Selling Lego on Amazon.com

[Bold-Arrow]

4 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

With the amount of emails and phone calls asking me to join Amazon Customer Support for FBM, I tend to think Amazon want me to stay FBM...

Either that or they watched my video with the rental Lambo....

between that and all the damn emails to sell in different markets, I am about to lose it 

[Darth_Raichu]

6 minutes ago, landphieran said:

That being said, you need 450 orders a month or something like 15 orders a day. You could buy some tiny Lego sets at 6-8$ and achieve this for 20-24k.

Dang it my math was wrong (insert OMB meme here).  

Many small to medium full time eBayers do 15-20 orders a day.  It should be easier to do that full time on Amazon

 

[xeeeej]

A new seller support low: I have a unit that has been stuck in FBA as Warehouse Damaged for over 6 months, and they haven't reimbursed me.  I asked for the reimbursement, and after about 10 messages they flipped it to Defective disposition and told me to remove it.  Wtf.  

[vasp]

2 hours ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Assuming no violation, you just need to successfully fulfill 2600 orders in 180 days to get AHR = 252

Technically, 867 orders / month is not that big of an operation

 

I'm really a small seller.

[landphieran]

Selling this year has been interesting. The volume is much higher than I expected it to be in "recessionary" times, especially with Target and Walmart posting such terrible Q3 numbers. There may be some small impacts to selling this year however I'd venture to guess this is going to be more applicable to people selling less desirable items (off brand cook wear, trinkets, figurines?).

Every other year, I listen to Amazon's guidelines of when to send stuff in, this year being one of them. I sent my stuff to Amazon on the 4th of November and it was inventoried and available in under 4 days. (Not great). I expected it to take a few weeks. It has resulted in some interesting selling opportunities as some competitors stock is lagging to the fulfillment centers. It may be too early to be bringing in sales but alas... better then paying storage fee's.

[chaozz]

On 11/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, landphieran said:

Selling this year has been interesting. The volume is much higher than I expected it to be in "recessionary" times, especially with Target and Walmart posting such terrible Q3 numbers. There may be some small impacts to selling this year however I'd venture to guess this is going to be more applicable to people selling less desirable items (off brand cook wear, trinkets, figurines?).

Every other year, I listen to Amazon's guidelines of when to send stuff in, this year being one of them. I sent my stuff to Amazon on the 4th of November and it was inventoried and available in under 4 days. (Not great). I expected it to take a few weeks. It has resulted in some interesting selling opportunities as some competitors stock is lagging to the fulfillment centers. It may be too early to be bringing in sales but alas... better then paying storage fee's.

set your target price and take the money, Come mid Dec prices will slide as people with volume want to move it.

[Bricklectic]

Has anyone fulfilled FBM orders using Walmart boxes? Sorely tempted to do so as I have perfect fitting Walmart boxes and otherwise would need to cut some up. However, per this thread it looks like it is a suspendable offense so I'm leaning towards being cautious but curious what is common practice here. I can't imagine the average consumer would actually take out the time to complain but who knows.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/suspended-due-to-drop-shipping-violations/1089264/3

Edited November 29, 2022 by Bricklectic

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, Bricklectic said:

Has anyone fulfilled FBM orders using Walmart boxes? Sorely tempted to do so as I have perfect fitting Walmart boxes and otherwise would need to cut some up. However, per this thread it looks like it is a suspendable offense so I'm leaning towards being cautious but curious what is common practice here. I can't imagine the average consumer would actually take out the time to complain but who knows.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/suspended-due-to-drop-shipping-violations/1089264/3

Which boxes ? Do they say Walmart on the outside ? Or are they plain 

[brickvoyeur]

3 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

Has anyone fulfilled FBM orders using Walmart boxes? Sorely tempted to do so as I have perfect fitting Walmart boxes and otherwise would need to cut some up. However, per this thread it looks like it is a suspendable offense so I'm leaning towards being cautious but curious what is common practice here. I can't imagine the average consumer would actually take out the time to complain but who knows.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/suspended-due-to-drop-shipping-violations/1089264/3

This is FBM. Unless the customer complains no one is going to know. Get it to the customer safely and in good shape, and you have nothing to concern yourself about. 

