Amazon Wholesale Model
Wholesale is the model where the operations are the business. You are not inventing a product or building a brand — you are buying authorised stock at the right price and competing for the Buy Box on pages other people built. Margins are thin and the mistakes are expensive.
We run wholesale accounts end to end: getting brands to authorise you, sourcing that clears Amazon's rules, pricing that holds the Buy Box without a race to the bottom, and stock that arrives before it runs out.
Why most wholesale accounts stall
They stall in the same three places, and almost never at the point people expect.
Not enough approved brands
THE REAL BOTTLENECK
Sellers spend months analysing products they are not authorised to sell. The catalogue you can build is limited by the brands and distributors who have said yes to you, not by what looks profitable in a scanning tool.
Approval work is slow, repetitive and gets declined a lot. It is also the constraint that actually governs how large the account can get. We treat it as the main job, not the admin around it.
Buying badly
A CHEAP PRICE IS NOT A GOOD PRICE
A product bought at a good discount into a category with eleven other authorised sellers and a price war is money parked in a warehouse. Sell-through rate matters more than headline margin.
We assess Buy Box rotation, seller count, price history and demand stability before an order is placed — not after the stock has landed.
Cash tied up in the wrong stock
THE QUIET KILLER
Wholesale runs on turns. Slow-moving inventory does not just underperform — it eats the working capital that should have gone into the lines that were selling.
We track sell-through by line and recommend exits early, while the stock is still worth something.
Compliance catching up later
IP AND INVOICE PROBLEMS
Sourcing from an unauthorised distributor works right up until an inauthentic complaint arrives and you cannot produce an invoice Amazon accepts. Then the ASIN, and sometimes the account, is gone.
Every supplier goes through checks before we buy: legitimate distribution rights, invoices that meet Amazon's format, and the paperwork ready before it is needed.
Approvals are the foundation
A wholesale account is worth roughly what its approvals are worth. A catalogue built on brand authorisation is defensible — the brand granted it, a competitor cannot buy their way past it, and it is the precondition for listing in the categories worth being in.
This runs as its own workstream: identifying who actually grants authorisation for each brand, approaching them with the documentation they ask for in the form they ask for it, and filing ungating applications with an invoice package Amazon will accept. The detail is on the ungating and brand approval page.
How the account runs week to week
Sourcing and shortlisting
We work the approved brand list for lines worth buying, and keep pushing new brand and distributor outreach so the list keeps growing. Every candidate is checked on sell-through, seller count, Buy Box rotation, fee structure and landed cost.
Buy recommendations
You get a shortlist with the numbers behind it — cost, expected sell-through, competing sellers, projected margin after fees and returns — and you make the purchase decision. We do not spend your money without you.
Prep and inbound
Polybagging, labelling, expiry and case-pack requirements, shipment plans and inbound placement. Errors here create receiving delays, and receiving delays create stockouts on lines that were selling. Covered under FBA prep and shipments.
Listing and Buy Box
Getting onto the correct ASIN, matching the offer properly, and holding the Buy Box at a price that is worth winning. Repricing is set against a floor tied to your real landed cost, not to whatever the cheapest seller is doing today.
Replenishment and exits
Reorder the lines that are turning, exit the ones that are not before they age into storage fees, and keep the catalogue moving rather than accumulating.
What we will not do
We do not buy from grey-market or unauthorised sources, and we do not build catalogues on retail arbitrage receipts dressed up as wholesale invoices. Both work briefly and both end the same way. If you want a catalogue built quickly on sources that will not survive an inauthentic complaint, we are the wrong agency.
We also will not promise a monthly return on a wholesale account. Returns depend on your capital, your approvals and your category — and anyone quoting a percentage before seeing those is selling a story.
What you need to bring
- Working capital for stock, separate from our fee
- A registered business entity and resale certificate where required
- Willingness to be named on brand applications
- Patience through the approval stage
- A decision-maker who can approve buys promptly
- Realistic expectations on margin
US and UK wholesale differ more than you would think
In the US the resale certificate and state registration questions dominate early conversations with distributors. In the UK, VAT registration, EPR compliance and the post-Brexit position on importing from the EU change both the paperwork and the landed cost calculation. We work both, and the sourcing strategy is not the same in each.
Common questions
How many brand approvals will I get?
We cannot give you a number, and a number given up front would be invented. Approval rates depend on your account age, your storefront, your entity and the brands you are targeting. What we can tell you is how many applications went out, what came back, and why the declines were declined.
Do you buy the stock, or do I?
You do. You own the inventory, the supplier relationships and the account. We source, evaluate, negotiate and manage — but the purchase decision and the capital are yours.
What margin should I expect on wholesale?
Wholesale margins are thinner than private label and vary heavily by category. The number that matters more is return on invested capital, because a 12% margin turning six times a year beats a 30% margin turning once. We model both before recommending a buy.
Can you work with my existing suppliers?
Yes, and we would rather start there. Existing relationships that already have authorisation in place are the fastest route to a working catalogue. We check the paperwork meets Amazon's requirements, then build on it.
What happens if I get an inauthentic complaint?
We handle the response: the invoice package, the supplier authorisation evidence and the appeal. Whether it succeeds depends almost entirely on whether the sourcing was legitimate — which is why we are strict about it before buying, not after.
Do you do product hunting on its own?
Yes. If you have approvals and capital but no time to source, product research can run as a standalone service.
See what your wholesale account is missing
Send us your storefront link and the brands you want to carry. The free audit comes back as a video covering your approval position, catalogue quality and where we would start.