Amazon sellers find wholesale inventory through five sourcing channels: brand-direct accounts, authorized distributors, trade shows, B2B marketplaces, and closeout liquidators. Each channel trades off margin, approval friction, and the quality of invoices Amazon will accept during ungating or seller-performance reviews.
Going Direct to the Brand
Buying directly from the brand owner is the cleanest wholesale path for Amazon. The invoices name the manufacturer, the prices include no middleman markup, and brands can issue letters of authorization that resolve most Amazon brand-gating requests on the first try.
The friction is approval. Established brands often restrict Amazon resellers, run MAP (minimum advertised price) enforcement, or limit accounts to a small number of authorized sellers per ASIN. Emerging brands, on the other hand, frequently welcome Amazon sellers because they need distribution and don’t yet have a crowded Buy Box.
Claim: 26% of Amazon sellers use a wholesale business model as their primary approach. Source: Jungle Scout State of the Amazon Seller Report Date: 2024
To open a brand-direct account, you’ll typically need a registered business entity, an EIN, a resale certificate for your state, a business bank account, and an active Amazon Professional seller account. Some brands also ask for a sample Amazon listing you currently sell or a plan describing how you’ll represent the product.
Working with Authorized Distributors
Distributors aggregate thousands of brands into a single catalog, ship from regional warehouses, and let you reorder weekly without negotiating per-brand terms. For sellers running 50 to 500 SKUs across grocery, beauty, pet, or housewares, distributors are the operational backbone.
Common U.S. distributors used by Amazon sellers include UNFI and KeHE in natural grocery, McLane and Core-Mark in convenience, Bunzl in packaging-adjacent categories, and a long tail of regional players in toys, hardware, and HBA (health and beauty aids).
Claim: Third-party sellers accounted for 61% of total paid units sold on Amazon. Source: Amazon Q2 2024 Shareholder Letter Date: 2024
The catch with distributors: their invoices sometimes get rejected by Amazon during ungating because Amazon prefers invoices from the brand itself. Before committing to a distributor for an ungating attempt, ask whether the distributor will list the brand owner’s name and your business name on the invoice, and whether they’ve successfully cleared Amazon reviews before.
Trade Shows and Industry Events
Trade shows compress months of supplier outreach into three days of in-person meetings. For Amazon wholesale sellers, the highest-value shows are:
- ASD Market Week (Las Vegas, twice yearly) — general merchandise, gift, beauty, and toys
- Natural Products Expo West (Anaheim, March) and Expo East (fall) — food, beverage, supplements
- NY NOW and Atlanta Market — home, gift, and lifestyle
- SuperZoo — pet products
- Outdoor Retailer — outdoor gear and apparel
At these shows, you can meet 30 to 80 brands per day, collect line sheets, and negotiate opening orders on the spot. Bring printed business cards, your resale certificate, and a one-page summary of your Amazon seller history. Brands sign more accounts at trade shows than through cold email all year combined.
Claim: More than 2 million third-party sellers are active on Amazon worldwide. Source: Marketplace Pulse Date: 2024
The cost of attendance — flights, hotel, badge — runs $1,500 to $3,000 per show. If you place even two opening orders that turn into recurring SKUs, the trip pays back within a quarter.
AI-Native B2B Marketplaces
Online B2B marketplaces let you discover and order from hundreds of brands without travel or cold outreach. The category includes general-purpose platforms and newer AI-native marketplaces that match sellers to brands based on category fit, geography, and sales channel.
Catalist AI is built specifically to connect independent retailers and Amazon sellers with emerging consumer brands looking for distribution. The match logic considers your existing catalog, your fulfillment model (FBA vs FBM), and the brand’s policy on Amazon resale — so you skip the brands that block third-party Amazon sellers and surface the ones actively recruiting them.
Claim: Wholesale Amazon sellers report median monthly revenue in the $1,000–$25,000 range, depending on catalog size and tenure. Source: Jungle Scout State of the Amazon Seller Report Date: 2024
When evaluating any B2B marketplace for Amazon sourcing, check three things: whether the brand explicitly permits Amazon resale, whether the marketplace provides invoices that name the brand owner, and whether MOQs match your working capital. A platform with low MOQs lets you test 10 brands for the price of one big trade-show order.
Channels to Approach Carefully
Not every sourcing channel works for Amazon. A few are popular online but carry meaningful account risk:
| Channel | Margin | Amazon Invoice Risk | Scalability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand direct | High | Low | Medium |
| Authorized distributor | Medium | Low–Medium | High |
| Trade shows | High | Low | Medium |
| B2B marketplace | Medium–High | Low | High |
| Retail arbitrage | Medium | High | Low |
| Liquidation pallets | Variable | High | Low |
| Online arbitrage | Low–Medium | High | Low |
| Alibaba (branded goods) | High | Very High | Low |
Retail arbitrage and online arbitrage rely on receipts from stores like Target, Walmart, or Costco. Amazon’s brand-protection team frequently rejects these as proof of authentic sourcing, and counterfeit complaints in these channels can suspend an account.
Liquidation pallets from sources like B-Stock or Direct Liquidation can produce real margin but ship mixed-condition goods. Amazon requires items sold as “New” to be in genuinely new condition; pallet inventory often fails this bar.
Buying branded goods from Alibaba is a known trap. Authentic brands almost never sell themselves through Alibaba, and listings claiming otherwise are usually counterfeit. Stick to Alibaba only for private-label manufacturing of your own brand.
Putting a Sourcing Plan Together
A working Amazon wholesale operation usually blends two or three of these channels. A typical mix looks like this: 60% of revenue from 8 to 15 brand-direct accounts that took six months to open, 25% from one or two distributors that fill the catalog gaps, and 15% from new brands tested through B2B marketplaces and trade shows each quarter.
Start with one channel. Get 3 to 5 brands approved, prove the unit economics work after FBA fees and referral fees, then add the next channel. Trying to open accounts everywhere at once usually means underwhelming first orders that brands remember when you ask for better terms later.
If you’re an emerging brand reading this and you want to be discovered by Amazon sellers and independent retailers actively sourcing in your category, Apply to Join Catalist AI and get matched with the buyers who fit your distribution policy.