Selling through Amazon FBA

[Bold-Arrow]

1 minute ago, DivingDW said:

Well this seems much harder than I realized then. So how did the current sellers of Lego on Amazon get around the CPC issue, or did they actually obtain authorized reseller status with Lego?

Most were grandfathered in before the gate .. some reputable sellers can get auto approved but that takes a long and established history of selling on the platform 

[Sfcommando14]

30 minutes ago, DivingDW said:

Well this seems much harder than I realized then. So how did the current sellers of Lego on Amazon get around the CPC issue, or did they actually obtain authorized reseller status with Lego?

IIRC, you are about 15 months too late for this party.

[DivingDW]

Well I guess I'll just limit myself to the brands I actually have an authorized deal with through my wife's store and hope they eventually like me.. lol

[newbie77]

On November 7, 2017 at 9:48 AM, Bold-Arrow said:

first holiday storage fee should hit today, gonna be fun. 

yikes....  small timer like me is getting this much storage fee.. imagine how much @Bold-Arrow; @redcell; @asharerin; and all those planets--- are paying sorry if i missed @trekgate502; @biking_tiger; @exciter1 and other avid FBA veterans 

Edited November 9, 2017 by newbie77

[redcell]

Mine wasn't too bad this year. Around $800. Was 3x that last year, but I sold larger sets earlier this year and shipped everything else later.

[KShine]

[cladner]

3 minutes ago, KShine said:

lol.  i saw the picture on the left on a cnbc article and was like wtf is vin diesel doing here.  

[Bold-Arrow]

8 hours ago, newbie77 said:

yikes....  small timer like me is getting this much storage fee.. imagine how much @Bold-Arrow; @redcell; @asharerin; and all those planets--- are paying sorry if i missed @trekgate502; @biking_tiger; @exciter1 and other avid FBA veterans 

Storage fees are not a good indicator of how big or small a seller is . If you are churning your inventory at the right rate than you are doing it right and your storage fees should be low .

[Brickbuilder.g]

Anyone use seller fulfilled prime?

[DadsAFOL]

Anyone use seller fulfilled prime?

Yes. My only advice is to figure out how to constrain your regions. I’m in CA and had some expensive ships to the east coast. SFP does not give you access to the ultra cheap shipping AMZ pays, nor does it get you the Sunday deliveries. So now my products are Prime only to buyers in CA/OR/WA/AZ/NV and non Prime to buyers elsewhere. Works great, and shipping is always cheap.

[Brickbuilder.g]

Yes. My only advice is to figure out how to constrain your regions. I’m in CA and had some expensive ships to the east coast. SFP does not give you access to the ultra cheap shipping AMZ pays, nor does it get you the Sunday deliveries. So now my products are Prime only to buyers in CA/OR/WA/AZ/NV and non Prime to buyers elsewhere. Works great, and shipping is always cheap.

Yeah that’s what I was afraid of. It’s basically only good for the handful of states around you. I’m centrally located so makes it tough to hit the coastal regions where most orders come from.

[newbie77]

2 hours ago, DadsAFOL said:

 

Yes. My only advice is to figure out how to constrain your regions. I’m in CA and had some expensive ships to the east coast. SFP does not give you access to the ultra cheap shipping AMZ pays, nor does it get you the Sunday deliveries. So now my products are Prime only to buyers in CA/OR/WA/AZ/NV and non Prime to buyers elsewhere. Works great, and shipping is always cheap.

 

I have found some regions in AZ & WA not covered by USPS priority 2 day which means that you may have to buy express Or subject oneself to higher cost on ups/FedEx 2 day so that's something to watch out. May be its only applicable to me since I am in middle of nowhere in CA. 

[newbie77]

3 hours ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Storage fees are not a good indicator of how big or small a seller is . If you are churning your inventory at the right rate than you are doing it right and your storage fees should be low .

Ah common doesn't matter how good are at turn over but the planets are keeping over 200 of duds like mixels so they must be paying pretty pennies similarly we all have some duds that's eating up

Edited November 9, 2017 by newbie77

[landphieran]

My packages have been being received by Amazon in 3 days average. The holiday guidelines seem to be VERY generous. 

I'm curious what strategy the big sellers use to send in inventory. Generally sending in larger volume is easier and cost effective. Send a lot of the same item is even further easier as its easy to repeat box layouts. However in doing this you may inherently be sending in inventory with middling sales ranks that linger for a bit resulting in large storage fee's. 

Do you spread wider (sku) wise during the holidays? Create many large spread shipments to send in?

[newbie77]

1 hour ago, landphieran said:

My packages have been being received by Amazon in 3 days average. The holiday guidelines seem to be VERY generous. 

I'm curious what strategy the big sellers use to send in inventory. Generally sending in larger volume is easier and cost effective. Send a lot of the same item is even further easier as its easy to repeat box layouts. However in doing this you may inherently be sending in inventory with middling sales ranks that linger for a bit resulting in large storage fee's. 

