Wholesale Academy is a brand new course that claims to show you how to create, run, and scale your Amazon wholesale business to six, seven, or even eight figures as quickly as possible. The course is created by Larry Lubarsky and says any Amazon novice can transform themselves into an FBA wholesale pro.
What is Wholesale Academy?
The course currently offers over 50 video lessons, which includes 40 hours of training accompanied by additional resources such as supplier, email addresses, and cold calling phone scripts. Additionally, to this, you get live group coaching calls with Larry as well as business workflows and checklists.
Wholesale Academy also includes a community group in the form of a Facebook group (bonus) where you can ask questions with other students in the course.
The main course is currently split up into eight modules, which include orientation, understanding the business, finding profitable suppliers, buying the right products, shipping and logistics, managing your inventory, accounting, business health and growing your business.
Additionally to the main course, Larry has created the Wholesale Academy continuing education program. He claims that this is the equivalent of getting an MBA in Amazon wholesale. It sounds pretty bullshit to me, but after you've completed the the standard course, these is additional training on scaling your business.
You will access the additional premium content once you've completed the main course, and this addon content deep dives into product research dealing with policy violations and complaints, leveraging virtual assistants to scale your business, listing optimization, standard operating procedures, selling on Amazon in Europe, plus a lot more.
Additionally to this you get five more bonuses.
Who is Larry Lubarsky?
Larry claims to have been a high school drop out with $100k of debt who went to bringing in $18 million selling stuff on Amazon. Now he's got a course where you can learn how to do the same.
Featured by entrepreneurs writer, Tom Huddleston Jr, he's been featured in editorials for Forbes and CNBC about his journey from rags to riches.
To give you some context here, Larry has over 3,000 products listed on Amazon and takes 1,500 orders per day. That's a lot of products to buy, import and list in the Amazon warehouse.
Regardless, it shows that Larry practices what he preaches and does make money with Amazon FBA.
As Larry says, "Amazon business is the same as starting a brick and mortar business, there's a million different things that can go wrong, but for the person who's willing to put in the work, it's a credible business."
So what Larry is saying is that Amazon FBA isn't for lazy people or those looking for an overnight cash cow. If that's you then I wouldn't bother buying his course, you'll only want a refund that you probably won't get.
How much does Wholesale Academy cost?
Currently the course costs $1,997 for lifetime access.
Alternatively you can pay four payments of $697. Logic says you'll save $791 if you buy upfront which is a huge difference in price.
When you purchase a membership to wholesale Academy, you get access to the basic course and his advanced scaling course. You can purchase the course with credit card only.
Wholesale Academy Bonuses
Bonus 1: Live Coaching
The first bonus is a twice a month live group coaching call with Larry where you can ask your Amazon questions about the wholesale business.
If you can't attend these live coaching calls, they will be recorded and you can access them later.
Bonus 2: Special Guests
You get access to interactive guests training with other eight figure wholesalers who will show you how they built their businesses, the mistakes they made, and ultimately any questions that you may have for them, will be answered.
Larry claims that he is bringing some of the biggest and best wholesale names in the industry to help the students of his Academy. At the time of posting this review, I couldn't see any big name wholesale sellers.
However, it can be difficult to understand and fully appreciate who is actually making serious money in the Amazon wholesale game.
Bonus 3: Amazon EU/UK Course
Bonus three is an Amazon UK and EU course. So if you're not based in the United States, you can apply the knowledge from this course for operating your business in Europe or targeting a overseas market such as the UK.
It would have been interesting to see a course specifically for the Australian market where Amazon has recently launched, as well as maybe some smaller countries where Amazon has a presence as well, I'm sure quite a few people there will buy Wholesale Academy.
You will learn how to capitalize on Amazon's European FBA network by taking advantage of 26 additional countries and the large number of prime customers in these locations.
You will learn how to understand and prepare for overseas shipping and logistics and how to maximize profitable gains and minimize your risks and liability when dealing in foreign markets.
You will also learn about the principle of VAT which is value added tax, the equivalent of us sales tax . It would be very beneficial to hire the services of an accountant here or a financial tax advisor.
However, Larry does provide some basic insights into how you can get set up with value at a tax in the European union.
Bonus 4: Amazon Bundles 101
Bonus four is an Amazon Bundle 101, which is a course that is very short, but will provide some information on how to boost your sales and profits using bundles.
Larry claims he'll show you how to research, create and profit from super profitable bundle opportunities.
This course currently has not been released and will be available to members in January, 2020
Bonus 5: Custom Amazon Software
Bonus number five includes three months access to his own custom Amazon software, which will be released in 2020.
We have no idea what this software will be. However, I can only imagine it will be something like a product research tool or a product management tool.
Lastly, there is a resource library which provides access to done for you scripts and email templates. An example here is a supplier script and an email template for contacting suppliers.
You also get a product sourcing workflow, a potential product and supplier Excel sheet that you can work through. You also learn how to appeal policy violations and what templates to use when contacting Amazon's customer service.
Finally, there is a group discount on the supplies done for you websites and some additional service providers and the industry.
Bonus 6: Facebook Group
The last bonus is access to the Facebook group which currently has 424 members since October 2018. The group gets on average 23 posts per day and 500 per month which is quite a lot.
