It has been a while on the blog since we have taken a dive into strategies for online arbitrage (OA), so I want to spend some time today talking about the main online arbitrage tool we use for finding profitable inventory from online stores to resell on Amazon: Tactical Arbitrage. If you feel like you want to try Tactical Arbitrage for yourself, then know that Full-Time FBA readers get an extended free trial, so be sure to read thoroughly to make sure you’re getting the correct link for your extended trial period.
About once a month in our Facebook group someone will ask a variation of these questions: “Has anyone used Tactical Arbitrage? Is it worth the price? Does it actually work?” My short answer to these questions: we use Tactical Arbitrage every week; it’s 100% more than worth it; and it depends.
When I started doing OA, I depended on deal lists to streamline my sourcing process and help me to efficiently find great deals worth reselling. Eventually I wanted to buy even more inventory than I could find on my deal list subscriptions, so I started using Tactical Arbitrage. As of 2023, Stephen and I have maintain a subscription to Tactical Arbitrage for well over 8 years.
Tactical Arbitrage
Tactical Arbitrage is online software that allows you to scan an entire category of a store’s website to find matches in the Amazon catalog, either by UPC or by product title. Tactical Arbitrage allows you to set up bulk scans of multiple pages and multiple websites to scan at one time, so that you can start a scan and come back to it later after it has finished. The results of a Tactical Arbitrage scan show you links to product pages on the online store’s site and Amazon, links to Keepa, and columns of info on pricing, sales rank, profit, and ROI, among other things. Tactical Arbitrage has other features and methods for doing reverse scans, Amazon flips, and more. The time you can save using Tactical Arbitrage adds up to hours per day. If you want to check out an extended free trial of Tactical Arbitrage, be sure to use the code FULLTIME10 when signing up at www.fulltimefba.com/TA.
Training available? Tactical Arbitrage has a great YouTube channel with tutorials to get you started using the program. Plus, for even more advanced training, you can invest in a video based course called Tactical Arbitrage Academy. This advanced course opened up our eyes to even more ways you can use Tactical Arbitrage to find even more profitable inventory. Totally worth the investment. Plus, if you use the coupon code FULLTIMEFBA50, you’ll save $50 of the TA Academy course.
Features and functionality? Tactical Arbitrage is an (almost overwhelmingly) powerful tool, allowing you to search entire categories on a website in one scan. You can also upload a bulk list of categories from multiple websites to run in one scan, producing hundreds or thousands of potential buys at a time. Tactical Arbitrage also includes tools for wholesale spreadsheets scans, Amazon flips, reverse lookup, and library search for books. I’ll be real honest – I haven’t used half of the features of Tactical Arbitrage, but I still find it worth the price for the features I do use.
Learning curve? Tactical Arbitrage is an extremely powerful tool, and it isn’t super intuitive at times to learn it. Watching the YouTube tutorials helped me a great deal; so did just getting into the tool and playing around with it and fiddling with the filters.
Time required for a scan? Depends on how many items are in the category you are scanning and whether you are scanning a bulk list. Tactical Arbitrage is designed for you to set up a scan, walk away from it, and come back when it’s finished so you can analyze the data. That might be a half hour later or the next morning, depending on how much you included in your scan. I love that I can have the program send me a text when my scan is finished, so I don’t have to continually check the progress.
Can you use with a virtual assistant (VA)? Yes; you can save even more time in your OA sourcing by hiring a VA to do your scanning for you.
Who should use this product? I recommend Tactical Arbitrage as a more advanced tool for OA sourcing. The learning curve is steep, and the results can be overwhelming. I personally would not have wanted to use Tactical Arbitrage when I first got started in OA (in fact, I might have given up on OA if I started out with it), but I love it at this point in my OA journey.
More Points to Note
Many sellers who are just starting out in OA get frustrated with a seeming lack of results from using a program to scan entire pages of online stores. Many sellers will say, “I scanned thousands of items and didn’t find anything to resell. These programs aren’t worth it.” Almost without fail, these sellers have their filters set to only find items with 100% ROI or higher. OA is different from thrifting and garage saling (and even RA to an extent) in that you need to be looking for items with a lower ROI. If your business isn’t at a point where you have the financial capital to source items with a lower ROI, it probably isn’t the time yet for you to invest in these OA tools.
If you do decide to do a trial of Tactical Arbitrage, I highly encourage you to make sure you are prepared to spend a significant amount of time during that trial learning the software and scanning websites. You don’t want to sign up right when you are going out of town on vacation or right when you have a busy week of doing some other task. Make sure you can spend several hours going through tutorial videos and practicing what you are learning. If you dedicate the time to learning the software during the trial, you should be able to find enough items to resell that you can pay for at least a month of subscription for the service.
