My Third Shipment to Amazon as an FBA Seller!

Yesterday I completed my third shipment to Amazon as an fba seller. Now I must say first off that this FBA stuff is like learning a new job and like most new jobs the learning curve can be steep. Perhaps you can learn from my shipping adventure that I am about to share. I am still very new to this and learning.

First thing you may want to consider before you go out and get your boxes is that when you enter your inventory in and create your shipping queue all of you stuff isn’t likely to be going to one warehouse so if you think you can put it all in one box and be done, think again. Hence my tail today of my 8 box shipment to Amazon yesterday!

So I wake up at 7 am and decide I am going to get the Amazon shipment out of the way. You know how it is when you are doing something that you really don’t know what you are doing, you tend to put it off. I had the items to ship since last Saturday! So I add my listings and go on to the shipping queue which walks you through the process.

Imagine my surprise when it split my items not only to two warehouses but in 4 shipments. What I mean is I was instructed to break my shipment up into 4 boxes when my common sense was telling me it should only be 2 since 2 boxes were going to Phoenix and 2 boxes to Chattanooga. Why not just have 2 boxes? Why 4 boxes?

So I called Amazon seller support which is awesome by the way. You go online, put your number in and select call now and your phone rings and there is a real person. Tamara informed me that this was normal as the warehouses were big and my items were likely to be received at two different ends of the warehouse.

So my boxes were kind of big for the way I had to split my order up. I thought well I can go get a few smaller boxes and that would work better. So off I went. I passed a Walgreens on my way. I remembered that I had gotten a killer deal there last week that was making a pretty big profit. I thought well I can just buy a few more of those and add to my shipment and then I want need any more boxes.

So in I went. Oh boy, I found another high ranking item at a steal of a price and bought it. Then I though, hmm, I bet other Walgreens may have more of this item so off I went to another one. This led to another one and another one. Before it was over with, I had been to five! I had what I though was enough merchandise to fill up my boxes which by the way I only spent about $20.00 bucks which would make me about $100 in profit!

So back at home again I am entering my items into my inventory. What did I do? Instead of adding them to my existing shipping plan, I created a new shipping plan. Oh sweet Jesus how did I do that? Another call to customer service and they could not combine my shipments. Again, going to the Phoenix and Chattanooga in 4 boxes as opposed to the what I think is the logical two. I now had to prepare 8 boxes and I still did not have any smaller boxes.

Off to Walmart I went where I can buy small boxes for .37 cents each. Did I mention I would rather be beat than go into Walmart. On the way to check out I ran across an item I have sold for a nice profit previously on Amazon, so of course I picked it up. Back home I go to prep my shipment to Amazon and print the labels and get them ready to go. Did I mention it is now 4 o’clock?

Have you ever worked with boxes with a cat in the house? Our dog Macy had dropped a dirty tennis ball in one of the boxes and I almost shipped that to Amazon. This is my cat Murphy, not sure if he wants to go to Phoenix or Chattanooga.

Also thank God for packing slips as I place all the items in the boxes, print the labels, put them in the box with the items, then sit on the floor with my tape and other packing supplies. Well I had taken items out of two boxes to wrap in bubble wrap and forgot which went where. It’s almost 6 by now. I finally have all my stuff ready to go and low and behold behind me is one of the little mouse houses shaped like a piece of cheese. I bought these for $1.49 and they sell for about $15.00 on Amazon. I had left that one item out and had no idea which of the eight boxes it went in. I got lucky and found where it was missing after opening my third box. I think I would have cried had it taken me opening all 8 to find my error.

So moral of this story is to be prepared. Have multiple size boxes. Be organized which is not my strong point by the way. I have no doubt that I will get better at this and it will soon be a cakewalk for me. It’s like learning anything new, you just have to keep at it.

I offer a step by step guide on how to start being an Amazon fba seller in my pajama affiliate online study course. It will save you a lot of headache I assure you. By selling on Amazon you can earn a full time are part time living. It’s up to you and how much time you choose to invest. You can find my study course here at Pajama Affiliates.