How to Send Your Next Shipment to Amazon & Save Big
Isaac Kuhlman delves into the essentials of shipping products as an Amazon FBA seller, explaining how to optimize shipping and storage costs. Learn about creating product listings, utilizing barcodes, and avoiding common pitfalls like commingled inventory, which could harm your product ratings and sales. Isaac shares his personal experience with shipping blunders and introduces the benefits of Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) for cost-effective storage and shipping solutions. Enhance your e-commerce strategies with Isaac's insights and explore additional resources for scaling your FBA business.
Episode Summary:
Isaac Kuhlman delves into the essentials of shipping products as an Amazon FBA seller, explaining how to optimize shipping and storage costs. Learn about creating product listings, utilizing barcodes, and avoiding common pitfalls like commingled inventory, which could harm your product ratings and sales.
Isaac shares his personal journey, including the costly mistakes that taught him to navigate the complex logistics landscape of Amazon. Listen in for actionable insights on how to avoid common pitfalls and save on shipping and storage costs while increasing your profit margins.
Discover the significance of having a robust product listing, securing an Amazon Seller account, and the crucial role of barcodes in ensuring the integrity of your inventory. Isaac outlines the differences between commingled and non-commingled inventory and stresses the importance of FNSQ barcodes in protecting your product listings from counterfeit sellers.
Furthermore, Isaac provides an in-depth walkthrough of setting up shipments to both Amazon FBA and Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD), highlighting the advantages of each. With a focus on optimizing shipping costs and choosing the right logistics partners, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for future and current FBA entrepreneurs.
Key Takeaways:
* Understand the Basics - Setting up an Amazon Seller account and creating detailed product listings equipped with accurate barcodes is essential.
* Avoid Commingled Inventory - Ensure the use of FNSQ barcodes for products to prevent them from being mixed with other sellers' inventory, safeguarding against counterfeit sales.
* Optimize Shipping and Storage - Learn how to leverage Amazon's FBA and AWD systems for more cost-effective logistics and storage solutions.
* Mitigate Financial Pitfalls - Isaac shares critical mistakes pertaining to improper labeling that led to massive financial losses, advising on how to circumvent such issues.
* Strategic Resources - Get access to exclusive resources and strategies designed to enhance your performance as an Amazon seller.
Notable Quotes:
* "With all the tariffs and trade war talks, it is absolutely crucial that you save money where you can."
* "I can't stress enough that you should not do commingled inventory."
* "The benefit of \[using partner carriers] is also that your payment is taken out of your seller account, saving you a wire transfer charge."
* "AWD is usually much cheaper, especially if you have maybe not enough boxes for a container."
Resources:
Jungle Scout (Crucial for product research) - https://get.junglescout.com/ud79kt45c2z5
Amazon FBA Strategies Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJx368lLgqkXIyj3Fm6KzLGDMMOHMeIfz
Learn more about working together here - https://originalamazoncoach.com/work-together
Timeline:
0:00 Essential Tips for New Amazon FBA Sellers
1:43 Avoid Commingled Inventory to Protect Your Amazon Product Ratings
3:48 Efficiently Sending Goods to Amazon FBA Without Extra Costs
4:08 Essential Steps for Setting Up FBA Shipment Details
5:41 Efficient Shipping Strategies for Amazon Sellers
7:44 Entering Company Details for Shenzhen Factory Materials Ltd
8:06 Cost-Effective Shipping with Amazon AWD and Partner Carriers
12:11 Maximize Your Amazon FBA Success with Expert Strategies
Related Searches:
#amazonfba #amazonfbaforbeginners #amazonfbastepbystep #amazonfbatips #fba #amazon #amazonbusiness
Amazon FBA, shipping, inventory, barcodes, logistics, Amazon FBA seller, FNSQ barcode, commingled inventory, Amazon warehousing, shipping costs, how to ship to Amazon FBA, avoid commingled inventory risks, save money on Amazon shipping, Amazon AWD benefits, FBA shipping step by step
0:00:00 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I'm guessing you're curious about selling on Amazon as an FBA seller or you've just started out with your first product and you're trying to figure out how to actually get your goods from your factory to Amazon, right? Well in this video I'm going to show you exactly how to do that on Amazon and I'm going to give you a suggestion on how to save a ton of money in shipping and storage in this process, which is something most people don't even try to convey to new sellers.
