier and having stock to sell, and prep centers don't always hit the time they quote. Stef builds that into his reorder math:

"So you wanna always be conservative. If your prep center says two days, maybe add three."

From Stef's lesson, Restocking at 9:25

What helps:

• Choose a prep center with the right questions ready: Amazon FBA prep centers.
• Learn the label before your first shipment: FNSKU labels.
• Keep up with the changes in Amazon rule changes for resellers, each with Amazon's own source.

Sharing the listing and the Buy Box

In wholesale you usually add your offer to a listing that already exists, next to every other seller of the same product. A shopper who clicks Add to Cart buys from whichever offer Amazon features at that moment. Amazon calls it the Featured Offer, and most sellers still call it the Buy Box.

Amazon's page on the Featured Offer lists what helps an offer get featured:

• Price. "Featured Offer prices are commonly at or below the lowest priced alternatives."
• Shipping. "Offers with fast, free shipping are more likely to be featured."
• The order experience. A consistently good one can help your chances.
• Stock. Your offer can't be featured while the item is out of stock.

More sellers are also in the running now. Amazon's announcement says that, starting in July 2026, it is removing the separate seller eligibility requirement for the Featured Offer, rolling out gradually and finishing by the end of 2026. Amazon rule changes for resellers explains what that means for a shared listing.

The challenge is that price is the lever everyone reaches for first, and Amazon's reselling guide warns about the race to the bottom. What protects you is knowing your floor, the lowest price at which a product still makes you money, and choosing products where only a few sellers really compete.

Stef also reads the signal the other way around. Stock that isn't moving is often a price problem:

"So we can see that we have some products that are even exceeding sixty days. This is not a bad sign. It just means that we're probably not priced correctly to be getting the sales within the buy box."

From Stef's lesson, Restocking at 10:52

Product reviews belong to the listing, so on a shared listing they were there before you arrived. What you control is the experience each buyer has with your order, and asking for reviews only in the ways Amazon allows. How to automate review requests shows how.

Complaints and account health

Amazon tracks every seller's record. For a reseller, one risk to plan for is a complaint about the products themselves, such as a question about whether goods you bought in good faith are authentic. Your defense is mostly paperwork you collected when you bought.

Amazon's policy overview for sellers describes the account health rating as "a snapshot of your account's risk of deactivation based on compliance with Amazon policies." It lists account deactivation, loss of Featured Offer eligibility and withheld funds among the possible results of breaking its rules.

Amazon's reselling guide adds that retail-to-retail drop shipping is prohibited, and that auctions and liquidation are not valid sources of supply.

Stef's habit is to attach each supplier's invoice to the purchase order it belongs to, so a question about any product can be answered with the right invoice (Purchasing at 30:29). He treats the account itself with the same care:

"This is a very serious business. Treat it like it's a bank account."

From Stef's lesson, The Checklist at 2:42

In that passage he's talking about turning on two-step verification, before you ever sell a unit.

What helps:

• Amazon account health explains the rating and the habits that protect it.
• Section 3 violations and what to do if your account is suspended cover the worst cases.

Running out of stock, or out of cash

These are one problem seen from both ends. Your money goes to the supplier weeks before a product sells, and it comes back one sale at a time. If all of it is in one order, you can't reorder the products that work. If you reorder too late, you lose sales while you wait.

Stef's Restocking lesson works through one example on a product he used to resell. Say you have 81 units and sell about 12.5 a day, so roughly six and a half days of stock. A reorder takes 19 days to become sellable: 12 for the supplier to deliver, 3 for prep and 4 to reach Amazon. That leaves about 12 days with nothing to sell, around 150 missed sales, which at $2.16 profit a unit comes to $324.

"We should have placed an order twelve days ago."

From Stef's lesson, Restocking at 2:44

That $324 is one example, not a typical figure. The point is the method: days of stock left, measured against the full lead time. With the same numbers, he works out that covering 30 days of sales plus the 19-day lead time means holding about 613 units.

What helps:

• Keep money back for the reorder. What it costs to start Amazon wholesale shows how to split a budget.
• Know how long your money is gone before you buy: how long until money comes back.
• Track days of stock, not just units, and count supplier, prep and shipping days in your lead time.

Too many spreadsheets and tools

One supplier and a handful of products fit in a spreadsheet. Several suppliers and a few hundred products often don't. Costs live in one file, purchase orders in email and sales in Seller Central, and every copy between them is a chance for a wrong number or a forgotten shipment.

"Now this is a lot of math game because you may be dealing with several suppliers and every SKU is performing differently within your Amazon business. So you cannot always be calculating this on pen and paper, on spreadsheets."

From Stef's lesson, Restocking at 6:07

The opposite mistake is paying for a stack of tools before you have a supplier. Until then, you don't need to pay for any software. Once you have suppliers and orders to track, look for one place where purchase orders, costs, profit and restocking share the same numbers. That's what we built Apex Blue to do, and the software buyer's guide explains what software for this business needs to handle.

How sellers get past them

Look back over the list and a pattern shows. Almost every challenge comes from one of four things: skipping a step, not seeing a number, not keeping a document, or running short of cash at the wrong moment. So the fixes are habits more than tricks.

1. Do the stages in order. Set up the business before you email suppliers, and learn the fees before you buy.
2. Check every product the same way. Fees, price history, real competition, and the most you can pay.
3. Keep every invoice with the order it came from. It's your answer to approvals and complaints alike.
4. Hold money back for the reorder. Plan it before the first order ships.

The Amazon wholesale roadmap lays out all ten stages in order. Apex University teaches the same path, from the business model to restocking, and it comes with a free Apex account: nine lessons, no card.