Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[cobrakai]

7 minutes ago, landphieran said:

Does anyone know the logic behind suppressing a listings buy box, only to show "Buying options"?

In my opinion there should be no reason to not have a featured seller. Not having a head buying option destroys a listings selling rank. I've been the buy box leader then randomly the buy box disappears off of the listing for seemingly no reason.

They don't want prices that are significantly higher than MSRP to be prominently displayed.  They want to maintain an image of low prices to consumers.  The problem is their system is run by AI and bots that can't consistently enforce this sort of fairy tale marketplace.  

[chaozz]

5 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

My guess is, Amazon want you to pay extra to become the featured seller for an ASIN.  Kind of like the current Ebay model

I'm featured has nothing to do with that, While I don't know the real reason, I'm pretty sure it's like Walmart it has to do with price, while Amazon had it for 2 years at $19.99 and now it's  $24.99 it see's it not being a fair price, Over time it seems to come back on almost everything

[redcell]

Has anyone else gotten an invitation to do a feedback session with someone from Amazon about being a 3PS?  If you get one, don't pass it up.  It's a legit opportunity to give Amazon direct feedback about being a 3PS and they actually listen.  The guy I spoke to followed up with me a few days later with additional questions about the issue I raised with him about the restock limits.

[pharmjod]

I feel like it might be helpful to put together a list of talking points that are pretty consistently gripes we have. That way if any of us do get that invitation and take it we can keep pounding on the same stuff with Amazon.

[smittypop2]

1 hour ago, redcell said:

Has anyone else gotten an invitation to do a feedback session with someone from Amazon about being a 3PS?  If you get one, don't pass it up.  It's a legit opportunity to give Amazon direct feedback about being a 3PS and they actually listen.  The guy I spoke to followed up with me a few days later with additional questions about the issue I raised with him about the restock limits.

Was it via email or phone?

[redcell]

11 hours ago, smittypop2 said:

Was it via email or phone?

I received the invitation by email, but gave the feedback by phone.

[Mark Twain]

Sent in a box on 9/24. Delivered but not checked in. Now each week Amazon keeps pushing back the eligible for investigation date. We've gone from 10/5 to 10/9 to 10/21 to 10/27. 

[cobrakai]

16 minutes ago, Mark Twain said:

Sent in a box on 9/24. Delivered but not checked in. Now each week Amazon keeps pushing back the eligible for investigation date. We've gone from 10/5 to 10/9 to 10/21 to 10/27. 

Had one of those get pushed back for months.  Delivered in June and they kept pushing the reconciliation date back until September.  I kept checking every few days and then they just closed it with 0 units.  I had to open a case to get reimbursed.

[carini26]

As an East Coaster, sending oversized FBA boxes in to Aurora, CO was bad enough... now Lord Bezos is telling me it has to go to Turlock, CA.  That's now $3-4/per unit.

I was $1.52/unit last year sending to Detroit.

Thankfully all FBAers will band together and raise prices 5%.  Right guys?  Guys?

 

[My_own_2_bricks]

20 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

Sent in a box on 9/24. Delivered but not checked in. Now each week Amazon keeps pushing back the eligible for investigation date. We've gone from 10/5 to 10/9 to 10/21 to 10/27. 

Same happened to me

Just now, My_own_2_bricks said:

Same happened to me

As a West coaster I have always had to send big sets (>$100 retail) back east, only the very last few shipments have been mid states and slightly cheaper than $4-5 a set.

[vasp]

1 minute ago, carini26 said:

As an East Coaster, sending oversized FBA boxes in to Aurora, CO was bad enough... now Lord Bezos is telling me it has to go to Turlock, CA.  That's now $3-4/per unit.

I was $1.52/unit last year sending to Detroit.

Thankfully all FBAers will band together and raise prices 5%.  Right guys?  Guys?

 

Yeah right.

The problem is not the FBA'ers . Its the non FBA.

Amazon used to give FBA buy box at a difference of atleast $10. Last year they said screw that algo like how they did for the holiday requirements.

Last year it was within $5 to get buy box to compete with non-FBA.

I just sent GBH from VA to CO. Cost me $6.25 per GBH to send to CO. Some f at some point put bubble wrap required as fba prep and that added another $1.60 to the $0.55 label fee.

Efforts to get rid of the bubble wrap fba prep with SS was in vain.

Are they going to make bubble wrap mandatory across the lego line? 

Sorry had to vent.

[redcell]

10 minutes ago, carini26 said:

Thankfully all FBAers will band together and raise prices 5%.  Right guys?  Guys?

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's blatant price fixing that is highly illegal under the antitrust laws.

[carini26]

4 minutes ago, redcell said:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's blatant price fixing that is highly illegal under the antitrust laws.

I'm aware.  I do M&A work.  I will put the sarcasm font on next time.

[redcell]

1 minute ago, carini26 said:

I'm aware.  I do M&A work.  I will put the sarcasm font on next time.

You might be surprised at how many people are not aware.  I've received several offers over the years that were clear per se violations of the Sherman Act.

[exciter1]

21 minutes ago, carini26 said:

I'm aware.  I do M&A work.  I will put the sarcasm font on next time.

We've had worse things encouraged here.

[Darth_Raichu]

50 minutes ago, vasp said:

I just sent GBH from VA to CO. Cost me $6.25 per GBH to send to CO. Some f at some point put bubble wrap required as fba prep and that added another $1.60 to the $0.55 label fee.

