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Selling through Amazon FBA


appleseed1967

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Dang... 2-edged sword with Amazon FBA... better prices, but more accounting hassles tracking down damaged / missing inventory.  I just discovered another item of mine "disappeared" from my inventory.  How do you FBA "pros" do it?  Is there some sort of report you print out monthly... or weekly to double check your inventory?  ... see what's been lost... what's been damaged?  I would think they would proactively report this stuff to you, but apparently not?

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18 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

For all the talk of Amazon being ruthless for 3P sellers, I'm amazed that they let some people continue selling

i guess it depends on how much $$$ they are bringing in ... from what i have heard, Amazon is pretty ruthless to smaller sellers but they do carry those that are doing over $1M sales per year.

Edited by newbie77
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51 minutes ago, DadsAFOL said:

For all the talk of Amazon being ruthless for 3P sellers, I'm amazed that they let some people continue selling

A seller sent me an opened LEGO set. I returned it and was provided immediate refund. One month later, seller sent me an e-mail expressing outrage that "I opened the box, removed the original contents, and sent back junk, what will I do to fix this, because I obviously did all of this." I sent a message to Amazon explaining how absurd this is, how can you continue to allow such a horrible seller to continue to sell, etc, and Amazon's response? We understand you're upset, but please just leave negative feedback for that seller, thank you. (and that feedback was "retracted" by amazon, lol, as I expected --- seems if it's FBA, you can just do literally whatever you want. Send in junk with the proper labels, you're good)

Edited by minicoopers11
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11 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

A seller sent me an opened LEGO set. I returned it and was provided immediate refund. One month later, seller sent me an e-mail expressing outrage that "I opened the box, removed the original contents, and sent back junk, what will I do to fix this, because I obviously did all of this." I sent a message to Amazon explaining how absurd this is, how can you continue to allow such a horrible seller to continue to sell, etc, and Amazon's response? We understand you're upset, but please just leave negative feedback for that seller, thank you. (and that feedback was "retracted" by amazon, lol, as I expected --- seems if it's FBA, you can just do literally whatever you want. Send in junk with the proper labels, you're good)

I just received a negative "1 star" feedback for FBA on a Hulk polybag.  The reason was "NA" and they said No to the "Customer Service Satisfaction" question.  They said yes to "Item As Described" and "Arrived on Time".  FBA support says NA isn't a good enough explanation to have the feedback removed and they want me to jump through hoops to try to contact this person, with no response of course.

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Suppose I should have put NA as the reason. LOL. This seller is apparently impeccable at getting their feedback retracted. All but one of their negatives (and they have alot) are struck out with the clarifier that "since this was FBA, Amazon takes full responsibility, blah blah."

Edited by minicoopers11
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Suppose I should have put NA as the reason. LOL. This seller is apparently impeccable at getting their feedback retracted. All but one of their negatives (and they have alot) are struck out with the clarifier that "since this was FBA, Amazon takes full responsibility, blah blah."

If you request a review of feedback and the item is FBA, 9/10 they'll just strike it through. Bad luck to hit on a case where they don't.

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For all the talk of Amazon being ruthless for 3P sellers, I'm amazed that they let some people continue selling

I think it's less that Amazon is ruthless and more that they are capricious and intractable. Plenty of bad sellers are allowed to thrive, but a good seller can get banhammered for no obvious reason and have little recourse, and once tagged for suspension it is painfully easy to screw up your extremely limited opportunity for appeal.

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2 hours ago, exciter1 said:

I just received a negative "1 star" feedback for FBA on a Hulk polybag.  The reason was "NA" and they said No to the "Customer Service Satisfaction" question.  They said yes to "Item As Described" and "Arrived on Time".  FBA support says NA isn't a good enough explanation to have the feedback removed and they want me to jump through hoops to try to contact this person, with no response of course.

Absurd that you have to run down this unreasonable buyer and get more details as to why they left the 1 star rating.  IMHO, they are unreasonable b/c they did not clearly state what caused their dissatisfaction and therefore, no opportunity to try and resolve the issue.  Since they claimed the item was as described and arrived on time, wonder if had anything to do with the fulfillment process.  

According to Amazon's feedback guidelines: "When negative feedback is related to the fulfillment or services provided by Amazon, the negative rating can be struck through,* so it won't affect your performance metrics. The customer's comment will remain with a note from Amazon that states, "This item was fulfilled by Amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience."   

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1 hour ago, msdontplay01 said:

Absurd that you have to run down this unreasonable buyer and get more details as to why they left the 1 star rating.  IMHO, they are unreasonable b/c they did not clearly state what caused their dissatisfaction and therefore, no opportunity to try and resolve the issue.  Since they claimed the item was as described and arrived on time, wonder if had anything to do with the fulfillment process.  

According to Amazon's feedback guidelines: "When negative feedback is related to the fulfillment or services provided by Amazon, the negative rating can be struck through,* so it won't affect your performance metrics. The customer's comment will remain with a note from Amazon that states, "This item was fulfilled by Amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience."   

 

1 hour ago, Bold-Arrow said:

I would suggest opening another case and ask a supervisor to review it . 

