The Wholesale Formula Review – Scam or Legit? Exposed!

Are you looking for The Wholesale Formula review? If you want to make money online, you might have heard of The Wholesale Formula. But you may wonder if it is a scam.

It’s my passion to help people learn about online money-making opportunities. Over the years, I’ve reviewed a number of programs and software like The Wholesale Formula.

In the past week, I have thoroughly researched The Wholesale Formula so I can tell you more about it.

As a disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with The Wholesale Formula. It means I’m not paid to write this review. So you can be sure that my words are unbiased.

At the end of this review, I’ll also tell you a much better alternative that has enabled me to make a full-time passive income online.

In this review of The Wholesale Formula, I’m going to cover the following.

The Wholesale Formula Review – Key Takeaways

• Course Name: The Wholesale Formula
• Course Instructors: Dan Meadors and Dylan Frost
• Price: $2,497 (one-time) or $997 (3 monthly payments)
• Pros: The course content is easy to understand.
• Cons: The training course is too expensive; Building an Amazon FBA store requires a lot of upfront investment
• Overall Rating: 3/5
• Who is The Wholesale Formula For: Newbies who are willing to take risks and sell on Amazon
• The Best Alternative: An All-in-One Platform to Make Passive Income Online

In this review of The Wholesale Formula, I’m going to cover the following.

What is The Wholesale Formula?

The Wholesale Formula is not unique. It is merely a course that teaches an existing wholesale model on Amazon.

The process of selling wholesale on Amazon involves buying products directly from the manufacturer or supplier at a discount, then reselling them on Amazon for retail prices. 

Using this model, you can sell products with established demand from established brands.

This model may include multiple sellers selling the same product on Amazon or may include you as the only seller selling this particular product on Amazon.

However, it can be difficult to find a product that doesn’t already exist on Amazon (so you can claim dominance).

If you don’t have a strong sales history, you will probably be rejected by brand owners from selling their products.

Learn more: best Amazon FBA courses

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

How Does The Wholesale Formula Help You Make Money?

The Wholesale Formula (TWF) is an online course designed to help you start and grow a wholesale e-commerce business using Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).

While there are several methods for selling on Amazon, The Wholesale Formula focuses exclusively on the wholesale market on that platform. It’s all about buying in bulk, shipping the goods to Amazon’s FBA warehouses, and then selling them on Amazon.com.

Unlike other courses that focus on competition rather than collaboration between small businesses, this course allows you to help those businesses while making money for yourself.

Once a year, in the middle of winter, between January and February, TWF registration begins. This is the only time new participants can join the course.

An Overview of The Wholesale Formula Course

The Wholesale Formula training consists of six modules featuring over 90 in-depth videos.

In case you don’t know what is Amazon FBA, here’s the video for you:

Module 1: Orientation

Understand the basics of the ‘Reverse Sourcing Wholesale’ model. During this module, international students will also learn how to create an Amazon account.

Module 2: Product Analysis

This module contains 10 videos that teach you how to analyze products on Amazon to find potential winners. You’ll also learn about the ‘Buy Box’, the sales rank, and competition analysis.

Module 3: Scouting

The purpose of this module is to introduce you to the TWF Scouting and Sourcing system. Leaf Sourcing, Amazon filtering, and Jungle Scout are covered.

Module 4 – Value Propositions

Get noticed by potential brands and increase your account approvals. Get tips for building your website, using PPC, optimizing listings, and more.

Module 5 – Sourcing

Dan and Dylan teach you the systems they use in order to contact brand owners, open wholesale accounts, and negotiate lower prices. You will also learn how to accurately forecast sales so that you can place initial orders and reorders without missing a sale.

Module 6 – Growth

Once you master the core course material and your business is running smoothly, it’s time to start implementing the same automation techniques they used to scale to the 8-figure level.

The Wholesale Formula Bonuses

1. The Wholesale Formula Alumni Facebook group allows you to ask questions and share strategies with other students.

2. Access to ‘VA Launchpad‘ – An introductory course on hiring and training virtual assistants. Developing your Amazon wholesale business this way will let you outsource most of the work.

