Straight answers to the questions we get asked most — starting with the basics and working up to sourcing, fees, and whether it's still worth it.
FBA stands for "Fulfilment by Amazon." It's a service where sellers send their stock to Amazon's warehouses, and Amazon takes care of storage, packing, shipping, customer service, and returns on those orders. As a seller, you focus on sourcing the right products and building strong listings — Amazon handles the logistics, and eligible listings become Prime-eligible in the process.
Broadly: you register a seller account, source products you believe will sell profitably, create or match listings for them, and ship your inventory to an Amazon fulfilment centre. Amazon stores it, and when a customer places an order, Amazon picks, packs, and ships it, and handles any customer service or returns. Your job is sourcing, pricing, and keeping stock flowing — Amazon's job is getting it to the customer.
It varies a lot depending on your sourcing model. Retail or online arbitrage can start with a few hundred pounds testing small batches of stock. Wholesale or private label typically needs more upfront capital — often thousands — to cover bulk inventory, shipping, and working capital for restocking. On top of stock, budget for your seller account fee, sourcing/research tools, and a buffer for slow-moving inventory while you learn what sells.
The main categories are: a selling plan fee (individual or professional), referral fees (a percentage of each sale, which varies by product category), FBA fulfilment fees (based on the item's size and weight), and storage fees (charged monthly, typically higher in the run-up to Christmas). Amazon updates its fee schedule periodically, so it's worth checking Seller Central directly for current rates before you commit to a product.
Retail/online arbitrage means buying discounted branded products from shops or other websites and reselling them on Amazon. Wholesale means buying stock in bulk directly from a brand or an authorised distributor. Private label means creating your own branded product — often manufactured overseas — and selling it under your own name. Each has a different capital requirement, risk profile, and ceiling for scale, so the "right" one depends on your budget and appetite for risk.
Not necessarily to get started — many sellers begin as sole traders. But as sales grow, most move to a registered limited company for liability protection and tax efficiency, which is how Aftmark Trading Ltd operates. It's worth speaking to an accountant early about which structure suits your situation, rather than working it out after the fact.
It varies hugely by model and effort. Retail arbitrage with fast-turning stock can return a profit within the first few sourcing runs. Wholesale and especially private label often take longer — six to twelve months isn't unusual — to recoup upfront costs like bulk stock and branding. Disciplined sourcing, backed by real margin data rather than guesswork, is what shortens that timeline in practice.
Be cautious with: gated or restricted categories that require prior approval; products with a history of intellectual property or trademark complaints; anything needing certification (electricals, children's products, cosmetics) that you can't properly document; low-margin, highly commoditised items with heavy competition; and oversized or heavy products where fulfilment fees can quietly erase your margin. Sourcing tools that flag sales rank history, restrictions, and IP risk before you buy stock save a lot of expensive mistakes.
Not to sell generally — but if you want access to Amazon's Brand Registry (which unlocks enhanced content, brand protection tools, and reporting), you'll need a registered trademark for your own brand. If you're doing wholesale or retail arbitrage of other companies' branded products, you don't need your own trademark, but you do need to be a legitimate, authorised reseller and avoid infringing on existing trademarks or IP.
Most sellers eventually rely on a mix of: a product research and profitability tool for scouting (like SellerAmp SAS), price and sales-rank history data (like Keepa), a sourcing tool to surface genuinely profitable opportunities (like Arbisource), and some form of listing and account monitoring or automation as the business scales (like SellerFuse). You don't need every tool on day one — start lean and add tools as the workload justifies them. See our full software reviews for how we use each one.
Yes, but it's a more competitive, fee-conscious environment than it was in FBA's earliest years. Sellers who do well today tend to be disciplined about margin, work with reputable suppliers, lean on real data instead of guesswork, and treat it as an actual business rather than a shortcut. Our own numbers — over £200,000 in sales since launching in September 2024 — reflect what's achievable with a sourcing-first approach and no grey-market shortcuts.
