When it comes to sourcing and selling shoes on Amazon, some of the hardest lessons are learned during the early stages of adding shoes to your Amazon business model.
Many of you know that Rebecca and I are a team when it comes to our Amazon FBA business. While I mainly focus on retail arbitrage and wholesale sourcing, she is the specialist when it comes to online arbitrage… and specifically sourcing and selling shoes.
Since my last interview video with Rebecca was so well received, I decided to sit down with her and record another Q&A interview video with her. Rebecca has such a wealth of knowledge about sourcing and selling shoes and you’ll learn a lot in this video.
In the video below, you’ll learn:
- How our very first experiment with sourcing and selling shoes went (spoiler: it didn’t go so well)
- What we learned from that experiment
How we almost decided to give up selling shoes – and why we’re so glad we didn’t quit.- The biggest thing we wish we knew when we started selling shoes
- The mindset shift you need to be successful with selling shoes
- The biggest difference between sourcing items like books/toys and sourcing shoes
- How to overcome not being able to see sales rank history of shoes
- Which is better? Going wide or going deep when sourcing shoes?
- How to find confidence in sourcing shoes
- How customer returns of shoes are not as bad as returns from other categories (despite what other people might say).
Watch the video and enjoy.
Now, we’d love to hear from you in the comments. What worries do you have about selling shoes on Amazon? Have you sold shoes and found success? We’d love to hear your comments and questions about selling shoes. Leave us a comment below if you have a specific shoe question.
*Updated for 2022
The #1 way we source shoes to sell on Amazon is via online arbitrage.
If you want to add or improve your existing online arbitrage (OA) sourcing skills, then check out our course: The Reseller’s Guide to Online Arbitrage: Grow Your Amazon FBA Business With Online Sourcing Profits.
The course is a combination video course (5+ hours of OA training) and a 100+ page ebook. The videos and book both share the exact same content (so you can pick the format you most like to learn from). The course also comes with six time-saving and money-making bonuses all at no additional charge!
Rebecca, you’re a smart young lady who talks a lot of sense and you’ve given me much food for thought. I have always thought of shoes as fashion items and thus subject to the vagaries of fast changes in fashion tastes, yet you talk of them being ‘long tail’ items. How do you cope with this when sourcing shoes?
Or have I got it totally wrong?
Regards,
No, you don’t have it all wrong. That’s one of the factors each seller has to take into consideration when coming up with your own buying parameters in the shoes category. Some sellers like to chase trends, while others like to stick with timeless, classic styles. Some shoes are about a fashion statement, while others are about comfort, function, etc.
Rebecca and Stephen….
One of the most confusing thing for me in selling shoes has to do with Children Shoe Sizes. This is a fun area to sell in but understanding the difference between ‘kids’, ‘toddlers’, ‘infant’, ‘little kids’, ‘big kids’, etc. I hope you address Children’s Shoe Sizes in one of your future posts or in the webinar.
Thanks for the great info.
Tip for size buying …. go look at your local shoe store, see how they have the sections divided. The amount of shelf space they give per size is a great indication of the sizes that sell. Example …. you do not see a lot of shelf size dedicated to women’s shoe size 11 but size 8 is massive. Just a way to help you know what sizes might sell more than others.
Of course, then there is the flip side too …. b/c most local stores might not carry size 11 in women shoes those customers are buying online / Amazon.
Just a few things to thing about. Best of luck to all.
Thanks for a very informative video and post. I really appreciated the idea that some capital needs to be long-tail designated. That’s a helpful way of looking at it. I also appreciated the reminder that this is not something that is a loss but the price of education.
Since the cost of storage has gone up , I have been considering looking at what you said here about shoes.
Thank you so much for the info, looking to get involved.
Is there a seasonal time that is best to sell shoes other than Q4.
I like the way you and wife handle the presentations.
Also I can understand you and the wife clearly which is a problem with some videos I watch
After selling shoes for the past three years, I can look back at our sales numbers and see that shoes sell steadily year round. There aren’t as many ups and downs in sales as with the toys category and others. Our shoe sales do go up a bit during Q4, but not as dramatically as toys do.
Hi
Thanks for the information on shoes. Can I ask where on the box you place the sticker label? Since you are not polybagging the box, is it a concern that the sticker be place on the box? Thanks, Win
I put the sticker over the shoe UPC barcode.
Great video. I will integrate shoe sales into my business over the next year. In the meantime, I will focus on wholesale.
Thank you Stephen. You videos are part of my day and I appreciate the valuable content.
Thanks you both for this video. I wish Rebecca could help me with my new flat shoes line from Brazil !
They obviously don’t have selling shoes wrong because they are successful at it. Shoes are a great idea because people have favorite go-to brands- I know I do. Also less competition. Many successful sellers and experts sell shoes. Always listen to people who are older than you, more experienced than you and an expert in their profession.
Thanks for your video I enjoyed watching it. I have scanned a few brands of shoes but they keep coming up restricted for me. Is there a name brand that would be better to start with that is not restricted?
A few thoughts… Did you seek approval for the brands that came up restricted. Sometimes you’ll get instant approval on some gated brands. Also, try scanning all the shoes, not just the shoe brands you know about. There is good money to be made in lesser known shoe brands. Also, sometimes – just like with sourcing other categories – you just hit a run of bad luck. Keep sourcing and the profitable items will be found soon enough. 🙂
Hey!
What sells better; Women or Men shoes within the running shoes category. Thanks!
We sell both really well in that niche.
Thank you for your video, I have found many times very good shoes, but when I’m going to list them in amazon that size exactly is not available in the listing, how do you do to list a size that is not available at the time, how do you get the ASIN of a size not available? thank you very much.
This is a complicated explanation and is one of the bonuses of our Selling Shoes course.