Most profitable items to sell on Amazon (and why they can pump up your margins)

When you need to buy something online, where are you heading? If you're like 92% of other online shoppers, then you're buying on Amazon.

So, if you're selling physical products online, then you need to get a piece of this pie. But what are the most profitable items to sell on Amazon?

Let's take a look.

Top most profitable items to sell on Amazon

Here are the most profitable items to sell on Amazon, and how to make the most money with them.

1. Smartphone cases 

Can you make as much profit with other smartphones as you can with iPhone accessories?

Often not. Many of these other phones lack the prestige image of iPhones, and so don’t command the same high reselling prices. As a result, your profit margins on these devices can be dangerously thin.

But you can still make a lot of money with smartphone accessories, like cases. While some people look at cases for functionality, others look for fashion and style.

As a result, people looking for phone accessories could be open to buying them from little-known sellers.

It also helps that these customers can have rather obscure wants and needs that tend to get overlooked by the big boys. For example, what if someone has just bought the iPhone 16e and wants a case for it? Apple sells its own cases for it, but only silicone ones:

What if an owner of the iPhone 16e doesn't want a silicone case? What if they want something more resilient?

To get ideas for how to satisfy this need, do a search on Amazon for ‘iPhone 16e tough case’. This particular case looks promising to sell, as it’s tough and comes with a kickstand and MagSafe compatibility:

It’s also, crucially, very highly rated.

Still, it’s worth digging deeper for other cases with similar features but available at a temporarily low price.

Watch out for the red ‘Limited time deal’ label on Amazon product listings, such as this one: 

So you could pick up discounted products like these and sell them at more of a standard retail price, netting you a tidy profit.

And, to attract even more buyers, you could sell phone cases in a whole range of styles. We use phones every single day, and so for many, they serve as a fashion accessory - an extension of personal style.

Some buyers don't care about how sturdy a phone case is, they just care about how it looks.

To successfully sell phone cases, make sure you're checking customer reviews to see what people do and don’t like about existing products.

It could help you to decide what other types of products you ought to try selling on Amazon, such as…

2. Headphones

Now, you might be thinking: “How could I possibly make a killing with headphones? Surely everyone already has headphones?”

Yes, but many people can be especially discerning about which headphones they buy.

Let’s imagine you want to start a podcast. To do it really well, you could need quite a bit of hi-tech equipment, like an external microphone and - yes - good-quality headphones.

The latter can help podcasters to make sure their voices come through clearly without pesky background noise, like rustling trees, getting in the way.

Same goes for music-lovers, who pay good money for high-quality headphones to hear music precisely as the artists meant it to sound.

Luckily for you, it’s possible to come across sellers offering luxury headphones but not realizing quite how luxury they are. Meaning that you can potentially purchase them at a deflated price.

You could be stunned to learn that the best things to flip for profit in the audio category include the Sennheiser HD 800 S headphones. Why ‘stunned’? Because brand-new units can fetch more than $1,500, including on Amazon:

However, people who know how special these Sennheiser cans are will be up for spending big on them even if they’re used.

If you’re struggling to find headphones priced well under their real value, wait for promotions like Black Friday or Amazon’s own Prime Day. It was on the Prime Day that the price of Apple’s AirPods Max headphones once plummeted from $549 to $394.99. That’s a saving in excess of $150!

Flippers can find their community here at Whop, which is home to many other top groups for finding Amazon glitch deals.

3. Groceries

Alright, we've mentioned a couple of ways that you can max your profit with retail arbitrage. What’s retail arbitrage? It’s basically where you buy cut-rate products and resell them.

This next option takes that same idea, but involves you buying from a brick-and-mortar retail store and reselling the same products online for a higher price.

The closest physical retail store near you is likely to specialize in groceries. That’s no problem as, believe it or not, you can resell groceries on Amazon.

Young hustler Jasmin ‘Jas’ Green recommends dropping by Walmart, as goods are more cost-effective to purchase there than at other grocery stores. As for exactly which foods you should buy, Jas shares ideas in her Instagram Reel titled ‘Make 6 Figures Your First Year by Reselling Groceries’.

She highlights that American cereal is not readily available in other countries, making it a great product to sell on Amazon's global marketplace.

Jas was aged just 19 when she launched her reselling business on the Fulfillment by Amazon (commonly known as ‘Amazon FBA’) platform. 

Jas saw Amazon FBA as the ideal place to start her reselling journey, and it’s not hard to see why.

As an FBA seller, you just source the products and then dispatch them to an Amazon fulfillment center. There, Amazon staff will pick, pack, and ship the products when people buy them via the Amazon website.

Whop has a handy, detailed, step-by-step beginners’ guide on how to start selling with Amazon FBA.