0:00:19 - (Isaac Kuhlman): They just want you to do everything fast and easy and those two words usually equate to overpaying for everything. With all the tariffs and trade war talks that are happening, it is absolutely crucial that you save money where you can and and if you're selling on Amazon, you'll find out how tight margins can be after all expenses. I'm also going to talk to you about a massive mistake I made when I first started out that cost a brand I was working on at the time about $100,000 or more in lost sales and it has to do with how you label your goods as a free perk for watching this whole video, I'll let you know about three incredible bonuses that you can get for yourself by the end of this training. So make sure to watch this whole video until the end.
0:00:52 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Also, be sure to follow this channel with a subscribe like the video and comment any questions you have if you're interested in learning more tips and strategies for Amazon fba. Alright, first things first, you need an Amazon Seller account. If you're watching this video then I'm going to assume you already have one, but if you don't, the process is pretty straightforward. I'm going to put a link in the description below that gives you a step by step walkthrough of how to do just that.
0:01:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Also, you have to have a product listing created. To do this you'll need a product code like a UPC or EAN to get your item into Amazon's catalog. I want to put a link to the GS $130 barcode link in the description below because that's a one time fee versus having to pay annual subscription for batches of codes like I've done over the years. I'd rather you pay $30 and keep the barcode yourself. Another thing you'll need is to have your listing somewhat filled out with details so that you can get your FNSQ barcode which is absolutely crucial to put on your packaging as I do not recommend selling commingled inventory.
0:01:43 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So make sure you have an FNSQ barcode that starts with an X on the barcode instead of a B. If the barcode starts with a B, then you have commingled inventory. And this could be a huge risk in your business as anyone can send in any product with the same upc, even counterfeit sellers, and, and those goods will get mixed with yours. Then when a customer buys the products, whatever seller is selling at the lowest price will basically get the sale for however many units they sent in. And when those counterfeit goods go out, they'll start getting bad reviews from the customers and tank your listing that you worked hard on.
0:02:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Therefore, I can't stress enough that you should not do commingled inventory. I once worked with a product that was selling about 500 units a day. It was a cell phone screen protector. And a counterfeit seller found out that we had commingled inventory and just submitted their own version of that product. And it wasn't the same. It didn't fit right. It had no branded packaging, but they were selling it as if it did. They sent in a couple hundred units, maybe up to 500 units of those products that were counterfeit. After all those units were sold, we ended up getting about 100 one star reviews, which absolutely tanked the listing because it went from a 4.8 star rating down to like a 3.6 or something like that.
0:02:45 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And that product never recovered. And we only got about 5 to 10 sales per day after that. Maybe not even that. There's no way we would have ever done commingled inventory if we even knew that was a possibility. But Amazon just kept pushing us with emails to use the UPC barcode and never gave the downside of what that would be. So make sure you set your fulfillment by Amazon settings under the FBA barcode preference to Amazon barcode. That's the FNSKU sticker. And then go to Manage Inventory and select the product and click Print Item Label to double check that your FNSQ barcode for the product starts with an X. That's the barcode you want on your packaging so that Amazon can separate your goods from other sellers at all times.
0:03:23 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Normally at this point, anyone who makes a video like this on YouTube will tell you to simply send your goods into Amazon FBA and get selling. Well, I want to show you how to do that, but stick around after that because I want to make sure you understand that you could be saving a ton of money if you don't send your goods directly into Amazon FBA and no, I'm not going to tell you to send your goods into your house or into a third party warehouse. It will still go to Amazon. Okay, so let me quickly show you how to send your goods to an Amazon FBA warehouse first.
0:03:48 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Alright, so to set up a shipment, there's probably several ways to do it. But I'm going to show you the way that I do it. I click on my little menu here and then I go to my inventory and click Manage All Inventory. And then I find the product that I'm looking for and I'll just click on the button right next to it. And then what I want to do is I want to click Select Group Action and then hit Send or Replenish Inventory. And that's going to take me to the FBA shipment manager.
0:04:08 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Basically it's going to have my product here and then I have to create packing details for it. So likely you're going to have to set up a new packing template. So for example, you might say there's 150 units per case or 50 units or whatever it is that you have. And then you're going to pick case pack for the template type. You're going to put in the amount of units and then you're going to put in the box dimensions and inches, maybe it's 18 by 12 by 12, for example. And then you'll put in the box weight, let's say it's £10.
