100 Wholesale Item Ideas to Sell from Home For Profit

Wholesale is when you resell items bought in bulk from proven retailers. This lets you use recognition to boost your sales. It's an excellent way for sellers to learn while earning a solid profit. 

Wholesale isn't limited to big box retailers. Instead, many small sellers sell on Amazon, eBay, or other third-party marketplaces to get relatively easy sales. With these proven sales strategies, you can join the ranks of these sellers and make a good profit doing it. 

Starting your wholesale journey isn't entirely effortless. The steps to joining these ranks might seem daunting initially, causing sellers to pursue alternative sales strategies like trying to dropship or participating in retail arbitrage.

But, with some help from research and idea generation, you can start your wholesale business. Below, you'll find a good foundation for getting started as a successful wholesaler alongside the best wholesale items to sell from home.

How to Find Items to Sell Wholesale

Before selling anything, you need to know how to find products. This is known as product research. 

The product research process should be deep and considerate of different product factors. By following these steps right, you'll be able to find products that are easier to sell and have high demand. 

These steps might also focus on doing research for Amazon, but they work for any eCommerce business. Since Amazon owns more than 50% of online commerce, trends here often reflect across all online sales. 

Step 1 - Deciding How To Research

There are two general approaches you can use to research products:

First is the approach based on your existing suppliers. If you've already created relationships with manufacturers and wholesale suppliers, they will likely have a product catalog you can review. 

Your job is to take this catalog and use factual data to find the most profitable products. By focusing on those good products, you can leverage those existing relationships to develop a healthy long-term income stream. 

Second is the approach based purely on profitability. Browse eCommerce sites like Amazon to see which items have the most profit. This lets you focus on a product-first process, providing more flexibility when choosing products. 

You'll want to follow our four steps above to contact suppliers when finding a product. Developing these new relationships can expand your opportunities in the wholesale environment. 

Step 2 - Establishing Your Product Criteria

Some products are more accessible to sell than others. During the second stage,  you'll want to go beyond what is cool and interesting to sell and focus on what works. 

In simple terms, good products must fit these four areas:

• Consistently high sales 

• High-profit margins 

• Not in an overly competitive niche 

• Low shipping cost 

• Difficult to break 

• Not complicated to use 

The criteria above might seem overly simple and not unique, but they are essential for new and veteran sellers. After all, you don't want to waste your time on products that don't earn you money or have a high return rate. Original ideas are great but are more high-risk, so stick with what works early on.

Most eCommerce websites do not provide this information upfront. Because their product pages are geared toward customers, this data needs to be found elsewhere. 

Step 3 - Using Wholesale Research Tools On Amazon

Finding products that fit all of these criteria can be challenging. To address this problem, check out the Amazon Dropshipping, Arbitrage, and Wholesale extension. Follow these steps to simplify your product research process:

Step 1: Install the Amazon Dropshipping, Arbitrage, and Wholesale extension for Google Chrome. 

Step 2: Start a free trial of the software to see how it works.

Step 3:  Browse Amazon.com as you usually would, searching for a niche that can fit these areas:

• Products from existing or new wholesale relationships

• Niches (or product categories) you are interested in joining

• Trending products 

Step 4: Scroll through Amazon's search results. The extension will show you data underneath each product. Pay attention to these criteria:

• High-profit margins (above 50% should be prioritized)

• Amazon fees for selling this product (including FBA fees)

• Seller types. Products that Amazon sells directly are more competitive. It’s usually best to focus on products with FBA and FBM sellers, as those are less competitive.

Step 5: Mark the priority products using data from the built-in window with the extension. Pay attention to products that are private-label, hazmat, or gated. You can find out more about these product categories after step four. 

Step 6: Review the historical sales data from the extension. Check the price and buy box history to determine profit potential and your pricing strategy. 

Step 7: Narrow down the potential profit the product offers. The extension has an on-page calculator that will help you consider these factors:

• Shipping costs: you can find this information by contacting your wholesale or shipping provider.

• Advertising costs: find out this information from your Amazon's Seller Central section, which contains cost data for PPC advertising.

• Other tools you need to sell the products: these can include your subscription costs or additional tools necessary to resell the product.

Step 4 - Narrowing Your Product List To The Most Profitable 

You can use two additional tools to narrow your product list further or as an alternative to finding a specific product or supplier. These tools include the AMZScout Product Database and the PRO Extension. To find out how you can use both of these items, check out these steps:

Using the AMZScout Product Database To Find Profitable Products

Step 1: Go to the AMZScout Product Database (no installation is required). 

Step 2: Start your free trial if you haven't already from the prior set of steps. 

