UPDATE 6/2/2014: Within the past 2 weeks amazon has begun requiring sellers to obtain approval before being allowed to sell in the grocery category.  You can find out more information about what is need to apply here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14113001

I would recommend that you seek this approval prior to purchasing this eBook, as this eBook does not cover how to obtain this approval as the approval was not required at the time it was published.

Here is the original post:

In today’s post I will be doing a review of a new ebook related to selling groceries on amazon that has been published within the last couple of weeks.  This book was written by Jessica Larrew and Beth Maus, 2 very experienced amazon sellers, and is about selling groceries on amazon.  I will be going over what’s included in the book, what I thought of it, and what I learned from the book.

Let’s start off with my experience level with selling groceries on amazon.  I have been selling groceries on amazon for the past 5 months, so I am not a complete beginner, but by no means do I feel like I am an expert on the topic.  Here is a screenshot of my sales from only the grocery category on amazon from November 1st through February 23rd: 

As you can see I have sold a little over $13K in groceries during this time period, so I feel that I definitely know the basics of selling groceries on amazon.

So let’s get into the book.  Here is a screenshot of the table of contents that is also available on Jessica’s website:

As you can see, this book covers many facets of selling groceries on amazon, and just reading the table of contents may give you some new ideas for selling groceries on amazon.

Thoughts and Learnings

I am going to break down the book into 2 chunks for purposes of providing a review.  Sections 1 through 15, and sections 15 through 26.

Sections 1 through 15 provide a great introduction into the world of selling groceries on amazon.  It really starts at square one and goes through the basics of what you need to think about when selling groceries, and where you can find deals to resell.  I personally felt that I knew the majority of this information from selling the 700 grocery items that I have thus far, but it was definitely great to see their perspectives, as they are  more experienced and have sold more grocery products than I have. Sections 8, 9, and 13 all did provide some new insight that I hadn’t previously considered.  The techniques discussed for price matching and rain checks will definitely be something that I put into my arsenal when sourcing groceries.   In section 13, they discuss how to decipher “lot codes” which I have not encountered to this point, but I now have a resource to go to should I encounter them in the future.

Sections 16 through 25 really get into some more advanced tips and strategies to use when selling groceries.  In the first section of the book (1-15), I felt like I was picking up a few tips that I could use here and there, but the second part (16-25) really got into some strategies that I have not used very extensively, and some that I was not even aware of.   In particular, the book discusses bringing new items to market, and strategies for bundling.  Both bundling and creating new items on amazon are not something that I have done much of, and after reading this book I am very excited to try out these new strategies.  The second half of the book is where I really found a lot of new information that I should be able to fairly easily add to my business.

One other aspect that is great about this book is that there are “assignments” at the end of most of the sections .  These are suggested activities that you should do to help you learn the material that was discussed in each section, and I think these will be extremely beneficial for learning the techniques.  I will definitely be doing the “assignments” from sections 16-25 to help me improve my grocery selling abilities.

This book is full of real world examples, and you can tell the authors really know their stuff.  They include examples of items they have sold (a couple of the products shown, I have even sold) and are really good about explaining the “why” behind their purchasing decisions.

I think there is something to learn in this book for just about everyone, particularly beginner and intermediate level grocery sellers.  I would imagine advanced grocery sellers could learn some new tricks and tips as well, but I can’t say for certain as I am far from an advanced grocery seller.  This book does have a fairly hefty price tag at $69, but it’s full of good information and could literally get you started from no grocery sales to becoming a significant portion of your business in a short amount of time.

By no means do I think purchasing this guide is essential to your success in selling groceries on amazon.  You could definitely learn through trial and error and scanning many items in the grocery store to find things that will be profitable.  This may be the best route for some people.  I do believe buying this guide will fast track your success selling groceries on amazon, and allow you to avoid some costly mistakes.  In my opinion, part of the reason the authors priced this guide at this price point, is that they are essentially giving a blueprint to what they are doing in selling groceries, and as a result are inviting competition, and need to be compensated for the time they spent through trial and error learning the ropes.

My personal viewpoint when there is an opportunity to learn from someone who has been successful doing something that I want to do, to take that opportunity.  I continue to invest in myself through education to make sure I am constantly improving in my life.  I think you will easily find $69 in value from reading this guide, should you choose to purchase it.  If you break it down,  you only need to sell 14 grocery items at a profit of $5 each to break even on this book, which I am confident this book will lead you to do very quickly.

If you don’t think you are quite ready for this type of invest, you can check out my post from January with a few free tips to get started selling groceries on amazon..

If you think this book would be helpful for your business, I will provide some links shortly.  My goal with this review is to provide my personal opinion of this book in a non-biased manner, I truly believe that the vast majority of people will easily find it worth the price tag, and recoup this investment many times over from the knowledge gained.  If for any reason you do not find it to be worth it, Jessica and Beth offer a 100% money back guarantee should you not be completely satisfied.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will be including an affiliate link to the book.  Should you choose to click this link I will receive a commission if you purchase this book.  Should you choose this option, I truly thank you, and this will help me to continue putting out free information through this blog.  HERE is the book.

If you have any questions regarding this book or grocery selling in general that I can answer, please leave a comment below.