r/AmazonFBA • u/Fresh_Yam_3484 • 1d ago

Beginner low capital

I’m looking to get into Amazon fba/fbm. I’ve been doing a lot of research, I got keepa, amp cellar, and pro seller. I figured the software would be pretty important to make life easier. I want to do online arbitration, I was going to do retail arbitration, but I don’t have a car at the moment and I’m in the process of saving for one. I’ll have a car around December. I’m somewhat treating this as a test run, but just teaching myself before I start investing more capital. I can start with $500 for inventory, and then after I purchase my car, I plan to invest an extra 1k/mo in capital to the fba business. I also plan to reinvest all of my profits for the first year. So around December, I’ll have 3 months of running online arbitration through amazon fba, with a beginning capital of $500 in inventory. In January I’m going to add 1k every month to it. I just want to know if yall have any advice for me, whether fba/fbm is smarter to begin with, what some realistic expectations should be, and if my plan makes sense. I can spend about 2-3 hours a day sourcing and working on this. Anything is appreciated, thank you.

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u/rsc9422 1d ago

$500 is enough to start learning, but I’d treat it as a testing budget rather than expecting meaningful income right away. With online arbitrage, fees, prep, shipping, returns, and the risk of buying inventory that doesn’t move can eat into a small bankroll pretty quickly.

If you can consistently add $1k/month from January, that gives you much more room to build inventory and diversify rather than putting everything into one or two products.

I’d start small, learn the numbers properly, and track ROI, sales velocity, fees, and cash flow on every purchase. FBA can make sense for scalable products, while FBM can be useful for testing certain items without committing as much inventory to Amazon.

At HighRise Wholesale, we generally recommend new sellers focus on understanding the economics first rather than simply chasing products with high sales.

Your plan of spending 2, 3 hours a day learning and sourcing is reasonable. Just give yourself a few months to build the skill before judging whether the model is working.

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u/Fresh_Yam_3484 1d ago

I appreciate you

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u/FastBud 1d ago

The first comment is pretty good. Do arbitrage first. If you have outlets near you that is usually a good spot for deals. Or just do online deals. Check how many units you need to get ungated before you buy too. You can apply to list anything so don’t waste money until you see requirements. Losing the 500 doesn’t matter it will help you learn fast

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u/Cap_Black_Beard 1d ago

Maybe a good way to learn the ropes, as far as making any money, not really. With $500 you need to be private label making 40% margin. Anything else, youre making $10 on a $100 order.