The Power of Selling Replenishable Inventory on Amazon

When I first started selling on Amazon, I mainly focused on buying items from garage sales, thrift stores, estate sales, and the clearance aisles in my local retail stores. I loved how I could buy something for $1 to $5 that I could sell on Amazon for $15 to $20. I was making amazing ROI (return on investment) but I kept running into the same problem:

I was only able to sell one to two each of these items. I never could find more of these items to sell on Amazon again. I could never “go deep” on an inventory buy. I had to keep searching for my next source of profitable inventory in order to keep making money on Amazon.

If only there was a strategy that I could implement in my Amazon business that allowed me multiple opportunities to “go deep” on inventory buys, send that inventory to Amazon, and then consistently restock that fast-selling inventory on a regular basis each month. If only I could find more of that fast-selling inventory again.

Then it happened. I discovered that my wish was actually a reality that was hidden under my nose the entire time.

It turns out that I was consistently walking right past a ton of inventory that was not only profitable, but easy to restock when my Amazon inventory was low.

This game-changing strategy: Replenishables.

What is a Replenishable?

In the FBA world, a replenishable (or “replen” for short) is an inventory item you can easily restock before your item’s stock level at Amazon is depleted. Once you find a replen to sell, you can keep buying it over and over and never run out of stock on Amazon to sell.

Here is the good news: a replen can be anything.

Replens can be anything within the Amazon catalog — a popular brand of lotion, a toy, a box of cereal. It could even be an item of clothing or footwear.

Our Top Replens

For our Amazon FBA business last year, each of our top selling items was a replenishable item. One top replen was a home decor item, another was a toy accessory, and two of those top replens were shoes. Rebecca found a great source where she could buy these two styles of shoes over and over again and sell them fast enough that it was sometimes hard to even keep them in stock.

Literally any item in any category on Amazon can be a replen. You can find replens that are any shape, size, or weight of item — they can be small and light or they can be oversized. A few years back we even had a replen in the Books category; we sold dozens of units for that one ASIN.

Replens are only limited by the ability to find the right source for them to keep them in stock. That’s the key right there, finding the right source. But the good news is that you can use multiple sourcing methods to find replens: RA, OA, or wholesale sourcing.

Don’t get stuck in imagining only certain types of items as replens. A replen doesn’t have to be in a certain category or fit within a certain size and weight limit. Truly the only limits to which items can become your next big replen seller on Amazon are the limits of your imagination and your work and creativity at sourcing those items.

Why Focus on Replens?

In case you aren’t sold yet on the idea of buying and selling replens on Amazon, let’s talk for a moment about why we think focusing on replens can transform your FBA business.

The first big reason is that you no longer have to depend on finding one-off items over and over to resell. Some one-offs can have great ROI and be fairly easy to source. You might find a plush Disney Pluto toy on clearance and make a quick $5, or you might find a box of Rice Krispies Treats on sale to make $10 profit, or you might even make $20-40 on a pair of clearance shoes. But what happens after the clearance shelf is cleared off? That’s the point of clearance, to clear out the inventory. What happens when those Rice Krispies Treats go back to regular price at your source location? You can’t continue to buy these items to resell on a regular basis.

Replens = Consistent Sales

The gold in this business is when you find a way to buy that Disney Pluto plush on a regular basis, so that $5 is coming into your disbursements over and over. If you can find a source for a popular snack that doesn’t require you finding it on sale in order to make profits off the resale value, you can earn that $10 times 10 or 20 every month or every week. You can go deep on buying multiples of items and earn the same amount of profits off one or two ASINs as you previously were earning off 10 or 20 ASINs in your Amazon inventory.

In this way, you can spend less of your time and mental energy (and sometimes even money) to earn even more profits than when you were depending on one-offs. In fact, one of the best ways you can conserve your time and energy through replens is by how easy it is to outsource when your FBA business model is set up this way.

Predictable Cash Flow

Another great reason to focus on replens is that it builds a more predictable cash flow into your business. You have the power of reordering on a regular basis working for you now, rather than the unpredictability of having to go out and hunt for treasure in order to generate revenue. Over time this predictability in cash flow and increased profits will grow the stability of your business.

In the long term you want a business that churns out profits on a regular basis without the question of where the next round of inventory will come from in order to generate that profit. We truly believe the long term success of an FBA business increases exponentially when you can shift your mindset and your business model towards depending on replens for your inventory.

Our #1 Focus: Replens!

For the past several years our FBA business has increasingly seen replens generate our biggest sales. All of our top-selling items come from replen items and from suppliers we can dependably source at over and over again.

This increase in replens came when we made this mindset shift about selling via Amazon FBA: Almost every item you can sell on Amazon has the potential to be a replen, as long as you can restock it. It’s that simple.

Have you ever found a replen? If so, what type of item was it? I’d love to hear your replen success stories in the comments below!

Want to learn more and more replens? There’s so much more I want to share with you about replens and how amazing they are, so check out this webinar replay where I share all about how I got started with replens and how they can help your Amazon business too!