Granted, I wouldn't be cutting up those already flimsy Walmart boxes.

Edited November 29, 2022 by brickvoyeur

[Bold-Arrow]

2 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

This is FBM. Unless the customer complains no one is going to know. Get it to the customer safely and in good shape, and you have nothing to concern yourself about. 

I wouldnt risk it. this is a high risk suspension with very small chance of reinstatement. if it has walmart on the flap on the inside, those are fine . if they are walmart shipping boxes, then no no 

[exciter1]

11 minutes ago, Bricklectic said:

Has anyone fulfilled FBM orders using Walmart boxes? Sorely tempted to do so as I have perfect fitting Walmart boxes and otherwise would need to cut some up. However, per this thread it looks like it is a suspendable offense so I'm leaning towards being cautious but curious what is common practice here. I can't imagine the average consumer would actually take out the time to complain but who knows.

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/suspended-due-to-drop-shipping-violations/1089264/3

I've used some purchased from Walmart for shipping. If they say walmart.com on the outside, I just place a couple labels over them to cover it up.

[cladner]

3 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

I wouldnt risk it. this is a high risk suspension with very small chance of reinstatement. if it has walmart on the flap on the inside, those are fine . if they are walmart shipping boxes, then no no 

even if it says walmart on the flap i wouldn't risk it.  i used to use walmart boxes especially the smaller 6x6x6 but since all the discussion on the forums about people getting their accounts suspended using shipping boxes purchased from walmart (not being recycled -reused). all the shipping boxes from walmart has  "for more shipping supplies visit us at walmart.com" on the bottom of the box.  I am pretty sure that violates amazon rules for boxes - having a major competitors website listed on a box used to ship an item purchased on amazon.   

[jbacunn]

3 hours ago, exciter1 said:

I've used some purchased from Walmart for shipping. If they say walmart.com on the outside, I just place a couple labels over them to cover it up.

I've used the Scotch Cover Up Roll to cover smaller logos on boxes before and never had a problem. I had about 50 ebay boxes that I got for free and used a lot of them for Amazon orders by covering the ebay logo. I can't imagine a customer going to the trouble of pealing those off to see what's underneath and complaining about it but there are a lot of jerks out there so you never know. 

[jeff_14]

I’m on Amazon Canada and have had a bunch of listings for retired sets deactivated for “potential high price”. Beyond what business it is of Amazon’s what price I set, in most cases I actually have the lowest price for the set, and when I click on the listing, much higher prices are listed as options but my lower price is not. What is going on here? 

[Bold-Arrow]

15 minutes ago, jeff_14 said:

I’m on Amazon Canada and have had a bunch of listings for retired sets deactivated for “potential high price”. Beyond what business it is of Amazon’s what price I set, in most cases I actually have the lowest price for the set, and when I click on the listing, much higher prices are listed as options but my lower price is not. What is going on here? 

are they in the same condition? Some sellers go around the price issue by listing as collectible and put new in the notes. Wouldn't recommend that, as it violates a lot of Amazon rules and guidelines 

[jeff_14]

9 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

are they in the same condition? Some sellers go around the price issue by listing as collectible and put new in the notes. Wouldn't recommend that, as it violates a lot of Amazon rules and guidelines 

I don’t think so. It’s the same listing I was using, which is for new sets. Why do higher prices get a pass and my lower ones don’t? 

[Bricklectic]

13 minutes ago, jeff_14 said:

I don’t think so. It’s the same listing I was using, which is for new sets. Why do higher prices get a pass and my lower ones don’t? 

Ive had this once as well. Waited a few weeks and it resolved itself. Not sure how to directly address the issue tho, seems unfair

[vasp]

56 minutes ago, jeff_14 said:

I’m on Amazon Canada and have had a bunch of listings for retired sets deactivated for “potential high price”. Beyond what business it is of Amazon’s what price I set, in most cases I actually have the lowest price for the set, and when I click on the listing, much higher prices are listed as options but my lower price is not. What is going on here? 

