Selling through Amazon FBA

[MarleyMoose]

On 7/30/2020 at 10:06 AM, Darth_Raichu said:

The article needed an editor.  Even I can see their grammatical errors

I find these days this to be the norm.

[33Lego]

I cannot find my FBM offering ...
Even that I have them in the inventory as active.

The FBM gate starts Nov/Dec, right?

[Jackson]

2 hours ago, Serejai said:

 

I never in my life thought I would be rooting for Walmart but damn if I don't hope their 3P fulfillment takes off and beats Amazon.

Do you sell on walmart.com? What are the requirements to be able to sell there?

 

 

2 hours ago, Darth_Raichu said:

So Amazon double down on refusing to release my $5 stating the reimbursement was not issued by Amazon.  Any ideas on what to do next?

Also, does anyone know how I can contact FBA security team?  If i never authorized the refund and amzn said they did not either, then somebody must have hacked to their system and refunded the amount

Is the wording like this? "We don’t reimburse for refunds issued by non-Amazon entities."

[landphieran]

Amazon buy box/pricing display is really off right now.

The other day I was sharing the buy box on a listing. I lowered my price to control the buy box and suddenly my listing disappeared off of Amazon for half a day.

Today I checked a listing which should have had FBA inventory available. I have an FBM listing available on the same item. The FBM listing is selling units, however my FBA listing (which is nearly identical in price) wasn't visible on the first page of offerings. Scrolling through the offerings, its randomly listed at the back of the offerings with available inventory????

I have no pricing rules on these items. I feel like a very fundamental part of having a selling platform is being able to appropriately price and display items in at least a semblance of correct order. My seller rating is 100% and I've sold significant volume so i doubt its a seller based restriction.

[Darth_Raichu]

4 hours ago, Jackson said:

Is the wording like this? "We don’t reimburse for refunds issued by non-Amazon entities."

Yes:
Based on the order ID ******, the refund for this item was not issued by Amazon. Refunds issued by entities other than Amazon, including FBA sellers, are not eligible for reimbursement.
 

[bbr]

6 hours ago, landphieran said:

Amazon buy box/pricing display is really off right now.

The other day I was sharing the buy box on a listing. I lowered my price to control the buy box and suddenly my listing disappeared off of Amazon for half a day.

Today I checked a listing which should have had FBA inventory available. I have an FBM listing available on the same item. The FBM listing is selling units, however my FBA listing (which is nearly identical in price) wasn't visible on the first page of offerings. Scrolling through the offerings, its randomly listed at the back of the offerings with available inventory????

I have no pricing rules on these items. I feel like a very fundamental part of having a selling platform is being able to appropriately price and display items in at least a semblance of correct order. My seller rating is 100% and I've sold significant volume so i doubt its a seller based restriction.

If you have multiple listings for the same item only the lowest priced item will show correctly. The other listing(s) will be pushed to the "end of the line" or back page. Sellers were abusing the system by having multiple listings of the same item so that only their store showed on the first page of product listings. Amazon "fixed" this by only allowing the lowest priced item to show correctly in the product listing.

[landphieran]

PSA: If anyone is overflowing with cardboard- post them on facebook marketplace. People usually respond the same day. I set them out front and people come grab them. WAY easier then running to the dump/putting them in recycling bins.

Edit: I usually save up enough and label them as moving boxes.

Edited August 3, 2020 by landphieran

[joch29]

2 minutes ago, landphieran said:

PSA: If anyone is overflowing with cardboard- post them on facebook marketplace. People usually respond the same day. I set them out front and people come grab them. WAY easier then running to the dump/putting them in recycling bins.

Thx. I was wondering how else to make use of them. I've given to friends and neighbors that needed boxes for moving.  Reused them to ship items.  Used them to box donations.  Still overflowing with them. I recycle a bunch too that were not worth reusing.

 

Just be careful what kind of sketchy ppl you attract wondering what was in those boxes.

