10Real Ways to Make Money on Amazon: $1000+ Per Month

 

How Side Hustle Nation Makes Money

Side Hustle Nation was founded in 2013 by Nick Loper (that’s me!).

Jessica also has a free 7-day email course to dive deeper into this business model and see if it’s right for you.

Related: The Amazon Seller app is one of my top money making apps of the year. Check the link for dozens more you might not have heard of yet.

2. Online Arbitrage

Online arbitrage works similarly to retail arbitrage above, except instead of sourcing your inventory from local stores, you buy it online.

Now why would one website sell a product for a dramatically lower price than Amazon? It’s hard to say, but it happens.

If you have a keen eye for deals, especially if you can stack up cash back from sites like Rakuten and credit card rewards, you can source profitable inventory. According to Jessica Larrew (see above), your return on investment is often lower for online arbitrage purchases, but you can usually find more of a profitable item than you could in your local store.

Now you probably have better things to do than scour the ends of the Internet comparing prices on random products. But if you’re thinking, that’s probably a job a robot could do, you’d be right.

Next Steps

There are a couple software tools to help find these deals, and both offer free trials to test them out. Jessica said her current favorite was Source Mogul, while another Amazon seller, Amit Desai, recommended Tactical Arbitrage.

Tactical Arbitrage seems to have a few more advanced features, but Jessica preferred Source Mogul’s clean and easy-to-use interface.

When we spoke, Amit Desai was on track for $250,000 in Amazon FBA sales for the year, all on the side from his day job. He said he aims for a 20-30% profit margin. You can check out our full Amazon arbitrage conversation here, or download The Side Hustle Show on your favorite podcast app.

3. Reselling Books on Amazon

Another popular side hustle on Amazon is reselling used books.

This is an easy one to get started with. You can use an app like Bookscouter to scan the ISBN barcodes on books to see what is they’re selling for on Amazon.

Like retail arbitrage, it can be a bit of a needle-in-the-haystack search. Because if we’re being honest, most used books are practically worthless. Every other house in the country has a stack of Harry Potters lying around too; they’re not exactly hard to come by on the supply-and-demand curve.

But certain books command a premium, even as used copies. Those are usually textbooks, out-of-print guides, or other rare editions.

Check local garage sales, thrift stores, or your library bookstore to see if anything turns up. The cool thing here is that your cost of acquiring inventory will likely be super low; books are often priced at $1 or less at garage sales.

4. Make Money Selling “Private Label” Products on Amazon

Within the Amazon gold rush of the last several years, private labeling has gotten a lot of attention. This practice allows individual entrepreneurs, like you and me, to essentially create our own branded products to sell on Amazon.

In fact, more than half of Amazon’s inventory actually belongs to third-party sellers like you and me.

If you aren’t a natural inventor, the process usually works like this:

1. Identify simple-to-manufacture products that are already selling.
2. Check the reviews to see what people don’t like about them (optional).
3. Find a manufacturer to produce a similar or better product, usually via Alibaba.
4. Create your own brand name and packaging.
5. Make a bulk order, send in your inventory, and compete with the existing products on Amazon.

The downside is private labeling is a capital-intensive business. You’re taking a lot of risk in purchasing (often) $1000 or more worth of inventory upfront. The landscape is competitive.

That said, when you find a product that hits, it can be tough to keep it in stock. I’ve seen people grow some pretty serious e-commerce operations in a really short time with this business model.

Next Steps

Where most would-be sellers get hung up is the very beginning: coming up with a product idea.

Greg Mercer is a 7-figure Amazon seller and creator of the market-leading product research software Jungle Scout (use that referral link for an exclusive Side Hustle Nation discount).

He joined me on The Side Hustle Show to share his top 3 private label product research strategies.

You can listen to our full conversation here, or download The Side Hustle Show on your favorite podcast app.

5. Wholesale

Dan Meadors and his partner Eric Lambert began selling on Amazon as a hobby using the retail arbitrage strategy mentioned above. They started with an original investment of only $600, and have since sold over $13 million worth of merchandise on Amazon!

They would work nights and weekends buying products on clearance at local retail stores and selling them on Amazon for profit.

It took only a few months before they saw the potential to turn this hobby into a business and they both left their day jobs to sell on Amazon full-time. Dan saw wholesaling as an opportunity to scale up revenue faster.

He defined wholesaling as “Purchasing directly from a wholesale company or the manufacturer of a given product for the purposes of resale.”

So instead of approaching a factory, ordering samples, and arranging your own packaging as you would with private labeling, wholesaling involves approaching the manufacturer and offering to help them sell their products.

Based on what Dan told me, it sounds like wholesaling on Amazon may carry less risk than private labeling. Your upfront investment is likely lower, and you’ll probably end up spending less on marketing and product giveaways to seed reviews.

Next Steps

You’ll need a resale certificate to get started with, issued by your state. Next, you can begin reaching out to brands you see that have a less-than-optimized presence on Amazon.

You can listen to our full conversation here, or download The Side Hustle Show on your favorite podcast app

.6. Merch by Amazon

The Merch by Amazon program is a cool way to make extra money without any physical inventory at all. How it works is you upload your designs and Amazon does the rest; they’ll print and ship the items to customers on your behalf.

Even though “print-on-demand” services like this have been around since the late 1990s, none have ever had the reach or built-in customer base of Amazon. Currently, you can make t-shirts, long-sleeve t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, and PopSockets, but I expect the inventory selection to continue to expand.

I met with serial side hustler Elaine Heney of Ireland, who sold over $125,000 worth of shirts in her first full year as a part-time Merch seller. Of that, a little over $50k was profit.