I have faced the same on the US side. Sellers selling $30-$40 above my price are still on there, whereas my listing is deactivated.

The bots went crazy this morning. Woke up to 100+ listings deactivated. On some products I'm the only seller (non lego) and amazon wants me to sell below my cost. Even a $1 above cost the listing gets deactivated.

Having amazon UK get buy box doesn't help either (non lego). Been banking on amazon us to go OOS and BAM amazon UK takes over. Sorry had to vent.

[Pseudoty]

Amazon continues to PM Walmart on their own exclusive since the $90 sale ended?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094RF7GWQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[redcell]

1 hour ago, jeff_14 said:

I don’t think so. It’s the same listing I was using, which is for new sets. Why do higher prices get a pass and my lower ones don’t? 

Great question.  This has never made any sense to me and I've argued it on multiple occasions with Seller Support and the [email protected] team, but have never gotten anywhere close to an actual answer.  My best guess is that it all comes down to how they've designed the algorithm that looks for high/low pricing errors.  For reasons that have never made any sense, they appear to have indexed the algorithm to criteria that are individualized to a significant degree to a given seller rather than all sellers across the listing.  It makes no sense and is frustrating as hell, but there's really not much that can be done about it.  It's basically another "Thank you sir, may I have another?" situation with Amazon.

[vasp]

1 hour ago, Pseudoty said:

Amazon continues to PM Walmart on their own exclusive since the $90 sale ended?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094RF7GWQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

Failed AI/Bot

[carini26]

If someone could figure out this and when the algorithm arbitrarily decides to suppress a listing and remove the buy box, that would be great.  I see 75954 main listing is still suppressed, despite being retired now for 18 months and offers starting just 1.5x above RRP.  How can they justify collecting massive FBA storage fees when they do not advertise an easily viewable price on their own website?  I would be livid if I dropped a pallet or two of these and similar SKUs.

[landphieran]

How is everyone's year going? There were some "worst selling year ever" posts in the Amazon forums, I'm sure they exist every year, but I'm curious how the Lego folks are doing.

This year seems to have gone really well. I was expecting a really bad year, due to economic concerns, however the sales have been quite good. I was surprised at the performance of sets I thought were going to be utter garbage. Looking at those Mario sets! Last year was particularly bad for me due to vacations and my lack of preparation so I'm feeling quite good right now  The margins aren't going to be as good as years past but I was able to roll most of my inventory into well priced clearanced stock. I normally would be purchasing into December but spent my money well and I'm winding down which is a nice change of pace.

[gmpirate]

14 minutes ago, landphieran said:

How is everyone's year going? There were some "worst selling year ever" posts in the Amazon forums, I'm sure they exist every year, but I'm curious how the Lego folks are doing.

This year seems to have gone really well. I was expecting a really bad year, due to economic concerns, however the sales have been quite good. I was surprised at the performance of sets I thought were going to be utter garbage. Looking at those Mario sets! Last year was particularly bad for me due to vacations and my lack of preparation so I'm feeling quite good right now  The margins aren't going to be as good as years past but I was able to roll most of my inventory into well priced clearanced stock. I normally would be purchasing into December but spent my money well and I'm winding down which is a nice change of pace.

I got a late start this year because of other business activity and then it really hurt when Amazon cut inventory levels out of nowhere.  Hence I did no where near the sales I expected to.  On the bright side, the inventory I did get in sold pretty well and fast.  I really didn't have to discount as much as I thought I would here in December and had a fair number of sets actually appreciate.

So, what I did put up for sale sold pretty well, but I still have a lot of inventory that has still not matured as it normally would have.  Plan is to start unloading it regardless as we move into a new tax season.

[yyyybird]

amazon oversold my inventory? so I was editing the price of one list, I went to inventory, click edit, change the price, put the quantity 1. however, there are two orders appeared now all @ the updated price.  Anything I did wrong or it is amazon's glitch.

Edited December 7, 2022 by yyyybird