0:04:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Whatever it is, you just want to make sure that that's accurate. You're going to get that from your factory. They're going to tell you how big your cartons are and how many units fit in each box. They call that the packing slip. So make sure you get the packing slip from your factory. And then you're going to select the category of who preps it. Usually you'll just say no prep needed unless there's some sort of prep needed like bubble wrap or anything like that. But most products don't usually have that. And then going to also have the option for use manufacturer barcode.
0:04:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Do not do this. As mentioned, do not do this. This is commingled inventory. So you do not want to do that. So just go ahead and hit save after that. And then who labels the units? It'll say by seller that will be you. So you'll definitely want to keep that as yourself because you're going to put the FNS key label on the packaging. Then you'll hit save. So that's going to come back to the shipment details where you actually Go ahead and make sure that you have your warehouse for your factory put into the ship from address.
0:05:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And then you're going to put how many boxes you have, let's say 15 in this case. So it's going to be about 2,000 units. And then you can click ready to send. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to want to likely click off. I want to ship with Amazon Global Logistics. Unless you are doing that, I don't recommend it because there's other ways that you can ship that are pretty much equally as fast.
0:05:41 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So I'm just going to go ahead and unclick that and then what I'm going to do is I want to hit confirm and continue. Then it's going to give you two options. It's going to give you Amazon Fulfillment center, which is FBA or Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, which is awd. I'll show you that method in a few minutes. But here's the actual FBA version. So you'll pick Amazon Fulfillment Center. I would highly recommend using Amazon partner carriers. They're cheaper, they're usually faster, and they also have tracking numbers already listed. And they have a lot of the other stuff already inside of Amazon so you don't have to go in and add them later like delivery windows and stuff like that.
0:06:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So you click that and unless you want to pay a lot more money to send to one location, I would just keep it on the no placement service fee and choose five shipments. And then what you're going to do is you're just going to make sure that you have a total of however many boxes you put in there. So on this one it's 4, 8, 12, 15 boxes, just like we said. And then we're going to say that we're going to do ocean shipping because if you don't do ocean shipping, you're going to be overpaying by a lot.
0:06:34 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You're going to click the date that you're going to ship it out. So likely it's going to be the next closest date. You're going to choose Pickups shipping service. So that means a carrier will pick up from the ship from address or your factory. And then here's another thing. I would highly recommend using the carrier's exporter of record because it's usually cheaper and they're actually going to be able to handle everything. Instead of you having your own exporter of record, they'll put their exporter of record number into the shipments as well. So that way it's Already there, you don't have to do it yourself.
0:06:59 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And then you'll click get shipping costs. Now we're going to see a bunch of quotes here below. Whatever fits your fancy, you can pretty much pick. So you can choose the cheapest one, you can choose the fastest one, whatever you want to do, but basically just find something that fits your kind of time frame and your budget and then you're going to hit book. So let's just say we're going to book this one.
0:07:16 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Then you've got to put in your commodity description, whatever your product is, and you will copy and paste that and confirm it to each location. And then you actually have to enter the company name in Chinese, you have to enter the company name in English, you have to add their information into the company information here. So let's say it's, you know, Shenzhen Factory Materials, blah blah blah, Ltd, whatever. So that's their English name. Well then you have to have the Chinese version of that here.
0:07:44 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Then you have to have their, you know, address with postal code, you know, phone number, everything like that. Then you have to have the origin contact details. So this is a person, a contact person. So Mr. Lou or whatever, and then his, his information, his email address and his phone number. And then you're going to add that in there. And then basically you're just going to click the I agree to all the terms and conditions and hit accept charges and confirm shipping.
0:08:06 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Then the box labels will actually be printed in step three. I can't do that because I'm not actually creating a shipment right now. But when you do this, you'll actually get box labels. So then what you'll do is you'll save those in PDF files and then send them directly to your freight forwarder, or in this case because it's going through Amazon FBA's you know, partner carrier system, they'll actually just get it and you'll have it, you know, sent an email sent to you in a couple of days or maybe a couple hours, even telling you, hey, we've got your shipment ready and we're picking it up, it's going out and then basically everything works from there. The benefit of this is also that your $159 that it says right there or whatever that payment is going to be is actually taken out of your seller account. So it's actually going to save you a wire transfer charge or a PayPal fee or however you're sending your actual transfers to get the freight forwarder paid. And it's going to probably get There faster.
