FBA has been the wrong move?
A few months ago I made the decision on advice from many successful sellers online and that I know personally that shifting to FBA would increase sales and lessen stresses during this difficult time, in short, rather than the advised 3 or 4 times growth I was advised due to Prime and FBA etc, my sales have literally been reduced to a 10% of what they were.
I really don’t know what to do anymore, just heartbroken to be honest. I have over 15000 units across many lines and am taking less than £50 a day quite often.
Has anyone else had this extremely deflating whilst almost embarrassing issue?
0 replies
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
did you send all 15000 units to FBA ?
did you also keep your offers as FBM ?
has sales rank dropped or another reason ?
Whats one of your asins ?
Seller_8Wsckn3UoR095
Honestly we have some lines which have massively increased and some which have died since going on FBA which is why we’re big fans of little and often with our stock in there… especially when trialling a new product on it. We also do MFN along FBA. Have you upped your prices ‘too much’ for your audience?
Seller_UUJAfV9h2D90D
I’m baffled that over 15k units you’re taking less than £50 per day? Have you been forced to price your stock uncompetitively now to factor in FBA fees? If you consider the advantages from the end users perspective of purchasing FBA. There’s no real reason other than price about why you’d see a decline in sales.
Seller_DTufFoxJuMU0M
I do a bit of both.
I send stock into Amazon, but keep some back myself to sell FBM.
I find that as long as Amazon has stock my FBM sales reduce (and FBA increases) but customers have a choice to order off me for free postage if they are not Prime members.
I am still building my business after a changeover a few years ago, so year on year I am seeing more sales, I honestly can’t say that my increase in the last year has been solely because of FBA, but I can say that the sales I am doing, and the sales they are doing… I couldn’t do both combined, so having FBA has saved me having to hire and pay staff…
As Littleshop says with me the SNL fees are similar, or in fact often cheaper than it would cost me to send 2nd class with Royal Mail, but I still charge more for FBA than FBM (to cover returns, damages, losses and everything else) so generally I make more profit on my FBA stock with half the workload.
On saying that I sell greeting cards, so my storage fees are around £10 a month for 1,000s of items, and my transport (to FBA) work out at around 1p an item.
My story would probably be a lot different if it were costing me £1 to get the item there and then £1 a month to store it
Seller_77IcbQKVGdZo0
I have around 7K of units in FBA and I take significantly more than £50 a day. I really don’t see why you would be taking so little.
Do you have any competition on your lines? Are you priced a lot higher than other FBA sellers and FBM sellers. You can however be priced a little higher than FBM sellers as people still pick you as you will be the prime option and they will get it quicker.
I am really confused by this there must be a reason for it. I wouldn’t expect such a steep sales decline. Are you selling luxury goods are the problems you seeing relative to the increased cost of living rather than moving to FBA?
Seller_i8Mx5qrX59UQJ
Thanks everyone for your input so far, all making good points - I was selling the same range fully FBM for about 18 months, so theres no new lines or change of stock really. The pricing hasnt changed either - I went with the philosophy that I would take the increased fees but countered by an expected increased volume across the board.
I has literally just dropped off the edge of a cliff, but for ALL the reasons people have sighted, it cant be impossible to turn it round?
Our industry is gift packaging basically, but as I said the FBM was just about holding its own and this was supposed to be the kick start to something better.
The price point is £3.99 to 23.99, the average sale price is around the £9-11 mark.
Seller_DTufFoxJuMU0M
Sometimes when products don’t move on FBA I find a sale helps - I run a short but hefty sale to start the ball rolling, then often after the sale is over the product starts shifting at full price.
However FBA shouldn’t cause sales to dry up on a good selling product, so I would look at some other reason
Seller_i8Mx5qrX59UQJ
I think sorting the advertising has got to be a starting point - would everyone agree with that?
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Was that EAN on the actual product too ?
Seller_BS5lg2keRs2QO
So, on that listing and the variation make sure the main images have a white background. One of the ASINs has the colour repeated twice in the title. Both are using HTML in the bullet points which isn’t allowed. One of them is apparently made of faux leather and not cardboard. You also can’t really say you will buy the product back if a buyer isn’t happy with it.
None of those are necessarily preventing a sale though. It looks like i can buy a pack of 10 unicorn gift boxes for the same price if not less. Granted they are a bit smaller, but i don’t think i can see myself paying £7.99 for one box. Though i am likely not your target market.
