most of the bump in sales this year is from April where i sold more than November and December 2019 combined. 1200+ sales in that month all fbm. that was the month when fba stock was depleted, amazon wasn't accepting inbound and demand went insane. i was selling us capitol building for $230-240 fbm - now the price has collapsed back down to $190. if sales had continued at April's pace I would have upper 6 figures in annual sales but they have gone back to slightly above average which for me is now about 400-450 orders a month.
i have only done a single fba shipment this year of 250 sets over 24 sku and it was pitfa between how long it took to get checked in even though it got to the dc in 1 day. This is the Florence NJ dc which i find to be the best of all in terms of almost nothing ever going wrong. Then dealing with amazon shutting down some listings because pricing error - price is "too high" even though i'm $1 below the buybox wtf, then 3 sku sold many times before having issues where i can't get them to list properly and then they are stranded and eventually need to be recalled, not to mention orders taking 5,6 10 days to ship out. maybe things have gotten better since late june. once we are well into flu season and people are hunkering down, essentials will be what amazon focuses on and lego sets start getting shipped in bubble mailers by the new warehouse hires 4 days past the promise by date.
i personally would not feel comfortable surrendering control of my selling inventory to amazon warehouse at the height of the selling season given what i've seen up til now. maybe amazon will have everything working out and i will wish i had more time for eggnawgg , chestnutz and counting money. however my magic 8 ball is saying f'no . my fulfillment apparatus is honed at this point and i am ready to meet the challenge.
i will now stfu about further encouraging more fbm sellers so no hate messages - thank you.