Do you find it extremely time-consuming managing your own fulfillment? Would you rather spend less time personally packing and shipping your products to buyers? Are you tired of paying hefty shipping rates to get your products into the buyer’s hands?
If you answered yes to all those questions, then Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) might be the right solution for you.
Essentially, you’re responsible for selling the product, and Amazon is responsible for shipping the product.
After enrolling into FBA, sellers can start to take advantage of Amazon’s shipping and fulfillment services. From the sellers’ side, they are responsible for sending their inventory to an Amazon warehouse for storage. Once customers buy their product, Amazon will then pick, pack, ship, and track the order.
That all sounds great, doesn’t it? However, there are some important things to note.
So after you’ve decided to enroll in FBA and have everything set up, you need to make sure you’re primed (pun intended) for success.
Amazon favors sellers who always have inventory on hand, and can move products quickly. Make sure you’re regularly reviewing your Inventory Performance Index on Seller Central. Here, you can monitor the health of your inventory, and find recommendations that will ultimately help minimize costs, increase sales, and boost performance.
Amazon will also inform you when stock is low, and the recommended order quantity based on your sell-through history, to ensure you always have enough supply to meet the demand.
If your products aren’t moving, you can be racking up storage costs fairly quickly. To avoid this, Amazon provides recommendations on improving sell-through. This can include optimizing your product details, offering a discount, or creating a campaign to increase traffic.
When optimizing your products, be as detailed as possible. This means writing a descriptive headline and product description (this also helps with your SEO!), having at least 5 high-quality images, more than 15 reviews, and at least a 3.5-star rating. Sellers should also take advantage of Enhanced Brand Content which provides more visually appealing content on the product detail page, and enables you to showcase more of the product through better images and videos.
Amazon offers an Early Reviewer Program, which costs roughly $60 for 5 authentic, genuine reviews from verified buyers. The best part is, you’re not charged until you receive a review through the program. If you’re having trouble earning reviews, this may be a viable option.
If you want to move forward with enrolling in Amazon FBA, nows the time to do it. With Prime Day proving that Amazon is a powerhouse, it's time to get your Amazon marketing and operations strategy up and running.