0:08:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): The other things it's going to do is make sure that it's in the Amazon system. So as soon as it's ready to be checked in, it will be checked in. You don't have to schedule deliveries with freight or anything like that. It'll just get into Amazon system right away. Now, sending directly to Amazon FBA is great, but you can actually save a lot more money on shipping and storage if you send to AWD instead.
0:09:11 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So that's actually. If you go all the way back up, you choose Amazon Warehousing and Distribution instead. You can see it says save up to 84% in storage fees. That's actually true. So what you'll do is you'll just hit continue to AWD workflow and it's going to take you to a different page and then it's going to look very, very similar, but you're going to say Amazon managed and you're going to have your, you know, obviously your ship from address and everything in there. Then you're going to use the shipping mode of send, which is Amazon partner carriers, and then it's going to ship to one location automatically.
0:09:37 - (Isaac Kuhlman): The difference here is when you send to Amazon awd, you're actually shipping in full cartons there. And they're not taking them out of the cartons. It's not like FBA where they're actually sending the goods to the, you know, customers who purchase the products. They're going to store them at AWD until FBA needs that inventory and then it's going to ship from AWD to FBA to be fulfilled from there. So this is a way to keep all your products in the carton until they're ready to be sold, basically.
0:10:03 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So this is a really good way to save money. So it's going to not charge you for putting it into one warehouse. And that means you're going to save a lot of money by shipping it to one location through Ocean Shipping lcl. So then you click the date, you also choose pickup and then use the carrier's exporter of record and then hit get shipping costs. And now you'll see here that most of these shipments will actually be about 75%, maybe even up to 50%, the same price. So like you can see here, this one is at $79 for these 15 cartons, which is a crazy amount. Like, that's very good. That total shipping cost, you can see, does not include customs duty and tax.
0:10:36 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So that was. This is just a quote for the shipping. It's not including the Tariffs, so you have to keep that in mind. But this is still the best way to get shipping from your factory, usually in China, to, you know, Amazon in the us. This is awd, obviously. So what you would do is basically just make sure you click book. And then the same thing. You have to put in the company's name, which is Chinese for this one and English, you have to put the company information, the origin, contact details, you have to put the commodity description, and then basically you hit agree to all terms and then accept charges and confirm shipment. And again, the box labels will be printable after this, so you can send them to, you know, if you have a sourcing agent or whoever. But basically that freight forward is already going to get those box labels and pretty much pick up the product, contact your factory, and then start delivering it to Amazon.
0:11:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): AWD is usually much cheaper, especially if you have, you know, maybe not enough boxes for a container. Obviously, you're not going to have to split up your container to send it to five different locations or split up your shipment to send it to five different locations. You're going to usually get a much better, you know, shipping rate. But basically that's what I would suggest is use Amazon awd, use the Send Partner Carrier program and get it as cheap as possible. So that way you can, you know, make up for those tariffs that have been enacted. So that way you're not spending as much money as, you know, somebody shipping directly to FBA using Air, or somebody using, you know, their own freight forwarder. You're going to be saving a lot of time, money and effort using AWD specifically. Now, this video is great if you're trying to send your first shipment in, or if you're just realizing that you can now send into Amazon AWD to save a lot of money on storage and shipping costs. But obviously I can't go over every granular detail in one video, so if you have any other questions, make sure to post them in the comments below.
0:12:11 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And remember that free bonus I told you about at the beginning of this video. Well, I created an incredibly valuable suite of resources for you that I'd love for you to check out by clicking the link in the description below. The bundle will take you through the 11 most impactful strategies that you'll use in your time as an FBA seller to start, scale and even sell your FBA business, including product selection, how to profit, max your ads, and much more. You'll also get two great cheat sheets to give you more ideas on how to improve your Amazon FBA business for profitability and how to use AI to help you get over hurdles that stop you from moving forward in your business again. You can grab your suite of bonuses by clicking the link in the description below.
0:12:44 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Also, make sure to check out the rest of the videos on this channel to to learn more about the ins and outs on Amazon fba. Until next time, watch your metrics, Take smart actions and keep growing your business.
