One of the things Amazon is most known for is making the lives of its buyers and sellers as simple as possible. Whether this is through 24/7 customer support, super fast shipping or constantly exploring new options, Amazon seems to make it almost foolproof to use its site and services. With that said, mistakes do happen—even for established sellers. RepricerExpress is here to help sellers avoid two common mistakes switching to Amazon FBA can bring to your business.
Failing to Adjust Your Prices
Even if you’re already repricing your stock on Amazon (which is necessary for most) you’ll need to take a look at your prices and repricing rules again when you make the switch to FBA. While you may dust your hands and sit back happily, thinking the sky is finally clear after jumping on board with FBA, you’re not quite there yet.
One of the things you have to keep in mind is what exactly FBA entails. They’ll be taking a huge load off your shoulders now, which is exactly what you need to be aware of. One of the things they’ll now be lifting from your corner to theirs is shipping, as your buyers will now see whatever product they’re look at as having free shipping. Contrast this with merchant-fulfilled shipping, where the price combines shipping with the listed price.
You can now see where the problem lies. If your item was previously selling for, say, £10 and was broken down as £8 for the product and £2 for shipping, your buyers will now be getting a fancy 20% discount. This is great for them and will likely attract more buyers, but at what cost? This easy-to-make mistake will cut into your profit margin and really start to add up over the long term. Plus, not only will you be losing that £2, but you’ll still also have to pay for FBA on top of that.
Failing to Maintain Quality of Stock
Let’s consider a very polarising topic: Apple. My MagSafe adapter has been on its last legs for quite some time now, but I put off buying a new one for about two months. First, the spot where the cord met the adapter was frayed to the point of sparking, and then the magnetic 5-pin connector got stuck in my laptop, also sparking when I tried plugging it back in. At this point, there was no other way around it: I needed a new MagSafe adapter.
I was loathe to admit this to myself because heck, we all know how expensive Apple peripherals can be. Resigning myself, I headed to Amazon and Apple to look for a replacement.
The Apple site came first, and with a huge shock. MagSafe adapters are not cheap! So, I dug around on Amazon for a while and found adapters that cost just a little more than a movie ticket. That was great, until I started inspecting the items more closely and discovered the adapters listed were not of the same build quality and had a life of only a few months.
The point of all this is that when your buyers purchase an item from you, they want to be assured it will last a decent amount of time. If not, they’ll go to a store like Bits and Bobs instead. You’ll be tempted to load up your inventory with cheaper goods when switching to FBA so you can capitalise on selling more easily (especially because you have to pay for FBA), but don’t. You’ll alienate shoppers at a faster rate than getting them, and it will be amazing at how quickly you can damage your reputation.