Do you spread wider (sku) wise during the holidays? Create many large spread shipments to send in?

congratulations. mine has been staying  in delivered for last 7 days.

[exciter1]

One box lost already after delivered, with the others checked in. I️ have to wait an extended 7 days to reconcile.

[asharerin]

4 hours ago, landphieran said:

My packages have been being received by Amazon in 3 days average. The holiday guidelines seem to be VERY generous. 

I'm curious what strategy the big sellers use to send in inventory. Generally sending in larger volume is easier and cost effective. Send a lot of the same item is even further easier as its easy to repeat box layouts. However in doing this you may inherently be sending in inventory with middling sales ranks that linger for a bit resulting in large storage fee's. 

Do you spread wider (sku) wise during the holidays? Create many large spread shipments to send in?

We send in shipments daily of roughly the same size and just enough to cover demand or a bit less. We sell through all our replens in 24-48 hrs and that keeps storage costs to a bare minimum. Haven't sent much Lego this year,  maybe next year. Actually have been enjoying selling a few Lego sets on ebay like the good old days. Even went back to emazers tutorial on packing and have the kraft paper around the sides and top, and the good old large priority mail box laying flat on top of everything for good measure. Hadn't used those 24x20x4 boxes in years and have to say it is much more fun than Amazon replens.

[redcell]

lol.  i saw the picture on the left on a cnbc article and was like wtf is vin diesel doing here.  

Looks like Amazon may have gotten all those wholesale pharmacy licenses recently to keep Jeff well stocked with steroids.

[Val-E]

You never see them in the same place at the same time!

 

[AWES1234]

So a question to all you FBA veterans out there. On multiple occasions now, I have received returns in which the buyer has stolen the contents of the actual box, but the disposition by Amazon is "Customer damaged" so they tell me they can't reimburse me cause it is "customer damaged." Has this happened to you guys as well?

 

[Achilles]

Pretty much every wave I send in this season, I have at least one entire box of $200+ items that mysteriously shows up empty apparently. They receive the box and the weight stays constant, but yet there are 0 units in the box. It's getting incredibly maddening to have to constantly fight them on this.

For one of these, I complained, and out of 14 items they "found" 2. It was an entire case packed of the same SKU. If they got 2, they got them all. 

I sincerely hope they come up with a solution to this, I don't want to have to take the time to insure and prove what's in every box I send in. And it definitely wasn't like this in years past. Been 8-9 cases already this year.

 

[Bold-Arrow]

2 hours ago, AWES1234 said:

So a question to all you FBA veterans out there. On multiple occasions now, I have received returns in which the buyer has stolen the contents of the actual box, but the disposition by Amazon is "Customer damaged" so they tell me they can't reimburse me cause it is "customer damaged." Has this happened to you guys as well?

 

Yes . All the time . Gets old 

[pickleboy]

18 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Pretty much every wave I send in this season, I have at least one entire box of $200+ items that mysteriously shows up empty apparently. They receive the box and the weight stays constant, but yet there are 0 units in the box. It's getting incredibly maddening to have to constantly fight them on this.

For one of these, I complained, and out of 14 items they "found" 2. It was an entire case packed of the same SKU. If they got 2, they got them all. 

I sincerely hope they come up with a solution to this, I don't want to have to take the time to insure and prove what's in every box I send in. And it definitely wasn't like this in years past. Been 8-9 cases already this year.

 

I agree.  They have lost items in 3 different orders for me.  Of course they tell me the items weren't in the box but I am certain they were.  The few items they are losing is costing me a lot of money.  It's maddening...  I think Amazon has a lot of theft going on and they do not even know it.

[Achilles]

2 hours ago, AWES1234 said:

So a question to all you FBA veterans out there. On multiple occasions now, I have received returns in which the buyer has stolen the contents of the actual box, but the disposition by Amazon is "Customer damaged" so they tell me they can't reimburse me cause it is "customer damaged." Has this happened to you guys as well?

 

Basically, Amazon will always take the customer's side and its impossible to prove them otherwise. You treat it as a numbers game, if you sell 100 items and a couple happen like this, it's cost of doing business. It's certainly not rare, though I wouldn't say it happens a TON. You just hope you are getting good honest buyers.

This is especially the case if you are doing "Comingled Inventory" because in many cases, the item you get back as a return isn't even the item you sent in. It also goes the other way, sometimes I get customer damage returns that are 100% ok to sell again.

 

[Darth_Raichu]

27 minutes ago, pickleboy said:

I agree.  They have lost items in 3 different orders for me.  Of course they tell me the items weren't in the box but I am certain they were.  The few items they are losing is costing me a lot of money.  It's maddening...  I think Amazon has a lot of theft going on and they do not even know it.

 

47 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I sincerely hope they come up with a solution to this, I don't want to have to take the time to insure and prove what's in every box I send in. And it definitely wasn't like this in years past. Been 8-9 cases already this year.

Did these happen mostly at a specific Fullfilment Center or all over the place?