IF YOU'RE NEW - DO NOT SELL ON AMAZON FBA
This is a message to all potential new Amazon FBA sellers - do not sell on Amazon FBA unless you've read through ALL their policies in detail.
As a new seller, I've had an extremely negative experience selling here with many surprises, and I ended up being charged over $3,100. Some of these surprises come from policies that are hidden and you won't know, until it's too late.
With a failing business (from the ridiculous FBA fees that are charged just for storage), I decided to stop selling on Amazon FBA. With this, I was given an option to stop Amazon FBA and have the items returned to me. In this return process, I tried to look to see if I would be charged for this - nothing was to be found during this process. Amazon ends up charging me over $3,100 for the FBA removals. If you didn't search for their policy using the exact search terms of "FBA removal order fee" then you'd also be unaware of this policy, and subsequently charged.
Getting in touch with Amazon support has been horrible. My feeling is that this is intentional, making the process of contacting an actual person difficult while they have their support team offshore. I have a couple of email responses from members of their "leadership team" (Amala S. and Kurt L.) who both give me a copy and paste exact same response. No real help there, unsympathetic, while treating you just as another number.
From what I've experienced, I wouldn't doubt many others feel the same. If you have experienced something similar, I would encourage posting here and discussing, in order to help and save others the headache and financial hardship. This has left an extremely negative experience with Amazon as a whole, and this is my genuine warning to all potential Amazon sellers.
0 replies
Seller_rI7BZIczK8iAC
The BIG problem is that Newbies don't come here reading the forum. Did YOU before? Or only when the first problem showed up? And then, you came only for ASKING and not for READING? Do you see? Each newbie the same thing, really sad for them.
But be happy if you learned this lesson for "only" $ 3,100. there are people loosing much more.
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
So true.
Why expect someone that doesn't even read through the fee structure would take the time to read the forums for getting the nitty-gritty reality? (granted, Amazon is sometimes hard to navigate, but who would think that storage fees would be small enough to ignore? And no, they're not "ridiculous"; at least not when you compare the cost to renting your own warehouse space).
And:
Hmmm; I go to Help, and search "FBA Removal"; the very first thing to pop up is "FBA Removal Order Fees". It's not that hard to find. And considering that the fee covers not only having Amazon employees find and pick your items and pack them up, but the return shipping to get them to you, not unreasonable. In fact, I suspect Amazon is losing money on many of these orders; at the very least, not turning a profit on the time and resources spent. Why would anyone expect this to be free?
But OP has a point; business is HARD. You need to understand everything involved before jumping in. This is not limited to Amazon, but applies to ANY business venture. I would argue that, compared to signing a lease on a B&M location, hiring employees to staff it, and handling not only payroll but inventory management on your own, Amazon is pretty darned easy. But that doesn't mean that you don't have to understand what you are getting in to before investing your money.
FBA can be an incredible resource; but it's not suited for every seller or every product category. And no one should get into it before they understand how their product will actually sell.
Seller_UIUbMjGK44j5B
It is so true! their fees are sooo high and they are literally charging for EVERYTHING! they charge for Black Friday deals which they didn't use to before, they charge for placement which they didn't use to, and many other fees, if amazon loses your inventory they won't do anything until you have reached out to them so many times. and out of nowhere they will change the fees on all of the listings!
Seller_1qaYJhfQbpbnE
I would never allow anybody else to sale my stuff and do my customer service. I only sale fulfilled by merchant and i sale a lot
Seller_my7qeloMZ2WXb
You are not alone my friend, I experienced this this month, I sent a thousand products related to the elections and I packaged each one with adhesive bags, it probably would not have occurred to any of us but I think some of the packages were loosely closed and glued and some were tightly closed. It started loading into the inventory, at first there was no problem but the product whose longest side was xx inches suddenly became xx.1 inches, and everything started with that 0.1 inch. So because of that 0.1 inch, the FBA fee which is normally $4.5 has now increased to $14.34.
I learned this lesson the most. I asked for re-measurements a few times, as you said, each time they copy and paste the answers, they said it is not in our hands to fulfill your request right now. Now I am also looking for a reliable seller who can sell election related products in the USA. It would probably be better to removal the products in bulk and sell them to someone like that. (If anyone is interested, write to me)
The worst part is that when I tried to increase the price and do advertising, they rejected me because it was a political product and I still can't sell, I don't understand how others can sell them.
Seller_N6HBGdCGby25w
my new store automatically signed me up for FBA and I can't figure out how to turn it off. Got any tips
Seller_A4VZIiqJ9SrJA
Getting in touch with Amazon support is not all that hard, they just don't know anything or don't want to help you very much... sometimes I feel like I'm running into a brick wall with support.
They were so much better 5 to 10 years ago and have gotten steadily worse as time goes on.. and then they hire those people from India and trying to understand them is the worst yet.
Seller_8M8iuPlv9MCNY
Well guess what...if you sign up to do FBM now you will not sell jack squat. Amazon started automatically extending delivery dates into oblivion for all FBM sellers. Now customers see 2 week delivery dates and the seller still sees a 2-5 day delivery date. So even if your customer will get the item sooner Amazon is showing them false information on the website.
This has caused a 50% drop in sales since October 1st when they started this ridiculous new OTDR garbage. Even though we have a 100% OTDR we still get screwed with extended delivery dates.
Seller_UjrgMaYNReOyL
Hello everyone,
I am a newbie here. I just recently set up my Amazon Seller account and wanted to connect my Printify store to the seller account. It should be very straight forward. In my Printify store, there's a button that says connect and several choices to connect to shopify, amazon, and a couple others. To make a long story short, it wasn't as straight forward as I thought. So, I did a chat with amazon's support and was sent a couple of links that did nothing but confuse me even more. After some frustration, I googled and found out that I needed to apply for an amazon professional account to allow me to connect my Printify store. I would like some professional advice here before diving in and committing my hard earned cash. Does anyone know if this is a good idea? I figured that having a POD store would avoid the FBA fees and maybe I can actually make some cash without the headaches. Any and all advice would be welcomed.
Dave
