Selling through Amazon FBA

[DadsAFOL]

3 hours ago, Brickbuilder.g said:

Anyone sold minifigures this way? What's the best way to ship them? I assume one per bag and then all can be one one larger bag and then do each bag need a label or can you put one label on the big bag? Might be sending in 10-20 of one fig....

There are a number of sellers that do this.  I have an associate that has 1000's of figs in FBA.  You need to package and label each individual item.  I worry that the loss/error rate would be much higher for a tiny figure in the AMZ warehouses, but he seems to do okay with it.  Like everything though, its supply availability and margin tolerance.  The guys that are sending hundreds of figures in are willing to take smaller margins to win the buy box.

[Brickbuilder.g]

Anyone sold minifigures this way? What's the best way to ship them? I assume one per bag and then all can be one one larger bag and then do each bag need a label or can you put one label on the big bag? Might be sending in 10-20 of one fig....

There are a number of sellers that do this.  I have an associate that has 1000's of figs in FBA.  You need to package and label each individual item.  I worry that the loss/error rate would be much higher for a tiny figure in the AMZ warehouses, but he seems to do okay with it.  Like everything though, its supply availability and margin tolerance.  The guys that are sending hundreds of figures in are willing to take smaller margins to win the buy box.

Cool. Seems like such a time suck but I guess it's less time then packing on my own and shipping out.

The buy box is critical for sure...makes a huge difference.

[zak001]

12 hours ago, Brickbuilder.g said:

So it's taken them a month to get there and inventoried??

No, I've been doing large shipments every few days up to and including last week. The last round of stuff hasn't got there yet. This time of year 4-5 business days is pretty common for UPS Ground to the other side of the country.

[zskid00]

What exactly does an "unfilfillable - customer damaged" item indicate?  Does that mean they probably opened the box and kept the minifigures for themselves?  If so, is there any way to dispute the return to try to get some money back or am I pretty much screwed here and even have to pay for return shipping to get it back? 

[redcell]

48 minutes ago, zskid00 said:

What exactly does an "unfilfillable - customer damaged" item indicate?  Does that mean they probably opened the box and kept the minifigures for themselves?  If so, is there any way to dispute the return to try to get some money back or am I pretty much screwed here and even have to pay for return shipping to get it back? 

You're pretty much screwed.  If you've gone with stickerless commingled inventory, the unit that you get back won't be the actual unit that the customer returned so there's really no way to tell what the story is.  Customer damaged means that the customer opened the set or did something else with it that damaged it.

[zak001]

4 hours ago, zskid00 said:

What exactly does an "unfilfillable - customer damaged" item indicate?  Does that mean they probably opened the box and kept the minifigures for themselves?  If so, is there any way to dispute the return to try to get some money back or am I pretty much screwed here and even have to pay for return shipping to get it back? 

You should get back the damaged unit if you file a removal request - that's one instance where items become un-commingled. It just probably won't be the one you originally shipped the warehouse. The return shipping is pretty cheap, equivalent to the FBA charge - if it's a large set I'd pay to have it shipped back to me to see if elements were salvageable (or just to see if I could figure out what happened). Sometimes the damage is not really damage at all - I've had things returned to me as customer damaged that I was able to ship right back to the warehouse. If the damage is minor or cosmetic you can then sell it as described on eBay or CL, or you may be able to piece out the figs and sell those.

It IS possible to get seller support to issue you a credit if, for example, the item was clearly bought to strip the figs and returned - Amazon will still let the customer keep the refund but Amazon itself may eat the cost. But you might get dinged on some invisible metric every time you do it, and your mileage will definitely vary.

But yes, you're pretty much screwed; it's just a little bit up to you HOW you're screwed.

[Dbroncoboy]

This year shall forever be known as "the year of the backorder". If your pricing your items, I would price below the lowest "In Stock" FBA item, not the lowest FBA item. I have been getting good movement being above the seemingly huge amount of backorders. This has allowed me to squeeze out some more profit.

