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How the FBA Lead List Team Sources High-Quality Amazon Online Arbitrage Leads

by | Jan 12, 2026 | Resources

Finding profitable Amazon FBA and online arbitrage leads takes time, experience, and discipline. At FBA Lead List, we don’t rely on bots, scraped data, or mass-produced lists. Every lead you receive is the result of astructured, human-driven sourcing process designed to save you valuable time and help you source more efficiently in today’s competitive OA landscape.

Here’s exactly how our team sources, reviews, and delivers Amazon leads, and why our sourcing process is built for how online arbitrage worksnow, not how it worked years ago.

A Human-Driven Amazon Lead Sourcing Process

FBA Lead List is built around ahighly experienced sourcing team; real Amazon OA sourcing experts whose full-time job is to identify viable online arbitrage opportunities for Amazon sellers.

Our team has been actively sourcing Amazon OA leads since2016, long before lead lists became common. This is the same sourcing team that helped build thesix-figure Amazon online arbitrage businesses of FBA Lead List’s original founders,Heath Armstrong and Jason Berwick.

Our goal isn’t to flood you with thousands of questionable leads. It’s to delivercurated opportunities that meet clear profitability, demand, and quality standards based on years of real-world selling experience, and continuous Amazon marketplace research.

Step 1: Manual Product Research Using Proven Sourcing Methods

FBA Lead List relies onmanual sourcing methods that have consistently outperformed automated tools in real-world online arbitrage.

Our two primary sourcing methods are:

  • Reverse sourcing
  • Storefront stalking

These methods allow our team to uncover opportunities that automated scans often miss, while maintaining tighter control over quality, profitability, and risk.

Reverse Sourcing & Storefront Stalking

Reverse sourcing starts on Amazon, not at the retailer.

Our sourcers identifyactive FBA sellers with approximately 50–5,000 feedback ratings – sellers who are clearly moving inventory, but are not massive wholesale operations. These sellers often represent strong OA sourcing patterns.

The process typically looks like this:

  • Identify an FBA seller from a previously validated lead
  • Pull the seller’sSeller ID
  • Load that Seller ID intoKeepa Product Finder
  • Open the seller’s storefront and begin sourcing additional ASINs

Using Keepa Product Finder allows our team to:

  • Target products within desiredsales rank ranges
  • Filter bysell price ranges that support $4+ profit and 40%+ ROI
  • Skiprestricted or gated brands
  • Focus on listings with consistent sales history

This approach has proven far more efficient than relying solely on automated deal-finding tools, especially as online arbitrage has become more competitive.

Retailer Discovery & Buy Cost Optimization

When reverse sourcing reveals a potential retailer, our team searches for the product usingGoogle Shopping and other methods to locate reliable purchase options.

At this stage, sourcers actively work to optimize buy cost by:

  • Checking forstackable promo codes or sitewide discounts
  • Adding multiple items to cart to qualify forfree shipping or bulk discounts
  • Accounting for shipping costs by spreading them across multiple units when applicable

For heavier items or bundled leads, additional inbound shipping and prep fees are factored in early to ensure the opportunity still meets profitability standards.

Trusted Retailer Vetting

Before a retailer is approved for sourcing, it is individually vetted. We only source from retailers that meet clear legitimacy standards, including:

  • Aconfirmed physical address visible on Google Maps with a real Street View landmark
  • An active, verifiable website with consistent business information
  • Active social media accounts, indicating ongoing operations
  • Positive reputation signals across platforms such asTrustpilot, Sitejabber, ResellerRatings, ShopperApproved, Reddit, and Yelp

Each product is researched individually – not scraped or bulk-generated – ensuring that both theretailer and the opportunity meet our sourcing standards before moving to evaluation.

Step 2: Profitability & Viability Verification (Real-World Math)

Once a potential lead is identified, it moves to ourevaluation team, where profitability and viability are rechecked before anything is published.

During evaluation, the team confirms that each lead still meetsminimum profitability standards.

To ensure accuracy, calculations factor in:

  • Amazon fees
  • Additional prep costs for breakable and multipack/bundles
  • Inbound shipping fees for breakable and overweight

Pricing is based on:

  • The current Buy Box price, if available, or
  • The current FBA seller price, if available, or
  • The current FBM seller price including shipping

We do not rely on average sell price. Instead, we reference the most recent sell price, reflecting current market conditions.