3. Discounts on essential software like Jungle Scout and Tactical Arbitrage.

4. Files & Resources – Templates for contacting brand owners and wholesalers. Also included are communication templates, cheat sheets, calculators, checklists, and spreadsheets to help you get up to speed.

5. TWF Webinar Recordings – Over 10 hours of webinar replays teach you about sourcing, growth, product analysis and more.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Who Created The Wholesale Formula Course?

In 2011, Dan Meadors and Dylan Frost started their Amazon Sales business as a side hustle in Kentucky and designed the Wholesale Formula course.

In Dan’s and Dylan’s words, they invested $600 to get started. In order to start their business, they had to overcome several obstacles.

It just so happened that the two partners experimented till they discovered how to generate income on Amazon in a simple way.

Since then, the two decided that everyone should have access to their success formula if they are willing to purchase their courses.

Their decision to sell courses instead of expanding their Amazon FBA business is a good one. Amazon has become so competitive that sellers are finding it hard to make profits over the long term.

As you can see, this seller is quitting Amazon even though she makes over $10K sales a month. I’m not saying you can’t make money on Amazon. 

A small number of top sellers can earn 100k in profit per year. However, there are many obstacles to overcome before you can achieve that.

I’ll talk more about the problems with the Amazon FBA business model in the next section. 

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

What is Reverse Sourcing Wholesale?

First, a successful Amazon wholesale business can be built using one of three primary tactics. These would be:

• Scouting: Discover items that have already proven successful on Amazon.
• Sourcing: This requires contacting manufacturers and asking them questions about their products.
• Scaling: This means managing, growing and systematizing your Amazon sales activities.

TWF uses a method called reverse sourcing wholesale. Walmart, Costco, and Amazon all use the exact same wholesale method.

Reverse Sourcing Wholesale refers to buying in bulk directly from the manufacturer. When you buy directly from the brand owner, you save time and hassle. The ability to negotiate a lower price is an added bonus.

Dan and Dylan walk you through the complete method in this course. The technique helps the duo distinguish what works and what doesn’t in their company.

Wholesale Vs. Private Label

Contacting the manufacturer directly is an essential part of the wholesale process. In this way, you can avoid dealing with difficult and troublesome sellers.

It is also not necessary to launch a brand new product and create a brand new Amazon listing. New product launches on Amazon are not easy or cheap.

Private labeling requires a launch on Amazon.com. One possible downside is that it may take a while for people to start buying your products.

You can make quick sales by wholesaling popular products using existing product listings.

Wholesale Vs. Retail Arbitrage 

When your inventory runs low, you can replenish it quickly through wholesale.

In contrast, maintaining an Amazon business through retail or online arbitrage requires constant sourcing of products and tracking of deals.

Another advantage of wholesaling is that you’re less likely to run afoul of applicable policies. If you follow the rules, brand owners won’t have to send you legal notices.

If you choose to wholesale, you can avoid disputes with manufacturers by working directly with them.

Cons and Complaints of The Wholesale Formula

1. The Good Reviews are Written by The Wholesale Formula’s Affiliates

You probably have found some other reviews of The Wholesale Formula and all of them are saying good words.

All of them, however, actually receive a large commission if you purchase The Wholesale Formula using their links. Therefore, their words are often biased and not trustworthy.

The reviews are merely sales pages that do not inform you about the hidden costs or the difficulty of making money using The Wholesale Formula’s strategies. 

Should you trust someone who has a conflict of interest and receives huge compensation to “review” a course? No, probably not. It’s not a review, it’s a sale!

Therefore, I recommend reading the reviews of those written by the non-affiliates of The Wholesale Formula.

I tried to search for the real user reviews of The Wholesale Formula on Trustpilot, which is the most credible review site:

However, it’s weird to find no reviews at all on Trustpilot. This is unusual for a course that claims to have helped thousands of people succeed in Amazon FBA. 

If it’s true, there should be many good ratings there.

2. It’s extremely hard to find products that aren’t sold on Amazon

You have a chance to establish yourself as the exclusive seller if you find a product that isn’t already available on Amazon. However, this becomes far more difficult as Amazon becomes more ubiquitous.

Even if you are lucky enough to become an exclusive seller, you could soon face fierce competition because other sellers also want to take advantage of the wholesale benefits.