Step 3: Use the tool's search filters to narrow your products by these criteria:

• Seller type (Both FBA or merchant sellers) 

• Price

• Profit margins 

• Higher sales: it's good to start with sales that are at least 300 monthly or higher

• Few sellers: the range goes from 2 to 20

Step 4: Narrow your product list further by focusing on product categories you are interested in. You can also use the Product Selection features to search based on proven results.

Step 5: Click "Find products" to get your results.

Step 6: Using these results, make a list based on essential criteria (like sales or reviews) to focus on the most viable products. 

Once you go through these steps, you can use the AMZScout PRO Extension to narrow your results further.

Using the AMZScout PRO Extension To Narrow To The Most Viable Wholesale Products

Step 1: Install the AMZScout PRO Extension for your Google Chrome browser. Much like the Wholesale and Dropshipping Extension, you can browse Amazon.com as you usually would to find products. Focus on those you've seen in the database. 

Step 2: Open the extension by clicking the AMZScout icon on the top-right corner of your internet browser from any Amazon product page. 

Step 3: Check the product sales. It's good to start with products that sell at least 300 per month. Wholesalers get the best results from products that sell well in their target niche. 

Step 4: Divide the total product sales by the number of sellers to determine how much you can sell. Keep in mind that more sellers usually indicate high-competition products. 

Step 5: Check the product score to determine your sales margins, sales history, and resale potential. Pay attention to product scores over seven, high potential margins (over 50%), and sales fluctuations throughout the year.

After you create a list based on the product score, profit margin, and level of competition, you can either contact your current wholesalers or new wholesalers to get the product. You might get a better wholesale discount by negotiating with them based on this proven data. 

Some Considerations Before Selling Any Products

In our prior step, we've mentioned three critical product criteria. Avoid spending even one dollar before, keeping these in mind. These include gated, hazmat, and private-label products. 

It would be best if you considered these before selling any products. Here are some details on what each factor means for you:

• Gated products require approval from Amazon before selling. These have a high barrier to entry, while ungated products are allowed to sell with no restrictions.

• Hazmat products are a specific gated category that requires additional approvals or certificates to sell. The approval can either come from Amazon or an authority in the space. 

• Private label products are sold by only one merchant, meaning other vendors can't usually resell them. You should avoid these products unless you can get express permission from the owner. 

When researching potential products to sell, keep these three in mind. While these three categories aren't completely off-limits, they generally require more effort to sell. You'll want to determine the cost of that effort to decide whether or not you can still profit.  

How Does Selling Wholesale Items From Home Work?

Before you start, it's essential to know what wholesale looks like. Knowing this will give you a better idea of how to approach this sales technique. Below are the four general steps that every reseller follows. 

1. Find Suppliers

First, you must find worthy suppliers from which you can buy wholesale. Below is a quick list of methods you can use to do that:

• Use online wholesale marketplaces like Alibaba to buy products in bulk at steep discounts. 

• Contact proven manufacturers to purchase items at wholesale prices to resell at a solid markup. 

• Go to trade shows or flea markets to browse wholesale products with high marketplace value and excellent resale potential. 

• Use trade magazines to browse the same items from your home and research those items online.

2. Order Products in Bulk for Wholesale Price 

After creating a shortlist of potential suppliers, you can use that data to call for more information. Your goal will be to find out more about their wholesale pricing. 

You will need to purchase these products in bulk, so have some space at home or elsewhere to store them. Don't be afraid to negotiate lower pricing, which is easier if you already have a proven sales track record. 

3. List Your Products to Resell (on Amazon or another platform)

When the products arrive, your next step will be to list your products on a third-party marketplace. Sites like Amazon and eBay offer the most straightforward solutions to sell these products. 

Start by looking for pre-existing listings and seeing how your competitors describe these products. You can also use marketing materials from your wholesale supplier to help write a product description if you create a new listing. 

4. Order Fulfillment Management

After your products are listed, you'll need to decide how to ship them. There are two general ways to manage shipping: outsourcing or handling it yourself. 

Outsourcing has the advantage of saving you time and letting you focus on other business development activities. Amazon offers the simplest solution, letting you outsource through FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon), where you can ship your products to them to handle warehousing and shipment. 

Alternatively, you can handle it and travel to your local shipping station (like FedEx or UPS). This second method saves you money but takes away from your time doing other important activities (like business growth or customer service).

100 Product Ideas You Can Use as a Wholesaler

Now that you know how to research, you can get started. But the high number of options you can find can get pretty overwhelming. 

To help you out, we've developed a list of 100 wholesale items to sell from home. This list follows our criteria of high potential profit and low shipping costs. 

