Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[My_own_2_bricks]

2 hours ago, Dark Helmet said:

I'm going to be sending in some more expensive BH this season and was just wondering how everyone packs their BH. Do you send them in their own shipping box and label that or raw dog it and hope for the best?

I would order these and label the outside with barcode sticker and a “do not open” or similar sticker. 
https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-19037/Corrugated-Boxes-200-Test/4-x-4-x-5-Corrugated-Boxes

I’ve started boxing up anything over about $45 and in small fragile boxes like this before sending in, has really cut down on returns.

[chaozz]

19 hours ago, My_own_2_bricks said:

I would order these and label the outside with barcode sticker and a “do not open” or similar sticker. 
https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-19037/Corrugated-Boxes-200-Test/4-x-4-x-5-Corrugated-Boxes

I’ve started boxing up anything over about $45 and in small fragile boxes like this before sending in, has really cut down on returns.

what fits in boxes that small?

 

keep in mind FBA box sizes if you sent castles

Boxes containing multiple standard-size items or oversized items must not exceed 25.00 inches on any side. A box may only exceed the 25.00 inch limit if it contains oversize units that measure longer than 25.00 inches. Boxes that are excessively large relative to the oversize units (exceeding the 2 inches of cushioning recommended above) may be subject to restriction of shipping privileges, additional fees, or refusal at a fulfillment center.

Edited October 5, 2022 by chaozz

[redcell]

3 hours ago, chaozz said:

what fits in boxes that small?

 

keep in mind FBA box sizes if you sent castles

Boxes containing multiple standard-size items or oversized items must not exceed 25.00 inches on any side. A box may only exceed the 25.00 inch limit if it contains oversize units that measure longer than 25.00 inches. Boxes that are excessively large relative to the oversize units (exceeding the 2 inches of cushioning recommended above) may be subject to restriction of shipping privileges, additional fees, or refusal at a fulfillment center.

I think the idea is that you put the Brickheadz set in that box and then apply an Amazon sticker to the outside of the outer box so that when it gets received at the FC, they don't open the outer box and instead treat it as the item being sold.  That way if they stick it in a padded envelope, the Brickheadz set has extra protection.  I've done that from time to time, but it turns into a colossal PIA when you're shipping in several hundred units of a small set.

[chaozz]

41 minutes ago, redcell said:

I think the idea is that you put the Brickheadz set in that box and then apply an Amazon sticker to the outside of the outer box so that when it gets received at the FC, they don't open the outer box and instead treat it as the item being sold.  That way if they stick it in a padded envelope, the Brickheadz set has extra protection.  I've done that from time to time, but it turns into a colossal PIA when you're shipping in several hundred units of a small set.

Long as it's FBA Amazon 9 out of 10 times will eat the damage, It seem almost everything is now in a padded mailer. Not as bad as Kohls shipping 50 lego in poly bags

[Dark Helmet]

1 hour ago, chaozz said:

Long as it's FBA Amazon 9 out of 10 times will eat the damage, It seem almost everything is now in a padded mailer. Not as bad as Kohls shipping 50 lego in poly bags

Redcell is right in what I was asking. Some of these BH have gone way up and I want to make sure it gets to the customer without any issues.

Last year I had two returns that Amazon classified as customer damage but reading the notes the customer stated it arrived that way. Either from shipping or at the warehouse. It didn't matter how many phone calls and case logs I opened Amazon didn't care.

 

I'm trying to minimize that with the higher smaller items that I know Amazon will just throw in a envelope. 

 

[Bold-Arrow]

2 minutes ago, Dark Helmet said:

Redcell is right in what I was asking. Some of these BH have gone way up and I want to make sure it gets to the customer without any issues.

Last year I had two returns that Amazon classified as customer damage but reading the notes the customer stated it arrived that way. Either from shipping or at the warehouse. It didn't matter how many phone calls and case logs I opened Amazon didn't care.

 

I'm trying to minimize that with the higher smaller items that I know Amazon will just throw in a envelope. 

 

I have done that to SC sets. totally worth it 

[chaozz]

1 minute ago, Dark Helmet said:

Redcell is right in what I was asking. Some of these BH have gone way up and I want to make sure it gets to the customer without any issues.

Last year I had two returns that Amazon classified as customer damage but reading the notes the customer stated it arrived that way. Either from shipping or at the warehouse. It didn't matter how many phone calls and case logs I opened Amazon didn't care.

 

I'm trying to minimize that with the higher smaller items that I know Amazon will just throw in a envelope. 

 

Amazon never cares, People have been trying to get them to stop, Ripping off the 4x6 label that kohls puts directly on the returns that are dropped off.

[landphieran]

Just a reminder to everyone selling this year. If you lose less than 15% (30% - self pay (15%)) you are beating the stock market. It could be worse

[chaozz]

16 hours ago, landphieran said:

Just a reminder to everyone selling this year. If you lose less than 15% (30% - self pay (15%)) you are beating the stock market. It could be worse

I think there is just so much excess inventory this year, For us flippers sitting back and do a wait and see, I won't dump I'm not in this to break even, I will hold until next year. As painful as it may be.

[Sozial]

18 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

I have done that to SC sets. totally worth it 

I think I will do it this year as well, thanks for all of your advice, as redcell wrote PIA, but returns/sending them back to you/selling on ebay (!!!!) is a much harder pain as one time repacking.

[My_own_2_bricks]

That was my calculation as well. Wife has even offered to do this work so there is that… YMMV

[Darth_Raichu]

The extended holiday return does NOT start today. (With 1 caveat)

Based on your feedback, we are revising the dates of our holiday returns policy.

Customers who start their holiday shopping early at the new Prime Early Access Sale on October 11 and 12 will be able to return most products until January 31, 2023.

We will announce the applicable dates for the 2022 extended holiday returns window shortly.

[Foreman Porgy]

On 10/5/2022 at 8:13 PM, landphieran said:

Just a reminder to everyone selling this year. If you lose less than 15% (30% - self pay (15%)) you are beating the stock market. It could be worse

Whether it be stocks or Lego, You don’t lose anything unless you paper hand at the bottom and capitulate with the rest of retail, or follow the herd and race to the bottom 😼

[landphieran]

I was about to post the 21301 Birds set as a counter example, however after 7 years the set is now firmly at 200$. 1-3 years after this set retired it barely cleared even. I'm not sure how the math works out but maybe i should have held instead of liquidating immediately. I saw the post retirement metrics and number of sellers and cashed out ASAP.

[Bricklectic]

Just me or did sales totally dry up the last week or so?

[Bold-Arrow]

8 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

Just me or did sales totally dry up the last week or so?

There has been technical issues with Amazon's catalog last 2 days, might be related to that 

[landphieran]

1 hour ago, Bricklectic said:

Just me or did sales totally dry up the last week or so?

Prices are crap but sales are fine for me. Pretty early in the season though, with sales starting earlier too.

[biking_tiger]

So... 

FBA lost the entire contents of a shipment (again). After "working on it" for two weeks, they now want invoices for the FNSKUs in the shipment for ALL the shipments with those FNSKUs I've sent in the last 12 months. 

Has anyone had to do this before? It's going to be a major PITA. 

[vasp]

14 minutes ago, biking_tiger said:

So... 

FBA lost the entire contents of a shipment (again). After "working on it" for two weeks, they now want invoices for the FNSKUs in the shipment for ALL the shipments with those FNSKUs I've sent in the last 12 months. 

Has anyone had to do this before? It's going to be a major PITA. 

Similar situation here.

Last time this happened to me in Nov-Dec 2021 it took them almost 4 months to reimburse. By then stock had come back and they reimbursed me list price minus amazon commission = Net Loss. of about approx $30 per

If they didn't lose the items, I would have made about $70 x 30 each. This was last year. Reimbursement procedures never improve over the years. They go the other way.

 

Very apprehensive about sending to FBA this year. Shipping costs are way out of the way.

I'm in the East, amazon wants me to send everything to Denver & Aurora, CO.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by vasp

[biking_tiger]

20 minutes ago, vasp said:

Similar situation here.

Last time this happened to me in Nov-Dec 2021 it took them almost 4 months to reimburse. By then stock had come back and they reimbursed me list price minus amazon commission = Net Loss. of about approx $30 per

If they didn't lose the items, I would have made about $70 x 30 each. This was last year. Reimbursement procedures never improve over the years. They go the other way.

 

Very apprehensive about sending to FBA this year. Shipping costs are way out of the way.

I'm in the East, amazon wants me to send everything to Denver & Aurora, CO.

 

 

Has anyone had trouble when submitting Amazon invoices to FBA for this reason? I just don't want to wander into a trap. I'll eat the cost before that. 

 

[Bold-Arrow]

10 minutes ago, biking_tiger said:

Has anyone had trouble when submitting Amazon invoices to FBA for this reason? I just don't want to wander into a trap. I'll eat the cost before that. 

 

usually the missing units will show up on their own within 2 to 3 months if you can wait. You are eligible to request reimbursement up to 9 months from Amazon receiving the shipment. If you do submit the paperwork and dont agree with the value then you have 90 days to appeal 

[Darth_Raichu]

5 minutes ago, biking_tiger said:

Has anyone had trouble when submitting Amazon invoices to FBA for this reason? I just don't want to wander into a trap. I'll eat the cost before that. 

 

This never worked for me.  They wanted actual invoices and would not allow store receipts (from Walmart etc).  I chose to wait for my shipments to magically appear several months later. 

They never asked that last part about wanting invoices from all past shipments.  Why should they care about what you sent them prior to the shipment they lost?

[cobrakai]

1 minute ago, Bold-Arrow said:

usually the missing units will show up on their own within 2 to 3 months if you can wait. You are eligible to request reimbursement up to 9 months from Amazon receiving the shipment. If you do do submit the paperwork and dont agree with the value then you have 90 days to appeal 

I had the worst problems with lost units during receiving when I was started paying Amazon to label my units for me.  Once I started labeling every unit myself again, my missing inventory problems declined 99%. I'm guessing it is harder to figure out whose stuff is found when it is just a UPC and not a seller FNSKU label on the items. Not sure if this matters when they are losing the contents of an entire shipment though. When I had one of those last month and they kept moving up the reconciliation date until they just marked it "closed" with no units received.  I just opened an FBA case as "other" and explained the facts.  They asked for an invoice and then reimbursed within a few days.  Would be a major pain if it was a mixed shipment with a bunch of different receipts and invoices to submit.

[biking_tiger]

3 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

This never worked for me.  They wanted actual invoices and would not allow store receipts (from Walmart etc).  I chose to wait for my shipments to magically appear several months later. 

They never asked that last part about wanting invoices from all past shipments.  Why should they care about what you sent them prior to the shipment they lost?

I've actually had receipts work one other time. I'm curious why they want a year's worth of invoices, too. 

 

1 minute ago, cobrakai said:

I had the worst problems with lost units during receiving when I was started paying Amazon to label my units for me.  Once I started labeling every unit myself again, my missing inventory problems declined 99%. I'm guessing it is harder to figure out whose stuff is found when it is just a UPC and not a seller FNSKU label on the items. Not sure if this matters when they are losing the contents of an entire shipment though. When I had one of those last month and they kept moving up the reconciliation date until they just marked it "closed" with no units received.  I just opened an FBA case as "other" and explained the facts.  They asked for an invoice and then reimbursed within a few days.  Would be a major pain if it was a mixed shipment with a bunch of different receipts and invoices to submit.

Mixed shipment and invoices for a year for the same products. Big PITA. 

[redcell]

4 hours ago, biking_tiger said:

So... 

FBA lost the entire contents of a shipment (again). After "working on it" for two weeks, they now want invoices for the FNSKUs in the shipment for ALL the shipments with those FNSKUs I've sent in the last 12 months. 

Has anyone had to do this before? It's going to be a major PITA. 

If they've lost an entire shipment, chances are that it has simply been misplaced and you'll get the inventory when they eventually find it.  They lost an entire pallet of inventory a few years back and it took around 3 months, but it eventually showed up in my inventory.

If they're only asking you to prove up units you've sold over the last 12 months, they're tightening that requirement.  It used to be that you'd have to prove ownership of enough inventory to support every unit that you had sold of an item from the beginning of time until the date of the shipment...and if you're even 1 unit short, they'll deny the entire claim.  The requirement is a total PIA, but makes sense if you think about it.  If I've bought and sold 1000 units of a given item and decide to gin up a reimbursement claim by including another 100 units on a shipment that never show up to a FC, this requirement prevents me from using the invoices for the 1000 legit units to support reimbursement for the non-legit 100 that I'm trying to scam them on.  

One upshot of this type of situation can be that you can get reimbursed for the inventory AND get to sell it if it shows up well after that reimbursement has processed.  I'm not sure if they've put things in place to prevent this from happening now, but I've had a few instances over the years where I got to double-dip.  On one occasion, I even wrote to them to tell them they'd already reimbursed me for the inventory and they told me to go ahead and sell it.