Amazon FBA

[GoonerGary]

Another hefty Royal Mail price hike. Does anyone do the whole Amazon FBA thing? How much do Amazon charge a seller to post an item to their Prime customers?

Is it cheaper than Royal Mail? I realise that there are also storage and selling fees, so it's probably difficult to work out a true breakdown in costs. But I'm curious!

[Justin]

Following with interest. Started looking at FBA myself recentyl, there is a full breakdown of costs for storage/selling etc. quite complicated and seems to go by how much 'shelf space' is needed for your products.

I heard that if they lose or damage your stock they compensate you for the potential sale price so you get the profit as well, not sure how true that is.

[StellaD]

Another hefty Royal Mail price hike.

I am waiting until Monday, when the increase actually takes effect, to see what the small parcel increase actually is.

Certainly it is rising on items where you buy postage over the counter but if you buy online it appears to be actually reducing to £2.85 (50p less than over the counter) but RM in their wisdom have removed the page relating to it.

I think you should be OK using click and drop or buying through EBay or similar. Admittedly 1st Class letters are going up 10p but 2nd are only rising 2p. Large Letters seem to be the biggest problem.

[socialgiraffe]

I can not answer most of your questions as I do not sell on Amazon, but I do supply a company with mugs that they sell. What I do know is that Amazon change the storage facility a lot meaning one week my customer will have enough room to store 5000 mugs at Amazon and the next week they will only allow 50. From what I understand they do not send them back, but instead not allow you to restock until its all gone. I also think you have to shift quite a bit to get any decent sort of storage there.

A bit of "presuming" on the above, but its an educated presumption

[StellaD]

RM have now put their prices back online

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalma ... 022-v2.pdf

Buying postage online for small parcels, eg mugs, is now actually going DOWN.

A rare win. :biggrin:

[dogkit]

I have switched to FBA. The prices depend on the size and weight of your products but in my case it is cheaper than Royal Mail. I send 60g large letters, 400-600 a month. Royal Mail OBA £1.30-something comparing to £0.82 with FBA. I send bulk of 200-300 items at the time to Amazon warehouse with UPS for £3.50 so shipping to amazon costs me nothing per item pretty much. Storage I think worked out at £0.50 last month so also nothing.

Do your research but for small and light products it is much more convenient and cheaper to go FBA. You must enrol in Small & Light programme.

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[bubbleimages]

Hi Gary,

If you are thinking the mug side of things for Amazon Prime FBA then the costs have gone up slightly over the past year or so, but a good example is if you are selling a mug for £10, then combined Amazon & FBA delivery charges is £4.05.

You can either send in direct through their courier preference which is UPS with free collection, when we did Prime we were sending in boxes of 45 mugs, around 21kg and charges were about £10.50ish each box.

I think if volume was there though, pallet deliveries might be a better option on pricing.

[GoonerGary]

I have switched to FBA. The prices depend on the size and weight of your products but in my case it is cheaper than Royal Mail. I send 60g large letters, 400-600 a month. Royal Mail OBA £1.30-something comparing to £0.82 with FBA. I send bulk of 200-300 items at the time to Amazon warehouse with UPS for £3.50 so shipping to amazon costs me nothing per item pretty much. Storage I think worked out at £0.50 last month so also nothing.

Do your research but for small and light products it is much more convenient and cheaper to go FBA. You must enrol in Small & Light programme.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6896[/ATTACH]

Thanks for the upload. I've weighed three 10oz Orca mugs in a smash proof box and the heaviest came in at 400g! I'm assuming that VAT is added onto those prices too? If so, same price as Royal Mail, but without the work of packing, you get a tracked next day service and the sales bonus of FBA.

[GoonerGary]

I can not answer most of your questions as I do not sell on Amazon, but I do supply a company with mugs that they sell. What I do know is that Amazon change the storage facility a lot meaning one week my customer will have enough room to store 5000 mugs at Amazon and the next week they will only allow 50. From what I understand they do not send them back, but instead not allow you to restock until its all gone. I also think you have to shift quite a bit to get any decent sort of storage there.

A bit of "presuming" on the above, but its an educated presumption

Does each mug require its own EAN barcode all stickered up?

[socialgiraffe]

Does each mug require its own EAN barcode all stickered up?

Each design requires its own EAN barcode and yes each box needs a barcode on the outside. They also need to be in smash proof boxes, or something pretty sturdy at least. If they think the box is not suitable you will be hit for any damages during transit. The decent brown boxes from XPRES seem to be the cheapest around at the moment.