4. Jewelry

There are many powerful reasons to sell jewelry online. For a start, jewelry is no longer reserved exclusively for people with deep pockets. According to the data gathering platform Statista, non-luxury brands are responsible for about 89% of jewelry sales in the US.

However, you can still make high profit margins by racking up jewelry sales. The global jewelry market’s fast-growing value is testament to this. In 2020, it stood at roughly $228 billion, according to Statista, but is expected to swell to $307 billion by 2026.

There are also many different types of jewelry you can sell, from costume jewelry to luxury jewelry. This can really help when it comes to finding a niche, a must-do if you want to stand out in this crowded market.

That’s why the best types of jewelry to sell online include such unorthodox choices as boho jewelry, with distinctive designs adhering to spiritual themes.

Then there’s sustainable jewelry made from reclaimed or eco-friendly materials. Wearing jewelry isn’t a female-only pursuit, either. There are earrings, bracelets, chains, and so on - especially for men.

Of course, there could be a limit to how much you are willing to spend on sourcing jewelry stock. One easy entry point is fashion jewelry, which has its own product category on Amazon.

Why are jewelry pieces among the most profitable items to sell on Amazon? Jewelry isn’t the kind of thing shoppers tend to buy just once every few years. It has more of a ‘collectible’ appeal - fashionistas can be inclined to buy multiple pieces so that they can wear different ones for different occasions.

Do you like making your own jewelry?

If so, you might be eligible to sell it via the Amazon Handmade program. (To find out whether you are eligible, you’ll need to submit an application complete with details about your handcrafted products.)

Amazon Handmade is far from the only option for selling crafts online. You can also check out Etsy and these alternatives.

5. Books

Amazon started out as an online bookshop and only later branched out into selling other products. So, it makes sense to pay tribute to the site’s roots by selling books on Amazon. 

But, should you sell traditional books or ebooks that could be downloaded to an e-reader device, like Amazon Kindle?

Both can be great, but you could find print books much easier to source. In some dark recesses of your own home, you’ve probably got some sellable books you read ages ago or decided not to read at all. 

No judgment here if you’ve made impulse purchases, but now you could potentially make your money back - and then some. If you’ve left those books untouched for a while, they could be early or rare editions still in great condition.

Even if you don’t currently have any old books you’re ready to sell, you could pick many up at thrift stores near you.

As for which types of books you could buy, fiction’s always popular, but don’t rule out collecting some non-fiction tomes as well. Cash-strapped students won’t be too picky about the condition of academic texts they use, especially as worn ones would be cheaper for them to buy.

The reason that books are so profitable to resell is because they're so easy to get a hold of. It also helps that books are small compared to many other sellable items, like furniture and picture frames. 

Of course, the Kindle’s popularity has helped to cement Amazon’s reputation as an ebook store. However, you would likely have to personally write the ebooks you sell there (unless you hire a ghostwriter). Also, the competition there is immense — you would be up against a lot of popular authors.

So, to maximize your profit, stick to selling physical books.

6. Home and kitchen products

Of course, people who own their homes (rent them over the long term) want to make them feel… well, like home. So, they're willing to spend money on decor and accessories to make their homes their own.

Obviously, there are certain bulky items you can expect to see as standard in a wide range of homes - like sofas, refrigerators, and washing machines. These generally aren’t the most profitable items to sell on Amazon, as many people already have them and don’t want to replace them too often.

They also aren’t the most profitable items to sell on Amazon FBA, as their sheer size would make the warehousing fees extortionate. That’s why it’s best to use Amazon FBA only for products small enough to easily fit into standard storage compartments at Amazon fulfillment centers.

When trying to figure out which home and kitchen products to sell, it’s crucial to niche down. For example, don’t just settle for vacuum cleaners, go for more of an up-and-coming subcategory, like robot vacuum cleaners.

Can’t decide what home and kitchen products to sell?

Consider where your own personal interests lie, and select products that would fit in with this.

For example, if you love kitsch cookware, stock your Amazon store with the likes of pastel-pink cooking utensils and retro kitchen scales.

7. Exercise gear

If you are committed to routinely avoiding chocolate, candy, and potato chips, you probably never skip leg day, either. If you’ve got encyclopedic knowledge about how to keep in shape, then you might want to sell fitness products on Amazon.

There's a huge market for exercise gear on Amazon, but the most profitable equipment is that that is easy to source and cheap to buy, making it an impulse purchase. You want to drive home that getting fit doesn’t have to be super-expensive.

Affordable exercise gear you can sell on Amazon includes: 

• Dumbbells 
• Resistance bands 
• Exercise mats
• Fitness trackers 

Workout wear is another option, but you can only sell new clothes on Amazon - used or refurbished garments are forbidden. Also, certain popular brands, like Nike, might have something to say about you trying to sell their clothing products. Otherwise, various forms of athleisure are fair game.

