Are you ready for these changes to your FBA selling?

By Sharon Fussell, July 14, 2011

In this article I’m going to concentrate on FBA selling due to some important changes Amazon are implementing in the next month or so.

If you operate on FBA already or are thinking of moving from merchant selling to FBA you may find this information of interest.

Now, I have to admit that when Amazon announces changes it always makes my heart skip a beat in case the changes have an adverse effect on my business.

So it was with slight apprehension I took part in their recent webinar on upcoming storage changes and the new Inventory Health Report.

FBA Selling: the changes you need to know about…

The Long Term Storage Programme:

During the webinar I learned that Amazon are proposing to impose a fee for items stored in their centres for over 365 days.

Here is an excerpt from an email I received from Amazon’s FBA team discussing these changes:

“[…]As we communicated in May, the Long-Term Storage programme will take effect on August 15th, 2011. On that date, and every February 15 and August 15 following, FBA will assess an upfront annual Long-Term Storage Fee* of £1,765 per cubic metre (£50 per cubic foot) on any inventory that has been in Amazon fulfilment centres for 365 days or more. In case you decide to keep units that are 365 days or older in inventory, this translates to £1.32 for an average-sized (20x15x2.5cm) book or £4.94 for an average-sized (28x20x5cm) toy. To provide additional flexibility to maintain your unique selection, one Unit of each applicable product ASIN will be exempted from annual Long-Term Storage Fees.
* all rates mentioned in this email are exclusive of VAT. […]”

This appears scary, until you note that one item per SKU is discounted: as most of my items are on individual SKUs this change is unlikely to affect me.

Of course if you are likely to be affected then make sure you take advantage of Amazon’s offer to remove duplicate stock for free until July 15th.

If you want to know more about the Long Term Storage Programme and whether it will affect you there is some useful information here on the Amazon website:

Long Term Storage Programme FAQ’s

Inventory Health Report

Amazon’s new Inventory Health Report is quite interesting in that it allows you to analyse how popular certain products are, how quickly they sell and how many you will need to fulfil future orders.

I note from my report that I do not have duplicate listings that will incur any increased charges within the time frame specified by Amazon.

So the storage changes will not impact on me at all at this stage, however they could impact me on the next wave in February so I will be taking stock and using this inventory health report to ensure that I keep my inventory healthy and that I do not end up paying long term charges unnecessarily.

You can download yours from your seller account. Go to Amazon fulfilled reports link and scroll down to ‘Inventory Health NEW’

If you need further assistance concerning this matter go to your seller account and email seller help.

Quick Tip:

Whether you are a Merchant or an FBA seller, it’s always a good idea to keep your stock inventory updated. One thing to do when your sales are sluggish is to go to refresh your pricing; this often leads to a surge in sales.

To do this: go to your seller account and click on ‘view your current inventory’, refresh prices where applicable and remember to you’re your changes. If you want to edit your comments simply click on the little drop down box at the side of the listing and choose the ‘edit’ option.

From here it is also possible to close listings or check on your sales – these should automatically be viewable in your closed listings if you are a Merchant Seller.

With FBA, the SKUs tend to ‘stay live’ but you can check on your sales by downloading a report from your sellers account.