It's clear the group is established and successful.
Wholesale Academy Review
I'll now be going through the course content in detail:
Module 1: Orientation
Then the first module is on orientation and basically provides an overview of the course, what you can expect, and how to get the right mindset for starting an Amazon wholesale business.
Given you've bought a course on Amazon FBA you'd probably already know?
Module 2: Business Model
Module number two is understanding the business.
So if you were unsure of how this business model works, you should watch the four videos in this module to get a deeper understanding of the Amazon marketplace, the wholesale business model, and how to properly set your business up for success.
The videos in this module are very basic deed, and given you've just purchased a course on Amazon wholesale, chances are you already know a little bit about Amazon FBA or the seller central.
Module 3: Finding Suppliers
Module three is all about finding profitable suppliers. In this module, you will learn the core milestone of what spells true success for a profitable business.
Your Amazon wholesale business, and ultimately without a profitable supplier, you do not have a profitable business.
There are eight methods across nine hours of training in this module on how to find and get yourself set up with a profitable supplier. You will learn how to contact suppliers the correct way.
It's important you watch this video as a lot of inexperienced sellers do this incorrectly.
video is in this section include category filtering, leaf sourcing, software filtering, targeting the competition, using trade show lists to find suppliers.
How would you create successful wholesale accounts?
How to contact distributors and wholesalers and how to contact brands directly to find out where to buy their products from.
Module 4: Buying Products
This is the first module in the course and Franklin recommends you start off here before diving into the course content.
You'll get access to two videos and two books, a brief introduction to the course, himself and how to approach the course.
The main video of interest is the 'Looking at Results' video which shows you a small handful of successful students. There's over 6,000 students in the course with most succeeding with their dropshipping career.
Module 5: Shipping Logistics
Module five looks at shipping and logistics, and it was a fairly basic video on the entire process of handling, running, and operating your business in terms of shipping and logistics.
This included creating shipments, preparing products, managing your inventory, workflow, supplier shipping, and working with preparation centers.
Module 6: Managing Inventory
Module six looks at managing your inventory and how to keep track of your products on Amazon.
Understanding how and when to reorder your inventory, how to manage your money, and how to keep track of your accounting within Amazon.
Videos in this module included seven on the topics of inventory management, keeping track of products, pricing and competition, replenishing strategies, inventory management, and inventory health.
Module 7: Account Health
Module seven looked at accounting health. This is your accounts with Amazon and how to deal with issues, complaints, IP violations, and potential account suspensions.
You'll also learn how to deal with difficult and tricky customers, how to deal with negative feedback and potentially removing negative feedback.
Module 8: Growing Business
The last module shows you how to keep your account management in good order.
Module eight looked at growing your business and included three videos on how to succeed in wholesale, how to graduate from the course, and how to watch the additional advanced training for Amazon wholesalers ready to scale.
What I think of Wholesale Academy?
The course content offers a lot, there's good material here. It's not the longest course but it does cover all the foundations, basics and advanced techniques to start, grow and scale an FBA business.
The Facebook group offers a lot of value and it's easy to see why so many people are jumping on Wholesale Academy right now, but...
Ultimately, Amazon FBA is a fairly lucrative business model. However, if you're based outside the United States or in a country such as the United Kingdom, then Amazon FBA can very tricky. Markets such as Australia, Canada are pretty slow for sales.
The question of taxes is often missed in courses such as Wholesale Academy and you'll need to speak with an accountant or tax advisor which can push your start up costs up by thousands.
Selling products with FBA means shipping your products to a warehouse in the USA from your supplier in China. You may never see the goods yourself but when buying in bulk, one small issue could be an expensive mistake. What if the products don't sell? You're stuck with excess stock!
Additionally to this, what most people forget to mention is that 20% of every sale goes straight to Amazon, you also have to pay a shipping fee and factor in returns. You also have to pay to store the products at the warehouse whether they sell or not.
You have to ship your products to Amazon, you have to deal with returns, and if someone wants to return a product, it's no questions asked that money is coming out of your account.
They will be giving them the money back and Amazon will get the product back. It's then up to you to decide how you get these products back. You'll have to get Amazon to dispose of them, give them to charity, or you have to pay to have them sent back to you.
Unfortunately, most courses such as wholesale Academy simply do not mention any of these costs. The idea is to sell you on the dream of starting your own Amazon FBA business. They make bold promises about how much money you can make, and yes, you can make money.
There are a lot of people making a lot of money from Amazon FBA.
However, it's a tight margin business. You need to sell a lot of product to make a lot of money.
Last Updated on November 5, 2019 by Rhys Dale
Rhys is the owner and chief editor at Im Rhys and is living in Chisinau, Moldova. With over 15 years experience in eCommerce and Affiliate Marketing he has started many successful 6 and 7 figure businesses. After successes with USA and China dropshipping, he expanded into building 70+ micro affiliate websites in 30 different niches that generate money on autopilot. He now helps his wife to run her social media agency as well as travelling the world at every opportunity.
Hi Rhys,
Thanks for the awesome review on Larry’s course.
Appreciate your insight into this.
We’re currently selling on Amazon in the UK, but as private label, but it’s cool to see that there are other options out there with the wholesale angle.
Thanks
James