Home & Kitchen

The home and kitchen category is among the most popular because there are many entry points. Many are low-cost and easy to invest, providing excellent expansion potential into the entire niche.

• Candles

• Rugs

• Storage cubes organizer

• House doormat

• Bath curtains

• Tumbler

• Led strip lights

• Utensils

• Waffle maker

• Food storage bags

• Bamboo pillows

• Bathroom accessories set

• LED shower head with minerals

• Soap dispenser

• Makeup organizer

• Garden tool set

• Silicone cake baking

• Fleece blankets

• BBQ sets 

• Sauces 

• Knife sets 

Clothing

Clothing is cheap to make and offers high potential markup potential. Because of this, the profit margins of brands can be very high, making them an incredibly appealing target. By reselling an established brand name, you can leverage its popularity in the industry to help you grow. 

• Leggings

• T-shirts

• Sweatshirts

• Socks

• Christmas sweaters

• Pajamas

• Swimsuits

• Hoodies

• Cotton bra

• Caps

• Sneakers

Beauty

Beauty products include some of the most dynamic brands in the industry. The products are lightweight, easy to manage, and have a high resale potential. If the company behind the beauty products knows how to market, you can sell out of stock quickly. 

• Face mask

• Jade roller

• Reusable makeup remover pads

• Makeup brushes set

• Hair extensions

• Gel nail polish

• Lip balm

• Eye patches

• Liquid foundation

• Rhinestone tattoo

Sports

Last year's Amazon Trend Report reminded us of the importance of the sports niche, as it was showing significant growth across numerous sectors. This supports equipment includes clothing and exercise gear that is easy to manufacture, meeting the demands of those who seek better health.

• Stretch bands

• Weight loss belts

• Exercise hoop

• Yoga mat

• Jump rope

• Fitball

• Portable table tennis set

• Yoga pants 

Health & Wellness

The health and wellness niche is a narrower aspect of the sports niche that targets a similar audience. With this in mind, some of these are in the grocery niche, meaning you'll have to consider expiration dates. But many products in these categories have long-term expiration dates, meaning the chance of expiration is pretty low. 

• Essential oils

• Supplements

• Protein powder

• Protein bars 

• Performance drinks

• Creatine products

• How-to courses and books

• Foods that support specific diets

• Floss and water picks

• Meal replacements

• Multivitamins 

• Energy drinks 

Electronic & Accessories 

Electronics include some of the highest volume sales on Amazon. Many of them are inexpensive and sold for pennies on sites like Alibaba. This means it takes less time to increase your profit margins. 

• Phone cases

• Laptop cases and stands

• Earbuds

• USB cables and charges

• Selfie stick

• Screen protectors

• Wireless mouse

• Wireless chargers

• Gaming headphones

• Wireless headphones

• Electric Toothbrush

• Tire pressure gauges

• Speakers

Kids and Babies

Like the home category, the kids' category involves inexpensive and difficult-to-break products. Because those products fit these two essential criteria, you experience fewer returns and the potential to serve the needs of parents wanting products from these established brands. 

• Diapers & wipes

• Kinetic sand

• Plush toys

• Slime

• Fidget toys

• Puzzles

• Building blocks

• Board games

Pet Supplies

Pet suppliers cover a wide range of entry points because there are many types of pets. Thanks to social media, these pet trends increase demand for pets (and their supplies, by extension). You can establish a long-term sales strategy for pet supplies by leveraging these trending products. 

• Pet food

• Fetch & tug toys

• Automatic cat feeders

• Car seat cover

• Dog leashes

• Collars

• Waterproof dog boots

• Dog winter coat

Jewelry

Jewelry is a gated category that requires approval for entry in some areas. In others, jewelry is an excellent gift, with significant sales spikes around Christmas and Valentine's Day. Contrary to popular belief, not all jewelry requires a high upfront investment, meaning you can earn solid profits with the right target. 

• Necklaces

• Rings

• Earings

• Hair clips

• Charm bracelets

Bonuses

The bonus section covers a few inexpensive wholesale areas to get into or have good resale value. When looking into these bonus products, pay extra attention to their sales fluctuations. By developing a sales strategy based on these, you can leverage trending products to make great money. 

• Grocery shopping bags

• Notebooks

• Party supplies

• School supplies

• Textbooks 

Conclusion

With the right strategy, wholesale products require a higher upfront investment but offer greater potential profits. By keeping these steps in mind, you'll be better prepared to establish a process for resale. 

Research is the most critical aspect of this process. By leveraging tools from AMZScout, you'll be able to sell products more effectively. You can also take some product ideas from the list above. 

By establishing a proven process using our foundation, you'll understand how to sell and how to research regardless of what stuff you sell. This will make you an effective wholesale provider.