I have discussed Buying Groups briefly as a type of Manufactured Spending in an earlier review. I will recap a few important points below:
Buying Clubs and/or Buying Groups
- A Buying (Buyers) Club is a group of consumers who pool their purchasing power to negotiate a group discount and also overcome the household limit on the number of orders.
- Buying Clubs typically either reimburse below cost or above cost compared to the final purchase cost of an item.
- Once the Buyers Club/Group receives the items, they will pay the group members within 7-14 business days (some may take over a month during Thanksgiving or Amazon Prime Day sales).
- Most of the well-known buying groups (Buy For Me Retail, Max Out Deals, Buying Group, Points Maker) are known to operate honestly. However, interested readers should do their own research and start out with small purchases.
- State sales taxes are not refunded by these groups, and to circumvent this problem, they list the shipping addresses of warehouses located in tax-free states (e.g., Delaware).
- Consumers will save money on sales tax by drop-shipping the purchased items to these specific addresses.
- The biggest issue with Buyers Group purchases is the risk of getting your orders canceled or accounts banned by merchants (e.g., Best Buy, Dell, Costco) once they blacklist the reseller shipping addresses provided by the Buyers Club/Group.
- Amazon.com ships to Buying Group addresses in low quantities and can ban your account if you use Amazon gift cards to pay for the purchases.
- This type of manufactured spending works well for people who live in sales tax-free states and also for business accounts with a state sales tax exemption for reselling the purchased items.
- In some cases, consumers are willing to absorb sales tax and/or shipping fee losses depending on the particular deal (e.g., Costco store specials, Dell purchases after Amex Business Platinum discounts, etc.,).
- Members are responsible for any lost or damaged shipments and must go through the hassle of reaching out to the vendor and/or shipping company. In some cases (e.g., damaged shipments of Apple products), Amazon.com will only issue refunds if you bring the product to a local shipping center and will not email a shipping label.
- I encourage readers to also maximize their earnings by stacking their purchases with a cashback portal (e.g., Rakuten.com with Amex MR points instead of cashback).
- It is important to create a detailed spreadsheet of all Buyer’s Club/Group purchases with screen shots of the agreement, PDF file of the receipts, the credit card used etc.,
- Consumers are responsible for paying federal taxes on their profits (e.g., >$1000 annually) and may request a 1099 form from the Buying Club/Group. However, making a profit is very unlikely since you are more likely to lose money in the end.
- The advantage of buying and selling with a buyers club is that you are locking-in an agreed-upon price and able to generate significant cash-back or credit card points from the comfort of your couch (couch MS).
- There is always the risk that the Buying Club may not hold up their end of the bargain (e.g., going out of business).
My Major Method of Manufactured Spending
Until last year, I was using Simon Mall gift card purchases (review) as my main method of meeting the spend requirements (to get a bonus or Hyatt Globalist status) and to generate credit card points (e.g., Chase or Capital One). That source dried up last year after Western Union stopped accepting gift cards in place of debit cards when requesting money orders (review).
These days, I am simply paying rent for several of my friends (losing 3% in fees) and prepaying my bills to meet the spending requirements on new credit cards.
My attempt at Buying Group purchases
Buy For Me Retail (BFMR) is one of the oldest Buying Groups and has a trusted number of followers with good reviews. The sign-up process was very simple and I was able to see the deals on their webpage.
I know from research that using any retailer other than Amazon will result in order cancellations. Hence, I clicked on the “In Stock” tab and chose Amazon only from the list of “Retailers” (see image below).
My personal Amazon account details
- My Amazon account is over 10 years old and I was risking a ban by attempting the Buying Group purchases.
- I have NO gift cards in my Amazon account.
- I used a single credit card (Hyatt business).
- I have listed BFMR’s primary shipping address with small modifications (did not matter in the end).
Problems with Amazon purchases when shipping to Buying Groups
- The prices change on Amazon.com when you click on the links provided by the Buying Groups. I was not able to buy expensive items (e.g., laptops) due to the price change (see image below).
- The earliest Amazon.com shipping date may be delayed due to low quantities (see image above with search done on 2/10/25). You would want Prime shipments to go within 4-5 days so you can get paid before the deal changes on the Buying Group.
- Quantity restrictions: For personal accounts you expect at least 3 items, but Amazon was cancelling the order when I chose 2 and 3 items.
Amazon Business Account & Buying Group shipments
I figured I would open an Amazon Business account since the order cancellation email specifically requests it. Creating an Amazon Business account took a few minutes as a Sole Proprietor and both my personal and business accounts got linked. I will summarize my business shopping experience below:
- I placed an order for an Apple iPad (quantity 2) and my order went through with the business account (it was cancelled earlier with the Personal Amazon account).
- I tried purchasing Apple AirPods 4 in a larger quantity of 8 and my order was again cancelled despite using my Business Amazon account.
- Amazon business accounts seem to have fewer cancellations compared to personal accounts, especially if you keep your order quantities low.
- However, there are still shipping quantity restrictions to Buying Groups despite having an Amazon Business account.
- I recommend starting with shipping in low quantities and gradually scaling up the process as permitted by the Amazon.com.
- There is still a possibility of a permanent ban by Amazon after sending drop shipments to Buying Groups in large quantities.
Conclusion
My goal with the Buying Group purchases is to spend at least $2000 USD per month on my Hyatt business card to get Globalist status for the upcoming year. I need 20K total on that card to get the 10 Hyatt qualifying nights that I am short of to claim the Globalist status. So far, I am having very little luck with purchasing large quantities of low priced items or finding high priced items in stock.