In this post I am going to show you how to make money from shopping in TK Maxx. They are a very familiar discount department store with many outlets up and down and across the country.
Over the last few months I have been experimenting with different sourcing locations to use as stock for the Amazon FBA account.
If you are not familiar with Amazon FBA you may want to visit this post first:
That guide will cover everything you need to know in order to get your first box in. (Very newbie friendly)
So, on we go with the post.
So, How Do You Make Money From Shopping at TK Maxx?
What I am talking about here is retail arbitrage. Nothing new, nothing “dodgy”, just good old fashioned buy low sell high.
And if you do this right you have a very high success rate of pulling this off 99.9% of the time.
TK Maxx are known for their cracking savings and offers. If you know where to look.
For this task you will need to be looking in the Health & Beauty section. This section is a gold mine, I have sold everything from Hairdryers, Hair Straighteners, face creams, aromatherapy oils, massage equipment and so on….
(Update: The Beauty category was once a gated category meaning you could not sell in it straight away. I am ungated in it and I did nothing other than apply for it. There are mixed reports that it may be ungated for new sellers now but please check first before buying stock!)
I do get some funny looks from the cashiers at times!
But this, I have found is where you will get the best discounts.
So, as I have mentioned you are looking to buy products from TK Maxx that you can later sell on Amazon FBA for profit.
To do this you can use the seller app.
This will also tell you if the product is going to sell or not as you can check the rank.
If you are still unsure via the rank then check Keepa or CamelCamelCamel to get more confidence on the amount of units this item is selling per month.
Like I say, if you do this right you really can’t lose. The only way is if Amazon decide to get a whole boatload of stock and undercut everyone. In that case, you may have to wait it out a while until they sell out.
Supply and demand as the saying goes.
You are listing items as new so be sure to avoid any items with damaged boxes or markings.
Here are a few items I have sold from this store.
This is not car booting or shopping from charity shops, you will need a bit of a budget for this. So don’t blow all your capital in here as you will have to wait a few weeks before you see any return.
But once you get your first payment you can go again. Obviously these are all pre-tax and fees but still a tidy profit for something that can be done in an hour on a weekend.
If you have one local to you then its well worth the trip. The good thing about this is you can build it up quite nicely. You could pop over in your lunch hour, you could be in and out in 30 mins and have made £50 or so from the profits. Do this 4 times a week and you have a nice side hustle going on…..
Health and Beauty is the best area for me but other areas of interest in the store are:
- Toys
- Gadgets & Electronics
- Homeware
- Baby
I would also point out that for eBay resellers the clothing sections can also be very profitable!
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Related posts if you like the sound of reselling or retail arbitrage:
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Great post! I regularly pop into TK maxx and head straight for the red sticker section. I recently purchased 8 Bareminerals foundation powders with sunscreen at £5 each and sold them on Ebay for £19.50. Im yet to start Amazon FBA but it does look like the rewards may be higher for sure. Is the health and beauty categories usually available for new sellers on FBA or is it often restricted?
Thats a good question. I do not think it is straight away. But from what I remembered I just applied after a few weeks of selling books and got in no problems….
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi John! I came across your blog from Ruth’s money making facebook group. This is a great post-you’ve given me lots to think about! I love the idea of not needing to store stock at home, that’s been my main issue with ebay selling in the past. Plus you’ve described the process here in a really easy to understand method which is great 🙂 A nice side income from something like this sounds very achievable!
FYI-I’m trying to subscribe to your newsletter but it doesn’t submit my email?
Hi Sarah – thanks for stopping by! Yes, this has been a great sourcing spot for me over the years. Thanks for pointing out the email subscription box! I will get that fixed!
Hi John
I’d be interested to know if amazon have asked for supplier invoices at any time from you? Or do you get around this by not selling the items as new. Congrats on side venture!
HI Mate – yes they do from time to time in certain categories. I stopped selling on the platform a while back now but I never got asked. I only used to send in products that gave me the greenlight from the app. You’re safe that way.
This looks like a great idea to me! I’ll definitely be giving this a go once I’ve started FBA properly. Thanks for all the advice!
Thanks for stopping by – good luck on your journey!!
Hi John! That is a great post. I was thinking the same- to buy from TK and sell on Amazon. I am not going to buy a lot. Just want to test the market. Do you think that I have to pay some taxes/fees for that? Or just put my items on Amazon and simply start to sell
Hi Andreea – Amazon have their own fees and as for tax etc each individual is different so I can’t comment on that.
As for the Amazon fees though they are all taken before you get your cut so you don’t have to worry about paying them.
Hi John, do you buy the item beforehand or just upload the picture and the buy if it sells? Thanks
Hi – all of those were previous sales. I simply scan the item, if it makes a profit from FBA then I will buy it and send it in.
Hi John. Came about your post a couple days ago and after registering for amazon fba had a trip to Tk an found some really profitable products. Tried to list a product and the requirements for ungating as a person who never sold anything on amazon are quite scary and not sure if I could meet them: starting with the smallest of the problems in my view, they require an invoice with my name on it for buying the products I want to sell? Any chance this can be achieved by buying from Tk?
Thank you
Hi Andrei, I doubt you will get ungated with invoices from TK MAxx. They almost certainly need to be supplier end. When you scanned your items in your Amazon app it will tell you if you are eligible to sell them? What were you using to scan the products?
I would also say if all else fails you can return them or sell them on different platforms such as eBay maybe.
Hi this is a great bit of info.
So , questions are – how do u know what prices to put ?
How do u ‘scan’ the item and then do u just wait and see if it sells b4 buying it in ? I guess there is a risk if it sells out in store beforehand.
Thanks so much !
You can gauge the prices from what other sellers are pitching in at. You dont have to worry about competing with TK maxx over sales, you are going after Prime Amazon buyers.
Hi John
Great article. I recently started FBA but I’m not having much success with my first product (ordered from China). Is there a minimum amount of products you need to send to Amazon? Or can you literally do it with 5 items?
You can send in one item if you wanted to not that I would recommend it. I have never done my own products, only flipped stuff. So, do you have your own private label product?
John, thanks for post.
May I ask if you know if an actual company (eg Limited Company) is needed for me to i.buy from the store and ii. to sell the products through Amazon? Do you do the financial year accountings as a company every year?
Thank you.
Hi John,
Just came across your article, great read, will keep updated with your content.
I was just wondering, do you also sell on ebay, if so, do you/ would you put the item on for an auction or buy it now?
Thanks in advance
I always sell buy it now mate
Can you do this with clothing and resell them online in your own boutique , would there be laws around it and would you have to take labels out at all ?
Don’t see why not. People buy and sell across different platforms all the time. I see people who do retail arbitrage on eBay and Amazon all the time so your own boutique would be no different I guess! Great question though, thanks for taking the time to make a comment and visit the blog. Worth investigating this further I think!
Hi John,
I found your article very interesting. I need to ask you when I buying from Tk can I take an invoice so I can sell the products in my own online page?
Does Tkmaxx gives also invoices when you buying from them?
I guess it’s legal to sell as well in your own web page?
Thank you!!!
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