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Warehouse

This simple hack can save your business

October 20, 2020 Leave a Comment

Prepping inventory for FBA means thinking the process through

By: Lesley Hensell

The Amazon seller was baffled. His account had been shut down for inauthentic goods. But he sourced all inventory direct from the manufacturer. How could this be?

He sold thousands of pairs of shoes every month. We discussed his business processes at length. How was he prepping inventory for FBA?

“Tell me about your boxes. Are they the original branded shoeboxes?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“And how are you keeping the boxes closed?” I asked.

Silence.

Turns out, the seller was not securing the shoeboxes.

How did I know? Complaint after complaint said that pairs of shoes did not match. They were two different sizes, brands or colors. It’s a perfect example of not thinking through how the FBA fulfillment center handles sellers’ inventory. Unsecured boxes may be spilled out of cartons or open in the warehouse. It’s unreasonable to expect that Amazon employees will carefully re-pair shoes that have become mixed up.

The solution? For this seller, I suggested plastic bands that could be used to secure the boxes without damaging the cardboard. Rubber bands will work for fast-moving items, but they should not be used if inventory will remain in the FC for long. Cold or heat could cause them to become brittle and break.

The rubberband hack for Amazon sellers.

Selling items as sets

Many sellers send ASINs to the fulfillment center bundled together as a set. Unfortunately, workers at the Amazon warehouse can make tremendous mistakes by separating items that are meant to be sold together.

For example:

  • One client sold a two-pack of a medicine that was shrink-wrapped together. Amazon workers broke the two-packs into singles, causing many complaints when buyers did not receive two items.
  • Another client sold a bundle with multiple components in a polybag. Amazon workers broke the bundles up, which caused havoc.

How can sellers prevent these problems? Add a prominent sticker that says: “Sold as a set. Do not separate.” This should stop the fulfillment center from making such egregious mistakes.

When in doubt, box, polybag or shrink-wrap

Amazon fulfillment centers are not sterile environments. Products are moved around multiple times. They become dusty and dirty. They are dropped on the floor. The best solution for most products? Keep them clean, safe and in brand-new condition by placing them into protective packaging. This could mean placing them in a box, a polybag, or shrink wrap. This is an extra step that takes time and costs a few pennies. But it will more than pay off with fewer buyer complaints.

Questions about how to keep your account safe? Ask us at Riverbend Consulting.


Lesley Hensell

Lesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She has personally helped hundreds of third-party sellers get their accounts and ASINs back up and running. Lesley leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. She has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade, thanks to her boys (18 and 13) who do most of the heavy lifting.

Filed Under: Account Health, Amazon, Amazon Appeal, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, Customer Serivce, FBA, General, Seller Central, Seller Performance, Warehouse Tagged With: Amazon, Amazon account, Amazon FBA, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, FBA, Fulfillment center, Inventory, Inventory Prep

Is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business?

October 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

Dropshipping is not your friend

By: Sam Newlands

As the fantastic Amazon seller that you are who has found the best suppliers, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to handle your inventory. Will products be sent to you for inspection before sending them to fulfillment centers or shipping to customers (Hint: yes, always)? Have you decided if you will fulfill orders on your own, or send your inventory over to Amazon Fulfillment Centers and let them handle it for you? How are you going to get your merchandise from Point A (the supplier) to Point B (you) to Point C (the customer)?

If your answer is dropshipping, try again.


What is dropshipping?

Glad you asked! Dropshipping is allowing a third-party to fulfill orders to customers on your behalf. But is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business? Let me explain. You, the seller, never see the product. You have no idea what it looks like, if it’s in good condition, if it’s used, or broken. Overall, you have no idea what you just sent to your customer, and Amazon is not a fan of this method. They even have a policy on it, which you can read ​here​​​. You will see within the Amazon policy that dropshipping is acceptable in specific circumstances.

The easiest way to explain how dropshipping is acceptable: Think of a large warehouse store that might have an Amazon account; a customer orders something from that store through Amazon, and the order is fulfilled through a warehouse location that might be geographically closer to the customer. They are the seller of record, and there wouldn’t be 3rd party information attached to the package.

Amazon Dropshipping

 

How dropshipping is not acceptable

You, the seller, do not have inventory, but you have items listed within your inventory, making both Amazon and your potential customers believe you actually have product. When a customer orders something, you log into the website where you saw this item, order it for the customer, and add their address as the delivery address. The purchase is not sent to you, which causes a break in good faith your customers have with you to send them quality items. Amazon is 100% all about the buyer experience. They expect sellers to be responsible and accountable for all merchandise from the moment it is added to inventory, ordered by the customer, all the way to the customer receiving it (and often beyond the receipt date).

It is essential to keep in mind that adding inventory to your seller account when you don’t have it can lead to an onslaught of other risks that you may not have thought about: Does that item have intellectual property protections? Is it branded or trademarked? Do you have permission from the rights owner to sell it? Always do your research into the products you want to list. Ensure you have the proper authorization to sell those items (just because you can list it on Amazon doesn’t mean you have the permission to sell it!). Amazon also regularly performs authenticity checks on ASINs within your inventory, which means they’ll request invoices, even if you haven’t sold anything. If you don’t have an invoice, how can you prove the item is authentic?