3. Price war reduces profitability

There’s a small chance that you’ll become the exclusive seller, which means you’ll compete with other sellers who sell the same products.

Price war is ubiquitous on Amazon. Whenever a seller tries to attract more customers by lowering the prices, other sellers will be forced to cut their prices as well. 

To avoid a net loss, you might have to cut the product costs. This results in lower product quality, negative feedback from customers and hence a drop in sales. 

Apart from the intense competition, you have to deal with changing sales tax laws, category restrictions and Amazon policies.

In the worst case, Amazon might even ban your account permanently if you mistakenly violate some rules. 

4. FBA Business is sophisticated

You have to face a lot of challenges in Amazon FBA. For instance, you’ll have to negotiate with suppliers, make comparisons on shipping companies, freight forwarders and comply with the regulations of Amazon and local governments, etc. 

This process is too sophisticated for beginners who might be just looking for a side hustle or a source of passive income that requires little time and investment. 

5. Inventory Risk

Cash flow is the lifeblood of a business. However, in the wholesale business model, you have to invest a considerable amount of money to purchase inventories from suppliers.

Manufacturers’ demands for high order quantities mean you will not only have to make a significant investment in inventory upfront, but you will also have to deal with all the risks that come with stocking high levels of inventory.

In most cases, production may take 1-2 months depending on the nature of the products and quantity. Afterwards, it takes 2 weeks for shipment and customs clearance before arriving at the Amazon warehouse.

This process indicates that it can take up to months before you’re paid for the inventory you bought.

6. New sellers are often rejected by brand owners

Dylan and Dan claim that they teach you the exact steps they use to build relationships with brand owners.

In reality, if you are a relatively new seller without much of a track record, you are likely to face an uphill battle when it comes to obtaining the approval of brand owners to sell their products wholesale.

Brand owners care so much about their reputations. They won’t risk giving new sellers exclusive rights to sell their products because they don’t know if you can provide good customer service, follow Amazon regulations and ship the products on time, etc.

Brand owners might have their brands ruined if a new seller uses some inappropriate marketing tactics, such as making false claims about the products.

7. The Wholesale Formula Course is Too Expensive

The Wholesale Formula costs $2,497, which is very expensive for most people who are still exploring how to make money online.

To launch a business on Amazon, you will need $15-20k, at least. Using the wholesale model, you also need to make a significant upfront financial investment in inventory.

You’ll face costly storage fees from products that are sitting in Amazon’s warehouse. 

Investing in a course when you have yet to make a penny is not a wise decision. It’s risky to invest thousands of dollars, while you are not sure it works or not.

In contrast, a better alternative that I will talk about later is much cheaper. You will get comprehensive training, domain registration, web hosting, writing tools etc with a low subscription fee (the first month is just $19!)

It’s much cheaper and easier to get started when compared with The Wholesale Formula.

8. Lack of Successful Stories of Students

While The Wholesale Formula claims that a lot of their students see results from the training, there is no verified evidence to show this.

You may see some testimonials on their website as proof of the success stories. But there is no way to verify if those are true results or not.

Also, some students who joined The Wholesale Formula are not beginners, and they already have a well-established Amazon FBA store before joining. 

So their results might not be attributed to the training of The Wholesale Formula. That means even if some do get results, it’s unlikely that you can do the same if you are a complete newbie.

Moreover, while Dan and Dylan teach people how to make money using the wholesale model, most of their revenue comes from The Wholesale Formula course instead. That makes the whole thing not convincing at all.

9. It only offers a 30-day money-back guarantee

A 30-day refund guarantee is far from enough. It’s hard to decide if the course works for you in a month. 

The course takes 1-2 weeks to complete. Thereafter, you have to set up your Amazon account, create a store on Amazon, and reach out to manufacturers etc. 

It’s too late for a refund if you discover that the course doesn’t work for you. You won’t be able to get back your hard-earned money then. 

However, my #1 recommended platform has a free membership plan, where you can get access to the first level training and even build a free website.

If you like it and feel good to go further, you can then upgrade to the premium plan at a 50% discount for the first month. So you don’t need to worry about making a bad investment.

10. Traffic Strategies Are Poorly Covered in The Wholesale Formula

It is very disappointing that The Wholesale Formula doesn’t put a lot of focus into teaching students how to drive traffic to their Amazon stores.