That bubble wrap requirement was there last year.   Amazon fulfilled my orders of GBH last year with a mix of their own and FBA inventory.  The ones from FBA were individually bubble wrapped while Amazon's own were not.

Another example of Amazon's double standards

[gmpirate]

I thought the consensus was to ignore the bubble wrap?  Last year I ignored it and had no issues.  I have one set so far this season that required it and I sent without.

[bbr]

On 9/29/2022 at 6:51 PM, bbr said:

I agree that the buyer is a scumbag. But I can't say that to them. What I can do is start a trail of info Amazon can follow. I don't know if sending a message and refunding .01 will work, but at least it's going to give me a chance. The buyer already has the product. Any amount of money they get back will be a bonus for them. If I had the product (like they built it and returned or they stole the minifigs) a 50% refund would probably hurt enough for them to stop doing that.

The downside of this gamble is that if they win an A-Z or chargeback, it will empower them to keep doing it because they think they will continue to be able get away with it (which would be the same if I went ahead and refunded 100%). So there is a risk there too.

When reporting abuse, which option do I choose? "Product received is different than the product on the detail page" seems to be closest. But I don't want a ding from the Amazon rep when they think I'm reporting the seller and not the buyer.

 

On 9/29/2022 at 3:47 PM, Bold-Arrow said:

You can’t do a safe-t since amazon didn’t refund the buyer - yet. You have three options:

1.you refund 50% ( max allowed  ) and you should easily win any az claim but you lose on the other 50% 

2.you refund 1 penny or any nominal amount to stop the automatic refund and see if the customer open an az claim or worse a charge back which would be rolling the dice , but this is the only way to keep 100% of the sale  

3.you wait till Amazon automatically refund the buyer ( usually after a week of receiving the item ) then you can open a safe-t but you are putting yourself at the mercy of those folks to give you whatever % back which is rarely over 50% these days . Keep in mind the buyer can open a AZ claim after 48 hours of seller receiving item.

Ofc you risk negative feedback and an account health metric hits if you lose az claims. 

I’d base my decision on the following:

-$ of the order . (If it is low I’ll take option A since it is the safest )

- health of my account ( can you stand absorbing both a negative and a az claim/charge back loss?)

-principle of things but business continuity comes first 

In all cases I highly recommend reporting the buyer to amazon under the report abuse tab. 

edit to add : since buyer didn’t claim the wrong item was sent the chances are  highly in your  favor against any az if you deduct up to 50% 

good luck 

I wanted to update everyone on the final resolution to this.

- Buyer did not respond to message

- I tried to charge 100% re-stocking fee (never could figure out how to do .01) but it never "took" (return kept popping back up on my seller central page)

- Charged 99% re-stocking fee and that finally cleared it

- Unfortunately after exactly 7 days from receiving the return (almost down to the minute) Amazon refunded 100% (auto refund for some reason - not A-Z claim)

- I filed a Safe-T claim with all the required documentation and Amazon reimbursed the refund

- I don't know if it cost the buyer anything but I'm hoping they took the money back from them. They were so stupid that the original shipping label from China was still on the box they returned to me. I submitted this to Amazon and if Amazon didn't pay out, I was going to fight it forever.

- If you want to add a scammer address to your files, here is a photo of the original shipping label.....

Edited October 15, 2022 by bbr

[severalads]

22 hours ago, gmpirate said:

I thought the consensus was to ignore the bubble wrap?  Last year I ignored it and had no issues.  I have one set so far this season that required it and I sent without.

Sorry can I just check - so I am trying to send 21046 and I see FBA requirement that it needs to be bubble wrapped. But sounds like this can be ignored?

[gmpirate]

12 minutes ago, severalads said:

Sorry can I just check - so I am trying to send 21046 and I see FBA requirement that it needs to be bubble wrapped. But sounds like this can be ignored?

Per discussions made here in the past, yes.

The information contained in this site is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. You should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any content included in this site without seeking legal or other professional advice.

[chaozz]

You can click on the details and sumbit as case to have it looked at ,, provide pictures one being your fnsku label. I just did it yesterday for one.

 

Couple years ago, When this came up i just said screw it and paid them to bubble wrap. I then ordered one to myself to find out they never did it. Opened a case and got my money back

[gmpirate]

1 hour ago, chaozz said:

Couple years ago, When this came up i just said screw it and paid them to bubble wrap. I then ordered one to myself to find out they never did it. Opened a case and got my money back

that's funny, sad, but funny

[chaozz]

3 hours ago, chaozz said:

You can click on the details and sumbit as case to have it looked at ,, provide pictures one being your fnsku label. I just did it yesterday for one.

 

 

Well they denied my case for bubble wrap, so F**King stupid

[vasp]

4 hours ago, chaozz said:

Well they denied my case for bubble wrap, so F**King stupid

They denied my request too.

Just copy paste response is what i got

[chaozz]

16 hours ago, vasp said:

They denied my request too.

Just copy paste response is what i got

We are writing to confirm that the review of your investigation request for Case xxxxxxx is complete. It has been determined that the prep guidance for your products is correct.

No changes have been made to the prep guidance at this time. Another investigation request cannot be submitted for this ASIN prep guidance for 90 days.