 

Let’s review

Is dropshipping hurting your Amazon business? Yes. Dropshipping is 99% of the time frowned upon and can give you many more headaches than ease of mind.  It is always better to have your items sent to you to inspect your products’ quality and condition. This also gives you extra assurances that your supplier is legit, and if you want to continue working with them.

Do you have any questions or concerns about dropshipping or anything Amazon related? Give Riverbend a call at 877-289-1017.


Sam Newland

Sam applies her impressive tenacity to get Amazon seller accounts and ASINs reinstated. She enjoys research and looking beyond the surface layer to help sellers solve their issues. While working at Amazon, Sam was involved with the AWS and SES teams looking for fraudulent account activity and unauthorized account take over.

Filed Under: 3P, Account Health, Amazon, Amazon Appeal, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, Dropshipping, Inventory Sourcing, Restricted Product, Seller Central, Seller Performance, Seller Support, Supply Chain, Warehouse Tagged With: 3P, Amazon, Amazon appeal, Amazon seller, Amazon Seller Central, Amazon Seller Performance, Dropshipping, Inventory, Restricted products, Seller Support

Amazon suspends sellers for inauthentic, sells their “fake” goods to the public

May 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

Does Amazon really believe 3P sellers offered bad products, or is it trying to make a quick buck?

By: Lesley Hensell

Is Amazon liquidation safe? Unsuspecting members of the public are buying goods Amazon labeled as “inauthentic” or in violation of a brand’s intellectual property (IP). In similar fashion, third-party sellers who purchase liquidation lots from Amazon’s warehouses are buying stock fraught with authenticity and IP problems.

This shocking strategy reasonably upsets veteran Amazon 3P sellers. In essence, Amazon either suspends their products (ASINs) or even their selling accounts. Then, the company refuses to return inventory if it has been characterized as counterfeit, an intellectual property violation, or inauthentic.

Is amazon liquidation safe?

But what happens to the goods then?

To dispose or not dispose

In cases of counterfeit (or accused counterfeit) goods, Amazon destroys the goods. This is a legal requirement that is likely followed to the letter.

But then there are the rest of the goods. Imagine a third-party seller is listing perfume for sale. A buyer says that the perfume doesn’t “smell like she remembered this brand smelling” and complains that the item must be inauthentic. Amazon suspends the seller’s ASIN and asks for proof that the products are authentic – in the form of invoices.

The seller submits the invoices – real ones – to Amazon. For whatever reason, Amazon will no accept the invoices. They tell the seller no dice, you cannot sell that ASIN again, and we are going to dispose of it.

But then, Amazon does not dispose of the item. Rather, they put it up for sale on their Amazon Warehouse Deals account.

Shocking? Absolutely. After all, Amazon’s own in-house risk management team decided the goods could not be confirmed as authentic. Yet Amazon seizes them and sells them on its own 3P account. At what point does this become both theft from the seller and/or fraudulent behavior on the part of Amazon? It certainly shows cognitive dissonance and corporate schizophrenia.

Here’s a great example from one of our own clients. He was accused of an IP violation on his own trademarked, private-label item. The seller came to us for help, and we helped win the appeal. Unfortunately, by the time he hired Riverbend, Amazon had already seized $180,000 worth of his ASIN. What happened after the client won his appeal? Amazon claimed it had destroyed the inventory. And then, it popped up as an Amazon Warehouse Deal.

Liquidation spreads the problem far and wide

If Amazon Warehouse Deals doesn’t want the “fake” inventory, it most often goes into liquidation lots sold out of the Amazon warehouses. Amazon allows several companies – including its wholly owned subsidiary Woot! – to piece together lots of inventory. These goods have been “disposed of” by third-party sellers, or by Amazon at the direction of Seller Performance and Vendor Performance.

This allegedly law-breaking inventory that is inauthentic or an IP violation goes from the liquidation companies to all manner of purchasers. They then sell it on secondary and tertiary markets. 

And guess who makes up a significant percentage of purchasers of liquidation lots? You guessed it. Amazon third-party sellers. These unsuspecting sellers believe (or are told) that if the inventory was liquidated out of an Amazon warehouse, it must be safe for sale on Amazon again.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth, and the cycle continues. Through it all, the only one getting rich is Amazon.

Have questions about your Amazon seller account, the Riverbend Consulting team is ready to help you.  Let’s talk 877-289-1017 or visit our website.


Lesley HensellLesley is co-founder and co-owner of Riverbend Consulting, where she oversees the firm’s client services team. She leverages two decades as a small business consultant to advise clients on profitability and operational performance. Lesley has been an Amazon seller for almost a decade.

Filed Under: 3P, Account Appeal, Account Health, Amazon, ASIN, Customer Serivce, Inauthentic, Intellectual Property, Liquidation, Quality Control, Warehouse, Warehouse Deals Tagged With: 3P seller, Amazon, Amazon seller, Condition, Counterfeit, Expired, Inauthentic, Liquidation, Suspended, Suspension, Used sold as new, Warehouse deal

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