But for any business, traffic is the key. A business without traffic, meaning no visitors, is not a business. You will not get sales at all.

In The Wholesale Formula, the instructors do not cover enough about running Facebook ads to do promotion. Facebook ads are one of the most effective ways to drive traffic for any online business.

According to Facebook, there are over 6 million businesses running Facebook ads. So you can see the importance of it nowadays. The fact that The Wholesale Formula does not teach you much is very disappointed, especially when you consider the expensive course price.

For those who don’t want to run paid ads, you may want to content marketing to drive traffic. But again The Wholesale Formula doesn’t teach you how to do this. I can’t imagine how the students make money without knowing this important traffic strategy.

My #1 recommended platform is different. It has very comprehensive coverage on content marketing and hence people there know how to drive traffic to their online business.

11. The Free Wholesale 101 Guide is merely a sales letter

Dan and Dylan at The Wholesale Formula have kindly offered to give you a free guide that reveals their secret to building a multi-million dollar company for only $600.

Is that possible? What’s the point of their expensive course if you can learn the secrets in a free guide?

That’s just a sales tactic. They just want to collect your email address so that they can pitch you their courses over email.

In order to confirm if the free guide is just a sales pitch, I gave them one of my email addresses and I had access to the so-called free guide.

There is very little information inside, as expected. The screenshot below shows that it only has 18 pages.

There are a few lines on each page. Just that. Then you will be asked to learn more and join the waitlist, another sales tactic!

12. Your Amazon Store May Be Banned Suddenly

When you are selling on Amazon, you have to comply with a lot of complicated rules and regulations set by Amazon.

If you violate any one of them, your whole store will be taken down completely by Amazon. Some are permanent bans, meaning you won’t be able to sell on Amazon again. There are many reasons that Amazon can ban your store.

Amazon changes its policies from time to time, so even if you are careful, you may get banned suddenly. After all, Amazon has the final decision-maker.

That’s why when it comes to online business, I don’t recommend people to build your asset on other people’s platforms. You should build your own website instead.

You lack the controlling power when you build your whole asset on Amazon. You don’t actually own the store, but Amazon does. You may lose everything overnight.

My #1 recommended platform is different. It will teach you how to build an asset that nobody can take away from you, which makes your business much more sustainable. After all, you don’t want your asset to be destroyed overnight after spending a lot of time and money.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Who is The Wholesale Formula For?

All walks of life can benefit from the training that Wholesale Formula offers.

And while I agree that many people with little experience can make money through Amazon FBA, I don’t think it’s the easiest or most reliable method.

While this is true for private labeling, it seems that the heyday of Amazon FBA is over. The wholesale market seems to have less strong competition, but that is deceptive.

The Wholesale Formula Pricing

There are two ways to participate in the wholesale formula training:

• $2997 one-time
• 4 monthly payments of $874

The sum of the latter is equal to $3496.

Both options will give you the permanent access.

However, you should set aside some additional funds to purchase items for resale on Amazon. TWF suggests setting aside $2,000 as a “minimum initial budget” to purchase stock.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

The Wholesale Formula Discount

I’ve looked everywhere for a promo code or discount for The Wholesale Formula, but I can’t find it.

I’m sorry but you have to pay full price or leave empty-handed.

Refund Policy

Only one-time payments can be refunded within 30 days of purchase from The Wholesale Formula.

Customers who have already paid in full and would like a refund can do so by emailing [email protected]. The refund policy has no additional requirements or restrictions, making it easy for customers. Within 5-7 business days, the refund will be transferred to the customer’s account after it’s processed by our team.

Having seen many other online courses that have a refund policy for all students, even those with payment plans, I find this one unfair.

Positive and Negative Feedback From Students of The Wholesale Formula

Positive Feedback

• Testimonials and student success stories abound.
• The training is both practical and in-depth.
• Created by top Amazon sellers.
• There are no dubious marketing strategies.

Negative Feedback

• There are no refunds for monthly payments.
• The cost of the training is significant.
• The training is offered only once a year.

Is The Wholesale Formula a Scam or Legit?

