Selling through Amazon FBA

[gmpirate]

5 minutes ago, Dark Helmet said:

Sorry, let me be more specific. I track my P&L for the year in excel. 

Figured start of the year I would look to see if there was anything better that people were using to keep their books organized.

Last year I switched to Quickbooks from another accounting program.  I use it for my other business, so it makes sense for me to use the same.  Super easy to use and I like all the reporting features and the way you can expand detail from any report.  I took some accounting classes in college and high school and have always done my own books so that's all from my perspective.

One of the cool features I like since switching is I can click "attach" while entering any receipt and my iPhone automatically readies to take a pic which it then keeps attached to the bill for future reference if needed.

I haven't looked into Inventory Lab very much, but what appealed to me there is getting a "market value" of your inventory at any time.  Also, from what I understand it makes using FBA easier.  FBA is pretty straight forward to me anyway but the value there may be the way it can track your inventory since Amazon seems to loose track at times.

Someday I'll probably look into Inventory Lab more, but you definitely want to make a long term decision.  It's a hassle to convert to something else later and then there's the learning curve.  A lot of time is wasted that could be spent buying more Lego!

[Bricklectic]

So I was in a rush on Friday and paid a friend to ship out 10 orders for me and gave him the 10 USPS media mail labels I printed from Amazon. 

He dropped it off by the local shipping store, and the USPS guy happened to be there so he dropped it directly into his bin. 

I checked now and see no tracking updated in the system. 

My buddy calls me now and says he believes he folded the label and taped it invoice up and shiiping label down. So the USPS has no way of seeing the label.

They are Dr. Seuss books that I sold for $300+ (paid $40 earlier in the week) so its a nice chunk of change. Does anyone have experience in this situation or thoughts? I'm hopeful that I can go down to USPS and look through the lost section but I don't know where it was sent to or if it will be so easy.

Any thoughts are appreciated as I'm pretty down, frustrated my buddy messed up something so simple.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Bricklectic

[donbee]

Check for new listings on ebay. In particular, from your buddy’s home address.

[Bricklectic]

8 minutes ago, donbee said:

Check for new listings on ebay. In particular, from your buddy’s home address.

He actually offered to pay me the $$$. Just I hope we dont need to come to that. Hopefully it can be recovered from Post office somehow

[gmpirate]

4 hours ago, Bricklectic said:

So I was in a rush on Friday and paid a friend to ship out 10 orders for me and gave him the 10 USPS media mail labels I printed from Amazon. 

He dropped it off by the local shipping store, and the USPS guy happened to be there so he dropped it directly into his bin. 

I checked now and see no tracking updated in the system. 

My buddy calls me now and says he believes he folded the label and taped it invoice up and shiiping label down. So the USPS has no way of seeing the label.

They are Dr. Seuss books that I sold for $300+ (paid $40 earlier in the week) so its a nice chunk of change. Does anyone have experience in this situation or thoughts? I'm hopeful that I can go down to USPS and look through the lost section but I don't know where it was sent to or if it will be so easy.

Any thoughts are appreciated as I'm pretty down, frustrated my buddy messed up something so simple.

Lessons learned I guess, but that's not something I would pass off like that.  Shipping direct to customers can be such a colossal waste of time if something goes wrong or someone freaks out about tracking.

USPS is not one to take the time to figure out what happened.  Go down to your local post office, explain what happened.  They will probably bounce you around until you find someone who knows what to do -- or you may just find someone that just gives you their thoughts on what to do.  There's supposed to be somewhere where they keep such packages but it may take several trips till it turns up.  In any case, don't take anyone's word for it.  Keep following up.  Good Luck.

[brickolodon]

https://www.inputmag.com/style/nike-vp-ann-hebert-son-joe-sneaker-reselling-conflicts-of-interest-west-coast-streetwear/amp

[Sozial]

36 minutes ago, brickolodon said:

https://www.inputmag.com/style/nike-vp-ann-hebert-son-joe-sneaker-reselling-conflicts-of-interest-west-coast-streetwear/amp
 

Well he made it, If he used his connections - so be it. We all would have done the same.

[Mark Twain]

Amazon asked me to split 20 units into three separate orders to three shipment centers. I get it. Getting your product closer to folks matter and means more sales for them and for me. But why on earth are 16 out of the 20 I sent into distribution centers now in FC transfer to other distribution centers? 

[gmpirate]

3 hours ago, Mark Twain said:

Amazon asked me to split 20 units into three separate orders to three shipment centers. I get it. Getting your product closer to folks matter and means more sales for them and for me. But why on earth are 16 out of the 20 I sent into distribution centers now in FC transfer to other distribution centers? 

Much more common now that it was few years ago.  Seems to me they actively keep moving units around as inventory changes in different areas.

[marcandre]

The lighthouse & fairground listings are crossed up on amz. One has fairground under frustration free & lighthouse normal packaging. The other listing is reversed. This is going to cause some return headaches for sellers. Hope they get it fixed before the fall. 

[Darth_Raichu]

1 hour ago, marcandre said:

The lighthouse & fairground listings are crossed up on amz. One has fairground under frustration free & lighthouse normal packaging. The other listing is reversed. This is going to cause some return headaches for sellers. Hope they get it fixed before the fall. 

I feel like buyers need to complain to Amazon?  I do not know how to explain the problem in a way that their seller supports can comprehend in 2 seconds or whatever short amount of time they have to read a seller's case.

[cobrakai]

11 minutes ago, Darth_Raichu said:

I feel like buyers need to complain to Amazon?  I do not know how to explain the problem in a way that their seller supports can comprehend in 2 seconds or whatever short amount of time they have to read a seller's case.

I think if they get enough buyer complaints and/or seller requests, they will just change the prep requirement to "bubble wrap" on that item.  This means you are supposed to ship in the item bubble wrapped and ready to safely ship to the customer.  That has been my experience.  I know that I had a plush toy item that did not say "polybag" on the prep requirements and they said they would not change it until they had customer complaint orders.  That is why you see certain action figures, funko pops, etc say "bubble wrap required" on the prep requirements, while many other figures do not.

[Bold-Arrow]

Well then : Returnless and free replacements for seller-fulfilled returns - US Announcements - Amazon Seller Forums

 

[Huskers1236]

You guys have fun with that.  

[skinsfan0521]

It's basically just removing the little bit of extra "protection" that existed for merchant fulfilled compared to FBA. FBA already works like this and you have absolutely zero say over what they authorize as a return, a returnless refund, exchange, etc.

So, with these changes, I'm guessing the number of merchant fulfilled sellers will drop and they'll just move to FBA because it's less work overall and you get the same negative experience as a seller.

[Darth_Raichu]

1 hour ago, Bold-Arrow said:

Well then : Returnless and free replacements for seller-fulfilled returns - US Announcements - Amazon Seller Forums

 

Oh yay, you are either F'd By Amazon or F'd By aMazon 

[cladner]

11 minutes ago, skinsfan0521 said:

It's basically just removing the little bit of extra "protection" that existed for merchant fulfilled compared to FBA. FBA already works like this and you have absolutely zero say over what they authorize as a return, a returnless refund, exchange, etc.

So, with these changes, I'm guessing the number of merchant fulfilled sellers will drop and they'll just move to FBA because it's less work overall and you get the same negative experience as a seller.

just changing all my inventory to 1.  which is what i already do even if i have 100x because  i don't want to trigger a price war with some low balling fba'er.

this change (returnless returns) will find its way over to the fba side of the equation as well.  it already happens when you get a weak CS rep and an aggressive buyer.

Edited March 9, 2021 by cladner

[Dark Helmet]

28 minutes ago, cladner said:

just changing all my inventory to 1.  which is what i already do even if i have 100x because  i don't want to trigger a price war with some low balling fba'er.

this change (returnless returns) will find its way over to the fba side of the equation as well.  it already happens when you get a weak CS rep and an aggressive buyer.

Holy mother of annoying Batman.

Ugg now thats annoying. but even dropping inventory down to one wont matter unless you only put the inventory back up after the authorized return window.

Because after the sale if you put it back up to 1 for the next sale Amazon could use that for the return. 

[cladner]

12 minutes ago, Dark Helmet said:

Holy mother of annoying Batman.

Ugg now thats annoying. but even dropping inventory down to one wont matter unless you only put the inventory back up after the authorized return window.

Because after the sale if you put it back up to 1 for the next sale Amazon could use that for the return. 

i would cancel the sale, take the hit to my metric and then hold that listing for a month.  i already do this when i get some weird address in nevada that usps doesn't deliver to.  address not deliverable.  customer cancelled.  whatever.

 i have a couple of hundred sku and i would rather sell something else than a set that is on scammer's radar.

 

[skinsfan0521]

1 hour ago, cladner said:

just changing all my inventory to 1.  which is what i already do even if i have 100x because  i don't want to trigger a price war with some low balling fba'er.

this change (returnless returns) will find its way over to the fba side of the equation as well.  it already happens when you get a weak CS rep and an aggressive buyer.

I'm not sure what you mean that it "will" find its way over? It is already there. That's what I'm saying. This just aligns merchant fulfilled with FBA. I absolutely hate it, but I get why they're doing it. They want the customer experience to be seamless and not confuse the customer with different policies between ordering from Amazon's inventory, FBA, or MFN.

[cladner]

10 minutes ago, skinsfan0521 said:

I'm not sure what you mean that it "will" find its way over? It is already there. That's what I'm saying. This just aligns merchant fulfilled with FBA. I absolutely hate it, but I get why they're doing it. They want the customer experience to be seamless and not confuse the customer with different policies between ordering from Amazon's inventory, FBA, or MFN.

i haven't done fba since  jan2020 so maybe things have changed -= so now with FBA, the customer can order a no-cost replacement from your inventory if the item they received was not acceptable for some reason and it gets shipped out before the first item has been returned?

Edited March 9, 2021 by cladner

[river41]

3 minutes ago, cladner said:

i haven't done fba since  jan2020 so maybe things have changed -= so now with FBA, the customer can order a no-cost replacement from your inventory if the item they received was not acceptable for some reason and it gets shipped out before the first item has been returned?

yes but they eventually do have to return the first item within a certain time frame 

[skinsfan0521]

Just now, river41 said:

yes but they eventually do have to return the first item within a certain time frame 

I believe that it depends on the value of the item and some other metrics that Amazon has. Some items they don't need to return. It's not like that for all items, but it is like that for some items.

[cobrakai]

2 minutes ago, skinsfan0521 said:

I'm not sure what you mean that it "will" find its way over? It is already there. That's what I'm saying. This just aligns merchant fulfilled with FBA. I absolutely hate it, but I get why they're doing it. They want the customer experience to be seamless and not confuse the customer with different policies between ordering from Amazon's inventory, FBA, or MFN.

Correct.  Stuff like this is why people shop on Amazon and pay $50 for something you could get on ebay for $35.  There will always be scam artists and thieves, but most people are honest and fair.  If you open a retail store and had theft, you wouldn't remove everything off the shelves and leave 1 unit of everything on the shelf.  You would lose so much $ from people like me that would walk out and go to the next store where I could easily grab 3 or 4 if I needed/wanted them.  I have had $4000 sales where someone purchased 10 or 20 units of the same item at once.  Never once has anyone claimed they didn't receive it or try to return them in these cases.  I've really transitioned from "investing" to "flipping" over the years and it helps avoid many of the headaches, but also can diminish the profits compared to long term holds.  The compliance document issue was almost a non-issue for me because it's mostly older stuff.  If it was newer stuff, I had already sold it all since I don't hold very long.  I feel terrible for people who have storage lockers or garages full of buy & hold toys they were saving up and now they can't sell them on Amazon.

[cladner]

11 minutes ago, skinsfan0521 said:

I believe that it depends on the value of the item and some other metrics that Amazon has. Some items they don't need to return. It's not like that for all items, but it is like that for some items.

i guess i would need to find out what the price cutoff is.  i am loathe to start sending out free lego to amazon customers.  i have not been scammed either - just seems like this policy when applied to expensive items is not going to work out well.  are they really  going to send a replacement town hall or grand emporium?