- Automation simplifies your FBA operations, freeing up time, reducing mistakes, and speeding up processes.
- Descartes Sellercloud is an ecommerce solution offering a wide variety of FBA automation features you won’t find elsewhere.
FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) is crucial for many businesses—big or small—to outsource their fulfillment, expand their Amazon operations, and remain competitive in the marketplace. Though some challenges are associated with FBA, it helps businesses significantly and is an excellent way to save on fulfillment costs.
According to an Amazon blog post, “Shipping with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) costs 70% less per unit than comparable premium options offered by other US fulfillment services.” However, did you know there are many ways to improve your FBA workflows through automation and make your operations even more efficient?
In this article, we will explain what FBA automation is, how to avoid FBA automation scams, and how you can automate your FBA workflow with Descartes Sellercloud.
What Is Amazon FBA Automation?
Automation is used throughout ecommerce. Many businesses seek automation to improve efficiency and remain competitive. The biggest benefits of FBA automation are for multichannel sellers, who sell on other channels in addition to Amazon.
When sellers use tools and software to automate FBA processes, they are usually looking to:
- Forward FBA inventory and orders to where they are needed. For example, if an order comes from eBay, software can tell FBA to ship it instead of manually shipping it via Amazon.
- Catalog synchronization. If a seller creates a listing on Amazon, the information can be pulled in and managed from a central point, such as listing software.
- Generate and track inbound shipments to FBA fulfillment centers.
- Pull reconciliation reports from FBA.
- Manage your purchase orders—something Amazon cannot do.
Is Amazon FBA Automation a Scam?
No, Amazon FBA automation is not a scam. However, there are scammers that offer FBA automation services that you must learn to detect and avoid. Automating FBA processes is a genuine thing. While it can be rather technical, it can make working with FBA significantly easier and more profitable.
FBA automation scams can come in various forms, and less experienced sellers can fall victim to them because they do not research these companies thoroughly beforehand. These scams tempt new sellers by offering them experience in dealing with FBA that they do not have and often promote the idea of generating passive income.
According to a blog post by Janson Smith, “many people invested in these automation scams have found themselves owning businesses that are heavily indebted to the people running them, rather than being the cash cows that they profess to be.”
You can find horror stories in the Seller Central forum of inexperienced sellers being tricked into paying extraordinary upfront fees and a profit share by scammers offering FBA automation.
Even if the FBA automation service is not a scam, using a third party to scale your business early on will not teach you the skills needed to take the business further, as you will not learn how the partner handled operations.
You also lose control of decision-making, such as what products to list and how customer service is handled. Furthermore, you will be responsible if your partner breaks any FBA rules.
The best and safest way to automate your FBA workflow is with software that keeps you in control. Descartes Sellercloud can help you do just that.
What FBA Processes Can You Automate with Descartes Sellercloud?
Descartes Sellercloud is a certified Amazon software partner and worked with Amazon for years. It is a robust ecommerce solution that gives you control over your FBA operations—not a third party. Furthermore, Descartes Sellercloud helps your business grow to the point where you can move beyond FBA, tackle operations yourself, and expand beyond depending on Amazon.
A fitting example is Palatize. You can check out their case study here.
Automatically Create Mirror Listings with Fulfillment Set to FBA
With Descartes Sellercloud, you can create mirror listings—alternate product listings. The product and inventory are the same, but there are subtle differences in how the listings function.
A listing’s fulfillment method can be set to FBA, and its mirror listing can be set to FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant). This way, if a product is unavailable in FBA but you have it in your warehouse, you can fulfill that order yourself, and it will not appear out of stock.
Automatically Ship an Order via FBA
Descartes Sellercloud can send information to FBA when an order arrives from another channel outside Amazon—this is called ‘Multi-Channel Fulfillment.’ The tracking information can then be shared from Amazon with the channel where the order originated.
This prevents sellers from copying and pasting information when an order arrives outside Amazon, as the information is automatically sent. However, it is important that sellers do not use FBA to ship Walmart orders because it is against their terms and conditions and can result in marketplace banning.
Link A PO to an FBA Shipment
This automation copies the information from a Purchase Order (PO) to an FBA shipment, so you don’t have to manually add this information.
Read how it works here.
Link FBA Shipment to PO
The reverse of the above automation—it copies information from FBA to a PO.
Set Shipment Box Defaults
When you create FBA shipments, you must send Amazon the size and dimensions of the boxes. You will be penalized if the boxes you send do not match the sizes you submitted. Descartes Sellercloud allows you to configure box sizes so you can quickly choose the correct box size, saving you time and reducing the likelihood of being penalized.
Print Labels Based on What Amazon Requires
FBA may require specific labels for the products you send to their fulfillment centers. These labels can include information like Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs), Universal Product Codes (UPCs), and Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit (FNSKU). You will be penalized if you send products to FBA without these labels.
Descartes Sellercloud prevents this by telling Amazon what the products are, and Amazon returns with the requirements for each product so you can be sure to add the right labels before shipping to FBA.
Read how it works here.
Import Shipments Into Descartes Sellercloud
Descartes Sellercloud is not just a useful platform to manage your FBA shipments—it also pulls in shipments created manually on Seller Central. This is beneficial for employees that do not use Descartes Sellercloud. No matter how and where FBA shipments are created, everything is synchronized.
You also don’t need to enter the same information twice, saving time and reducing the chance of error.
Read how it works here.
FBA Reconciliations
FBA Reconciliation reports show you what was sent to FBA and what they received. If there are discrepancies, you can investigate and resolve any issues if inventory is missing or damaged.
Read how it works here.
Manage Unreceived Shipments
Descartes Sellercloud keeps track of unreceived shipments that have not yet been added to FBA inventory. Tracking unreceived shipments allows FBA sellers to monitor any shipment issues in case something happens in transit.
Read how it works here.
Schedule a free Descartes Sellercloud demo today to discover how we can improve the efficiency of your FBA operations.
Key Points
You now know several ways Descartes Sellercloud can help automate your FBA workflow. Remember these key points.
- Ecommerce businesses often seek to automate processes to become more efficient. FBA is one of many areas.
- Sellers should be cautious of FBA automation scams. These disastrous scams can take many forms and be extremely costly for a growing business.
- Descartes Sellercloud is an ecommerce solution that integrates with FBA and gives sellers more control over their operations.
- Descartes Sellercloud can automate a wealth of FBA functions, helping to reduce manual entry, which saves time and prevents errors that can be penalized.
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