Also, don’t forget that Tactical Arbitrage offers an extended trial period to Full-Time FBA readers. For an extended trial of Tactical Arbitrage, be sure to use the code FULLTIME10 when you sign up.
We would love to hear any questions you have about these products in the comments. Have you used Tactical Arbitrage before? Do you have anything to add related to the features of the tool?
Thank you for the wonderful review! Can you recommend both for sellers in the UK and EU market as well? And if so, which of the two do you find most suitable for OA in Europe?
Cheers
That’s a good question, but I don’t know the answer. We only sell in the US market. Perhaps you could ask that question in our Facebook group to see if anyone else is using them for that purpose? Or maybe someone who uses them for those markets will answer here on this comment.
Good article… thank you! You don’t address either specifically for drop shipping which as you know is a totally different animal from FBA. I know that is not your focus but it is a main part of my business. TA says you can use it for drop shipping. I had OAX for a while, and it was okay but not great to find the higher profit items. Your thoughts? Thank you!
Thanks for sharing!
Excellent and concise comparison. Last week I became interested in Tactical Arbitrage. I now want to know more about OAXRay. The distinction you made between new and experienced OA sellers will help me make the right decision for my business. Thank you!
Diane,
This was a good article. I was wondering how your OA journey is going? Did you every try TA or OA Xray? How has your experience been so far?
Thanks,
Brian
Thank you will give this a try as part of my big Q4Push.
Jeff, both OAXray and Tactical Arbitrage have plenty of examples on their websites and YouTube channels for you to see these examples in action.
Tactical Arbitrage Honest Review: Sounded great, but very disappointed thus far- 3 Big Things:
1.WAY too many mismatches between the item listed and the actual Amazon listing, rendering a lot of the info useless.
2. WAY too many items come back that actually have no Amazon reviews. Do you want to risk buying a product with no reviews?
3. I’ve done at least 50 searches and most items that come back in my searches are WAY too expensive. Do you really want to spend 200 dollars to make 10 dollars, for example?
No bueno.
Have you watched any of the Tactical Arbitrage training videos on YouTube… or looked into Tactical Arbitrage Academy (www.fulltimefba.com/TAacademy)? If you’re not finding good stuff then you’re probably using the software the wrong way. Learn how to use it correctly and the results will blow you away!
When tactical arbitrage comeback for new users?
You can get it now! Get an extended 10-day trial by clicking here: https://www.fulltimefba.com/ta and using code FULLTIME10
I have been told that Oaxray is mainly
USA & China based. Is that correct?
Thank you
Thank you very much for this article it is really helpful.
I am new so i will go for OAxray as you have advised, my big time concern is a prep center you did not mention anything about prep center how do you guys send your items from anywhere to Amazon? do you advise using any of prep centers in particular?
We use a prep center and go into great detail on how to choose one in this course: https://www.fulltimefba.com/nextlevel. Here is one I recommend: https://www.fulltimefba.com/myprepcenter.
Any ideas on how these products compare to Source Mogul?
TA is really a BIG disappointment for me 🙁
It returns products that are supersaturated
Kevin, I’m sorry about your disappointment. I’m pretty sure you are not using TA correctly. Go back and watch the free training videos on TA (of if you want to get more advanced training, consider Tactical Arbitrage Academy. It’s totally possible to do 6-figures in sales with just TA alone. Don’t give up, because TA is a powerful tool.
Nice article. However the pricing, is it really comparable? TA around $879 a year, OAXray immediately at $1,000 a year? I’m relatiely new, doing RA, just getting into WS. I really want to use TA, but don’t know yet for sure.
If you really want to start TA, then I’d suggest going that route. Spend time watching all the training videos before you start your 10 day trial so that you can make the most of your trial. Then during the trial, you’ll be able to make the most of the program. Get an extended 10 day trial with the code FULLTIME10 at this link: https://www.fulltimefba.com/TA
Thanks Steve. I’ve watched some videos at various places but still getting my hands around TA. I hope you do more videos on TA…FT FBA is the best one stop shop for everything AMZ FBA related, just like to urge you to do a little more on your site about online arb!
You make everything clear and cut through the clutter. Thank you for sharing your wealth of expertise.
God Bless!
You mentioned that we should be ready to invest in lower ROI products before buying into either Of these OA sourcing products . What is considered low roi?
Most Amazon sellers, when they start, are mostly looking for items with 100% ROI (that doubles their money), but with OA using these tools, a lower ROI is necessary to really make some good money via higher number of items sold. Right now, we’re comfortable with a 30% ROI… but some people need to get more comfortable with lower ROIs over time… so if you’re used to 100%, then maybe seek a 75% ROI.. then 50%…. then 30%. The better you get at sourcing, the lower the ROI you’ll be comfortable with. I hope this helps.