 

[landphieran]

2 minutes ago, joch29 said:

Thx. I was wondering how else to make use of them. I've given to friends and neighbors that needed boxes for moving.  Reused them to ship items.  Used them to box donations.  Still overflowing with them. I recycle a bunch too that were not worth reusing.

 

Just be careful what kind of sketchy ppl you attract wondering what was in those boxes.

 

I live in a college town so mostly they are young college kids or families looking to move. Depending on where you live you may need to be more careful.

[spener90]

3 hours ago, landphieran said:

I live in a college town so mostly they are young college kids or families looking to move. Depending on where you live you may need to be more careful.

There is a self recycling place near my house, if anything may draw attention, I take it there. Paranoid? Yes. Waste of time? Maybe. Not having your s*** stolen? Priceless.

[Serejai]

Yeah I can't imagine putting stacks of lego and nintendo boxes outside. Thats just asking to be robbed lol. It's worth the trip to the recycling place just for safety reasons.

[landphieran]

3 hours ago, Serejai said:

Yeah I can't imagine putting stacks of lego and nintendo boxes outside. Thats just asking to be robbed lol. It's worth the trip to the recycling place just for safety reasons.

I forget how paranoid people are lol. Such a waste of energy and time. Maybe it's me being a niave Midwesterner but most thief's that will steal mountains of Lego's from a basement will have scoped you out by delivery drivers, social media and word of mouth. Not some trash being discarded.

In case thieves are watching me 🧐 I'd like to inform them I have camera's around the house and on the only entrance to the basement so gl.

Edited August 4, 2020 by landphieran

[donbee]

I live in a college town so mostly they are young college kids or families looking to move. Depending on where you live you may need to be more careful.

Just use your neighbor’s address, and place the boxes on the curb between your lawns.

[joch29]

1 hour ago, landphieran said:

I forget how paranoid people are lol. Such a waste of energy and time. Maybe it's me being a niave Midwesterner but most thief's that will steal mountains of Lego's from a basement will have scoped you out by delivery drivers, social media and word of mouth. Not some trash being discarded.

In case thieves are watching me 🧐 I'd like to inform them I have camera's around the house and on the only entrance to the basement so gl.

yep.. happens more often than you think in more densely populated areas. Heck, i had friends get their snow shovel stolen.

[pete411]

My FBA shipment to the factory in Rialto, CA has been stuck as inbound for the past two weeks. Two boxes of LEGO consisting of 26 units. They showed up in my active inventory and one of the sets got sold but is still pending. All 26 pieces were moved to inactive 10 days ago and have been stuck there. I contacted seller support but they have been completely unhelpful. Is there anything I can do?

[gmpirate]

10 minutes ago, pete411 said:

My FBA shipment to the factory in Rialto, CA has been stuck as inbound for the past two weeks. Two boxes of LEGO consisting of 26 units. They showed up in my active inventory and one of the sets got sold but is still pending. All 26 pieces were moved to inactive 10 days ago and have been stuck there. I contacted seller support but they have been completely unhelpful. Is there anything I can do?

Give Jeff a call.  He will probably not be able to confirm or deny there is any wrong doing, but maybe he can look into it.

[joch29]

2 hours ago, pete411 said:

My FBA shipment to the factory in Rialto, CA has been stuck as inbound for the past two weeks. Two boxes of LEGO consisting of 26 units. They showed up in my active inventory and one of the sets got sold but is still pending. All 26 pieces were moved to inactive 10 days ago and have been stuck there. I contacted seller support but they have been completely unhelpful. Is there anything I can do?

what do you mean unhelpful?  Are they asking you to wait a certain number of days for it to make it through their system? I know it's annoying but imagine the volume they are dealing with.  If it's showing up as inactive, they flagged it for some reason and it's being investigated.  At least that's been in my experience. 

[pete411]

23 minutes ago, joch29 said:

what do you mean unhelpful?  Are they asking you to wait a certain number of days for it to make it through their system? I know it's annoying but imagine the volume they are dealing with.  If it's showing up as inactive, they flagged it for some reason and it's being investigated.  At least that's been in my experience. 