All calculations are completed usingSellerAmp, ensuring consistent and up-to-date fee and ROI modeling.

For variation listings, the team also verifies that:

  • The variation shares reviews/ratings with the parent ASINor
  • The variation represents a popular or established size/color

This step helps avoid thin or risky variations that may look profitable on paper but fail in practice.

Step 3: Risk Reduction & Seller Account Protection

Protecting seller accounts is a core part of our sourcing process — not an afterthought.

Before a lead is approved, the evaluation team works to reduce risk by ensuring:

  • Thebrand on the Amazon listing matches the retailer’s brand
  • There are no discrepancies between the Amazon title, description, and images
  • Generic or unclear listings are filtered out

We also use our proprietary IP Risk Score to assess whether a listing presents elevated intellectual property risk.

Additionally, the team confirms that thebrand owner is not actively selling the product on Amazon.

These checks help reduce common OA risks such as listing changes, IP complaints, and brand conflicts – especially important for sellers focused on long-term account health.

Step 4: Final Human Review Before Delivery

Before a lead is sent to subscribers, it goes through a final human review to confirm:

  • Profitability and ROI thresholds are still met
  • Market conditions haven’t materially changed
  • The lead aligns with FBA Lead List’s safety and quality standards

Online arbitrage moves quickly. Our process is designed to deliver leads that arerelevant and actionable at the time you receive them.

Amazon Online Arbitrage Has Evolved…and So Have Lead Lists

In the past, many established online arbitrage sellers avoided lead lists, often for good reason. Older lists were frequently over-saturated, short-lived, and treated as “buy this now or miss out” recommendations.

That model no longer reflects how successful modern online arbitrage sellers operate.

In a recent conversation betweenFBA Lead List COO Brian Elfstrom andJim Cockrum, founder ofMy Silent Team and host of theSilent Sales Machine Radio podcast, both discussed how lead lists have evolved into something far more valuable.

Today, lead lists function asmarket intelligence reports, not static buy lists.

With the rise of ASIN-watching and repricing tools, a lead that isn’t profitable today can become a strong buy weeks or months later. High-level sellers now buildlead banks – growing databases of researched ASINs that can be monitored and reactivated as market conditions change.

This evolution is exactly how FBA Lead List is designed to be used.

Built for How High-Level OA Sellers Actually Source

Experienced online arbitrage sellers rarely buy every lead on a list, and they don’t need to.

Instead, many sellers:

  • Buy only a percentage of the leads that fit their criteria
  • Use each lead as a starting point for deeper sourcing
  • Rabbit trail into related brands, variations, and retailers
  • Re-scan saved ASINs when prices or competition shift

To support this modern sourcing approach, FBA Lead List:

  • Caps distribution to limit over-saturation
  • Focuses on leads with repeat-scan potential
  • Prioritizes retailers and brands that allow expansion beyond a single ASIN

The result is a list designed not just for today’s buys, but forlong-term sourcing efficiency.

How Sellers Use FBA Lead List to Rabbit Trail and Build Lead Banks

One of the biggest advantages of a well-curated lead list is how easily it enablesrabbit trailing – using a single lead as a starting point to uncover many more opportunities.

Because FBA Lead List emphasizes strong retailers, brands, and repeatable patterns, many subscribers use the list not just to buy daily leads, but to build sustainable sourcing pipelines.

As one long-time subscriber shares:

“SomeINSANE rabbit trail heads — like a store or brand I’d never heard of that turns into sourcing that brand or store for the next several months and profiting thousands from really just that one lead idea.

Great variety of categories, well vetted, detailed explanation as to why it’s good or what to be careful of, and reveals store sales or coupon codes that can be used widely.

Agreat multi-use lead list: use it for rabbit trailing off store, brand, coupon, category, or just buy daily leads outright. Leads rarely tank, are well vetted, and offer excellent variety.”

—SC

This is how modern OA sellers turn curated leads intocompounding assets, not one-time purchases.

Why This Process Matters for Current Amazon Online Arbitrage Sellers

Online arbitrage isn’t hard because opportunities don’t exist; it’s hard becausetime and focus are limited.

By outsourcing the most time-consuming part of the process, sellers can:

  • Reduce sourcing and analysis fatigue
  • Spend less time scanning and more time executing
  • Build repeatable systems instead of chasing random deals