Amazon continues to move my stuff around, some quantities of things I sent in a month or so ago are now in transit to other centers.

Perhaps its only my account, but when items are moved to other centers the reserved amount is doubled.This has put me over my limit for oversized items. Kind of frustrating that I am well under my limit, but them moving items around has put me over.

 

[zak001]

29 minutes ago, Dbroncoboy said:

This year shall forever be known as "the year of the backorder". If your pricing your items, I would price below the lowest "In Stock" FBA item, not the lowest FBA item. I have been getting good movement being above the seemingly huge amount of backorders. This has allowed me to squeeze out some more profit.

This. And if you're merchant fulfilling, keep an eye on your estimated delivery date; you can price above sellers arriving after Christmas if your expected date of arrival is the 23rd or 24th.

I suspect that Amazon may be pushing backorders into the system early based on price in order to keep the numbers looking low. I'm seeing backorder inventory from sellers that won't be available for nine days, meanwhile I have stuff that's actually sitting at a fulfillment center waiting to be unpacked that isn't available for sale yet.

[Bold-Arrow]

The whole BB algorithm was changed few months back. Amazon trying to keep prices low for the customers. You used to be able to price within few $ and still get into the rotation, now you must be within a penny or two . 

[jerryherb]

where is the fun in FBA when you can roll up your office to the post office like this daily?

 

[landphieran]

I am pretty sure you need to ditch that van for something with real style.

Edited December 15, 2015 by landphieran
Grammar

[jerryherb]

few more years of FBM....

[Achilles]

I have a question for some of you FBA Big Boys -

When looking at an item like Death Star, you see Amazon selling it for MSRP, yet 193 people are ALSO selling it - lowest price 480. Are these people simply HOPING Amazon goes OOS and theirs sell? It seems like a bit of a waste of storage fees/etc - for so many people to not want to undercut Amazon. 

Are there any benefits at all to this?

 

[Bold-Arrow]

5 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I have a question for some of you FBA Big Boys -

When looking at an item like Death Star, you see Amazon selling it for MSRP, yet 193 people are ALSO selling it - lowest price 480. Are these people simply HOPING Amazon goes OOS and theirs sell? It seems like a bit of a waste of storage fees/etc - for so many people to not want to undercut Amazon. 

Are there any benefits at all to this?

 

Yes, especially during the holiday season or a fluke sale . I agree with waste of money concept . 

[zak001]

18 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I have a question for some of you FBA Big Boys -

When looking at an item like Death Star, you see Amazon selling it for MSRP, yet 193 people are ALSO selling it - lowest price 480. Are these people simply HOPING Amazon goes OOS and theirs sell? It seems like a bit of a waste of storage fees/etc - for so many people to not want to undercut Amazon. 

Are there any benefits at all to this?

 

After fees your profit on that is pretty slim - the bet is that Amazon will go OOS at some point and you'll get the sale. But it IS profit, and there are sellers with bankrolls large enough that they don't mind. There's also an advantage to having inventory "parked" at Amazon for sets that could retire at any time - you're able to react to an early panic-buy spike, in theory, sometimes even fast enough to source replacements for your stock. There are definitely better ways to make money, but an edge is an edge. I don't ever do it on purpose, but occasionally I end up with leftover stock on a bad hunch and it's usually better to store it for a while than unload it at break-even.

[Dbroncoboy]

I'm having really bad luck with Amazon partial refunding purchases to msrp price. Anyone dealt with this successfully? I'd rather them return an open set in all honesty.

[Bold-Arrow]

5 minutes ago, Dbroncoboy said:

I'm having really bad luck with Amazon partial refunding purchases to msrp price. Anyone dealt with this successfully? I'd rather them return an open set in all honesty.

Amazon should automatically refund you in 45 days 

[Jackson]

Dear undercutters, I and many other sellers will inevitably follow your price down, so I don't know what the F you think you are trying to accomplish, other than making less money. 

