Brian and Robin Joy Olsonare highly-respected Amazon coaches who have helped thousands of online arbitrage sellers find clarity, confidence, and the momentum to keep going when the going gets tough.
They also run theBuilder’s Circle, a members-only communitybuilt to give OA sellers what they actually need: clear next steps, better buys, and the confidence to navigate the Amazon ecosystem. Inside, you getfull access to their paid training archive plus ongoing series likeKeepa Corner andMastermind Minute that walk you through real Keepa charts, sourcing decisions, and current opportunities so you always know what to look for and what to avoid. You’ll plug into a focused group of OA sellers who are actively working the same model, so you’re never guessing or grinding alone. For a limited time only,membership is 50% off, so if you want Brian and Robin Joy’s systems and community in your corner, now is the time tojoin Builder’s Circle.

Third-party arbitrage sellers face a challenge that intensified dramatically over the last few years. Amazon fixed some of the operational headaches that used to plague sellers – inbound shipping, financial reports, analytics – but the pain points moved. Sourcing became exponentially harder due to increased competition and stricter compliance enforcement. After helping hundreds of builders adapt to this shift, we've identified exactly what changed and how successful builders are responding.

The Market Shift Nobody Noticed

Five years ago, Amazon sellers complained about different problems. Inbound shipping workflows were a nightmare. You'd spend hours creating shipments, splitting inventory across warehouses, and hoping Amazon didn't lose half your boxes. Financial reports were buried in Seller Central. If you wanted to know your actual profit, you needed advanced spreadsheet skills or third-party tools at a price.

But sourcing? Sourcing was relatively straightforward.

You'd find a product, check Keepa (an Amazon price tracking and data tool), verify potential profitability, buy it, and send it in. Competition existed, but it wasn't cutthroat. Listing hijackers were annoying but manageable. The “easy finds” were still out there.

Today, the situation seems to be inverted.

Amazon fixed many of those operational issues. Inbound shipping workflows are cleaner (though not perfect). Financial reports are easier to access and understand. Seller Central's native analytics actually function now.

But sourcing? Sourcing is harder than it's ever been.

The shift happened gradually, like the “how do you boil a frog?” question. Put it in room temperature water and slowly raise the heat, it'll never jump out. Many sellers kept using the same sourcing methods for the last several years and didn't realize the temperature had fundamentally changed. They found themselves working harder, spending more time, and finding fewer testable products without understanding why.

Ask me how I know.

Why Sourcing Got Exponentially Harder

Two major forces transformed the sourcing landscape:

Competition Increased

More people discovered third-party arbitrage. More Online Arbitrage (OA, sourcing products from online retail stores to resell on Amazon) courses launched. More sellers began chasing the same products. The “easy finds” that used to take a few minutes per product now take an hour or more when looking manually. What used to yield 10 testable products per sourcing session now yields 2-3.

Amazon's Compliance Crackdown Tightened

Between GS1 barcode enforcement, expanding brand gating, and GTIN (product identifier) validation requirements, it's no longer enough to just “find a good deal.” You need products with authorized sources, clean listings, and no compliance landmines waiting to block your inventory at check-in.

I see builders who experienced the Trader Joe's GTIN validation issues in October 2025. Half their inventory got flagged or blocked, not because they did anything wrong, but because Amazon's systems couldn't validate the product identifiers.

The Cost of Not Adapting

Here's the uncomfortable mathematical reality:

Old school sourcing (monthly breakdown):

• 10 hours per week times 4 weeks equals 40 hours per month

• 40 hours at $25 per hour equals $1,000 per month in time value

• Result: 80 good leads found per month

Modern automated sourcing (monthly breakdown):

• 1 hour per week times 4 weeks equals 4 hours per month

• 4 hours at $25 per hour plus $69 tool cost equals $169 per month total

• Result: 2,000+ good leads found per month

That's 25X more results for one-sixth the cost.

And that calculation doesn't even account for opportunity cost. While old school sourcers are clicking through products one by one (and don’t even get me started on standing in clearance aisles, scanning for hours so you can load up a U-Haul before going to the next store), modern sourcers are testing more products, finding replens faster, building lead databases they can revisit for years, and spending their extra time on higher-value tasks like optimizing pricing, managing inventory, or scaling operations.

