I glanced through the prior topics, but didn't see anything specific to Amazon FBA (Fullfillment By Amazon).  If there was and I missed it, I apologize.

 

I'm looking to sell some Lego sets using the Amazon FBA service and was wondering if anybody has had any experience good or bad selling through FBA.  My concerns are that I have to put an FBA label over the barcode on the box.  Not sure how a collector would feel about having to remove it and potentially damage the box. 

 

Also, a little concerned that the boxes that I send which are in mint condition, may not be received by the customer in mint condition, if you know what I mean.  Just checking to see what others have experienced.  

 

If anybody has any experience buying through an FBA seller, I would appreciate any comments on the buying side too.

 

Thanks!

I recently sent in a box of miscellaneous items to amazon. In it included a case of products. I didn't remove the shipping labels or stickers because it was already in another box so why waste the time?

Yesterday to my confusion i received said case of products at my home... Is this normal? Do i really need to de-label the box?

13 minutes ago, landphieran said:

I recently sent in a box of miscellaneous items to amazon. In it included a case of products. I didn't remove the shipping labels or stickers because it was already in another box so why waste the time?

Yesterday to my confusion i received said case of products at my home... Is this normal? Do i really need to de-label the box?

I'm OCD about this. If the label isn't easy to remove, I just black marker all over it.

I flew from USA to Iceland to mainland Europe once. Spent time there. Got on plane home. Problem was, I left one of the secondary baggage claim tag stickers from the trip to Europe on the suitcase. Suitcase that went from mainland Europe to Iceland went back to mainland Europe, instead of to USA. Don't screw with labels.

Edited June 7, 20178 yr by minicoopers11

14 minutes ago, landphieran said:

I recently sent in a box of miscellaneous items to amazon. In it included a case of products. I didn't remove the shipping labels or stickers because it was already in another box so why waste the time?

Yesterday to my confusion i received said case of products at my home... Is this normal? Do i really need to de-label the box?

Were there other scan-able barcodes showing?

1 minute ago, Jackson said:

Were there other scan-able barcodes showing?

The case of products inside the larger box had the original UPS stickers that was used to ship it to me from the Distributor. I assumed Amazon broke cases/used some manner of organization. I'm guessing the case ended up on a conveyor belt and the robots took it from there :/

However the case of items didn't show up on inbound receipt so someone had to have removed it from the box... I wont make the mistake again, but i'm still very curious how this happened.

1 hour ago, landphieran said:

I recently sent in a box of miscellaneous items to amazon. In it included a case of products. I didn't remove the shipping labels or stickers because it was already in another box so why waste the time?

Yesterday to my confusion i received said case of products at my home... Is this normal? Do i really need to de-label the box?

You will want to cover up any existing labels or barcodes every time. The warehouse workers process hundreds of thousands of units every day and have a few seconds to to process your items. Make it fool proof for them and you won't have any issues (we also like to make sure the FNSKU labels or UPC codes are all facing the same way to make it super easy for the processors to spot and scan).

We order the 6x4 blank thermal shipping labels from UPS (free) and they ship out huge rolls giving you thousands of blank labels. We use those to stick over any existing shipping labels, barcodes etc. Very easy, quick and free.

Got a few questions I hope you guys can help out with.  I have probably close to 500 sets I need to get sent in.  How would you guys handle it?  A few smaller shipments?  All at once?  I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many.

Which leads me to my next question;  I definitely want to take advantage of the annual uptick in prices during the holidays, so i would like them to be there by mid-November.  I've never had inventory in the warehouse during Prime Day, so I don't know if it's worth it to have them there by then.  With the new storage fees, it is going to kill me to get them in by, say, mid-July, or should I wait until September-ish to send them in?  I haven't dealt with the new fees, so I'm not sure how they affect margins vs. the old way of not killing you until you hit the 6 month mark.

Mixels.  I have 2 cases of both series 7 and series 8.  I've never sold a single one, so I have no clue as to the best way to list them.  Should I list them individually?  Sets of 3?  Or entire sets?  If sold as sets, do you guys just put them in gallon zip lock bags or is there a better method?

Thanks everyone.

11 minutes ago, Loghamel said:

Got a few questions I hope you guys can help out with.  I have probably close to 500 sets I need to get sent in.  How would you guys handle it?  A few smaller shipments?  All at once?  I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many.  I've sent in this many and I was always told, the fewer shipments the better to take advantage of discount shipping rates.

Which leads me to my next question;  I definitely want to take advantage of the annual uptick in prices during the holidays, so i would like them to be there by mid-November.  I've never had inventory in the warehouse during Prime Day, so I don't know if it's worth it to have them there by then.  With the new storage fees, it is going to kill me to get them in by, say, mid-July, or should I wait until September-ish to send them in?  I haven't dealt with the new fees, so I'm not sure how they affect margins vs. the old way of not killing you until you hit the 6 month mark.  I'm curious what everyone's take is on this as well.  I'm not as efficient as I'd like to be with timing the storage fee periods.

Mixels.  I have 2 cases of both series 7 and series 8.  I've never sold a single one, so I have no clue as to the best way to list them.  Should I list them individually?  Sets of 3?  Or entire sets?  If sold as sets, do you guys just put them in gallon zip lock bags or is there a better method?  I've sold all 3 ways without issue.  I put the sets of 3 in smaller ziplock sandwich bags and full sets of 9 in larger gallon bags.  I taped them shut real nice and slapped the label on the outside.

Thanks everyone.

 

5 months of storage fees aren't cheap. If you don't "need" the space and you know you aren't going to sell until the holiday season, I would wait as long as possible to ship in.

 

With 500 sets, you better figure out Amazon's storage fees with worst case scenario.  

50 minutes ago, Loghamel said:

Got a few questions I hope you guys can help out with.  I have probably close to 500 sets I need to get sent in.  How would you guys handle it?  A few smaller shipments?  All at once?  I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many.

Which leads me to my next question;  I definitely want to take advantage of the annual uptick in prices during the holidays, so i would like them to be there by mid-November.  I've never had inventory in the warehouse during Prime Day, so I don't know if it's worth it to have them there by then.  With the new storage fees, it is going to kill me to get them in by, say, mid-July, or should I wait until September-ish to send them in?  I haven't dealt with the new fees, so I'm not sure how they affect margins vs. the old way of not killing you until you hit the 6 month mark.

Mixels.  I have 2 cases of both series 7 and series 8.  I've never sold a single one, so I have no clue as to the best way to list them.  Should I list them individually?  Sets of 3?  Or entire sets?  If sold as sets, do you guys just put them in gallon zip lock bags or is there a better method?

Thanks everyone.

i believe based on your question that you haven't used FBA yet. first send 1 or 2 smaller shipment and figure out the process. 

then step up. don't think about sending 500 at the first shot. you will be screwed up. 

long story short.

package limit : 50lbs [ unless single item weighs more than that ] i believe there is additional charge for larger than 50lbs. to be honest i have never used more than 50lbs in a box namely because for the integrity of the set and their boxes.

500sets [ how many different variations?  or SKU } that's going to play it out. if you just have about 20 SKU's then its doable as a trial run. but if its 1-2 of lot of SKU's better figure out the process first. 

managing FBA is a different kind of work

 

Edited June 8, 20178 yr by newbie77

36 minutes ago, newbie77 said:

 

"I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many."

3 minutes ago, Loghamel said:

"I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many."

if you have already sent in 150. then this should be ok.

you already know how it works. how long it took you to move 150units. what you need to do to get them moving. how many claims you had. how many returns et. al.

its pretty linear on the same SKU.

 

2 hours ago, Loghamel said:

"I've sent as many as approx 150 at once before, but never this many."

I'd be wary of sending in 500 lego sets at once. These days it is very easy to get an inauthentic complaint from your "friendly" competition. A few weeks after that the bots come knocking and if you can't come up with the correct documentation Amazon can "destroy" all of your "inauthentic" FBA inventory (i.e. they will take it and sell it themselves). If you can't take that financial hit on then I wouldn't take that risk

Also this year the sky high storage fees start an entire month earlier than last year. Personally I would send it small parcel delivery as it sells. Start selling now and ramp up as sales increase closer to the end of the year. This way you are not stuck with big storage fees and if something goes wrong Amazon won't have its paws on alot of your inventory and you can go merrily on your way to another platform if need be.

If you must send alot of it in all at once then LTL is the cheapest by far. If you are sending it by the pallet to a local warehouse for Lego that is not very dense you are looking at around 15 cents a pound. Pallets take on average an extra week at the best of times to get unloaded and checked in so I would not mess around with them super close to the holidays but starting now it will be fine. If you use small parcel to a local warehouse you are looking at 25 cents a lb by comparison.

I don't know if you are sending in big sets or just smalls but if it is alot of bigs then I would drip it in. If you load up FBA on a big set and undercut to sell thru then your competition will be more than happy to end your Amazon selling career.

8 minutes ago, asharerin said:

 Amazon can "destroy" all of your "inauthentic" FBA inventory (i.e. they will take it and sell it themselves).

Is this really a thing? Amazon says they destroy a seller's "inauthentic" items but instead takes the items without giving the seller any compensation and sells them?

I scanned a barcode to see if I could sell legos on amazon.  It says restricted item.

I went and did research... it says I have to pay them $2,000  to be Ungated in Legos??? Is this right?

you guys selling paid that to sell?  

If not, what am i doing wrong?

2 minutes ago, Legbrick said:

I scanned a barcode to see if I could sell legos on amazon.  It says restricted item.

I went and did research... it says I have to pay them $2,000  to be Ungated in Legos??? Is this right?

you guys selling paid that to sell?  

If not, what am i doing wrong?

Brand selling restrictions run rampant on the Amazon market place. Lego is one of them.

Many of us have sold on Amazon for quite some time so we are exempt from the restriction.

OK, but how does new people start selling? Is the 2k payment a real deal?

It would take me a year to make back that initial fee!  or more!

6 minutes ago, Legbrick said:

I scanned a barcode to see if I could sell legos on amazon.  It says restricted item.

I went and did research... it says I have to pay them $2,000  to be Ungated in Legos??? Is this right?

you guys selling paid that to sell?  

If not, what am i doing wrong?

a gate came down last year where if you were already selling LEGO on amazon, you were grandfathered in.   the fee is besides the point.  you need to come up with invoices for everything you plan to sell.  wholesale invoices.  good luck with that.

Just a friendly Saturday reminder. Go through the "gated brand list" and request access for the blocked brands. They appear to be letting people through based on seller metrics.

There are a few exceptions that require documentation but the requirements appear to have been relaxed. Some don't require fee's or documentation.

Edit: I just want to point out the importance of seller metrics on Amazon and the how important it is (to me anyway) to avoid these Lego scammers. A huge reason why I'm not flipping the Space Shuttle on Amazon. (The profitability is enticing but the long term cost could be too much).

Edited June 10, 20178 yr by landphieran

21 minutes ago, landphieran said:

Just a friendly Saturday reminder. Go through the "gated brand list" and request access for the blocked brands. They appear to be letting people through based on seller metrics.

There are a few exceptions that require documentation but the requirements appear to have been relaxed. Some don't require fee's or documentation.

Edit: I just want to point out the importance of seller metrics on Amazon and the how important it is (to me anyway) to avoid these Lego scammers. A huge reason why I'm not flipping the Space Shuttle on Amazon. (The profitability is enticing but the long term cost could be too much).

Thanks of the heads up. What brands do you see are letting people in? The bigs (Nike, Apple, Samsung etc) still seem to be gated with the fee.

2 minutes ago, asharerin said:

Thanks of the heads up. What brands do you see are letting people in? The bigs (Nike, Apple, Samsung etc) still seem to be gated with the fee.

I just got through Apple, Asics, Adidas to name a few

Edit: Nike as well

Edited June 10, 20178 yr by landphieran

1 minute ago, landphieran said:

I just got through Apple, Asics, Adidas to name a few

Did you have to go thru the page to upload an invoice or did it skip that? When I apply for apple it requests an invoice and fee.

2 minutes ago, asharerin said:

Did you have to go thru the page to upload an invoice or did it skip that? When I apply for apple it requests an invoice and fee.

I looked up a random listing for the specific brands

- It says you need approval to list

- I hit request access 

- You have been approved based on seller metrics

As a reference I have sold 3,000 units this year.

Edited June 10, 20178 yr by landphieran

what would happen if FBA buyer / scammer claim:

(1) not received

(2) fake

I guess for (1) amazon will eat the lost.

for (2) we are in deep trouble?

5 minutes ago, landphieran said:

I looked up a random listing for the specific brands

- It says you need approval to list

- I hit request access 

- You have been approved based on seller metrics

As a reference I have sold 3,000 units this year.

Nice . We have done alot more than 3000 units but they still want our money for some brands lol.

Thanks for the heads up anyway Ill try every few hours until they fix the glitch.