October 2011 Fulfilment by Amazon Merchant Update

Greetings from Amazon,

The busy end of year is fast approaching. Are you ready? We're here to help with a new timesaving feature and some advice on preparing inbound shipments correctly.

Label units more efficiently with Scan & Ship

With our new Scan & Ship feature, you can build an inbound shipment by scanning Units using a barcode scanner, printing labels immediately, and adding the Units to a shipment with another quick scan. Scan & Ship is ideal for sellers who manage medium to large quantities of stickered inventory through the standard shipment creation workflow, rather than through Amazon MWS.

Scan & Ship helps save time and reduce errors. Plus, it's configurable to your workflow. You can label all of your Units at once and add them to the shipment later, or you can label each unit and scan it into the shipment right away. Scan & Ship requires an Internet connection, single label printer, a bar code scanner, and thermal label stock.

You can access Scan & Ship through your Seller Account under Manage FBA Shipments. Just click Scan & Ship to begin. For more information, check out the FBA Help 5.1.2 Scan & Ship.

Plan for a successful year end with FBA

Good timing can make your Christmas sales, and we want you to have your best year end ever! Ship your inventory to Amazon early to take advantage of the peak shopping days.

The last order date for free super saver delivery typically falls around mid December —customers will place many last minute orders on this date. . We recommend you plan your inventory levels and replenishment shipments in such a way to ensure coverage during the peak period leading up to Christmas.

Benefits to Sellers and Customers Using FBA in the Festive Season

Consider increasing the number of faster selling items you convert to Fulfilled by Amazon during the busy run up to year end. This can result in the following benefits for your customers and incremental sales for yourself.

•   Amazon Prime and Free Super Saver Delivery: FBA items compete for the Buy Box showing £ 0 for shipping and most items qualify for FREE Super Saver Delivery and Prime shipping discounts.
•   Amazon Customer Service: Amazon handles customer service for FBA-fulfilled orders including processing returns, which simplifies your festive season selling
•   Amazon's gift-wrap service: FBA-fulfilled orders are eligible for gift wrap services, adding a special finishing touch to any presents ordered.
•   Amazon's delivery promise for your products: Amazon lets customers know how late they can order your FBA-fulfilled products on Amazon in order to receive them in time for Christmas. This means more of your products can ship closer to the Christmas deadline with Amazon's delivery promise.
•   FBA orders can be combined with those from Amazon retail often leading to buyers adding FBA items to their Amazon order

If you have valuable products you're selling online, take advantage of Zero Fee Fulfilment which means Zero Order Handling, Zero Pick & Pack, and Zero Weight Handling. With Zero Fee Fulfilment, standard-size items selling for £ 300 or more will incur no fees for orders sold on Amazon.co.uk. Selling on Amazon fees, storage fees and other applicable fees still apply. Please find an example of Zero Fee Fulfilment.

Stay in stock

It is also important to stay IN STOCK during the busiest time of the year. You can set up automated replenishment alerts yourself from within your seller account. Please refer to (insert link) for more details.

Let Amazon export your orders to customers throughout the EU

If you have not already done so, do bear in mind that you can have Amazon ship your on Amazon orders to any customer in the EU by activating the FBA Export to EU function with one simple click. Learn More. Kindly note that if you are selling on multiple Amazon marketplaces, you will need to activate this function in each separate marketplace account.

Best practices for Shipment Preparation

We also strongly urge you to comply with the best practices below for a smooth festive season:

• Use EAN to match items when possible (see EAN and ASIN Matching Best Practices)
• Do not send restricted items
• Prep your shipment carefully—make sure all items and shipments are labeled appropriately (see FBA Help section 5.8 Packaging and Prep Requirements)
• Make sure that quantity and items physically sent in a shipment are the same as those communicated while creating the shipment
• LTL/FT shipments—make sure your carrier has secured a dock appointment
• Be prepared to send items to different Fulfilment centres

EAN and ASIN matching best practices

Preparing your products correctly can help prevent a wide range of potential problems. It is especially important to identify each product by an ISBN or EAN. These barcodes will be linked to an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), which is a unique combination of 10 letters and numbers used to identify products.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

• ISBNs, EANs, and GTIN-14s are driving data points in the Amazon Catalogue. Don’t rely on titles or photos to match your products.
• During the listing creation process in your Seller Account, whether you plan to send inventory stickered or stickerless, it is crucial to use a ISBN, EAN, or GTIN-14 as your sole identifier to ensure listing accuracy and FBA service performance.
• If ISBN, EAN, or GTIN-14 barcodes are not available on your physical product, please use other unique product identifiers, such as Model Numbers.