We like to say that the cure to almost every arbitrage problem is to test more ASINs. But you can't test more ASINs if you can't find them fast enough.

What Modern Sourcing Actually Is

A large number of arbitrage resellers think sourcing works like this:

1. Open a retail website

2. Click through products one by one

3. Check each one in Keepa

4. Maybe find something good

5. Repeat 100 times

6. End the day with 3-5 testable products

That's old school sourcing. It worked fine when competition was lower and Amazon's compliance rules were looser.

Modern automated sourcing flips the script entirely:

Instead of checking products one at a time, you scan entire competitor and retail storefronts at once. Instead of manually clicking through 500 listings, you use tools to match thousands of products to Amazon ASINs in minutes. Instead of sifting through gravel looking for gold, you process the entire riverbed at once and let the system show you where the gold is.

The Three-Punch Combo

Modern arbitrage resellers use a three-punch combination:

Punch 1: Keepa Storefront Stalking

Keepa allows you to scan up to 50 competitor Amazon storefronts at once (using storefront IDs – brand stores, top seller shops, competitor listings). For each storefront, Keepa extracts ALL active ASINs, giving you thousands of products in minutes. You're only limited by your Keepa quota when it comes to the number of ASINs that can be extracted, but you can scan up to 50 storefront IDs at once.

The goal isn't to find “proven winners” yet. You're building a database of ASINs to investigate. You know these are live, active listings with resellers on them, but you don't yet know if they're potentially profitable or where to source them. That's where the next punch comes in.

Time investment: 15-30 minutes to scan multiple storefronts and extract thousands of ASINs.

Punch 2: ArbiSource Reverse Scanning (Power Move #1)

You take your ASIN list from Keepa and upload it to ArbiSource, an automated sourcing tool that scans 240+ online retail stores. ArbiSource reverse scans your ASINs and shows you:

• Which stores carry those products

• Current retail prices

• Estimated potential profitability (factoring in Amazon fees, FBA costs)

• Stock availability

You can get back a filtered list showing exactly which products you can buy TODAY from which stores, and whether they have the potential to make you money.

This is the 1-2 punch: Keepa finds what's selling on Amazon, ArbiSource finds where to buy it from retail sources with potential profit margins.

Time investment: 5-10 minutes to run the reverse scan and filter results.

Punch 3: Custom Retail Store Scan (Power Move #2, The Uppercut)

ArbiSource's custom scan feature lets you target ANY online retail store, even ones not in the 240-store database. You can apply custom filters (price ranges, categories, sales rank thresholds) to find exactly what you're looking for.

The notable part? No coding or scripting required. The interface is extremely simple but wildly powerful for finding niche opportunities that other sellers miss.

Time investment: 10-20 minutes per custom scan, depending on store size and filters.

The Hidden Advantage: Lead Databases That Compound Over Time

The obvious benefit of modern sourcing is speed. You find more products in less time. That's the surface-level win.

But the deeper advantage is this: Modern sourcing turns sourcing from a bottleneck into a system.

With old school sourcing, you're always starting from zero. Every sourcing session is a grind. You're hoping to “get lucky” and find something good.

With modern sourcing, you're building a lead database. Every ASIN you identify gets saved.

Because modern sourcing finds so many matches (viable ASINs), you can tolerate the same percentage of testable ASINs thanks to database solutions, filtering options, automation, and AI. This makes finding needles in haystacks highly efficient.

Many products won't be testable today, but they may be in 2-6 months when:

• Pricing changes at the retail level

• Stock availability shifts

• Competitors drop off the listing

• Products that were gated become ungated

• Items that were out of stock come back in

When you save every ASIN you source (even the ones you don't buy immediately), you're creating future opportunities. You can rescan that database in a few months and find products that are NOW testable without doing the sourcing work again. You’re basically shopping from your own database.

One easy way to build a compounding lead engine like this is witha curated feed.
FBA LeadList delivers 10+ vetted OA leads you can save now and save for future rescans — so you’re never starting from zero. Check out our subscription planshere.