8. Health and beauty products

It’s easy to check out the latest rankings of Amazon best sellers on the ecommerce giant’s own website. As you do, you could see a lot of consumables - like soaps, lotions, and supplements.

That’s because when shoppers find consumables they like and want to continue using long into the future, they have to make repeat purchases. 

An especially large share of health and beauty products fall into this category. You might even have the skills to make many of these products yourself - in which case, there’s a lot of scope for customization.

Lipsticks, foundations, mascara - they can all go into your Amazon shop. To drive more customers to your store, consider working with beauty influencers. They can create UGC using your product and guide buyers to your Amazon store.

As you develop a great reputation for the consumables you make and sell, you can expect to build a base of loyal customers, too. Still, manually placing each new order could be too much of a hassle for many of them to keep up with. It’s a relief, then, that Amazon offers a Subscribe & Save feature. 

When this purchasing option is attached to your product listing, the customer can have their supply of the consumable automatically replenished on a regular basis. It’s, therefore, worth using the product description on the listing to draw extra attention to Subscribe & Save. 

9. Eco-friendly products

There’s bound to be some overlap between this and other product categories detailed above, as many things can be made ‘eco-friendly’. There’s already been a reference to sustainable jewelry, while it’s possible to get smartphone cases made of compostable material.

The word ‘compostable’ is used for products that, when added to your home compost, will break down into their natural constituent elements. In other words, the products won’t simply rest completely intact on a landfill for years, contributing to ecologically damaging waste.

Many everyday items can be made from sustainable materials, like toothbrushes that are given bamboo handles which, after being deposited, can also slowly break down organically and be reabsorbed by the earth.

The best eco-friendly products to sell also include organic cotton clothes, reusable coffee filters, and natural fiber bedding. 

There’s already a high purchase intent for such items, with 62% of consumers reporting “always or often” seeking to buy products on the strength of their green credentials.

Consumables are among the most profitable items to sell on Amazon. So, the profitability of green products is especially strong when they are also everyday consumables, like cleaning sponges. (Yes, you can get those in biodegradable form as well.)

Tote bags are also strongly associated with the green movement. A single tote bag is sturdy enough to be reused for each new shopping trip. You can’t always say the same about a plastic bag!

Top tips for maximizing your profits on Amazon

We've shared many tried-and-true tips for profitable selling on Amazon throughout this article, but here are a few more…

🌱 Go for evergreen products: These are so-called as they are in demand right throughout the year rather than just at specific times. So, even when such products don’t initially meet your sales expectations, they should still sell eventually.

🎃 Be wary of seasonal products: These include Christmas wrapping paper and Halloween decorations. They can be profitable, but you could struggle to accurately predict demand. When they go out of season, you could be left with useless inventory.

💸 Avoid making super-expensive purchases: It’s best to avoid spending more than $200 per unit unless the product tends to sell quickly. Otherwise, the stock could long be left on the shelf while a gaping $200-shaped hole lingers in your wallet.

🔗 Look for cross-selling opportunities: Aim to stock multiple products all hewing to a specific theme. For example, want to sell swimming trunks? Remember to offer other swimming gear, like goggles, as well. You could even sell them in bundles!

⚠️ Stay away from overly fragile items: Examples include crockery, ceramics, and glass-based goods. With these, you would have to either spend extra on suitably protective packaging or run the risk of them breaking in the post. In the latter instance, the customer would be entitled to return the product and leave a negative review about it on Amazon, damaging your reputation.

How much does it cost to sell on Amazon?

There’s already the cost of ordering or making the products in the first place. Then, before selling on Amazon, you must choose between two selling plans: Individual and Professional.

With Individual, you pay a fee of just $0.99 per item you sell. However, this tier will only work if you don’t plan to sell more than 40 items per month. That’s probably not the case for you if profitability is a high priority.

In this situation, you might have to go for the Professional plan, which costs $39.99 per month. Either way, you will also need to pay a referral fee for each item sold. Often, this fee is a percentage of the item’s total price, and can be as low as 5% or as high as 45% depending on the product category.

It’s most likely to be 15%. That’s what it is for handbags, eyewear, mattresses, and video games (to cite a few examples).

Master your Amazon sales with Whop

There you have it - 10 of the most profitable items to sell on Amazon.

If you're looking for more guidance, ideas, and education, then check out Whop. Whop is home to thousands of ecommerce communities and courses, including many that teach you how to make more money with Amazon.

FBA to 100k is just one example of an online group that teaches you how to make more money with Amazon. Whether you're looking to find more profitable products, understand FBA, or learn how to market your products on Amazon, you can find what you need on Whop.

All you have to do is head to the Whop Discover page and find the right whop for you - then watch your Amazon profits soar.