Best Practice To Avoid Lost FBA Inventory
We send a fair amount of inventory to FBA (turnover circa £400K per anum) and we’re having regular issues with Amazon claiming that we’ve short-supplied against the shipping plan.
We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure shipment quantities are triple-checked by experienced staff prior to despatch but this doesn’t seem to have reduced the number of lines we have to either reconcile with purchase invoices or accept the lost items because “Amazon have already checked it and you now have no recourse”.
We have read that some of these practices may help reduce the number of lost items and hoped that someone might be able to advise if they’ve tried any or all of these and experienced any improvement?
- Stop using manufacturer’s barcodes on the box (print amazon barcode labels for every product instead - very time consuming, but we’d try it if it helps). Most of our products allow manufactuer’s labelling currently.
- Stop using any outer cartons, send all items as individuals with an Amazon printed label
- Fully obscure all and any barcodes other than the one on the Amazon printed label.
- Photograph or video you putting the items into the consignment so that you can provide further proof for the inevitable cases/reconciles later
Is there anything else you’ve tried that helps reduce the missing item issue?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
12 replies
Seller_7YuRkRwXA1Vdp
Thank you for posting this it is very helpful. Also suggest maybe taking a photo of the box being weighed.
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
To answer your questions from my own experience only.
It makes no difference whether using FNSKU or barcodes, so if it saves a fair bit of time, I’d continue using barcodes.
I send all my stock as full cartons and actually find that this is better than individual.
Yes, you should be obscuring barcodes on boxes etc as if they are on there, it can delay scanning and the box has to be manually handled.
A photo/video is a complete and utter waste of time. A number of people have said this in the past, but unless you have it certified by a flaming judge or even god himself, it doesn’t mean a thing.
You cannot prove that a box wasn’t opened after the video was turned off.
Otherwise, it’s just making sure everything is correct when sending and making sure that you have invoices and proof of delivery. Preferably with weights.
Amazon still regularly lose stock on receipt, but generally they will pay for it or find it eventually.
I’ve just had 24 fridges reimbursed, that they managed to lose. I have absolutely no idea how you can lose 24 fridges! But they managed it. It took quite a long time to get my money back, but I got it.
Seller_Zm6mSLypM9kp8
I’ve sent over 150 shipments with about 20 odd items being reported as Lost by Amazon so been lucky so far.
I sent boxes in either 15kg or 23kg and the items are labelled with Amazon Barcode as well as Manufacturer barcode without any issues.
I ensure only one barcode is scannable and the label is printed on a good paper/sticker that can’t be smudged easily.
I pack them individually but keep the number of SKUs in the box around 15-20 or lower as majority of my items are standard size.