This is what a good friend of ours calls “shopping from the back of the list,” and it's only possible with modern sourcing because you're generating enough volume that you can afford to save the maybes for later.

Old school sourcing doesn't build databases. It builds burnout.

You find 10 products, buy 3, and move on. You don't have a database. You don't have a system. You just have today's results.

Modern sourcing gives you both immediate results and compounding future opportunities.

How to Get Started

If you've never done modern sourcing before, here's how to start:

Step 1: Pick one workflow
We've identified four core modern sourcing workflows (all detailed with step-by-step video walkthroughs in our free Bulk Sourcing Playbook). Start with the 1-2 punch (Keepa storefront stalking followed by ArbiSource reverse scanning) if you want the full system. Start with direct retail store scans in ArbiSource if you want to jump straight into finding opportunities.

Step 2: Start with a smaller number of storefronts
For Amazon storefronts, start with 3-5 storefront IDs to see how the system works, then scale up to the full 50. The real power of this strategy is the ability to scan multiple storefronts at once, extracting every ASIN across all of those stores. For retail stores, pick one to start.

Step 3: Run the scan
Follow the workflow (detailed in the playbook). You can get back a list of matched ASINs with data.

Step 4: Filter and test
Filter by sales velocity (how quickly a product tends to sell), price points, offer counts, and sales rank. Pick 10-12 products to test. Buy them. Send them in. Track results.

Step 5: Repeat
Once you see results, do it again. Try more storefronts. Try a different workflow. Build your lead database.

That's it. You don't need to be a tech wizard. You don't need a VA team. You just need to try it once and see what happens.

The Takeaway

Amazon didn't make sourcing harder to punish sellers. The marketplace matured. More competition, more rules, more enforcement.

The builders who adapt aren't smarter. They're just using strategie that match the speed of the 2026 game.

Modern, automated sourcing is one of those strategies.

If you're still using old school sourcing methods, the temperature changed gradually, and you didn't feel it happening. Now you know what to do about it.

In the Builders Circle, we see this pattern repeatedly – the ones who switch to modern sourcing early gain momentum while others are still grinding through old school searches. You're closer than you think to making this shift work for you.

Ready to try modern sourcing? Download our free Bulk Sourcing Playbook with step-by-step video walkthroughs of all four workflows, plus an exclusive ArbiSource discount code (50% off your first month, good through 11/30/25, use PATH50 at checkout). Get instant access at Official Olsons.

In this blog, we break down the tools we use for managing our entire online arbitrage and e-commerce team, as well as some examples of the daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that we assign to the team members to automate and scale our Amazon FBA businesses. We hope this information will give you insight so you can also expand your team and grow your business.

Tools for Online Arbitrage or Amazon Seller Team Management

We have been building our business systems for years. To sustain growth and scalability, the process must involve automating or delegating certain tasks to a team. We use a handful of different tools to do this, including the following:

• Asana– For project and task management (free version). You can create specific projects in Asana and assign tasks to specific users. You can add due dates, recurring tasks, and more. Asana easily allows teams to communicate on projects and work together to accomplish them.

• Slack – For categorized team chats (free version). We use slack as a set of filters for quick messages. Basically, each different segment of the business has a different chat log, and this allows us to keep our chats about specific topics organized. You can also set up chats about projects in Asana rather easily if you want to keep it all in one place, but you can’t direct message individuals.

• Evernote – For quick document exchanges and reports. You can create digital notebooks and easily share notes within each notebook. We use this for team reports and quick write-ups or notes.

• Skitch (by Evernote) – For grabbing fast screenshots to share with the team

• Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Suite – For document sharing in the cloud – mainly spreadsheets.

• LastPass – For securely sharing login information across team members. This is a HUGE help when sharing retail website login information with your buyer. You can share login details that are encrypted without your users being able to see the actual passwords.

• Upwork – For hiring and managing virtual assistants all over the world. Upwork records their screens while they work, tracks their hours, and even converts payments between differing currencies.

• TimeDoctor – For tracking time of virtual assistants who are not on the Upwork platform.

• Transferwise.com – For paying out overseas assistants instantly.

• Loom – Real-time video capture and screen capture for quickly recording and uploading videos for training assistants or team tasks.

