Chapter 13: Filters, and "why am I seeing no results?"

What you'll learn: how ArbiSource's filters fit together, which ones beginners most often get wrong, and a step-by-step troubleshooter for when a page or scan comes back empty.

Chapter 4.3 gave you a set of starter filters. This chapter explains the thinking behind them, so you can adjust them with confidence.

What filters are for

Filters are there to remove the obvious "no"s, not to turn every result into an instant buy. You'll still judge each lead yourself with the Lead Check. Make your filters so strict that only perfect products get through and you'll see very few results, and lose the "amber" leads that often make good Test-buys.

Keep the key rule in mind: a result must pass every filter at once.

The filters that matter most

Profit and ROI. Your minimum profit and ROI. Keep them realistic while you learn (Chapter 4.3). If you usually pay sales tax on purchases, you can optionally set the ROI a few points higher to allow for it (Chapter 6).

Fixed Cost counts first. If you've entered a Fixed Cost (say $0.50 for prep), it's added to the cost before your minimum profit is checked. So a $0.50 Fixed Cost and a $3 minimum profit means a product needs $3.50 before your costs to appear.

Average profit. Tick this to also require the profit to hold up on average over a period you choose. Set it slightly below your normal minimum profit. It removes results that only look profitable because of a brief spike in the Amazon price.

BSR: minimum vs maximum. This is the one people most often get backward. A low BSR number means a product sells well. So:

• A maximum BSR (or BSR %) removes slow sellers. This is usually what you want.
• A minimum BSR removes the best sellers. Most beginners should leave it at zero.

Switch to BSR % (Chapter 8) to use one setting across every category. To turn BSR filtering off, open both sliders fully.

Estimated sales. A minimum monthly sales figure. Don't stack it on top of a tight BSR limit at first; they do similar jobs.

Match confidence. How sure ArbiSource is that the retail product and the Amazon listing are the same. Around 70% is a sensible minimum. Going much higher (such as 90%) removes many genuine matches; going lower shows more leads but more mismatches to check by hand. Pairing UPC/EAN-only matches with a slightly lower confidence can uncover products that match on barcode but have different photos.

Exclusions. Check boxes remove results without a Buy Box or a BSR, oversize items, products with missing fees (Exclude Results with Missing Fees), listings where Amazon is selling (Exclude When Amazon on Listing), restricted products (Exclude Restricted/Gated), potential IP issues, out-of-stock items, hazmat products and reported mismatches. You'll find them in the Exclusions section of Account → Global Filters and of the Filters drawer on the Results page (where some labels are shorter, such as Exclude Missing Fees). Use them, but turn them on knowingly.

FBA only?

There's no "has an FBA seller" filter. The nearest is Exclude Results with Missing Fees: Amazon calculates an FBA fee for products that can be sent in, so a missing fee often means no one has sold the product through FBA.

Jasmine (SellerAmp) sets up profit, ROI, sales and exclusion filters, then saves them (from 1:45 to about 5:00).

Filters and scans

• Scan filters are fixed when you create the scan. Changing your account filters later doesn't change a scan that's queued or running. To use new filters, stop the scan and start it again.
• "Matching Amazon Products" isn't the same as results. A scan tells you how many products it matched on Amazon. Only those that are profitable and pass your filters become results. With No Filters, the difference is the products that aren't profitable at the current price.
• Filter Sets. After changing filters in the Filters drawer (or on Account → Global Filters), click Save Filter Set to keep them under a name (up to 20 characters, each name different; up to 25 sets). The Filter Set dropdown at the top lets you switch between sets, such as Default or No Filters, or delete one. Overwrite Filter Set updates the selected set.

Why am I seeing no results? A troubleshooter

Work through these in order. The first three steps solve most empty pages.

1. Reset to no filters. In the Vault, clear the filters (or choose No Filters from the Filter Set dropdown) and see whether results appear. If they do, your account is working; it's the filters.
2. Add filters back one at a time. Add one, check, then add the next. When the results vanish, you've found the culprit.
3. Look for a conflicting pair. The classic is a minimum BSR of 15,000 plus a minimum of 10 sales: the BSR filter removes the fast sellers, and the sales filter removes everything else. Others: a high Fixed Cost plus a high minimum profit, or a high minimum buy cost plus high profit and ROI.
4. Check match confidence. If it's 90% or higher, bring it back to around 70%.
5. Check exclusions and hidden items. Some exclusions are on by default, including Exclude Results with Missing Fees and Exclude Mismatches. Excluding restricted products can remove a lot of results, because restrictions affect every seller, and new accounts are usually restricted in more brands (Chapter 3.3). Also check you haven't hidden stores or categories.
6. For a scan, check its filters, not your account filters. They were fixed when it was created.
7. For a Custom Scan or custom link, check the page. It must be a category page with a grid of products, not a single product page, a checkout page or (on some sites) a search results page (Chapter 15).
8. For a Reverse Search, check the list. A list of private-label or Amazon-only products will rarely find retail sources (Chapter 14).
9. Check your marketplace. Amazon.com ASINs need a US ArbiSource account linked to your Amazon.com seller account. The marketplace is set at sign-up; email support if it's wrong.
10. Still stuck? Email support with your account email, a screenshot of your filters and the scan or page you're looking at.

Video coming soon

"Why am I seeing no results?" walkthrough of this troubleshooter, recorded on the US version.

Checklist

• I know a result must pass every filter at once
• My minimum BSR is zero, and I limit slow sellers with a maximum
• My match confidence is around 70%
• I know a Fixed Cost is added before my minimum profit is checked
• I know scan filters are fixed when the scan is created
• I can work through the troubleshooter when a page is empty