Tagging Miles

Amazon Seller Support Associate Shares Insight

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I’m not very big on reddit. Its not because I don’t like it, its more because I don’t always have the time to read all of the really interesting discussions, and separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. But this reddit of an Amazon Seller Support Associate sharing insight is pretty impressive. 

Amazon Seller Support Associate Tips

You should definitely read through the reddit, but here are a few tips I gleaned from it:

  • Jeff escalations don’t really go to Jeff Bezos (I hope this isn’t a shocker), it doesn’t necessarily get you any faster service. 
  • Only by UPCs from gs1.org – why might you need UPCs? For private labeling or bundling, among other reasons.
  • Always check your performance notifications – suspensions don’t come out of the blue. metrics are important!
  • 3rd Party Vendors (like Inventory Lab, Glasshouse Inventory, etc) are not necessarily prohibited, but remember, you are ultimately responsible for your account, if they make a mistake, its your goose that is cooked.
  • If you get an oversees partner site and you aren’t happy, or getting anywhere, you can request a Captive Site, meaning you’ll be transferred to a US or Costa Rica based site. This may not solve your issue, but, if you think there’s a language barrier, this might at least help.
  • Associates are held to metrics as well; the biggest one is the survey (which we as sellers are asked to respond to so frequently), this actually makes a difference for the associates, so if they are really helpful, take the 2 minutes.
  • Feedback removal is possible, though it has gotten tougher, your best bet is to clearly state why you believe the feedback is against Amazon policy.
  • If there’s only one tip you take from this post: Set up 2 factor authentication! This is potentially your biggest single account, why risk it?

There’s plenty of great insight, as the Amazon Seller Support Associate continued to answer questions. 

What question would you have liked to see covered?

My Worst Reselling Mistake

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Its not often that we talk about our failures in public. Today I’m sharing my worst reselling mistake. This is, if you will, a “B side” event, for those of you that remember records or cassette tapes. If not, the short answer is – the “B Side” is usually the lesser recordings.

My Worst Reselling Mistake

I was ecstatic the moment I saw this deal:

My worst reselling mistake

 

Previously, DJI Phantom’s “color codes” had been:

  • Red – Standard
  • Silver – Advanced
  • Gold – Professional

Now, that was at least my understanding… It turns out that the color coding seemed to be more associated with the quality of the camera. The DJI Phantom 3 Professional’s camera was 4k, the DJI Phantom 4 also had a 4K camera.

Unfortunately, it didn’t become apparent to me, until a week or two later, that the DJI Phantom 4 had a shorter distance range than the DJI Phantom 4 Pro. This proved to be a pretty big difference. Most–but not all–buyers of my units submitted returns. I can’t really blame them. 

Of course, not knowing the significant difference, I was selling this unit, that I bought at $800 for, $1245. And at the time, they were selling like hot cakes! It took a few weeks before the returns started rolling in. 

But Wait, it gets better!

One of those returns, which qualifies as my most egregious return ever, was completely stripped! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the photos:

refund, reseller, FBA

Note, that usually DJI Phantoms have cables and motors at the end of the struts — the buyer actually pulled all the motors and even the electric wire harnesses!

If you thought that was bad, they thought of nearly everything. They even included some ruled paper to emulate the weight of a drone:

Wrapping Up

I totally made a mistake with this. I’d argue that despite making a mistake, that some–or at least one–decided to be exceptionally fraudulent. There’s no fun there, whether or not it is your Worst Reselling Mistake.

What was your worst reselling mistake? 

Amazon Sellers End of Year Checklist

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As with every year end, it’s a time to reflect on the past, think optimistically of the future, and take stock. For Amazon Sellers, that last part is probably a more literal interpretation. There are a number of reports that you want to run as close to the end of the calendar year as you can as part of any Amazon Sellers End of Year Checklist.

There are two reports you want at a minimum: 

  • Inventory Valuation
  • Sales

The Seller Central Approach for Amazon Sellers End of Year Checklist

Amazon Seller Central provides all of the reports that you need, it might not be the easiest approach, but they do, here’s how to get them:

Inventory Valuation

Go to Seller Central > Reports > Inventory > Amazon Fulfilled Inventory

Amazon Sellers End of Year

The key here is that you want to run this report as close to the beginning of 2017 (e.g. shortly after midnight PST). 

Download the report, and for sake of ease, navigate to the folder you’ve downloaded it to, and open as Excel, it’s easier that way.

Sales

Your sales is an easier report, because you can confine it to a specific date range. 

Go to Seller Central > Reports > Payments > Generate Reports

Amazon Sellers End of Year

An Easier Way with Inventory Lab

I haven’t written nearly as much as I’d like to and really should write about Inventory Lab. I find it to be a very valuable resource. I even have an affiliate link (though in full disclosure, I’m not sure I’ve actually ever earned anything from it, and I’m cool with that!). I find that I use it far more at the end of the year, than I use it for any other time of the year. So, here’s a quick view of how you can gather the above reports through Inventory Lab:

Inventory Valuation

This one’s pretty simple, log in to Inventory Lab > Reports >Inventory Valuation

You’ll want to make sure that the date is as of 01/01/2017 (note my green box shows 12/29/2016, when I grabbed that screenshot).

Sales Report

This one is also pretty simple, log in to Inventory Lab > Accounting > FBA Sales

Pro Tip

If you haven’t been as prudent in putting in your product costs to this point, but want to make those updates in Inventory Lab, do them first in the Inventory Tab (you can export, add in excel, then import as a .csv file), then export again after 20+ minutes, and import into the Accounting Tab. 

Conclusion

As I’ve laid out, there are a couple of different ways to run the necessary reports as part of every Amazon Sellers End of Year Checklist. I highly recommend that you do this as close to the new year as possible, but, if you are using Inventory Lab, you have some leeway.

What out reports or steps do you think should be on every Amazon Sellers End of Year Checklist?

Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Shipping 101

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INDY 2015 092

The TaggingMiles Warehouse

I refer to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) a lot, because it is my number one outlet for reselling in the pursuit of points. Chatting with a friend, I realized that I’ve never actually put together anything basic about how to get started with FBA. This is a continuation of my attempt at that.

Read Also:

Shipping 101

I’ve written about shipping in the past, here, but, it really is a pretty big part of working with FBA.

A lot of things factor in to how things go with shipping. Are you purchasing the product in store or online, via shopping portals? I’ll talk about both concepts here. Another consideration, are labels, if required. We’ll walk through that too.

Consider shipping when you purchase

This is the stongest point I want to make. Whenever I buy something, I consider what my shipping costs are likely to be, and if I’m buying it online, I’m considering how many units the store might put into a single box. When I analyze products like Keurigs or nutribullets, I consider how much the shipping will impact the margin. In cases like Magic Bullet NutriBullet Pros, I know I Kohl’s generally sends 2 per box, and I can just relabel the box to ship it out. If you’re repeat buying certain products, you’ll figure out what the right quantities pretty quickly, but I will warn you, companies like Kohl’s and Sears are not always logical, nor consistent.

Keep excess boxes and shipping packaging

Sometimes to the chagrin of my wife, I keep a lot of boxes and those plastic air bags that most good companies use for dunnage in packing. You want to ensure that the product is received into Amazon in a pristine state, so, keeping a couple extra boxes around, shouldn’t be an issue. The other benefit is, sometimes you have to buy a bunch of small orders (perhaps even under different accounts), whether it’s a limitation on a particular coupon, or other reason, so having alternative packaging makes it easier to get your products out.

To Label or not to Label, That is the Question

Once you’ve gotten your products, you’ll go through the Amazon screens to ship your product. The first one, assuming you’re shipping multiple products (and hint: you should be!), is this:

Egads! a circle! an arrow! I broke them out! But, why? Because if you’re shipping multiple products this is perhaps the most important point: select “Case-packed products.” That will help you control your shipping cost, by being able to send your products (ideally packed in a single box) to a single FBA center.

Now, a word about FBA centers – they’re across the country, yet some will invariably pop up more than others. I’m not really sure why, but nutribullet pro’s for example, seem to commonly get directed to Pheonix (PHX), which is a pain, considering I live on the East Coast, but, other products routinely go to closer FBA centers. Sometimes you can game this by doing multiple packages, and I’ll talk about that in Shipping 201.

Your next step is deciding if you’ll do the labeling, or have Amazon do the labeling for $0.20 per unit. Note: Not every product requires labeling. You should be hoping to get this:

Amazon-Shipping1-labelsnotreq

Of course, if labeling is required, it’ll look something like this:

Amazon-Shipping1-labels

Now I typically use these Avery 30 up labels and will set the “# of labels to print” to 30, hoping that I’ll use the remaining ones.

After you print out your labels, you’ll hit continue, and come to an “Approve” screen, where it’ll tell you what FBA center you’re shipping to. After approving it, you’ll continue working it and get to a screen where you verify what you’re shipping, then choose a shipping service, enter the weight and box dimensions, calculate the charges, accept the charges, and then, and only after you’ve accepted the charges, will they give you a packing slip to print out. Here’s a view of most of the screen:

Amazon-Shipping1-weights

Once you accept the charges and download the packing slip, just hit print, tear or cut that slip in half (you’ll see what I mean when you print it out), and tape both halves onto the box. (Edited – Thanks to Miles per Day and Al!)

Other considerations

Whenever prepping a box to ship to Amazon, you also want to make sure you cover up or pull off any other shipping labels, lest that box make it back to you faster than ever. I also like to double tape any areas of concern; but I’ll be the first to admit, I’m an over-taper (if such a thing exists).

The next topics up, I’ll cover ungating a product category, and a little later on, I’ll cover Shipping 201.

 

 

 

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