Acting like a newbie, choosing one item from a store and taking it through the process of buying, listing and shipping. PART 2.

Part 2 of the Amazon FBA Process: Purchase, List And Ship

 

Tracy walks newbies through the process of purchasing items, listing them on Amazon and shipping the items into the Amazon warehouse. Grab your notebook and pen and get ready to take some notes!

Back at homes from Kohl’s, Tracy has her 2 wine bottle stoppers and 2 Monster Inc. dolls that she is going to show us how to list them for sale.

The receipt shows us that the wine stoppers were $12 each and the Monster Inc dolls were $5 each. She also used her Kohl’s cash so it brought her total down to $10.60 for all 4 items and she also got $6 more dollars in more Kohl’s cash and she also got a lot of boxes for shipping.

First, Tracy tells us to go to Amazon Seller Central, then go to inventory and then select “add a product”. Under that area, you will see the box that you will enter the barcode for your new product.

If you use a scanning app like “Scan Power”, it would automatically enter the barcode into the box for you. When you scanned it at the store, you would then, upload it and it would be entered for you and it would have already been finished when you got home.

Since Tracy is showing each step to help newbies, she is entering it in manually. Once it is entered in, you would then click on the “search” button and the item will show up, if there is a listing for it.

List the product to sell on Amazon FBA

The Kohl’s Monsters, Inc doll does show up. So now check all the numbers again and confirm that it is the same item. Everything has to be identical. Once you have confirmed it is the same, then you will just select “sell yours”.

It is confirmed that it is the same item and Tracy then goes to the upper right hand corner and selects one and then the listings will come up.

There are 2 FBA sellers selling them for $35.99 each. Tracy interrupts the video to give an update to show that the price had dropped almost in half. So she reminds us to constantly be monitoring the prices because they will go up and down, depending on the demand.

Getting back to the listing, Tracy went to “Amazon description” and copies the description and pastes it in the listing and selects “New” for the condition of the item. Next, is the price which was going to be $35.99 so she enters that in the price box.

When you scroll down, you will see the shipping section and Tracy selects “I want Amazon to ship this for me”. Then she clicks on “Save and Finish”.

Create a shipping plan for Amazon FBA

Then the next screen that comes up is to “Send/replenish Inventory” and it is here that you will  select “create a new shipping plan” and on the last column, select “individual products” for this case, but there are other options such as full cases, etc.

Next you will click on “Continue to shipping plan” and a new page will come up and you should see your product. So in this case, Tracy has the Monsters, Inc. doll in her shipping plan.

Now it is time to add in the next item, which is the bottle stoppers. So Tracy repeats the same process again with the bottle stoppers. When it comes to the price, she can both look in the upper right hand corner and see what the others are selling their wine stoppers for, or she can look on her seller app.

In this case, there is another FBA seller selling the wine stoppers for $45.48 so that is the price Tracy will be listing the wine stoppers at. Remember, she bought them for $12 each.

She continues, the same steps again except she is not going to create a new shipping plan because he will just add this wine stopper to the existing shipping plan and you will just select the shipping plan by the date. So you can see that both the Monster Inc., doll and the wine stopper are both in the shipping plan. At this point, you will be able to add the quantity to each item. So Tracy is able to list 2 items in each box and that way all 4 items are included in the shipping plan. Next you will click on “continue” and it will take you to the next page which tells you how to prepare your product for Amazon FBA shipping.

Once you have read all the shipping preparation suggestions, you will select “next”. Now the page will come up with the products listed on it. You will be able to review the entries and make sure that everything is correct.

Use a laser or thermal printer for Amazon FBA product labels

Tracy uses the brother laser printer.  Make sure you have the labels in the printer.  Click to print labels on Amazon.  It will download a pdf file of the labels you selected to print.  Be sure to select the correct label size on the Amazon page for it to generate according to the labels you have to print it on.  Make sure that it’s a laser printer that you are using for the Amazon FBA labels.  Amazon doesn’t allow the use of ink jet printed labels on the Amazon FBA products since there is a chance of the ink smearing and won’t allow for the Amazon scanners to scan the Amazon FBA labels when processing your product for orders.

Take the labels and put them on according to the product.  Be sure to cover up the UPC code on the product with your label.   Check over the package to make sure it’s not dirty and that it’s in good condition.  Ask yourself if you would be happy receiving that product.

Next, Tracy packages up the Monster doll and puts a label on to cover the UPC and price.  Tracy puts the stuffed Monster toy doll in a plastic poly bag since it is fabric.  Fabric needs to be covered by a plastic bag so it won’t get dirty at the Amazon warehouse.  Once the Monster doll is in the plastic bag, Tracy puts on the barcode for Amazon to be able to scan.

After you have printed the labels for the products, then press the continue button.  Review the number of items you have that are in this shipping plan and look at the number of places the shipment is being sent to.  This happens often when you have multiples of on product, Amazon will split it up so you send it to multiple warehouses across the country, unless you have your Amazon seller account set up to send all of your inventory to one warehouse which is called “inventory placement”, which costs more to do.

She shares with us what she personally does to avoid having to ship to multiple warehouses is she only ships one of each item in each box and that way she is able to ship everything to the same warehouse. Next to her desk, she has a little stash of items that she wants to list for Amazon FBA, then as she is pulling items and listing them and putting them in the box, she will only pull one of each item and put it in the box and then ship off that box.

She would wait for the next time she is going to ship and once again, put one of each item in the box and repeat that process until she had all of them sent in.

Approve your shipment for Amazon FBA

Getting back to the Amazon shipping plan, she will then click on “approve shipment”.  Then click on work on shipment.  You can then review and modify the units being shipped, select the shipping service you want to use.  You will most likely use the small parcel delivery, then select the shipping carrier you are going to use, such as the Amazon partnered carrier which is UPS.  By using that option you will get deeply discounted shipping rates.

After you have all the items in box, seal the top and sides with packing tape so the box is sealed and won’t have a chance of opening.

Get the weight and dimensions of the boxes being shipped to Amazon

After you select the shipping method to Amazon FBA, the 3^rd step is to enter in the number of boxes you have packed, then you will enter in the details of each of the boxes.  You will need the box weight and the dimensions: Length X Width X Height.   Tracy explains when shipping to Amazon, you would never want to ship just two items in one box, in the video was just to explain the whole Amazon shipping process.  Amazon and UPS allows the boxes to weigh up to a maximum of 50 lbs. so try to pack as much product into the box as possible up to the 50 lb limit.  If you only ship two items per box then the shipping rates will be expensive.

Next you will be ready to print the shipping labels, there will be two labels per Amazon FBA box shipped.  One label is for UPS and the other is for Amazon to scan.  Be sure to not put the labels on a seam and make sure they are flat so it’s easy for the scanners to scan the shipping labels.

You can drop off the boxes at a UPS location or UPS Store or schedule to have UPS come and pick up your Amazon FBA boxes.

Hope you enjoyed this beginner’s series of listing and shipping product to Amazon FBA.