Sometimes, it's helpful to look at what the best in the business are doing before you decide what course of action is best for you. Whether it provides you direction or just inspiration, it never hurts to see what categories they sell in, do they use FBA, how many brands they cover, and where they are based. So who are the best in the Amazon business right now?
- GloBcom - $110,000,000 monthly revenue
- VM Express - $71,000,000
- BestChoiceproducts - $54,000,000
- iServe - $46,000,000
- Grocery-Shop - $43,000,000
- Utopia Deals - $43,000,000
- FilterBuy - $36,000,000
- Pharmapacks - $31,000,000
- Best Buy (yes, THAT Best Buy) - $30,000,000
- VIVOSUN - $26,000,000
Those are some big numbers, but how exactly are they all getting there?
Categories
There is a little overlap, but quite a bit of variety among our top sellers:
- Two are in Grocery (GloBcom and Grocery-Shop)
- Three are in Patio, Lawn & Garden (VM Express, BestChoiceproducts, VIVOSUN)
- Two in Health & Household (iServe, Pharmapacks)
- One Home & Kitchen (Utopia Deals)
- One Tools & Home Improvement (FilterBuy)
- One Electronics (Best Buy, no surprises there)
Fulfillment by Amazon
Here's where we have the widest discrepancy: almost everyone is committed one way or the other on using FBA either as much or as little as possible. Only FilterBuy has taken a somewhat middle of the road path:
- GloBcom - uses FBA 0% of the time
- VM Express - <1%
- BestChoiceproducts - <1%
- iServe - 88%
- Grocery-Shop - 0%
- Utopia Deals - 91%
- FilterBuy - 27%
- Pharmapacks - 8%
- Best Buy - 0%
- VIVOSUN - 97%
Brands
Another bit of variability, these sellers either represent only their own individual brand, or thousands:
- GloBcom - sells roughly 1899 different brands at any given time
- VM Express - 11,544
- BestChoiceproducts - 1
- iServe - 198
- Grocery-Shop - 779
- Utopia Deals - 1080
- FilterBuy - 1
- Pharmapacks - >20,000
- Best Buy - 5
- VIVOSUN - 1
Where are they headquartered?
- GloBcom - Vitebsk, Belarus
- VM Express - Nebraska, USA
- BestChoiceproducts - California, USA
- iServe - Utah, USA
- Grocery-Shop - Kharkiv, Ukraine
- Utopia Deals - New York, USA
- FilterBuy - Alabama, USA
- Pharmapacks - New York, USA
- Best Buy - Minnesota, USA
- VIVOSUN - Shanghai, China
Conclusions
Clearly there are as many paths to success as there are successful people. But there are a couple lessons we can tease out:
- Amazon gives you options - Want to sell exclusively other people's products through arbitrage? GloBcom and Grocery-Shop do. Want to sell other people's products as their authorized representative? VM Express and iServe do. Have your own products and want Amazon to be one of your many channels? The other top sellers do.
- Go where you want - Three of the top sellers in America...don't live in America. Yes, some are from expected business centers like New York and California, but Utah and Nebraska? These are great examples that in the information age, an internet connection is all you need.
- Laser Focus - When you have thousands of options, eventually you need to find your niche. These sellers know exactly what drives their revenue. Those who sell thousands of brands are dominant in as few categories as possible, like how GloBcom is almost exclusively a grocery seller. Meanwhile, several stores only sell their own products. Even Best Buy, a Fortune 500 company, has only chosen to offer 5 brands, no doubt after vigorous testing to see what sells better on Amazon vs in its own stores.
Hopefully this has given you either some insight or inspiration on what to do with your business!
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