Yes, it's ridiculous.  They say they can't prove it was a fulfillment problem because NA is acceptable for feedback.  I'll post a snippet.
____________________

We have reviewed your request for feedback removal on Order ID  . We have gone through the details and found that the feedback is neutral or non-specific. In this case we are unsure whether the feedback left by the buyer is for the product or the service. Therefore, we are unable to remove the feedback.

We have checked the communication and found that no communication happened with the buyer so far related to this feedback. So, kindly contact the buyer and ask the reason for this neutral feedback. Once the buyer explains the reason through Amazon message filtering system then we can review the feedback again to check if it is against our feedback removal guidelines.

Please understand that we need to follow some policies and procedures to suppress a feedback. We realize how complicated it is to you to accept the fact that we as a Seller Support representative are bound to certain stringent policies where we cannot accommodate a Sellers request though we wish to.

_____________________

I apologize that I misunderstood the rating given by the buyer but I am afraid, still it will matter the same. I realize how irritating this thing could be and you have every right to be disappointed with this. We understand how important feedback rating is especially for the seller and we agree you have done every possible thing to get this issue resolved.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you due to this as there are some policies that need to be followed diligently.

Since, the feedback does not violate our feedback removal policies. Therefore. we may suggest you is to call them and if buyers returns your call, you may seek their permission of feedback removal or ask for specification. Once done ask them to give their written consent regarding the specification or removal of the feedback in Amazon message filter and we will take the feedback removal action accordingly.

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43 minutes ago, sunkenbrick said:

What can I do to make sure my customers provide some feedback? I have sent over 20 orders during the past month or so and I haven't received a single rating. QQ

I really wouldn't worry too much about it . The feedback rate on Amazon is about 3% so you are around there. Sometimes if you ask , u will get a negative . Just keep selling and they will come, mostly during the holiday season . 

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6 hours ago, sunkenbrick said:

What can I do to make sure my customers provide some feedback? I have sent over 20 orders during the past month or so and I haven't received a single rating. QQ

Use the free version of feedback genius. I'm at 2.4% feedback (not counting the ones they removed) since I started 2 years ago and feedback genius did help a little bit. I did not notice any additional negative feedbacks coming in since then either.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Decent FBA offer, they are getting stuffed :

Hello from Fulfillment by Amazon,

You may have slow-moving or low-selling inventory. Starting today, March 31, 2016, FBA is waiving fees for any removal order for return or disposal of your inventory that is currently in U.S. fulfillment centers. This promotion ends April 30, 2016, after which time normal removal-order fees will apply.

If you remove units as part of this promotion for which you paid a Long-Term Storage Fee in February 2016, we will reimburse 66% of the fee that you paid per cubic foot for those units.

FBA remains dedicated to supporting your growth and ensuring that our U.S. fulfillment centers have the right quantity of products. This promotion is designed to free up space for products that are selling fast.

Learn more about free removals (sign-in required).

How will this work?

You can create a removal order from the Manage Inventory page in Seller Central. Learn more about removing inventory (sign-in required).

Also: 

  • If you filed a removal order for stranded or unfulfillable inventory on or after February 29, 2016, you will be reimbursed for these removal-order fees.
  • If you file a removal order for sellable inventory on or before April 30, 2016, to dispose of this inventory or have it returned to you, you will be unable to send in additional units of these ASINs until October 1, 2016. If your inventory level falls below the number of units you have sold of this ASIN in the previous four weeks, you can send this ASIN to Amazon.

How can I check my inventory levels?

To view your current inventory age, download the Inventory Age report in the Fulfillment Reports section of Seller Central. If you have a Professional selling account, you can view the FBA Inventory Age page on your Inventory Dashboard (sign-in required).

You can check your February Long-Term Storage Fee charges in the Long-Term Storage Fee Charges report in Seller Central (sign-in required).

Thank you for selling on Amazon.

Sincerely,

The Fulfillment by Amazon team

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Ha! I'm still waiting for Amazon to return my unfulfillable item from Christmas that was shipped off to a trailer over a month ago and is supposedly now available but still stuck in removal order limbo.

However, for all the bad, Amazon did reimburse me for damaging my sellable inventory in an removal order that looked like it had been used as a soccer ball by UPS. Amazon's bad packaging didn't help (The quality of removal orders has definitely gone down since last year). They didn't ask for the inventory back so now I have damaged box sets that are either builds, birthday gifts or future damaged box/sealed bag sales.

Edited by grackleflint
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Fuel for the Bubble thread, but this is typically a very slow sales period. I've seen a lot of posts from Amazon sellers (Not just LEGO, but everything) talking about how their sales are way down, even compared to this time of year last year. Something I can't help notice is a lot of items I consider selling - I see 4-5 "Just Launched" Sellers on SO MANY of the items I am considering. When people discuss the "bubble" - They also have to understand that there are lots of sellers/resllers/retail arbitragers whatever you want to call them, and you see more and more every day.

This certainly leads to overstuffed warehouses of items that aren't moving. If you have 200 people selling item X via FBA, most like 195 of them aren't going to be moving any units for a while. It's a very interesting time to be in this game, I am very interested to see how the coming holiday season plays out.

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