Despite working on the business 10-20 hours a week, she did go “all in” and created thousands of designs. What sells well? She said her work falls into 3 main categories:

1. Evergreen Topics – Think of niches like professions, family roles, sports, hobbies, etc.
2. Trending Topics – Think of current events and topics from the news. (Elaine shared that one of biggest sellers was an anti-Trump t-shirt.)
3. Seasonal Topics – Think of creating designs or slogans around holidays like Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Halloween, Father’s Day, etc.

My Results and Next Steps

You can create a Merch by Amazon account free here. Since chatting with Elaine, Bryn and I–and I’ll be honest, it’s mostly her–have made over $3000 very part-time from this program.

We’ve played around with designs in all three of these categories. For evergreen topics, we made shirts targeting entrepreneurs, parents, and yoga lovers. For trending topics, one of our bestsellers was related to the 2017 eclipse. On the seasonal ones, designs for Mother’s Day and Halloween have done well.   

And I should clarify, I’m using the term “designs” pretty loosely. Almost all of our designs are 100% text-based. We build them in PowerPoint or with an app like Over or Wordswag. Don’t overthink it.

It’s a fun, creative side hustle for sure.

You can check out my full Merch by Amazon interview with Elaine here, or download The Side Hustle Show on your favorite podcast app 

7. Amazon Trade-In Program

Did you know Amazon will pay you for used books, DVDs, Kindle devices, tablets, cell phones, and other products?

This service is offered through an official “Trade-In” program, which pays you in Amazon gift credit for your merchandise. It’s not quite cash, but given how much and how frequently we buy from Amazon, it won’t be hard to use it!

The cool part is they give you a free pre-paid USPS or UPS shipping label too, so all you have to do is package up the item and send it off. It’s easier than eBay, because you don’t have to take pictures, wait around for an auction to end, or deal with flaky buyers.

Don’t expect to get rich from this program though. For example, my copy of The Office Season 1 was eligible for a whopping $0.25 in Amazon credit.

Still, definitely worth looking into for sure if you have some old DVDs, video games, books, or electronics lying around collecting dust. If you’re in the mood to purge, check out what your items are worth to Amazon!

8. Amazon Handmade

After seeing the success of Etsy, Amazon of course had to get a piece of the pie in the “handcrafted” goods market. Their entry is called Amazon Handmade–and is open to sellers by application only.

The Handmade program is open to Artisans who make:

• Accessories
• Artwork
• Baby Products
• Beauty & Personal Care Products
• Clothing
• Shoes & Handbags
• Home Products
• Outdoor & Home Care
• Jewelry & Watches
• Kitchen & Dining Products
• Pet Supplies
• Sporting Goods
• Stationery & Party Supplies
• Toys & Games

You can still set your own prices and control the branding and messaging on your sales pages. You can fulfill orders yourself, or take advantage of Amazon’s FBA program.

Amazon takes a 15% cut from every sale, which is a bit higher than Etsy. But despite the popularity of Etsy, it still doesn’t have near the reach that Amazon does.

Next Steps

If you’re already selling handmade goods offline or on Etsy in one of the categories above, it might make sense to apply to Amazon Handmade and see if you can earn any incremental sales.

9. Kindle Books

Amazon’s Kindle platform has empowered thousands and thousands of authors to take the plunge and self-publish their work to the world.

In fact, there are now over 6 million Kindle titles available for sale. (A few of those are mine!)

Self-publishing is one of my favorite and longest-running side hustles. I published my first book in 2012 and have been adding to my author portfolio and earning royalty income ever since.

Kindle authors make money on Amazon in a couple ways. The first is your author royalty when someone buys your book. For books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, you earn 70% of the purchase price. For books priced outside that range, you earn just 35%.

Think of it as Amazon’s gentle way of telling you how much a book should cost!

The second way Kindle authors make money is when readers borrow your book through the Kindle Unlimited program. This program, which rewards authors based on how many pages of content your readers consume, tends to work better for fiction authors–as readers will often devour several books in a month if they like your work.

My Results and Next Steps

My experience has been entirely in non-fiction, but it’s still really rewarding any time someone buys your work. Over the years, this has earned me tens of thousands of dollars.

The good news is, if you’re part of the 80% of the population who say they want to write a book, it’s never been easier to get it done.

Getting people to read it though, that’s the challenge. My writing process generally looks like this:

• Brain dump / mind map / outline
• Work in sections to complete the draft
• Editing and formatting

Once you’re ready, you can upload your work to Amazon through the KDP dashboard.

While Kindle publishing can be a great source of semi-passive income, there’s a lot that goes into creating and marketing your book(s). I recommend checking out the self-publishing archives on Side Hustle Nation, or diving into Dave Chesson’s Kindlepreneur for in-depth strategies.

10. KDP Print Books

In most cases, if you’re already creating a Kindle book, it probably makes sense to add a paperback version as well. Thankfully, Amazon has this covered with an in-house print-on-demand service called KDP Print.

This is a way to make extra money on Amazon from your self-publishing efforts. Instead of a flat author royalty, print books earn a 60% royalty before deducting printing costs.

For instance, The Progress Journal, my latest book, costs $9.99. That puts my initial royalty on every sale at $5.99. At 171 pages, it costs $2.90 to print each copy (printing costs vary based on length and interior color). Subtracting that printing cost, I make around $3.09 for every copy that sells.

Related: Creating and Launching a KDP Print Journal: The Making of The Progress Journal

My Results and Next Steps

KDP Print books are handled through the same author dashboard as Kindle books, though you’ll need to create a separate book file and cover.

In the first 12 months after releasing Buy Buttons, my biggest seller to-date, print a sales accounted for a over $4500 in royalties.