If you follow these best practices and still encounter discrepancies in the catalogue during the listing creation process, please contact Seller Support to resolve the issue before physically sending product.

Good preparation and planning can result in smoother and faster processing of inbound shipments

As we move into the busiest time of year, we are constantly looking at ways to speed up the receive times in our centres so your items are on sale as quickly as possible. We would like to remind you that all shipments need to be marked as ‘shipped’ on the summary screen of your shipments. This will result in acceleration of the receiving and check in process. Please refer to the example below.

Ensuring your product barcodes scan correctly can greatly speed up receive times

When your products arrive in one of Amazon’s centres, our staff must scan the barcode on the item in order to “receive” the product into our system and make it available for sale. If there is a problem with the barcode, receiving can be delayed whilst the problem is investigated meaning that your products will not be available for sale as quickly as they could be.

Three of the most common barcode problems we encounter are:

1. Barcode not linked to the expected ASIN:- Typically barcodes will be unique and link to a single ASIN. If the barcode on your product links to a different ASIN from the one you listed on and added to your shipment, this is likely to cause a delay while we research the issue, identify the correct ASIN, and add it to your inventory as an Unexpected Item. If you list items using the “Add a Product” feature in Seller Central, you can avoid this by using the barcode on your product to search for the correct ASIN. We also recommend you take the opportunity to check that the EAN displayed in Seller Central matches the physical barcode printed on your product as manufacturers sometimes change the EAN when they update their products. The product EAN is displayed on the “Inventory Amazon Fulfils” page as well as in the shipment details page in “Shipping Queue” .

2. Unreadable Barcodes:- This is when the barcode cannot be read by our scanners, usually because it is too small, too faint or too blurred. If you print your own barcodes, please ensure you use a good quality laser printer and labels. Inkjet printers and poor quality labels have a tendency to result in barcodes which smudge or bleed. Check the print quality to ensure the lines of the barcode are clearly defined and not blurred together. Check toner levels regularly and reprint any labels that are damaged or faded. If you would like to use a dedicated label printer for high quality labels, please check our feature Scan & Ship. For more information, check out the FBA Help 5.1.2 Scan & Ship

3. Barcode linked to Multiple ASINs:- Another common issue, particularly with toys, is products which we describe as “assortments.” These are a range of similar items which all carry the same EAN barcode, for example a particular series of action figures. In order to sell each figure in the assortment as an individual product, they must be labelled with a unique barcode so that the Centre staff can uniquely identify each product at receive. You can print out the barcodes from Seller Central using the “Print Item Labels” feature.

By following the above guidelines, you will ensure that your barcodes are scannable and uniquely linked to the correct ASINs, thus enabling us to receive your products into your inventory and make them available for sale in the fastest possible time thus optimising your sales”

Testimonials from Sellers who are successfully selling their products internationally with Amazon

“Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is the only way I know of allowing a one-man company to sell in multiple markets and turnover in excess of £1 million a year. If I was to take this idea to ‘Dragons Den’ they would bite my hand off to invest”.
Julius Oliveti, Director of Gizmo-Deals

“Sales are up and we have access to an excellent customer base on Amazon in the UK and Germany”.
Sylvain Desprez, founder of French company Moeroshop admits that his business is years ahead of where it would otherwise have been thanks to Amazon. He is now selling successfully across Europe too.

“Amazon has enabled us to easily expand our business into new international markets and grow our UK business through the economic crisis. They offer an excellent low cost and low risk model allowing small businesses like ourselves to reach new customers all around the world. Within 18 months from launching our products on Amazon’s international websites, 30% of our annual turnover is now from non UK sales. Signing up as a seller has been one of the best decisions we have made as a company”
Ravi Karia from Universal Textiles based in Leicester who took the family business online

If you would like to know more about how to get started selling internationally, please visit our site about Unified Account and Amazon’s European Fulfilment Network or watch our video tutorials about How to configure your Amazon Europe Marketplaces account

We wish you much success selling on Amazon and using Fulfilment by Amazon.

Yours sincerely
The FBA Team.

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Tips and Reminders

October 2011 Fulfilment by Amazon Merchant Update