For Amazon vendors and sellers, operational management continues to be critical. Learn how you can accurately predict, forecast, procure, and fulfill on Amazon to optimize your operational strategy and balance your supply and demand.
3. Today’s Logistics
Analicia Santaella
Partner Marketing Manager
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9. 9
Inventory and Fulfillment Best Practices
Vendors should be proactive in managing their inventory
● Direct Fulfillment: Allows Vendors to ship products from their
warehouses directly to Amazon’s customers. Contact Vendor
Support via case to request Direct Fulfillment (“DF”) access.
Vendors must create a DF catalog and update DF inventory
regularly (every 24 hours is recommended).
● Born to Run: (Vendor Initiated Orders) Allows Vendors to
request orders for a product. Amazon will review the
submission and - if approved - will buy up to that amount.
Units that do not sell within the sell-through period are
subject to returns or retention fees. Vendors can use this
feature to increase inventory position during new product
launches or marketing campaigns. For further questions,
open a case via Contact Us and select Born To Run as the
Issue Type.
Sellers must be mindful of FBA Restock Limits and
evaluate FBM feasibility
● FBM: Amazon’s continued inventory constraints have once
again resulted in a greater emphasis on Sellers having the
capability to fulfill orders themselves.
● Restock Limits: Amazon re-established FBA Restock Limits
in an attempt to more efficiently manage their own inventory -
the result is a new challenge for Sellers to manage.
Vendor (1P) Seller (3P)
10. 10
Restock Inventory Page: Limited Restock Tag and
Shipment Quantity Limits
● Maximum inventory level represents the maximum inventory
you can maintain at Amazon. You will not be able to create a
shipment that increases your inventory levels beyond this
threshold. Maximum inventory levels are calculated using
historical demand for your products.
● Utilization represents your current inventory at Amazon, which
counts against your maximum inventory level and helps
determine your maximum shipment quantity. It accounts for
your incoming shipments, inventory pending removals, and
inventory reserved for orders pending shipment.
Sendsmaller, more frequent FBA shipments of high-velocity ASINs
11. 11
Inventory Performance Index (“IPI”)
● Excess inventory percentage: the result of carrying too much inventory. This
decreases profitability due to storage fees and holding costs and therefore you
should be sure that you’re tracking your excess inventory percentage regularly in
order to maximize profitability.
● FBA sell-through rate: calculated by taking your units sold and shipped over the
past 90 days and dividing that number by the average number of units available
at fulfillment centers during that time period. You can improve sell-through by
creating or adjusting your advertising strategy, by creating a sale, by auditing the
product detail page, or by removing some of your inventory.
● Stranded Inventory percentage: stranded Inventory is inventory that is not
available for purchase due to a listing problem that has resulted in inventory
without an associated active offer. Amazon provides a “Fix listing” option which
goes on to detail the exact reason that your inventory has been stranded and
provides you with the steps to resolve the issue.
● FBA in-stock rate: the percentage of time your replenishable FBA ASINs have
been in stock during the previous 30 days, weighted by the number of units sold
for each SKU in the prior 60 days. When an ASIN is out of stock you should flag
that ASIN as non-replenishable in the Restock tool.
Excess inventory
Sell-through
Stranded inventory
In-stock inventory
13. 13
Fees + Costs
● Professional Seller Account: $39.99/month
● Referral Fees: 8% – 45% depending on your category (mostly
15%)
● Closing Fee
● Minimum Referral Fee
● Fulfillment Fees
● Storage Fees
● Overage Fees
● Long-term Storage Fees (LTSF)
● Removal Order Fees
● High-Volume Listing Fee
FEES
● Shipping Inventory to Amazon
● Returns
● Advertising on an ASIN level
● Inventory Performance Unplanned Service Fees
COSTS
C
14. 14
Chargeback Analysis
Where do
we find
them?
● Go to Vendor Central >
Reports > Operational
Performance
● Filter by date, issue, status
● Export data into
spreadsheet for internal use
● Problems with purchase
orders
● Problems with
transportation process
● Problems with the receive
process
Why are we
getting
them?
How do we
prevent
them?
How do we
dispute
them?
● Understand all of the
requirements & share with
internal teams
● Assign team to monitor the
operational performance
dashboard
● Troubleshoot root causes &
make changes to processes
or catalog
● Vendors have 30 days from
notification date to dispute a
chargeback
● Provide as much detail &
documentation, as possible
● You may only dispute each
chargeback twice
16. It’s nice to
meet you
I help direct-to-consumer brands
and marketplace sellers manage
their multichannel operations.
CHAD RUBIN | CEO, CO-FOUNDER
17. B2C
MKPL
POS B2B
3PL
ACCT
WMS
FBA
O R D E R M A N A G E M E N T S H I P P I N G P U R C H A S I N G
I N V E N T O R Y
Sales
Channels
Back-office
systems
19. .Prime or Bust.
.TIP #1.
FBA is key to allowing int’l sellers to compete
with domestic sellers.
☑ 71% of Chinese sellers are using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
☑ More than 85% of the top Amazon sellers offer Prime shipping,
up from 56% three years ago.
20. Avoid. Unscalable. Cost. Structures.
☑ Revenue declined but 3PLs/operational costs remained constant.
☑ USPS went zonal -- it had to mature to stay profitable!
Invest in Inverted
Cost Structures
.TIP #2.
21. One Warehouse
Is No Longer
Sufficient.
.TIP #3.
Identify ways to lower fulfillment costs.
☑ Know where your customers are ordering from.
☑ Transfer inventory closer to those areas.
☑ Leverage Section 321 and importing directly to Mexican 3PLs.
☑ Pick-pack and ship directly to your US customers from abroad.
22. Constantly re-invest in innovative products to
protect yourself from copycats.
☑ PL products are just commodities with branding attached to it
☑ Lower sales velocity = more warehouse fees and deadstock.
☑ Amazon is paid to sell you stuff, not store it.
☑ Products need to be highly differentiated, or there needs to be
some scarcity of supply.
Going JUST
D2C is no
longer
sufficient.
.TIP #4.
23. You Must Be a
Systems Thinker
.TIP #5.
IF...Purchasing is using one app, & ops using
another, you have a problem.
Great scalable brands require a common language
so everyone’s on the same page.
☑ Operators focused on growth without resiliency will miss out.
☑ Operational infrastructure must adapt automatically.
☑ Selling on a single channel is no longer viable. Diversify.
O R D E R
M A N A G E M E N T
S H I P P I N G P U R C H A S I N G
I N V E N T O R Y
24. UNIFY FOR EXPERIENCE
BE DIRECT TO
EVERYWHERE®
De-risk sales channels by
creating consistent brand
experiences everywhere your
customers live and shop.
25. Test the market with Virtual SKUs, US & Abroad
☑ Double or triple your total SKU count
☑ Create a bundle with FBM and fulfill it with FBA
☑ Offer an item in bundles and do the bundle breakdown using your FBA stock
to fulfill that bundle or kit
☑ Prioritize Amazon DE over Amazon UK
.Explode Your
SKU Count.
.TIP #6.
26. *10 Brands Will Be Selected at Random
Email me with subject, “I’M IN”
chad@skubana.com
FREE Bonus Offer
Operations
Strategy
Audit
CHAD RUBIN | FOUNDER & AND CEO