Selling through Amazon FBA

[asharerin]

They just added a new metric for the inventory performance index  - FBA SELL THROUGH.

If you need to bump your performance index it might be worth a look.

On our non-lego accounts we typically sell through within 2-5 days of inventory being received and our average score is 14.1 for FBA sell through rate. Performance indexes average is 638. Our lego account is individual so we have no data on that one.

[Darth_Raichu]

Check your emails, Amzn is waiving FBA removal fees for limited time starting today (4/18).  But true to Amzn MO, they did not say when this promotion will end.

[HappyHawkeye]

Does a pick & pack fee of $20 sound right for the Palace Cinema? From what I can tell based on their convoluted fee schedule this seems at least $7-$8 too high. I went back & looked at old orders for Orthanc & Pet Shop and these were both about $10. So what am I missing?

[asharerin]

7 hours ago, HappyHawkeye said:

Does a pick & pack fee of $20 sound right for the Palace Cinema? From what I can tell based on their convoluted fee schedule this seems at least $7-$8 too high. I went back & looked at old orders for Orthanc & Pet Shop and these were both about $10. So what am I missing?

Yep about $7 too high. They have the weight listed 3 lbs too heavy. Open a case and request a cubiscan and they will correct that.

[HappyHawkeye]

9 hours ago, asharerin said:

Yep about $7 too high. They have the weight listed 3 lbs too heavy. Open a case and request a cubiscan and they will correct that.

thanks!

[landphieran]

Slightly over a year ago I posted this:

On 11/24/2017 at 3:01 PM, landphieran said:

UPS Guy Comes By : Reiterates about 50 times. "I can't keep taking your shipments. I'm working too late. There is too much stuff. We are too busy" 

Me: "How can I help make your job easier"
UPS : "Well you know I'm going to have to talk to my boss, it's just too much" "18 boxes all 50 lbs and large just ruins the trucks"
Me: "I can pack them smaller if it would make it easier" "Is there a better time to schedule them?"
UPS: "Well thats just not it. I can't be coming by here every week. Especially during December. Its just too much."

Anyone have any advice? I don't want to be the villain causing trouble but I also need to send out my inventory and pickups are a service they offer. Based on the very repetitive conversion he essentially wants me to stop. 
 

After this interaction he moved off to a different route and I stopped seeing him.

About five months ago I bought my first house (yay me!). Moved about 10 miles away in the same town.

Today, I swung by my house during lunch to finish up a shipment and grab the 40 boxes scheduled for delivery. As I'm loading my truck...

THE SAME UPS GUY PULLS UP ??

He doesn't say anything to me (like usual after the incident). So I broke the ice by saying, "Are you stalking me?" His dead pan face immediately turned into one of rage.

[Darth_Raichu]

Quick question for the more seasoned FBA-ers.  Is today too late for sending my FBA stuffs to Amzn for Christmas?  I know Amzn said 12/2 was the deadline.

Trying to decide if I should send them out or just FBM

[exciter1]

1 minute ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Quick question to the more seasoned FBA-ers.  Is today too late for sending my FBA stuffs to Amzn for Christmas?  I know Amzn said 12/2 was the deadline.

Trying to decide if I should send them out or just FBM

Does it really matter if you sell before or after Christmas?

[skinsfan0521]

5 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

Does it really matter if you sell before or after Christmas?

I'm not a more seasoned FBAer, but I just sent stuff in today. I think that the prices after Christmas will settle out around today's prices anyway. There will be a run up of prices in the week before Christmas when everybody is scrambling for last minute gifts and Amazon (or other FBAers) run out of inventory, but then it settles back down again by mid-January.

So, as @exciter1 said, it doesn't really matter if you sell it before or after Christmas. If you're happy with the prices today, there's a good chance that you'll be happy with the prices after Christmas too.

[zskid00]

Wait until I send in my last shipment then I'll let you know when it's ok to send in yours.  Deal?

[Darth_Raichu]

49 minutes ago, exciter1 said:

Does it really matter if you sell before or after Christmas?

I just thought the stuffs would sell better before Christmas.

Also I am worried about the long queue at the fulfillment centers as I assume most sellers send their craps around this week too

[exciter1]

5 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

I just thought the stuffs would sell better before Christmas.

Also I am worried about the long queue at the fulfillment centers as I assume most sellers send their craps around this week too

I'd say most will get checked in and processed within a couple weeks. You might still have a few stragglers out there finding their final distro warehouse.  Or lost, which I've had several things sold and later discovered as misplaced. It's annoying how long it takes them to resolve that, especially on higher priced items.

[LegoBro]

I just thought the stuffs would sell better before Christmas.
Also I am worried about the long queue at the fulfillment centers as I assume most sellers send their craps around this week too

Just my two cents...but Amazon has become much more efficient at checking in boxes this year.

[Bold-Arrow]

unless you are sending to a redistribution center you should still be good for another week or so 

[odysea11]

It states that they want your Christmas inventory to be received by Dec 5th.....starting to cut it close....

[landphieran]

Been a long couple weeks. I arrived from vacation two weeks before black friday and had to start prepping/sending all my inventory. Yesterday my girlfriend looked at me and said,
How are you doing?" 
Me: "Pretty good but i've only purchased 1/3 the of what i did last year"
Her: o.O "Oh"

That being said, its a lot more difficult to get the volume in this year with all the limits. Have had a frustrating time with all the limits being imposed and a lot of online retailers are getting better at address verification and cross account matching.

[asharerin]

14 hours ago, Darth_Raichu said:

Quick question for the more seasoned FBA-ers.  Is today too late for sending my FBA stuffs to Amzn for Christmas?  I know Amzn said 12/2 was the deadline.

Trying to decide if I should send them out or just FBM

It is going to depend on what FC it goes to. If it is close by and not a distribution center you will be good for quite a while yet. The center we use for oversize Lego gets delivered in 1 business day and they usually receive it same day or next day. For a distribution center then it could remain backordered for 1-2 weeks, maybe longer this time of year.

[asharerin]

9 hours ago, landphieran said:

Been a long couple weeks. I arrived from vacation two weeks before black friday and had to start prepping/sending all my inventory. Yesterday my girlfriend looked at me and said,
How are you doing?" 
Me: "Pretty good but i've only purchased 1/3 the of what i did last year"
Her: o.O "Oh"

That being said, its a lot more difficult to get the volume in this year with all the limits. Have had a frustrating time with all the limits being imposed and a lot of online retailers are getting better at address verification and cross account matching.

Yeah Walmart and Target have tightened up quite alot. We "semi-retired" 2 months ago but will still be reselling part time in 2020 to try and bring in 4-5k per month. We will spend alot more time sourcing instore in 2020 and looking to get back into more Lego, and less replens for USA and more replens for Canada. The USA platform is such a minefield with brands throwing out IP claims all over the place. Lego still seems friendly. Ebay and facebook marketplace has really picked up for us in 2019.

Still trying to find a scalable protocol in ordering from target against a hard ban. These days they like to manually review everything that uses the usual discounts. Thinking it will take full ghost mode but not sure if im willing to put that much time and energy into it anymore when I can go instore 2-3 times per week. Thinking it is just time to move on to a different model and leave OA alone for a bit.

[landphieran]

Does anyone know the average throughput of an item in Toys & Games at a sales rank of 1000, 5000, 20,000, 50,000?

WB just dropped a boat off at the Amazon warehouse and I'm not sure if its worth it to wait.

[asharerin]

7 hours ago, landphieran said:

Does anyone know the average throughput of an item in Toys & Games at a sales rank of 1000, 5000, 20,000, 50,000?

WB just dropped a boat off at the Amazon warehouse and I'm not sure if its worth it to wait.

This time of year that would be:

Sales Rank 1000 - 95/day

Sales Rank 5000 - 39/day

Sales Rank 20,000 - 12/day

Sales Rank 50,000 - 4/day

[landphieran]

6 minutes ago, asharerin said:

This time of year that would be:

Sales Rank 1000 - 95/day

Sales Rank 5000 - 39/day

Sales Rank 20,000 - 12/day

Sales Rank 50,000 - 4/day

That is a lot slower then I expected ...

[asharerin]

2 hours ago, landphieran said:

That is a lot slower then I expected ...

This is an average. Sales will be lower on the run up to xmas and then 2-3 times these numbers on the very busy days. 

[zskid00]

Has anyone had issues with shipment inventory discrepancies?  I'm battling with Amazon support right now because they shorted me 13 of 22 units (59%!) on a shipment back in November.  They marked all inventory as received within 3 days of UPS delivering the single package to the warehouse, then 3 days, 5 days, and 6 days later they made manual adjustments to the shipment.  When the date came up for attempting to reconcile the difference they claim that they have already completed a manual reconciliation and the units were confirmed as missing from the shipment.  I sent them an inventory report showing the adjustments they made by SKU and also verified that UPS confirmed the shipment weight and measurements and they keep auto responding with the same canned response whenever I try to reopen the case.  How can I get this escalated?

[cobrakai]

3 hours ago, zskid00 said:

Has anyone had issues with shipment inventory discrepancies?  I'm battling with Amazon support right now because they shorted me 13 of 22 units (59%!) on a shipment back in November.  They marked all inventory as received within 3 days of UPS delivering the single package to the warehouse, then 3 days, 5 days, and 6 days later they made manual adjustments to the shipment.  When the date came up for attempting to reconcile the difference they claim that they have already completed a manual reconciliation and the units were confirmed as missing from the shipment.  I sent them an inventory report showing the adjustments they made by SKU and also verified that UPS confirmed the shipment weight and measurements and they keep auto responding with the same canned response whenever I try to reopen the case.  How can I get this escalated?

They usually find it eventually.  I've had this happen In November/December and then in February or March I start seeing stuff sell that they had previously lost from a shipment. The Baltimore BWI warehouse has always been the worst and i'm so happy they don't ask me to send much there anymore.  If you check your box contents, you'll sometimes find that everything they lost was in one or two specific boxes.

[zskid00]

5 minutes ago, cobrakai said:

The Baltimore BWI warehouse has always been the worst and i'm so happy they don't ask me to send much there anymore. 

BWI2, thank you very much!  It was a single box shipment of 22 units and they claim to have only received 9!  This shouldn't be difficult.