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Hello Amazon Seller,
We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
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This email may contain affiliate links which means we may earn referral fees if you make a purchase through our links, but without any additional cost to you.
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Amazon’s Profits Drop As Logistics Spending Rises
Amazon has fortified its supply chain for the holidays, including chartering its own container ships, leasing more cargo planes, and relying on a wider variety of ports of entry to the U.S. -- but all of that spending is eating into its profits.
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In a press release published ahead of its earnings call, Amazon said that it was prepared to manage supply chain delays. The company said it increased the number of ports it relies on by 50%, and it is aiming to bring the total number of air cargo planes in its network to over 85 by the end of the year. It is also on track to hire 150,000 additional workers by December, largely to manage the influx of packages in its fulfillment centers and its logistics network.
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Amazon Officially Kills Rebates—What Does It Mean?
Amazon late Tuesday officially announced that off-Amazon discounts and rebates are officially against Amazon TOS. In other words, Amazon just killed rebate services, like RebateKey.
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Amazon made an announcement on its Seller Forums and, rather refreshingly, spelled out its policy in some of the clearest and unambiguous language possible for a policy update of this nature.
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As per Amazon, “We welcome and encourage coupons, discounts, deals, and other tools to lower prices for customers and drive incremental sales—but only when those incentives are part of the product offer made in our store.” In other words, you can use discounts and deals, but only if they happen on Amazon.
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Blank Box Fulfillment By JoeLister
Amazon has a feature for selected FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) sellers that allows them to fulfill orders from non-Amazon sales channels in a box without the Amazon logo. They call this feature “Blank Box” and help sellers who prefer their orders from eBay, Shopify, etc. to be delivered in non-branded boxes. The Amazon MCF team began the program in 2020 but, as of today, is still in Beta and available only to selected users.
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But you can skip the line...
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JoeLister has recently been included as a preferred partner with Amazon’s new MCF program. As part of this new partnership with Amazon’s MCF, all JoeLister sellers now have been added to the Blank Box program and any new customers are automatically enrolled. If you are looking to add Blank Box fulfillment to your MCF strategy now is a great time to try JoeLister.
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(MCF = Multi-Channel Fulfillment)
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12 Black Friday & Cyber Monday Tips to Help You Bring in the big FBA Bucks
Black Friday 2021 is poised to be one of the most profitable in history. With COVID-19 forcing people to stay home, eCommerce is seeing an incredible surge. If you run an Amazon business, now is the time to prep if you want to go toe-to-toe with the big brands. You’ll be up against a lot of competition. That’s because:
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- Customers are bombarded with an avalanche of newsletters announcing various Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
- Advertising costs (Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) spike during the sales period.
- Products are heavily discounted to compete for sales and profits, meaning you have to think outside the box if you want to grab sales away from more prominent brands that can afford to slash prices.
To help you dominate the Buy Box and bring in massive holiday sales, Zonguru put together a list of 12 ways you can help develop an effective marketing strategy.
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5 Amazon Seller Mistakes to Avoid This Q4
Welcome to the jungle of Q4 on Amazon! As we power through the final few months of the year, many Amazon businesses are working extra hard to make the holiday shopping period as lucrative as possible.
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There are lots of great tips for how to prepare and succeed on Amazon throughout the season, but as we’re in the thick of it, here are five Amazon seller mistakes to avoid during Q4 2021.
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Amazon Needs To "Reimagine" Third Party Related Account Suspensions
Related accounts are when an Amazon seller either has or is falsely accused of having more than one Amazon account without Amazon's blessing. It is not recommended that anyone have more than one Amazon account.
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The nightmare for a seller occurs when the seller is genuinely not related to another seller and Amazon says you are. At that point, you can try to explain that you are NOT related to an account that you do not know exists (kind of impossible) or exists but is different accounts. Or you can graciously and gently close down the business that you built for the last X years and go into a different industry because you do not want to ruffle feathers. That isn't really an option, is it?
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Ed Rosenberg is a strong supporter of Amazon sellers and he has written a post on this.
