I think I might have mentioned that I’ve wanted to get into Amazon FBA. So I was walking through a local Target’s clearance section working on getting started with FBA by doing some retail arbitrage. I found a bunch of Qixels glow-in-the-dark design creator on clearance for about $5 each. I looked up the Amazon listing, and it was a little crazy at the time around $40. I figured even at the regular price of about $15 to $20, I’d get a nice little profit out of them so I bought the 9 units I could find on the clearance shelf. Now, I had just set up my seller account (as an individual account to get started) a few days ago and while I had the Amazon seller app on my phone I didn’t sign into it yet and couldn’t remember my password at the time, and that’s where I made my mistake.
So while not all of the Qixel products are, this particular listing was classified as a “learning toy” which has restrictions put in place by Amazon, so not everyone can sell products in the category. As far as I knew, I thought Toys and Games was an open category but apparently, there are some exceptions. In order to request approval to sell learning toys as a reseller, I would have to submit to Amazon an invoice from a manufacturer or distributor with correct dates, names, addresses, and the purchase of at least 10 units. That’s understandable if you’re wanting approval as a reseller to show that you purchased from a reputable source. What seems over the top (especially in my case) is Amazon also wants me to submit a “Children’s Product Certificate” (CPC) Which is an official document that manufacturers have to create in order to sell children’s products.
So the manufacturer of Qixels would have a CPC, but I bet it’s unlikely that they would give some Joe Schmoe off the internet a copy of an official document of theirs just because he managed to buy 9 boxes of their product on a clearance shelf. Luckily, there’s not much damage in terms of loss. I can take all the units back to Target and get a refund on my RedCard and we can pretend this whole thing never happened. I still plan on getting started with retail arbitrage soon and have a couple of ideas where I can find good products to start. But the moral of the story is, don’t be like me and make sure to check that the product you want to sell isn’t restricted.
Daniel