The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
'Were... flesh-and-blood robots for Amazon'
They raid clearance aisles, resell items online for profifit.
With their two young kids in tow, Juston and Kristen Herbert drove to a Target near their home outside Scottsdale, Arizona. It was time to get to work. The Herberts were on the hunt for all of the Contigo water bottles the store hadin stock, and kept the camera rolling for their 6,400 YouTube subscribers. Within minutes, anemployeepulled out 32 two-packs — sold on clearance for $5 each— from a back storage room. For two people who recently left their jobs in finance, the blue-and-black plastic bottles might as well have beenmade of gold. TheHerberts would resell the twopacks onAmazon for $19.95. Subtracting some taxes and fees, they’d clear $6.16 in profifit. All told, theHerbert’s 10-minute Target runearned them $198. Juston, 30, and Kristen, 28, estimate they can reel in $150,000this year fromtheir newest gig: retail arbitrage. The basic idea is to buy up a bunch of the same item — from water bottles to vacuums to Monopoly boards — and then resell themonline for a handsome profifit. For some, this is just a lucrative side hustle — perhaps to climb out of debt or save up for a Disney World vacation. For others, it has become their primary way of earning a living. And beyond that, the Herberts say, thisworkishelpingthem build up $50,000 so they can adopt a child. “If we’re showing that you cancomeupwith bigmoney for an adoption,” Kristen said, “you cancomeupwith big money to get yourself out of a hole, credit card debt or a house payment.” While the idea to buy something cheap and sell it at a higher price is ageold, the concept of retail arbitrage has emerged in the digital age. Chris Green wrote one of the go-to how-to books on the topic, titled “Retail Arbitrage.” Andhe’shelpedpopularize the moniker. The termseemsto be having a moment. In December, according to Google Trends, searches for “retail arbitrage” spiked on You- Tube, where aficionados post videos of their shopping and reselling sprees. (One reseller, who hasmore than 52,000 YouTube subscribers, fifilmed his 22-hour buying binge through 17 Walmarts. Hefifilledhis trunk with 182 Monopoly games and flflippedmost of themin one night for $2,500.) In the early 2000s, resellers started flipping products on eBay. But Green’s guide focused on the engine behind many of these small businesses: FulfifillmentByAmazon, or FBA. Through FBA, people can add their own products to Amazon’s vast online catalogue. Sellers package their products and them ship to Amazonwarehouses, where theyarestoreduntil anorder comes in. Amazon takes it fromthere— pulling an item offff the warehouse shelf and getting it to the customer’s door. Green, who’sbeendubbed the “godfather of retail arbitrage,” usedtobe a sales representative for Bosch Power Tools. He started reselling power tools on eBay in the early 2000s. Then, with the rise of Android and iPhone apps that can scan products and trackdownmajorsales, Green realizedretail arbitragecould work for anyone, even those who didn’t know the inner workings of an industry. “I used to teachgrandmas to do it,” Green said. ForMike “Reezy Resells” Rezendes, retail arbitrage has been a kind of salvation. Rezendes said he grew up in a troubled household and was marriedwith a child by 16. As a teenager, he noticed commercials for eBay onTV and started sellingwhatever he could rummage around the house, like hisNintendo and its games and controllers. Now, Rezendes, 34, has been reselling items online full- time for 14 years. His YouTube channel, “Reezy Resells,” has more than 85,000 subscribers (Rezendes calls his followers“Reezy’sninjas.”) Heruns his company with his best friend fromhigh school and oversees a small team that buys up goods from stores like Nike, Marshalls andRoss. Last year, the company saw$800,000 in gross sales for about $240,000inprofifit. In January, he gotmore than $8,000 in ad revenue from YouTube. One day last month, Rezendes had more than 100 pairs of Nike shoes in his garage that he planned to ship to Amazon. He was working on a YouTube video breaking down how he bought 100 Nerf guns fromTarget.comandflflipped them for $1,500. Rezendes, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, said retail arbitrage has kept him fromhavingtofifififififilla9-to-5desk job. But he alsoknowsonline resellers and small-business owners like him are crucial to Amazon’s model. Amazon “needs people like me to fifill all the holes in the marketplace,” he said. “We’re literally flfleshandblood robots for Amazon,” Rezendes said. The retail giant hasn’t shied away from promoting its small businesses: In 2018, the number of small andmedium-size businesses thatpassed $1millioninsales inAmazon storesworldwide grew by 20 percent. Thirdparty sales are growing at a faster rate than fifirstparty sales online, the company said last month. You’ll find Shane Myers on YouTube as the “Rise N Grind Picker” — with 15,000 YouTube subscribers. Three years ago, with $20 inhis savings account, Myers started reselling thrift store merchandise on eBay. He turnedtoAmazoninAugust. By September, Myers had churned out more than $ 2,000 selling used books alone. In his first three months back on retail arbitrage, he’d paid off all his credit card debt and car payments. Myers, 31, pays $ 30 a month for an app called BrickSeek, which helps him fifind markdowns at big-box stores like Walmart and Target. A fewweeks ago, Myers hitmultipleWalmartswithin a 150-mile radius and came home with 218 packages of lightbulbs. He found them on clearance for $2 each. He markeduptheprice andnetted$ 4to $5on eachpackage. Thegrandtotal: more than $1,100 in profifit. Myers hopes that within the next year and a half he can move to retail arbitrage full time and will have paid offff his house. And he hopes he’ll never miss his daughter’sbirthday again forwork, like when he was clocking in at his old day job in retail. “Iseemoneyeverywhere,” Myers said. “If I walk into a store, it’s just like a dollar sign sitting on the shelf.”