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In a recent newsletter, I posted a link to an excellent video from someone who worked in the suspensions department at Amazon. The things she said were mind-blowing.
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Protect Your Amazon Business from an Account Suspension
Do you know what can make the difference between an Amazon account suspension or clean account health? Ignoring problems that show up on your Account Health dashboard and brushing aside performance notifications for closed listings takes you down a troubling path. Sellers often wait until their entire account is suspended to invest in solutions.
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Here is a link to a great article from eCommerceChris to help keep your Amazon account safe.
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Sourcing from China for Amazon – A Go-To Manual for FBA Sellers
Check out this blog to help you source high-quality products at competitive rates. You’ll get a comprehensive A-Z manual about how to source products from China for Amazon.
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Sidenote: Go ahead and take a look at this blog post. It really has a lot of great information and not just for China.
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Do you want to break into selling on Amazon but don’t know where to start? People are making thousands of dollars a month selling tiny coffin bookshelves and giant tortilla blankets on Amazon. You can make money selling a product too.
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That’s why Helium 10 created this Product Research webinar: How to Find a Unique Product to Sell on Amazon in 2022.
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Amazon expert Bradley Sutton will lead you through the strategies of finding an Amazon product to sell with high profitability and low competition in 2022.
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November 9th at 11 am PST
A replay will be available if you miss it.
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The High Cost Of Free Returns
Starting October 26, all Amazon sellers who sell Fashion products -- including clothing, shoes, jewelry, and shoes -- have to offer free returns to customers, plus foot the costs of those returns. For sellers who are enrolled in Amazon’s in-house fulfillment program, Fulfillment by Amazon, free returns have long been the default. But for sellers who do their own fulfillment, free returns were optional.
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Now in the Fashion category, Amazon is making it a requirement of doing business. Amazon's about-face comes at a moment in which return rates and shipping costs are skyrocketing -- and it has bigger implications for how Amazon is continuing to pass the costs of customer-friendly policies to its third-party sellers.
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Starting October 28, 2021, you will have the ability to offer free returns on any of your items as a self-fulfilled seller. You may offer free returns for your entire selection by signing up at an account level or on specific items by uploading a selected list of SKUs. Customers will see a Free Returns badge on the item details page and on the Online Return Center for all your enrolled items.
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Important updates to Small and Light Eligibility
Effective October 29, 2021, Amazon made two changes to FBA Small and Light:
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To make it easier for your products to qualify for the program, they no longer require a minimum sales velocity for your ASINs.
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Amazon no longer requires a minimum number of units per ASIN for each shipment to fulfillment centers.
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There are also rumors that they will raise the 7$ cap for Small & Light to compensate for rising costs.
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Podcast: Creative Strategies To Drive Traffic And Maximize Your Sales Potential On Amazon— Mike Begg
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Almost 50% of US consumers start their shopping journey on Amazon, a recent survey by ad and market research firm Survata highlights. To ensure shoppers are guided to your listing, you must optimize your resources on and off the platform.
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This week, Zonguru chats with Mike Begg from AMZ Advisers about setting up your sales funnel to drive traffic to your listing and increase conversions. After helping Amazon brands grow to 6 & 7 figures, Mike shares how to leverage your Amazon storefront and branded website to become the ultimate promotional strategy.
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Extended Holiday Returns Policy
The Amazon Extended Holiday Returns Policy for 2021 requires that most of the items purchased between October 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, be eligible for return through January 31, 2022. We will automatically authorize returns on your behalf to reflect the Extended Holiday Returns Policy.
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This link takes you to a page with the return rules for various kinds of products.
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Tidbits:
- Ecommerce businesses using A2X around the world have processed over half a billion orders and reconciled over 3,000,000 settlements. Saving millions of hours and gaining access to more accurate financial data. Use this new Promo Code - A2Z_10_6MON_2021 for 10% Off For 6 Months for A2X software
- Amazon has long harbored ambitions to become a satellite company -- and it is now on track to put its first satellites into space by the end of 2022.
- In a previous announcement, Amazon said to make sure that your inventory arrives at fulfillment centers by December 11 for Christmas. They have updated this date to December 2 to help better ensure that you have enough stock available for your most popular products.