• Zoom – Schedule and host high-quality video chats with your team.

The Key to Outsourcing is Simple: Create a Guide Every Time You Complete a New Task.

No matter if you just hired your first virtual assistant or you have an entire company of employees, it’s important to give your team members thorough direction on how to complete a task.  Once you are comfortable with their ability to perform a task, you can then open up more room for creativity and collaboration.

The training process works best in this simple order:

• Create a shareable document (Google Doc, Evernote, etc) and outline the entire task in detail.

• Include screenshots with a screen clipping tool (such as Evernote’s Skitch) to mock-up images of what you are referring to in your document tutorial.

• Record a shareable video of you talking through the directions using a video tool like Loom.

• Assign the task to an assistant using a project management tool (like Asana) and include the document and video.

• Review your assistant’s work and open up communication on what needs to be improved, etc.

• Save all documentation as a Standard of Practice (SOP) to automatically retrain any new employees that may need training in the future.

Examples of Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Task to Delegate to Assistants Within Your Amazon Business

Depending on how much you want to scale your business, there are many different areas that can be delegated to assistants. Here are a few examples to give you an idea of what can be outsourced efficiently.

Daily Task Examples to Outsource

• Organize business e-mails and save the necessary emails to appropriate filters in order of urgency. Perhaps create a Gmail or Zoho account for your business so you can make filters for different types of emails, including inventory orders, expense receipts, Amazon notifications, and more:

• Source leads on retail websites and add good leads to the daily buy list.

• Review premium lead lists and analyze leads. Purchase the good leads.

• Add purchased inventory to the inventory tracking sheet.

• Monitor and resolve Amazon customer service disputes, messages, and ratings.

• Create eBay drafts for unfulfillable items that cannot be sold on Amazon.

• Set minimum and maximum pricing with Informed.co for items that have newly arrived in live inventory at Amazon.

• Update Slack Channels with any relevant information.

Weekly Task Examples to Outsource

• Send weekly shipments to Amazon via Inventory Lab.

• Resolve stranded and suppressed inventory issues in Amazon Seller Central.

• Fill out weekly reports (inventory purchase summary, profit reports, etc).

• Search for replenishable leads that are selling well from previous sales and buy more.

• Check-in inventory with prep company or house and reconcile any missing items.

• Monitor last week’s orders from retail websites to make sure all new inventory that was ordered is shipping and arriving on time.

• Update bad inventory report.

Monthly Task Examples to Outsource

• Reimbursement Tasks – Make sure that all lost, damaged, returned, and damaged inventory is reconciled.

  • FBA Batch Shipment Reconciliation

  • Lost/Damaged/Destroyed Inventory Reconciliation

  • Refunds and Reimbursement Reconciliation

  • Returns over 30 days reconciliation

  • Other Concession reconciliation

  • Warehouse Damaged units reconciliation

How to Use Slack Filters to Organize Amazon FBA Tasks

Every person working within the various departments of our business is instructed to complete their daily tasks, then update the proper channel with appropriate information. Managers then head in a few times a week to check all channels to make sure everything’s running smoothly. We mainly use Asana for in-depth project management, but Slack comes in handy for updates and chats.

The following channels are filters we use in Slack to organize our team into various chats:

Batch Shipments for FBA Shipments (#fba-batchshipments)

In order to monitor our weekly shipments to Amazon, we utilize a google spreadsheet called “Batch Report” which contains all of the shipment’s relevant stats. Keeping track of this allows us to generate specific details such as how much inventory we are sending to Amazon FBA warehouses each week and the costs to do so. It also helps us reconcile shipments with ease and estimate when inventory will be live and sellable.

We keep a running google sheet with all batch information from every shipment we send into Amazon, separated by month. Each time a batch is uploaded and completed by our team, a link to the data is posted in this channel along with a snapshot of the numbers so that I get notified and can see what sort of numbers we are working with.

Below is the actual batch Report from our business with the shipment IDs removed for privacy. You can see this is pretty straight forward, but it allows us a bird’s eye view on the sum of inventory and the numbers processed for every month. This information is all available in Inventory Lab as well, this just sums it all up nicely so we can get everything we need in a quick glance.

