If you’re thinking of getting into buying groups, either as a side-hustle source of income or a way to earn more credit card rewards points, you would be wise to do your research. In most cases, working with a buying group means sending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars of merchandise to someone and trusting that you will get paid on it.
In this article, I’ll share the questions I ask when considering working with a buying group and give my reviews of a few of the groups I’ve worked with.
In this article…
What makes a great buying group?
There are many buying groups out there and I’ve bought for many of the larger ones. Here’s what I look at when evaluating a buying group.
Payments: Prompt payment is key.
Prompt, consistent payments for the things you send to a buyers group is undoubtedly the single most important factor to consider when evaluating a buyers group. If you send thousands of dollars of laptops to a warehouse and don’t get paid for them, you stand to lose a lot of money… quickly. Here are the questions you should ask about payments:
- Does the buyers group offer a commitment to pay you promptly? And how consistent are they at meeting that commitment?
- Does the group post public status updates on payments? During busy times like Black Friday or Prime Day, payment timeframes will slip, simply because there’s a larger volume of work. The best buyers groups will communicate proactively with daily status updates about where they are at on payments.
- Are payments provided via ACH? Getting paid via ACH is much faster and requires less overhead than depositing a paper check. Paper checks are a paid and many bank ATMs and mobile deposit apps have trouble with the PDF checks that some groups provide. I’ve had buyers group checks held for 10 days by my bank while they waited for funds to clear.
Operations: Look for warehouse security and quick check-ins
Another key factor in evaluating a buying group is its operations. A buying group that runs like a well-oiled machine will lose fewer packages and get you paid faster. And how smoothly a buying group runs is no accident. It is the result of deliberate choices and the priorities of its management. Here’s what I consider:
- How secure are the operations? Delivery drivers will leave packages even when instructed not to…and packages left after hours will get stolen. Does the buyers group have someone receiving packages 24/7 or do they have a mechanism in place (such as gated access) to prevent deliveries outside of business hours?
- How quick are check-ins during peak times? Buying groups are highly seasonal businesses and most will do a lot of volume around Prime Day and Black Friday. Some groups plan for this—others don’t. Even during peak times, items that are delivered to a warehouse should still be getting checked in the same day.
- How easy is their system to use? As you scale up your work with a buyers group, you’ll find that you spend a lot of time entering tracking numbers and reconciling check-ins against your records. And if you’re like me, you’re optimizing on dollars per unit of your time. Is the system they have set up easy to use?
- How quickly are returns handled? Returns suck for everybody—they’re extra work for you, they are extra work for the buyers group, and nobody is making any money on a return. Ideally, buyers groups would be able to handle returns same-day or next-day. Unhandled returns can turn into lost items. You don’t want this.
Customer service: Things will go wrong. How is this handled?
At some point, something will go wrong. An item will get checked in at the wrong price, a merchant will ship the wrong item, a package will go missing… things will happen.
- Does the buying group have a ticketing system? I find that a ticketing system that shows the status of customer service requests helps me better track my requests.
- Are customer service requests responded to promptly? Whether it’s a damaged item or an incorrect price, the sooner customer service issues are handled, the more likely you’re going to be happy with the outcome. Return deadlines exist and it’s really hard to get a refund for a misdelivered package if it takes a month to investigate.
- Can you call or email a person directly if you need to? This isn’t important until it is. Having an escalation channel available can help get problems solved.
My experience with buyers groups
Here’s a bit about my experience buying with each of the buyers groups.
MaxOutDeals: Far and away the best
In my view, MaxOutDeals has been far and away the best buying group to work with in the last year. Recently, payments have been issued within a week of being requested. The owners actively participate in a Discord server and continuously update buyers about the status of payments and price changes.
Part of my review comes from my experience on the ground at the MaxOutDeals warehouse. As I started to ramp up my buying for MaxOutDeals, I decided to take a trip to New Castle, Delaware to meet the owners and tour their warehouse operations. The owners are heavily invested in continuously making the process better, the warehouse is well-organized, and their processes are smooth, efficient, and well-thought-out. I also better understand their business, which gives me confidence that I’ll get paid on the stuff I send them.
Most of my buying happens with MaxOutDeals these days.
Buying Group: Consistent, but deals fill fast
BuyingGroup.com is one of the only major groups with a warehouse in Oregon, which makes it a nice alternative when the Delaware-based groups eat up all of the MacBook inventory on the east coast. Before MaxOutDeals launched, Buying Group got the majority of my buys, but that has tapered off. I still buy for them consistently, but not in the volumes I once did.
Payments have always been speedy (within 2 weeks at worst) and I like the fact that BuyingGroup.com offers free shipping labels for more items than many of the other groups. Operations are consistently good, but do get delayed during busy times. Sometimes check-ins take a few days, but the owner is good about communication so I can forgive that. The downside to buying for Buying Group is that so many of their deals seem to fill up almost instantly.
BuyForMeRetail: Lightning-fast payment
No one pays faster than BuyForMeRetail. BuyForMeRetail uses a different system than the other groups. They initiate an ACH payment to your account the same day they check in an item. At the end of each day when the group has received something, you’ll get an email with a list of all items checked in and the prices, informing you that payment is on its way to your bank.
I’ve stepped away from buying for BuyForMeRetail, not because of anything that they did, but because MaxOutDeals was so good. The last time I looked at them, they had changed their system. It looks like they now will commit to pricing (good) but it is harder to submit tracking numbers (bad).
UEarnPoints: Positive experience, but of limited use for me
In late 2023, I ran a little experiment with UEarnPoints and I was pleased to see that check-in was quick, and I received the payment I requested within 6 days. I was excited to work with them, but the group is of limited use to me due to the types of deals they offer and their warehouse in Florida.
The group seems to have a large variety of deals from retailers like Costco, Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, Lenovo, and Dell. These retailers can be fussy about drop-shipping to warehouses, so for me they weren’t worth the hassle. Also, many deals are only accepted at a Florida warehouse. Shipments to Florida will be charged sales tax, so you will need to get the paperwork to prove you are a tax-exempt reseller to make most deals profitable.
MYS: Payments have become slow
MYS used to be my go-to buying group, mostly on the volume of deals and their consistent, if slow, payment timeframes. However, in late 2023, payments started getting massively delayed—I had to wait north of 70 days for a few payments. That’s a level of risk that I just can’t absorb. I’m not currently working with MYS.
I’ve also had more packages go missing with MYS than any other group. I suspect that this is because of drivers leaving packages at the facility after hours and the packages getting stolen. I was able to be made whole on every package by Amazon, but they would do well to improve the security of their facility.
I’ll emphasize that I’ve never lost money buying for MYS (a relatively small payment that I requested 43 days ago notwithstanding) but since one of their key people left to start TheDealBuyer (now buyinggroup.com) things seem to have gone downhill.
PointsMaker: Fast payments, but few unique deals
It’s been a while since I’ve worked with PointsMaker. The last time I bought something for them was in late 2023. I found that other groups were buying the same items they were most of the time and I decided to consolidate my buying with the other groups to save myself time.
They consistently paid out quickly. I very rarely waited more than a week for payment.
Buyers for Points: Payment in about a month
I don’t have much experience with Buyers for Points, but I did do a small deal with them in 2023 as a trial balloon. I received payment within 35 days of my request. Other groups were paying more quickly at the time, so I haven’t gone back.
Bottom line: Do your research!
When you buy for a buyers group, you’re putting a lot of trust in someone else’s and their business. As you do your research, hopefully my experiences with buyers groups are one data point among many. Always operate within your own risk tolerance.