No matter what you write in the message to them, they just copy and paste the same response vaguely relating to the topic and don’t address the question. That’s been my experience every time I write to seller support.

[Serejai]

Finally got an email back from Jeff's team about all the "empty" boxes Amazon has been checking in lately. Trying not to get my hopes up too much but maybe they will actually research the thousands of dollars of missing product now.

[gmpirate]

I’ve never contacted them over shipments in limbo but I’ve had stuff take up to 3 weeks to get into inventory.  And then if I wasn’t watching it goes inactive/reserved again — probably being transferred yet again.  And this is all before covid.

From how I remember, all the delays stared within the last couple years.  I used to be able to time getting inventory in pretty well but not now.  All my smaller sets are shipped to a local warehouse only 45 minutes always.  They receive the shipment next day but takes weeks to be available.

Edited August 6, 2020 by gmpirate

[Serejai]

I've been selling on Amazon for a decade and only ever started having problems in the last 1-2 years, also. There were a host of issues that seemed to crop up all at once;

• Customer service got outsourced + things like Reconciliation got automated
• Check-ins went from instant to days/weeks
• Shipping costs increased (they started charging dimensional weights for EVERYTHING)
• They stopped automatically removing bad reviews due to shipping times or price (FBA)
• Phone Support can no longer deal with a lot of issues they used to handle; they now just tell you to use email or use the automated help system
• Packages seem to get lost or damaged constantly now (not sure I ever had a lost product pre-2019)
• Shipments are constantly miscounted (product quantities get mixed up)
• Despite my job as a seller constantly getting harder instead of easier, fees also increased and I'm now paying Amazon MORE for doing LESS

I don't know what has been going on but it was very uncommon to hear anything bad about FBA pre-2019 and now it seems like anywhere you go people are telling you to avoid it, including the official seller forums on Amazon. I think it's safe to say things have certainly changed in recent years.

[exciter1]

21 minutes ago, Serejai said:

I've been selling on Amazon for a decade and only ever started having problems in the last 1-2 years, also. There were a host of issues that seemed to crop up all at once;

• Customer service got outsourced + things like Reconciliation got automated
• Check-ins went from instant to days/weeks
• Shipping costs increased (they started charging dimensional weights for EVERYTHING)
• They stopped automatically removing bad reviews due to shipping times or price (FBA)
• Phone Support can no longer deal with a lot of issues they used to handle; they now just tell you to use email or use the automated help system
• Packages seem to get lost or damaged constantly now (not sure I ever had a lost product pre-2019)
• Shipments are constantly miscounted (product quantities get mixed up)
• Despite my job as a seller constantly getting harder instead of easier, fees also increased and I'm now paying Amazon MORE for doing LESS

I don't know what has been going on but it was very uncommon to hear anything bad about FBA pre-2019 and now it seems like anywhere you go people are telling you to avoid it, including the official seller forums on Amazon. I think it's safe to say things have certainly changed in recent years.

Although it's a pain shipping out stuff every day, I have enjoyed handling my own inventory the past few months.

[president89]

I am wondering if I should plan to merchant fullfill my orders this Q4. I am worried covid will cause delays in FBA shipping things out and checking in inventory like it did in the spring. I made a killing fullfilling my own orders because I could charge a premium for having 2-5 day shipping times vs the extended ones amazon was quoting.

[jeff_14]

1 minute ago, exciter1 said:

Although it's a pain shipping out stuff every day, I have enjoyed handling my own inventory the past few months.

It’s all I’ve ever done. I had signed up for FBA just weeks before COVID hit to try it out despite reading horror stories for years and then when I started seeing news reports about massive Amazon shipping delays and then distribution centres on fire and all the posts here about lost inventory I said “F it” and just kept on doing what I’ve been doing and it’s a nice routine taking shipments in every few days and knowing all is well. Of course I’m small scale and typically sell between 10-20 items a month.

[KvHulk]

FBMe Forevah!