 

Sincerely,

a guy who wants to make more than ten cents per sale

[cobrakai]

30 minutes ago, Jackson said:

Dear undercutters, I and many other sellers will inevitably follow your price down, so I don't know what the F you think you are trying to accomplish, other than making less money. 

 

Sincerely,

a guy who wants to make more than ten cents per sale

The 2 lowballers on the 75099 Rey Speeder listing are driving me nuts today.  Was selling just fine for $45-$50 this morning.  Why do they need to cut the price by $7 to $8 bucks right off the bat.

[grackleflint]

35 minutes ago, Jackson said:

Dear undercutters, I and many other sellers will inevitably follow your price down, so I don't know what the F you think you are trying to accomplish, other than making less money. 

 

Sincerely,

a guy who wants to make more than ten cents per sale

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Guessing the thinking is it's better to make less money than no money by having it unsold after Christmas. And it is some of the bigger, established resellers with a lot of stock leading the downward charge so I doubt they care about making a couple of less dollars per set to move stock or they can spread out the pain easier.

Looks like some people might have some Jan/Feb credit card bills to pay to fund all their QF-ing.

Why follow them down?

Just hold steady and keep it until next Christmas (if you can). Perfect example is the 75056 Santa Darth Vader Advent calendar. Last year after Christmas, there were so many FBA sellers, I saw FBA listings for less than retail, ~$37, because sellers just had to dump them.

I refused to join in that parade and had mine returned to me (@ $.50 each). Held them until this Nov and ended up selling them for $90 each. Looking back I should have bought in Jan from everyone else dumping.

The Christmas drag on prices is in full swing now. Look at 10228 Haunted House. Sold one for $460 FBA in June, now it's down to $430 FBA and there are 7 other FBA sellers to climb over to even get back to $460.

Or sell less "mainstream" sets. Some Architecture sets which are out of stock for Christmas are way up.

 

Edited December 16, 2015 by grackleflint

[exciter1]

47 minutes ago, Jackson said:

Dear undercutters, I and many other sellers will inevitably follow your price down, so I don't know what the F you think you are trying to accomplish, other than making less money.

Sincerely,

a guy who wants to make more than ten cents per sale

I'm not sure what they're doing either.  Why don't they just match the price and ride the wave?

[Bold-Arrow]

I have zero problem ruining a listing out of spite . 

[zak001]

50 minutes ago, gregbaynes said:

The 2 lowballers on the 75099 Rey Speeder listing are driving me nuts today.  Was selling just fine for $45-$50 this morning.  Why do they need to cut the price by $7 to $8 bucks right off the bat.

Those of us stuck on the other side of the TFA gating are playing tiny, tiny violins for you from the bottoms of our bitter hearts.

[zak001]

(I get that Disney is concerned about counterfeits and that Amazon has to take action to protect their brand and so on, but it sucks to have legitimately acquired non-counterfeit LEGO goods for sale that you've been selling for years and suddenly be blocked from continuing, meanwhile getting emails from Amazon saying, "Hey, here's an opportunity to expand your FBA listings: Poe's X-Wing Fighter!" And then coming across listings like this, which is a real thing you can buy on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Attack-Dragon-Building-Compatible/dp/B016N7KUVM/ )

[jerryherb]

14 hours ago, zak001 said:

(I get that Disney is concerned about counterfeits and that Amazon has to take action to protect their brand and so on, but it sucks to have legitimately acquired non-counterfeit LEGO goods for sale that you've been selling for years and suddenly be blocked from continuing, meanwhile getting emails from Amazon saying, "Hey, here's an opportunity to expand your FBA listings: Poe's X-Wing Fighter!" And then coming across listings like this, which is a real thing you can buy on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Attack-Dragon-Building-Compatible/dp/B016N7KUVM/ )

yeah, that is some bull honky... can consumers flag listings as inappropriate/fake on amazon?