Founder, Aftermarket Arbitrage · 14 August 2026
Yes. Completely. Buying genuine goods at retail price and selling them on at a higher price is ordinary trade — it’s what every shop on your high street does, and it’s what I’ve built my whole operation around. There is no law in the UK against buying a product from Boots and selling it on Amazon.
I get asked this constantly, usually by people who’ve been told otherwise by someone in a Facebook group, so let me give you the actual legal basis, and then — because this is the bit everyone else skips — the honest caveats. Legal is not the same as frictionless, and if you go in thinking it is, you’ll get a nasty surprise from Amazon long before you ever hear from a lawyer.
The legal basis: exhaustion of rights
The principle that makes arbitrage legal is called exhaustion of rights. Once a brand sells a genuine product into the UK market — to a retailer, a distributor, anyone — their right to control what happens to that specific item is exhausted. They’ve been paid. They can’t then dictate who resells it, where, or at what price.
So when I buy a genuine MAC mascara from a UK retailer at £10.99 and sell it on Amazon at £25.98, MAC has no legal claim against me whatsoever. They already sold that unit into the UK market and took their money for it. The same principle covers every genuine, UK-market product you’ll ever source through online arbitrage or retail arbitrage.
This isn’t a loophole or a grey area. It’s a foundational principle of trade mark law, and it’s the reason second-hand shops, discounters and every reseller in the country can exist.
What actually is illegal
The legal lines are clear, and none of them should worry you if you’re sourcing sensibly:
- Counterfeits. Obviously. If you only buy from real UK retailers — which is the only way I source — this is a non-issue.
- Recalled or unsafe products. Selling a recalled product is illegal, full stop. Check before you list anything that’s been sitting in clearance for a suspiciously long time.
- Parallel imports. This is the one that catches people out. Exhaustion of rights applies to goods sold into the UK market. Stock that was put on the market outside the UK — grey imports from the US or Asia — is a different legal situation entirely. Don’t touch non-UK stock. It’s not worth it, and you don’t need it: there are 80-plus UK retailers with more supply than you’ll ever get through.
Stay inside those lines — genuine goods, bought from UK retailers, not recalled — and your legal risk is as close to zero as anything in business gets.
Legal risk versus account risk: the distinction that matters
Here’s the part competitors gloss over because it’s less fun to say. Your legal risk is near zero. Your account risk is real, and it’s a completely different thing.
Amazon is a private company and can set whatever rules it likes on its own platform. Two things follow from that:
Gating
Amazon restricts (“gates”) certain categories and brands, and won’t let you list in them until you’ve provided invoices or met other requirements. Being legally entitled to sell a product and being allowed to list it on Amazon are two separate questions. This is a hurdle, not a wall — I cover how gating works and how to approach it in my full online arbitrage guide — but you need to check it before you buy stock, not after. Buying fifty units of something you then can’t list is a self-inflicted wound I’ve watched plenty of new sellers deal with.
IP complaints
Some brands file intellectual property complaints against resellers on Amazon. Against genuine goods, these complaints are usually baseless — exhaustion of rights means the brand has no actual claim. But Amazon’s enforcement systems don’t run a courtroom before acting. A complaint can suspend your listing and put a mark against your account health while you respond, and responding means producing your retail receipts and arguing your case.
You’ll usually win, because you’re in the right. But “usually win after a fortnight of hassle” is not the same as “never happens”. This is why I keep receipts for everything, and it’s why I barcode-match every product rather than title-matching — a wrong match is worse than no match, and selling the wrong variation of a product is how you hand a brand a complaint that actually sticks.
What HMRC expects from you
Legal to trade doesn’t mean invisible to the taxman. If you’re buying to resell, you’re trading, and trading income has to be declared:
- Under £1,000 of trading income in a tax year: the trading allowance covers you and you don’t need to do anything.
- Over £1,000: you register for self-assessment and declare it — the deadline is 5 October after the end of the tax year you crossed it, but do it straight away rather than sitting on it.
- £90,000 rolling 12-month turnover: you must register for VAT, and you must register within 30 days of the end of the month you crossed the threshold. Note that’s turnover, not profit — a seller doing decent volume hits it faster than they expect. My VAT calculator shows you exactly what registration does to your margins, and you want to see that number well before you cross the threshold, not after.
None of this is a reason not to start. It’s basic admin, and every legitimate business does it. It’s also why I insist your numbers work properly from day one — my floor is 20% ROI minimum, calculated after every fee, which is what the profit calculator and FBA fee checker are for. Margins that only work before tax and fees aren’t margins.
So should the legality question stop you?
No. It’s the wrong question. Online arbitrage is legal in exactly the same way running a corner shop is legal. The right questions are the practical ones: have you got enough capital to do it properly — £500 minimum, £1,000 to be comfortable, and anyone telling you £200 is setting you up to stall — can you find products that clear 20% ROI after fees, and are you disciplined enough to match by barcode, keep your receipts and stay away from grey imports?
Get those right and the legal side takes care of itself.
If you’re weighing up whether to start, read my complete guide to online arbitrage in the UK first — it covers sourcing, gating, fees and the mistakes that actually cost people money. And when you’re ready to source properly, here’s how my leads service works — my engine reads 80-plus UK retailer sites around the clock so my members don’t have to. Membership details are here when you want them.
About the author
Jack Bayliss is the founder of Aftermarket Arbitrage, where a team and a purpose-built sourcing engine find and verify Amazon UK deals for members every day. He also runs Vantage Wholesale. Meet the community on the community page or book a free call.