- According to Jungle Scout’s recent survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers, American shoppers are seeking greater accountability and transparency from brands, with 43% of consumers viewing brands more positively when they take a leading or active role in enacting social change. Brand activism impacts the buying decisions of over half of all consumers, making it an important consideration for brands and sellers looking to expand their reach.
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Black Friday will be on Nov. 26.
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Cyber Monday will be on Nov. 29
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BuyBotPro is the first fully automated FBA calculator, online arbitrage & wholesale analysis tool. The extension analyzes thousands of data points to score deals from 1 – 100. As well as being an FBA calculator and a buying assistant, it checks eligibility, hazmat, private label status, competitor stock, and estimated sales. There is no need to pay for Keepa when you use this tool as it is built-in.
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- BuyBotPro Features:
Automated Deal Analysis & Buy Decisions: 7-second results.
- ROI & Profit Checker: Tells you how much you'll make after fees, taxes, etc.
- BSR Checker: Tells you what percentage BSR your product is (Top 1%, 3%, 5%).
- Competition Analyzer: Analyzes your competition for you.
- IP Radar: Checks for the likelihood of it causing an Intellectual Property violation on your Amazon account.
- Private Label Checker: Checks for the likelihood of it being a private label product.
- Hazmat Checker: Automatically checks if the product is hazmat.
- Eligibility Checker: Tells you if you can sell the product.
- Suggested Purchase Quantity: Tells you how many units to buy.
- Amazon Fees Breakdown: This tells you exactly what your Amazon fees will be.
- Buy Sheet Automation: It enters your deals into your buy sheet for you.
- Custom Criteria: Tell BuyBotPro what ROI, BSR & PROFIT you're looking for.
- Profit Margin Calculator: Shows true ROI after fees.
- Sales Estimator: See the number of sales for a product 30 days, 90 days, and predicted 90 days
- Buy Score & Reason: Get a score on whether to buy and the reason for the score
- Competition Analysis: See at a glance the Top 10 Sellers, their estimated stock levels, and their price.
- Variation Feature: At the click of a button see all variations for that product.
- Sales History Charts: Awesome charts showing you FBA Price, New Price, Amazon Price, and Sales Rank for 7 – 360 days and all opening in large windows for super easy at a glance information. Info pulled from Keepa.
- MF and FBA Fees: Toggle between fees for selling FBA and Merchant Fulfilled.
- Sales Heatmap: Check sales velocity at a glance with a heatmap showing intense sales and slow periods
- BUY BOX Sharing Analysis: Get an instant visual answer as to whether Amazon shares the buy box
- Manual Sourcing Tool: BuyBotPro is also an awesome Manual Sourcing Tool allowing you to easily search via a right-click for matching products on Amazon straight from the Retailer/Wholesaler page. BuyBotPro can even analyze your deal from their page too.
- BUYBOTPRO Mobile: Get the full power of BuyBotPro in your pocket, wherever you go, 24/7… with the new mobile app for Apple iPhone and Android phones. Scan products wherever you shop offline. It is included FREE with every subscription.
- And so much more…
New features are added all the time, so this software just keeps getting better and better. You owe it to yourself to watch the videos to see all that this software does.
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Deals we know about....
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Use this Promo Code - A2Z50
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Use this Promo Code - A2ZSC50
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Use this Promo Code - GET50
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Use this new Promo Code - A2Z_10_6MON_2021
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Use this new Promo Code - A2ZSC
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NOTE: Above offers are subject to change.
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Thank you for reading. I wish you unbelievable success. Selling on Amazon can be challenging sometimes, however, goals can be achieved by working hard and not giving up.
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Any suggestions about our site or this newsletter are welcome. Just hit reply and let us know your thoughts.
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Keep sourcing, keep selling, keep learning, keep growing.
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You can do this!
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Visit our website for all sorts of Amazon resources:
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And more.....
Happy Selling on Amazon. Let's go Brandon!
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Making Sense Of Selling On Amazon
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