How to Sell Certified Refurbished Products on Amazon Renewed

The thing that I love most about Amazon is that there always seems to be a new way to make money on their platform. Amazon Renewed is one of those opportunities — but one that a lot of people haven’t heard about. 

This guide covers the basics of what Amazon Renewed is, how to get started, what’s required of you as a seller, and how you can succeed selling certified-refurbished goods.

 

What is Amazon Renewed?

There are three different types of products you can sell on Amazon Renewed:

1. Refurbished: Products that are likely used, and the customer either sent it back because it was faulty or they no longer wanted it.  
2. Pre-owned: Products that are likely used, but were in better condition when returned than a refurbished product may have been.
3. Open-box: Products whose packaging was opened but the actual product was not used.

Qualified Amazon Renewed sellers have these devices professionally inspected, tested, and cleaned so they look and work like new before repackaging and reselling them.

And with the program’s guarantee, buyers can rest assured that products purchased through Amazon Renewed will work like new — as promised. 

What certified refurbished products can you sell online on Amazon Renewed?

Amazon Renewed is a program that enables products that can’t be billed as “new” (but are in high-quality enough condition to meet Amazon’s standards, as well as consumers’) to reach the Amazon marketplace.

Sellers can sell refurbished, pre-owned and open-box products in these categories:

• Automotive Parts
• Cameras
• Headphones & Audio
• Home Appliances
• Home & Industrial Tools
• Kitchen Appliances
• Laptops & Computers
• Musical Instruments
• Outdoors & Sports
• Office Equipment
• Smartphones
• Tablets
• Television Sets
• Video Game Consoles
• Watches

 

How to sell refurbished products on Amazon Renewed

1. Register to become an Amazon seller

First, to be able to sell certified refurbished, pre-owned and open-box products on Amazon Renewed, you must be a registered seller on Amazon.

If you’re new to selling on Amazon, you can sign up to become a seller by going to Amazon Seller Central and creating a new account.

2. Find product opportunities

Since you have to prove to Amazon that you have enough inventory before you can sell on Amazon Renewed, it’s important that you find the item you plan to sell first. 

Of course, you don’t want to purchase just anything. Similar to any method of selling on Amazon, you’ll need to know what’s actually in demand and what sort of competition to expect.

Look for products that match the following criteria:

1. High-demand and low competition. The product should sell hundreds — if not thousands — of units each month, without a lot of other sellers active in the niche. 
2. Not sold by Amazon or a private label seller. Make sure the product you’re interested in doesn’t compete with Amazon directly. Furthermore, avoid items sold by a third-party seller’s private label. You won’t be able to sell on those listings, either.
3. Make sure you can price the product competitively. You want your price to be within 2% of the product’s current Buy Box price. Any higher than that and much more difficult to sell your product.

The easiest way to find products like these is with Jungle Scout, using the Product Database to find high demand and low competition products.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to find product opportunities with Jungle Scout:

• Use the Product Database to easily find and sort opportunities based on the filters of your choosing (eg. estimated sales, rating, price, etc.).

 

• Once the database has filtered and sorted your search results, start analyzing the items to find the right product(s) to source and sell.

 

• Finally, when you’ve identified several items that look like good selling opportunities, use the Product Tracker to determine their real sales potential over time.

 

3. Source products

Once you know what products are in high demand and have low competition, you’ll need to source those products.

Fortunately, there are a few different ways to source products like these:

• Liquidation companies: Some third-party companies buy excess merchandise from manufacturers (see below), do the refurbishing themselves, and then sell those goods to distributors and retailers like yourself.
• Manufacturers: Some manufacturers sell refurbished goods directly to third-party sellers and retailers.
• Alibaba: If you’re already a fan of the private label process, then you probably won’t be surprised to learn that you can buy wholesale certified-refurbished goods on Alibaba, too.

4. Apply and qualify to sell on Amazon Renewed

Now that you know what you’re going to sell and where you’re going to source those products, you’ll need to apply and qualify to sell on Amazon Renewed. 

These are the requirements you must meet in order to sell on Amazon Renewed:

1. You must be able to supply invoices showing you’ve met Amazon’s minimum order number: purchasing either $50,000 in qualifying refurbished products, or a minimum of 500 refurbished units within 90 days of submitting your application. Also, items with a selling price of $15 or less don’t count towards the 500 refurbished units. However, the program allows you to black-out either the required unit amount or the required dollar amount on your invoices. That means you can include lower-priced products. But this is only if you choose to submit invoices with dollar amounts instead of unit numbers. 
2. If you’re an existing seller on Amazon, you’re required to maintain an order defect rate (ODR) of 0.8% or less in the trailing 90 days.
3. Your company must provide a minimum 90-day warranty on all of your Certified Refurbished products.
   1. If you want to list factory-refurbished items that have no manufacturer warranty, you’ll need to get permission. To do that, you must submit a minimum of eight images of a sample unit so that Amazon can perform a product and packaging review. You’ll need to show them the box in which the product will ship, the inside packaging and padding, a view of the product from the top and the bottom, and images of all four sides of the item.
4. Finally, if you’ve decided to sell refurbished Apple products, you must get approval first. And to get approved, you must supply Amazon with invoices totalling $2.5 million in Apple refurbished products, and dated from trailing 90 days.

5. Start selling and grow your business

Once you get past the application process, you can start listing all of your certified-refurbished, pre-owned, and open-box products, as well as adding offers to existing pages.

 

Why sell refurbished products on Amazon Renewed?

There are quite a few benefits to selling certified-refurbished products on Amazon Renewed.

Join an exclusive program and avoid competition

Not just anyone can sell certified-refurbished products on Amazon. Only sellers who meet Amazon’s criteria and can consistently sell like-new products are permitted to sell on Amazon Renewed. This means there is a huge opportunity to succeed for the few who are accepted.

Sell to millions of loyal Amazon customers

Enjoy high customer trust due to the stringent customer satisfaction goals Amazon has put in place to measure seller performance. Not to mention, Amazon’s U.S. marketplace alone receives over 2 billion visitors each month with conversion rates in the double digits.

Leverage Amazon’s proven e-commerce solutions

Amazon’s selling tools and fulfillment capabilities enables you to sell like-new products to customers across Amazon’s global marketplaces.

Grow your business easily

This method of selling complements practices you may already be employing with your business such as wholesaling and private label. By adding Amazon Renewed to your current business model, you can grow both your overall sales and your brand. 

 

Tips to drive sales with Amazon Renewed

Additionally, these tips will help you succeed with the Amazon Renewed program:

• Price your products at least 20% lower than its ‘new’ price, and within 2% of the ‘used’ Buy Box price.
• Add at least 15 SKUs (stock keeping units) to get started.
• Run ‘Best Deals’ on your refurbished, pre-owned and open-box products. 
• Leverage Amazon’s Sponsored Products advertising program to drive traffic to your newly created certified-refurbished ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Number). 
  • Amazon recommends that you consider using both manual and automatic campaigns. But, for manual campaigns, it’s best to use broad keywords for driving initial traffic to an ASIN.

 

Get started with Amazon Renewed today!

So, if you’re looking to start selling on Amazon, or you want to expand your current Amazon business, Amazon Renewed is a great opportunity.

And you can begin your new venture by finding your perfect product(s) by searching on Jungle Scout: