Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[Emvisawthatswho]

Anyone else seeing a delay in their available FBA inventory? My most recent shipment was received in full, per this email.

Amazon shipment ID xxxxxxx has been received at its final Amazon fulfillment center destination and has been fully processed into inventory. Your units are now fulfillable.

This was 9:00am. Normally within 15 minutes I can see it in my inventory listing and on amazon.com for sale.

[asharerin]

2 hours ago, landphieran said:

This isn't really reassuring, as next year may  will be worse. Whether they require safety documents for every set, outright block Lego, or lock down listings. I anticipate selling branded items, especially big name branded items to be a grind moving forward.

 

Alot of brands are now joining the transparency program on Amazon. It is only a matter of time before most of the big toy brands do as well. The days of unauthorized reselling of Lego branded items on the Amazon platform are certainly numbered. 

TBH retired Lego sets are not a very good fit for the platform as it currently stands. I have been shocked by the sheer numbers of FBA buyers claiming non-receipt of expensive sets and getting a full refund when tracking clearly shows delivered. We get refunded after 45 days by Amazon but it is out of hand. Not a single return on ebay this year for Lego sets. I have a feeling when FB marketplace opens next year with integrated payment processing and deeply discounted shipping it will be a much better fit.

I think the ultimate outcome is going to be manufacturers selling on Amazon directly or through very limited numbers of authorized sellers enrolled into their transparency programs. This way brands have ultimate control over pricing and are able to ensure not a single unauthorized seller is on the listing and counterfeits are no longer an issue. I'd say a handful of good years left before the RA/OA golden goose is cooked permanently.

[brickology101]

1 hour ago, asharerin said:

Alot of brands are now joining the transparency program on Amazon. It is only a matter of time before most of the big toy brands do as well. The days of unauthorized reselling of Lego branded items on the Amazon platform are certainly numbered. 

TBH retired Lego sets are not a very good fit for the platform as it currently stands. I have been shocked by the sheer numbers of FBA buyers claiming non-receipt of expensive sets and getting a full refund when tracking clearly shows delivered. We get refunded after 45 days by Amazon but it is out of hand. Not a single return on ebay this year for Lego sets. I have a feeling when FB marketplace opens next year with integrated payment processing and deeply discounted shipping it will be a much better fit.

I think the ultimate outcome is going to be manufacturers selling on Amazon directly or through very limited numbers of authorized sellers enrolled into their transparency programs. This way brands have ultimate control over pricing and are able to ensure not a single unauthorized seller is on the listing and counterfeits are no longer an issue. I'd say a handful of good years left before the RA/OA golden goose is cooked permanently.

"when FB marketplace opens next year...". Are you referring to Ebay opening a fulfillment service ?

[ravenb99]

1 hour ago, asharerin said:

I think the ultimate outcome is going to be manufacturers selling on Amazon directly or through very limited numbers of authorized sellers enrolled into their transparency programs. This way brands have ultimate control over pricing and are able to ensure not a single unauthorized seller is on the listing and counterfeits are no longer an issue. I'd say a handful of good years left before the RA/OA golden goose is cooked permanently.

that works for them on the hot items that sell out and get resold.  Doesn't work for 90% of the other products that wind up in clearance.  It would also impact liquidation to much to do that full on.  Stores would be inundated with product as no one would buy it as they couldn't resell it.  As much as RA/OA hurts some brands it has been a blessing as well.   Probably out of control in present times but it changes the whole landscape of retail in general.  Going to a system like that would 100% have an over abundance of product that doesn't sell which would hurt the brand more than it helps long term.  Some sort of balance will need to be found going forward.  From 20 years experience in the liquidation business it has gone to the far extremes on both sides and always comes back along to some medium.  Amazon is one of the biggest liquidators out there and for them to force it to be sold at brick and mortar stores they would never move through the amount they produce.   All the major retailers have already changed most things up to where they auction to the general public now which has gotten them more money from people that don't fully understand the business versus people that know what the value of the product is.  That has also changed the outcome for a lot.  Bottom line is unsold product has to go somewhere and they don't want to do it online to begin with as that also hurts preceived brand value, but the people buying whether via clearance channels in store or through liquidation avenues need a venue to be able to resell it as well. 

[xeeeej]

I can't see Amazon fully locking out 3P sellers on the big toy brands for one reason: money.  The manufacturers would have to pony up some serious cash to match the referral fees that 3P sellers currently pay.  Bezos likes money. 

[REDUCE523]

They are not locking out third parties. I am surprised they dont let more in. The fact is I find product, send it in, risk all my money and Amazon collects a fee for what sells and doesnt worry about what doesnt sell as its not there problem. And here I am still sending stuff in and wishing I was unlocked in more categories. If they get rid of third parties they would just be target no difference.

[Mark Twain]

They are not locking out third parties. I am surprised they dont let more in. The fact is I find product, send it in, risk all my money and Amazon collects a fee for what sells and doesnt worry about what doesnt sell as its not there problem. And here I am still sending stuff in and wishing I was unlocked in more categories. If they get rid of third parties they would just be target no difference.

They are in fact actively locking out all new third party sellers in toys, regardless of brand. Unless you have a valid CPC, you will not be approved. I was approved for lego in May, but was not approved to sell toys, even when I applied with certificates from Lego as you are all now attempting and then tried with non-Lego products, like eeboo, or Hasbro, Amazon would not approve me. Period. I went through six cases, and the end result was always the same.

I hope removing the ASINs gives y’all some more time on the platform, but I see little future in selling on Amazon for non approved third party sellers.


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[redcell]

They are in fact actively locking out all new third party sellers in toys, regardless of brand. Unless you have a valid CPC, you will not be approved. I was approved for lego in May, but was not approved to sell toys, even when I applied with certificates from Lego as you are all now attempting and then tried with non-Lego products, like eeboo, or Hasbro, Amazon would not approve me. Period. I went through six cases, and the end result was always the same.

I hope removing the ASINs gives y’all some more time on the platform, but I see little future in selling on Amazon for non approved third party sellers.


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Amazon is not locking out 3P for sh*** and giggles. What they are doing is being very selective on letting new sellers sell in categories where there have been problems in the past. Bad sellers cost Amazon money and Amazon has been heavily focused on reducing costs related to fulfillment and 3P sellers. That's one reason they have instituted so many controls around inventory storage. Amazon is making a shitload of money on FBA and has a vested interest in having as many high quality 3P sellers as possible.

They have also started to get more selective because they their fulfillment centers have been running over capacity during the holiday season the past few years.

That's not to say everything is rosy for sellers on the other side of the gates because the reality is that a new gate could drop at any moment.



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[brickology101]

Doesn't anybody work for Amazon in this forum ? So many opinions flying around. Makes my head spin.

[redcell]

Doesn't anybody work for Amazon in this forum ? So many opinions flying around. Makes my head spin.

I don't, but I have a good inside source who had given me good insight over the years.

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[chrisynd]

8 hours ago, V22driver said:

Looking through the ASINs that were flagged every one had the word "Toy" in the listing. 

Most Lego sets listed on Amazon either have only the name of the set or it is referred to as a "building kit".  None of those required any sort of documentation.  

Now I do have other active listings with "Toy" in the title that were not flagged but it was about 50/50.  Maybe its a coincidence but it is something to keep in mind moving forward.  In theory since these items were originally sold by Amazon they should have all the required safety info on hand as it would have been provided by Lego.  Maybe these listings were created by Sellers that just happened to become the dominant listings but never had the Child Protection stuff affiliated with them.  Many of the titles are not what you would expect from Amazon with phrases such as "hot toy item" being thrown in.  Sounds like something a seller making a new listing would use.  

Thanks to everyone who has shared info on this matter.  

Might be on to something there. Among the 28 ASINs I received notice about, all 28 had "Toy" in the title. Some even state age range in the title - "Toy for 5- to 12-Year-Olds …" (#41310). Could be reasonable to try to edit the title to remove "Toy" and/or open a case for a product catalog update and request the title change. Long shot though.

On a related note, one of the ASINs flagged, for #41130, suddenly has 17 units for sale by Amazon itself.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CU9WV32

I wonder if someone just lost their inventory... ?

[Bold-Arrow]

18 minutes ago, brickology101 said:

Doesn't anybody work for Amazon in this forum ? So many opinions flying around. Makes my head spin.

gotta learn whom to listen to and whom to ignore. With great BS comes great stinks 

[cladner]

ah yes - ba's latest installment of zen of the poop emoji.  

 

[LegoBro]

Might be on to something there. Among the 28 ASINs I received notice about, all 28 had "Toy" in the title. Some even state age range in the title - "Toy for 5- to 12-Year-Olds …" (#41310). Could be reasonable to try to edit the title to remove "Toy" and/or open a case for a product catalog update and request the title change. Long shot though.
On a related note, one of the ASINs flagged, for #41130, suddenly has 17 units for sale by Amazon itself.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CU9WV32
I wonder if someone just lost their inventory... 

AAAGames stalled the growth on that set with about 200 units they sent in. Was hitting north of 160 two months ago.

[exciter1]

AAAGames stalled the growth on that set with about 200 units they sent in. Was hitting north of 160 two months ago.

Amazing, stuck at $99.99 as we speak by Amazon

[exciter1]

Just received my letter/update, very similar to what is described above. I guess I'll have to take some pictures tonight, so lame.

I can concur that all of my flagged listings have "Toy" in the product name.

[LegoBro]

Just received my letter/update, very similar to what is described above. I guess I'll have to take some pictures tonight, so lame.
I can concur that all of my flagged listings have "Toy" in the product name.

So just a picture of the product with model number/identifier and same certificates again? That the game plan? Have not received the email yet..but expecting soon.

[exciter1]

7 minutes ago, LegoBro said:

13 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

Just received my letter/update, very similar to what is described above. I guess I'll have to take some pictures tonight, so lame.
I can concur that all of my flagged listings have "Toy" in the product name.

So just a picture of the product with model number/identifier and same certificates again? That the game plan? Have not received the email yet..but expecting soon.

That's what I'm doing, because the LEGO certificates provided appear to have all of the safety certification notations they are asking for.

[chrisynd]

2 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

That's what I'm doing, because the LEGO certificates provided appear to have all of the safety certification notations they are asking for.

For "pictures of the product", do you still happen to have all the ASINs locally and so you can take pictures or are you finding box photos online? All my inventory is at Amazon for the relevant ASINs so I can't take an original photo.

Edited October 26, 2018 by chrisynd

[exciter1]

1 minute ago, chrisynd said:

For "pictures of the product", do you still happen to have all the ASINs locally and so you can take pictures or are you finding box photos online? All my inventory is at Amazon for the relevant ASINs so I can't take an original photo.

I still have some of all of my flagged ASINs local.  Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

[asharerin]

3 hours ago, exciter1 said:

Just received my letter/update, very similar to what is described above. I guess I'll have to take some pictures tonight, so lame.

I can concur that all of my flagged listings have "Toy" in the product name.

Contact seller support and have them update the title without "toy"?

 

15 hours ago, redcell said:

That's not to say everything is rosy for sellers on the other side of the gates because the reality is that a new gate could drop at any moment.



Sent from my SM-G965U using Brickpicker Forum mobile app
 

Yes we have been ungated and then re-gated in so many brands it is getting ridiculous. Quite a few you can no longer reapply to even get ungated. Then the brands that have enrolled in the transparency program they let you send in to FBA then send a nasty email and you have to remove lol. Couple that with the Amazon retail platform on the downslide of growth, alot more competition on brands that 3P can sell, the stock market headed for a prolonged correction, real estate looking very wobbly, going to be a very tough shopping season and the near term after that looking dangerous. Being attached to a platform/business model/brand is going to get costly.

[river41]

1 hour ago, asharerin said:

Contact seller support and have them update the title without "toy"?

 

Yes we have been ungated and then re-gated in so many brands it is getting ridiculous. Quite a few you can no longer reapply to even get ungated. Then the brands that have enrolled in the transparency program they let you send in to FBA then send a nasty email and you have to remove lol. Couple that with the Amazon retail platform on the downslide of growth, alot more competition on brands that 3P can sell, the stock market headed for a prolonged correction, real estate looking very wobbly, going to be a very tough shopping season and the near term after that looking dangerous. Being attached to a platform/business model/brand is going to get costly.

In the transparency program does the manufacturer tag every item they produce or only those that they sell to amazon ? the official rules of the program state that you must place one on every item you manufacture however if the reality is they only place on those destined for amazon -and that makes sense as there is a fee per item going to amazon and amazon is only 5 percent of retail sales so why would they pay on the other 95 percent they produce-  then r/a will increasingly disappear as any brand enrolled in the program  you cannot sell on amazon? for example if lego enrolled would that be the end of many of our businesses.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by river41
clarity

[Ed Mack]

1 hour ago, asharerin said:

Contact seller support and have them update the title without "toy"?

 

Yes we have been ungated and then re-gated in so many brands it is getting ridiculous. Quite a few you can no longer reapply to even get ungated. Then the brands that have enrolled in the transparency program they let you send in to FBA then send a nasty email and you have to remove lol. Couple that with the Amazon retail platform on the downslide of growth, alot more competition on brands that 3P can sell, the stock market headed for a prolonged correction, real estate looking very wobbly, going to be a very tough shopping season and the near term after that looking dangerous. Being attached to a platform/business model/brand is going to get costly.

I don't know, I think it will be a pretty good holiday shopping season...

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/10/03/national-retail-federation-predicts-strong-holiday-shopping-season-retail-shopping-season-christmas-consumer-sales-consumer-confidence.html

Consumer confidence is at all time highs.  The average Joe/Jane pays little attention to the stock market.  Real estate is solid and has been hurt recently because of rising rates, but if the stock market tanks, rates will come down.  

[asharerin]

1 hour ago, river41 said:

In the transparency program does the manufacturer tag every item they produce or only those that they sell to amazon ? the official rules of the program state that you must place one on every item you manufacture however if the reality is they only place on those destined for amazon -and that makes sense as there is a fee per item going to amazon and amazon is only 5 percent of retail sales so why would they pay on the other 95 percent they produce-  then r/a will increasingly disappear as any brand enrolled in the program  you cannot sell on amazon? for example if lego enrolled would that be the end of many of our businesses.

 

 

The way it is run now once enrolled the brand has to approve sellers on the Amazon platform. Those sellers then create special 2D barcode labels instead of the UPC or regular FNSKU labels. That 2D barcode label stores extra info such as the seller account name, date the label was created, expiration date etc. Once a brand is in the program then Amazon goes through and scans the ASINs in the warehouses and pulls all of those without the special 2D barcode. Only sellers on the approved list can print those 2D barcodes when creating a shipment. Amazon then emails the sellers without the 2D barcodes a warning. Next offense is a suspended account. As of right now there is no way to know beforehand which brands are in the program. Obviously you will know once you get the email and need to pull those ASINS. There are a few wholesale facebook groups building a list but more brands are enrolling every month so someone has to take a bullet before everyone else knows. Lots of sellers doing wholesale who bought from an approved distributor with legit invoices have to pull as only the distributors are approved to sell now, and in some cases the brand has come in and sells direct and approves nobody else. Under this program the brand has complete control over who sells their product on the Amazon platform, and can do test buys and have access to all of that extra info to police their approved sellers. 

As brands cut back on their google and facebook ad spending and continue to shift that all over to Amazon you can be sure more and more will enroll in the transparency program. Sucks for unauthrorized 3P but just the way it is. I am sure there will always be ways for unauthorized 3P to sell and profit but in 5 years it won't really resemble what it is today on the platform.

[Dark Helmet]

Long time FBM first time FBA. I’m looking to send my first shipment in and was looking for some tips on what you do. Sorry about the very basic questions  

You don’t have to have each Lego individually packaged in a shipping box within the main box?

Is Amazon prep any good?

I hear commingling is bad so does everyone print their own barcode on their Lego? Have you had any customer get angry about the sticker on the box?

Do you limit how many sets you ship at a time?

 

thanks again