I can’t say The Wholesale Formula is a scam. There is no evidence to prove so. In fact, you can learn quite a lot about Amazon FBA from Dan and Dylan in the course.

After all, The Wholesale Formula is very expensive, and hence you will receive some value from the course for sure.

That said, I’m not sure if Dan and Dylan had made so much money from Amazon since the net profit margins for most FBA stores are so thin.

Their major source of income appears to be online courses because they have put so much effort into promoting The Wholesale Formula instead of their Amazon stores. 

Also, if you want to become a successful Amazon seller after enrolling in their course, you might not realise your dream. 

The reason is that Dan and Dylan only tell you the bright side of Amazon FBA but not the problems with selling on Amazon.

Personally, I don’t recommend buying The Wholesale Formula because I cannot see many verified success stories of students. Very likely, you will lose a lot of money at the end of the day.

Instead, I have a better recommendation for you, which has enabled me to make 4-5 figure monthly passive income in less than a year.

This alternative is much easier and doesn’t require huge initial capital to get started. You can build a digital asset that can generate passive income for you while you are sleeping.

It is totally legit and sustainable.

If you want to know more about it, let me tell you in detail in the last section.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

The Wholesale Formula Review: Final Verdict

I don’t recommend The Wholesale Formula. It’s too expensive and not worth the price. Most importantly, it’s hard to make money with Amazon FBA even if you learn from The Wholesale Formula.

Many people end up burning a lot of money after diving into this business model. So you won’t see a lot of successful stories from The Wholesale Formula.

The Wholesale Formula is an overhyped course that aims to make money from the students, instead of helping people to make money online.

So if you are a newbie and want to make passive income online, I have a better recommendation for you, which I will tell you in detail in the next section. Read on.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Is There Any Better Alternative to Make Money Online?

If you’re new to online business, you might wonder if there’s a better business model that doesn’t need initial capital and can do it as a side-hustle.

Of all the business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far.  

In affiliate marketing, you can run your business almost with zero cost. Most importantly, you don’t need to invest in creating and developing any products.

Also, it is less time consuming since you don’t have to manage inventory or handle customer service.

You can enjoy a steady stream of passive income while going on vacation or working a full-time job.

Since the world is full of uncertainty, I’d always choose a business model that has the lowest risk.

But How Much Can You Earn in Affiliate Marketing?

A 21-year old student from my #1 recommended training platform of affiliate marketing was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods and affiliate marketing.

Wealthy Affiliate has existed for more than 10 years and there are many success stories over the years.
To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.

If you don’t trust my words, you can go to Trustpilot to see what the members have to say:

At the time of writing, Wealthy Affiliate is rated 4.8 out of 5, which is excellent. It’s incredible to get such a high rating with more than 400 reviews.

If there are only two or three good reviews, you may say they are fake reviews. But you cannot fake it when there are more than 400 reviews there. Remember, Trustpilot has a very intelligent system to detect fake reviews.

Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has a free and premium membership.

If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.

And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, access to the keyword tool.

You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny. 

So I strongly recommend you to register a free account and see it yourself.

If you’d like to be the next success story and get the most out of Wealthy Affiliate, you can upgrade to the Premium Membership later. 

After that, you can get access to everything without the bother of any upsells.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

The Wholesale Formula Alternatives

Private Label Masters

For those looking for an alternative to The Wholesale Formula, Private Label Masters is undoubtedly a good Amazon FBA training program available. Tim Sanders is currently an active Amazon seller and has done over $60 million in sales in the last few years.

Both new and experienced merchants will benefit from the lessons on the central topic of this course, Private Label. The Amazon PPC training is top-notch, and there are weekly live coaching calls. Pricing for Private Label Masters starts at $5,000 with flexible financing options.

You can learn more about the program in my Private Label Masters review.

Wholesale Academy by Larry Lubarsky

We found Wholesale Academy by Larry Lubarsky to be a helpful and comprehensive wholesale training program on the market.

He, like Tim Sanders, is a multi-millionaire wholesaler who got his start in 2012. In 2021, he generated $15,000,000 in sales. The price for this course is $1,997, and once enrolled, members have access to more than 40 hours of video training, a private Facebook community for mutual support, and two monthly live coaching calls with Larry.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative