tmount
Administrator
Over the weekend, I happened to see an old post from Frugal Hack about reselling Marketplaces, and I felt like there had to be more options out there. I felt like, we, as mile and point focused resellers could do more. So I did some research into another marketplace, Fulfillment by Sears (FBS).
About Fulfilled by Sears
Sometime in the “past” (articles seem to disagree), Sears, which had provided a marketplace, which according to the Amazon Sellers was untested. The article that I did find notes that Fulfilled by Sears (FBS), was released in the March, 2013 time frame. The program was specifically designed to compete with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), and as of March, 2013 had a “pay as you go” approach (you may see in the Amazon Sellers link, that there was a $40 fee just to try it out).
The pricing seems somewhat competitive to FBA, here is their top level summary:
Fulfilled by Sears pricing
Comparing Fulfilled by Sears (FBS) to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Other than the monthly fee (with Sears requires you to pay $39.99 after $400 in sales, and Amazon gives you the choice), its hard to see the differences.
Since I have a hard time looking at summaries like the above and applying them to products I sell, in general I like to use examples. Sears FBS has a calculator that is, shall we say, not as robust as Amazon’s FBA calculator. For this particular example, I selected two products, one electronic, and one home good, to try to get a good spread.
The first example uses the Asus Nexus Tab 16GB, which BigHabitat has posted a bunch about.
Asus Nexus Tab 16GB FBS to FBA Comparison
Asus Nexus Tab 16GBFulfilled by Sears Fulfilled by Amazon
Item Price$199.00$199.00
Shipping$0$0
Revenue Subtotal$199.00$199.00
Marketplace Commission$16.14$11.94
Pick and Pack Fee$1.00$1.02
Shipping$0$0
Order Handling$0$1.00
Weight Handling$0.70$1.34
Storage$0.00$0.02
Inbound Shipping$0$0
Customer Service$0$0
Net Cost$17.84$15.32
Net Revenue$181.16$183.68
The second example is a Dyson that was popular over the holidays.
Dyson DC35 FBS to FBA Comparison
Dyson DC35Fulfilled by Sears Fulfilled by Amazon
Item Price$285.00$285.00
Shipping$0$0
Revenue Subtotal$285.00$285.00
Marketplace Commission$42.75$42.75
Pick and Pack Fee$1.00$4.03
Shipping$0$0
Order Handling$0$0
Weight Handling$8.75$10.70
Storage$0.00$0.66
Inbound Shipping$0$0
Customer Service$0$0
Net Cost$52.50$58.14
Net Revenue$232.50$226.86
So, really, Sears is pretty competitive when you look at the breakdowns, although their marketplace commissions are more for electronics, they are pretty neck and neck at the bottom line price.
Wrapping Up
Fulfilled by Sears is just another marketplace option out there for those that want to try an alternative to Amazon without having to do your own fulfillment. Sears does have a national and somewhat respected name.
I’ll have some more analysis later this week.
What do you think of Fulfilled by Sears?
The post: Introducing Fulfillment by Sears for Resellers was first posted on TaggingMiles
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