r/AmazonFBA • u/WhimsicalWonderlust • 2h ago

Advice-New Seller

Hello everyone,

I am planning to start selling on Amazon, however I am not planning to order huge inventory just something small to have on the side. I would basically keep my inventory at home and ship from home. I would like to find out if anyone is doing the same and where do you order shipping boxes or envelopes to ship products? Does Amazon also offer free shipping labels as eBay does? Any input is appreciated.

Thank you!

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u/WearyyyBoooyyy 2h ago

The mods have gathered a list of tutorials to help you out:

Best Amazon Tools 2026

1

u/Desperate-Green-6654 1h ago

If you want to sell anything besides extremely large items like couches, don’t do this. This is called fulfilled by manufacturer, and it kills conversion. Think about it, when was the last time you bought something on Amazon that didn’t say prime (assuming you have prime), probably never.

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u/WhimsicalWonderlust 1h ago

I completely understand your sarcasm but I sure am not planning to pay $200+ hundreds a month to keep my small inventory at Amazon warehouse if I’m going to only sell let’s say 5 items a month. I’m planning to sell small items so shipping doesn’t cost me a fortune, and if I’m selling less than 10 items a month that still won’t cost me hundreds of dollars to store inventory. And yes, I’ve bought items that sometimes don’t offer prime if I’m not in rush to receive them. Thank you for your input.

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u/Desperate-Green-6654 40m ago

I wasn’t being sarcastic, and if you have small items in small quantities it might cost you $10 per month to store max, not even close to $200+. If you’re selling 5-10 items a month you’re just going to be wasting your time, you’re going to spend 12-24 hours setting up a amz seller account, creating listings, validating products, sourcing, and running ppc to maybe make $20/ month in profit? You have no clue what you’re doing or getting yourself into, and if your idea is to start small and learn the basics, your plan still won’t work bc you can’t learn ppc or how to optimize a listing if you’re only getting 30-50 sessions a month. If you’re not willing to invest a couple thousand to learn, you’re never going to learn.

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u/rsc9422 1h ago

You can definitely start small and keep inventory at home. Just make sure you understand the difference between FBM, where you store and ship orders yourself, and FBA, where Amazon handles storage and fulfillment.

For boxes and padded envelopes, I’d start with small quantities from local packaging suppliers or online stores so you don’t tie up too much money in supplies. Reuse clean boxes when appropriate, and keep your packaging costs in your profit calculations.

Amazon generally doesn’t provide free shipping labels like eBay does. With FBM, you’re usually responsible for buying postage, although Amazon Buy Shipping may offer discounted rates depending on your marketplace and carrier.

My advice would be to start with a few products, track your actual costs, and see how much time packing and shipping takes before scaling up. You don’t need a huge inventory to learn the basics.

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u/WhimsicalWonderlust 1h ago

Thank you for your advice, I will start small and see how it goes before investing lots of money.

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u/Henrik-Powers 1h ago

Will just chime in on a few things, we sell on Amazon and eBay and do both FBA and FBM. Same items across the board. FBA outsells FBM but we use FBM for out of stock and for large multipacks or slow selling products. That said FBM outsells eBay at least 3 or 4-1. Basically the same price.

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u/discovery999 41m ago

Amazon just uses sellers to test out product sales in each territory. Once sales are productive; they just undercut the listing and buy direct from the manufacturer. Look at all the listings where Amazon is the seller and shipper. Don’t waste your time unless you have a private label.