The Batch Report Template can be downloaded here for your use

Buying Notes (#fba-buyingnotes)

The buying notes channel is similar to the inventory issues channel. We keep this particular channel separate because it takes place at an entirely different time period in the flow of the system, and we needed a channel to discuss these issues when they come up in this part of the system specifically.

Buying Notes are issues that come up as our administration team is analyzing the purchases for the day. If they notice a mismatch or maybe see that an item can be merged to give it more visibility, the team will discuss these matters here.

If an item comes up in question after it’s been through the daily buying analyzations, that’s when we use the Inventory Issues Channel.

Customer Service (#fba-customerservice)

This channel simply keeps track of every message we receive, and my administration team puts in a small note letting us know what the event was related to and the result if anything important came of it.

Discounts to Use (#fba-discounts2use)

Our entire team constantly sees discounts throughout the day during daily sourcing, recording, batching, etc, so we pull out the good stuff and update this channel with it. Our buyers monitor this channel so they can use the discounts needed while doing daily purchasing.

Inventory Health (#fba-inventoryhealth)

This channel deals specifically with the inventory health sections of Amazon Seller Central. Our administration team monitors suppressed inventory, stranded inventory, merchant fulfilled inventory (somehow stuff randomly will wind up here), seller rating, cease and desist letters, etc, and updates us on all of this information in this channel.

Inventory Issues (#fba-inventoryissues)

As discussed above, inventory issues are anything that comes up regarding an inventory purchase, so long as it was caught at some point in the process after our daily buying analysis.

These issues include similar things such as mismatched products and listings, companies sending the wrong item, companies not sending the item at all, companies sending broken items, returns, etc.

Numbers Reports (#fba-numbersreports)

In this channel, the team puts the data related to our buys and the links to the reports we keep of these items. We generally use this channel to keep an eye on what our daily spend is looking like in order to keep our debt to income ratios in their ideal spot. The buyer reports discussed above are also sent in this channel.

Order Issues (#fba-orderissues)

In this channel, all communications specifically having to do with the order itself are discussed. This is anything from a credit card issue, backordered items, cancellations, or further product verification needs, etc. These issues are monitored by our administration team and either our buyers or administration team takes care of the issues by email, live chat, or a telephone call.

Reimbursements (#fba-reimbursements)

An area where we discuss updates on reimbursements that are filed.

Repricing Task (#fba-repricingtask)

This is a rolling log of when the prices have been set for newly arriving inventory. We also have a certain liquidation structure in place to move old and stale inventory which is discussed in this thread. The tanked prices spreadsheet simply lets me know which items have had a price war and profit has significantly deteriorated so I can decide how to handle them.

Unrecoverables (#fba-unrecoverables)

We keep a spreadsheet of the “lost inventory” that we won’t be able to sell, such as stuff that goes missing, breaks, gets destroyed, or never arrives etc. This channel helps us discuss those issues when it arises, and the docs keeps a total amount so we can deal with the losses at tax time.

Variation Adds (#fba-variationadds)

Whenever there is a variation that needs created on an Amazon listing, it goes into this channel to get sent to the admin team.

You can create any types of threads you want to help separate discussions with your team by subject. The more organized you are, the easier it is to grow.

Managing Team Projects and Tasks in Asana

Perhaps the greatest tool in our business for managing daily, weekly, and monthly tasks is Asana. There are resources all over the internet on how to create and manage projects in Asana, so we aren’t going to go in depth here, but we wanted to mention the importance of this program.

It’s incredible that the free version allows so much customization, and we highly suggest you check it out for managing your projects through lists and boards. All employees can be assigned tasks within the projects and comments, make notes, and keep each other filled in on the progress. If you can use Facebook, chances are you can use Asana. The layout is simple and user friendly.

Asana is the best way to stay on top of all your projects and tasks as your Amazon FBA or Online Arbitrage business grows.

If you are interested in growing your Online Arbitrage business, check out our premium online arbitrage lead lists.

Get Your Quick Weekly Update on News and Resources for Amazon Sellers!

Delivered to your inbox every week.

Need-to-know seller content only. No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

Read The Next Post:

6 Best Amazon Repricing Tools and Software of 2021