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FBA Shipments – Getting Started


Overview

You can manage FBA Shipments and send inventory to your FBA warehouses using Sellercloud. You can also use that inventory in multi-channel fulfillment and ship regular orders via FBA.

Before doing that, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the requirements and settings for this workflow. Learn more about all FBA-related requirements below.

Amazon does not allow an Inbound Shipment to be managed both directly on Seller Central and via API (i.e. through Sellercloud). You will see a Shipment note and a warning banner, informing you that the FBA Inbound Shipment has been converted to “Send to FBA” if a user has edited the Inbound Shipment directly on Amazon.

Set Up FBA Warehouses

Prerequisite: You must be enrolled in Fulfillment by Amazon before you can create an FBA inbound shipment.

Sellercloud tracks inventory through warehouses, so you must set up a warehouse to track FBA inbound shipments.

When adding items in FBA Shipments, inventory will be reserved from your warehouse. Once shipped, your inventory is moved to an interim warehouse until it is received in your FBA Warehouse. To ensure everything is handled properly, make sure to create an FBA type warehouse and assign it under your Channel Warehouses following the steps below.
To create FBA inbound shipments using inventory in a given warehouse, enable the option Allow To Use Qty For FBA Shipments for that warehouse.

  1. In Sellercloud, search by Add warehouse or go to Settings > Inventory > Add New Warehouse.FBA warehouse creation
  2. Name your warehouse, such as FBA Warehouse.
  3. Select FBA as the warehouse type and save.
  4.  Go to Settings > Companies > Manage Companies > open a company > Toolbox > Channel Warehouse > Edit.
  5. Find the FBA channel row > select FBA Warehouse > Save.FBA channel warehouse

Set Up the Interim Warehouse

  1. Add another warehouse and name it Interim Warehouse.
  2. Choose Interim as the warehouse type and save.

Set Up FBA SKUs

Items added to an FBA inbound shipment must be Fulfilled by Amazon in your Amazon catalog.

Update Fulfilled by Amazon Status Individually

  1. Go to Catalog > Manage Catalog > open a product.
  2. In Toolbox, select Amazon Properties page > Actions > Change Fulfilled By.
  3. Select Fulfilled By Amazon.fulfilled by amazon
    • If the product is posted to Amazon, click Save. (The Update on Amazon box is selected by default.)
    • If the product is not posted to Amazon, uncheck Update on Amazon > Save.
  4. Launch the product to Amazon as an Amazon Fulfilled product.
It may take up to 15 minutes before Amazon processes your product and puts it into FBA inventory.

By default, new items created in Sellercloud will have a Merchant Fulfilled status, but you can control this at the company level for all products as follows:

  1. Go to Settings > Companies > Manage Companies > open a company.
  2. In Toolbox, select Amazon Settings > Product Defaults > set the Fulfilled By field to Amazon > click Save.Amazon company settings

Update Fulfilled by Amazon Status in Bulk

Go to Catalog > Manage Catalog  > select products > click the Action button > Switch to AFN.
This changes the status of the products in Sellercloud and also automatically updates it on Amazon, so it should only be done for the products that are already posted to Amazon.

Get the Product’s FNSKU

When your products are set, make sure you have FNSKUs on your products. FNSKU (FBA SKU) is an Amazon product identifier used for FBA inventory. It’s required for each product that you add to an FBA inbound shipment.

Learn how to get a product’s FNSKU.

Set Up Kits for FBA

If you import a shipment with kits, you may want to enable Auto Assemble Kit When Importing FBA Shipment in the Client Settings. Learn more about kit assemblies.

When sending kits to FBA, the inventory quantity of the parent must be independent of its components to be handled properly.

  1. Go to Catalog > Manage Catalog > open a product.
  2. On the Product Details page, go to the Kit tab.
  3. In the Kit Details panel, select Independent from the Inventory Dependency On dropdown list.Kit inventory dependency

View Inventory Movement

To view the inventory movement after quantity is reserved, open the Inventory Movement page for the reserved product. The reserved quantity is noted in the grid under the FBA Reserved movement type.Inventory Movements FBA reserved

 

Configuring Sellercloud to allow for and optimize FBA Inbound Shipments requires several simple configurations:

  1. Warehouse Configurations
    1. Ship To – FBA, Interim
    2. Ship From
  2. Product Configurations
    1. Fulfilled by Amazon
    2. Get FNSKU
  3. Configuring Amazon Label Service

Warehouse configurations

Configuring the Ship To warehouse

Sellercloud tracks inventory through warehouses, so you’ll need to set up two warehouses to track FBA Inbound Shipments – one to track inventory at the Amazon Fulfillment Center, and another warehouse for inventory while in transit to FBA. The process will then work as follows: When the items are added to a shipment, their quantity become reserved in the regular warehouse. After the shipment gets marked as shipped, the inventory moves to the In-transit Warehouse As it gets received by FBA it automatically moves from the in-transit warehouse to the FBA warehouse.

  1. . Settings > Warehouse.
  2.  Press Add Warehouse above the grid.
  3. Give a name to your warehouse, like FBA Warehouse.
  4. Select FBA as the warehouse type and save.
  5.  Add another warehouse and give it a name, like In-Transit to FBA.
  6. Select Interim as the warehouse type.

Configuring the Ship From warehouse

By default you will be able to add items to your shipment even if it has no inventory in your catalog. This is sometimes done when you expect a purchase order to arrive shortly, and would like to set up the shipment even before it arrives. If you want a check on this, enable the client setting Enable Validate Inventory For FBA Inbound Shipments. When enabled, the shipment will not preview if product has less inventory than the quantity you are adding to the shipment. A second client setting – Validate FBA Shipment Inventory per warehouse – only should be enabled if you want to narrow the validation tot the ship from warehouse. If you do require inventory validation you would need to allow inventory for that product to be available from specific warehouses. On the warehouse enable the setting Allow to use qty for FBA Shipments.

The warehouse from which you are shipping to FBA should have its address filled in correctly, because the Ship From address on the FBA Inbound Shipment gets pulled from the warehouse address, not from the company address.

Channel warehouse configuration – By matching the FBA warehouse to the channel, FBA inventory reports will update the inventory of the correct warehouse.

  1. Company Settings > Toolbox > Channel warehouse.
  2. Locate the FBA channel row. Then select the FBA warehouse.

Product configurations

Fulfilled by Amazon

Just like creating a shipping plan on FBA, the items added to the FBA inbound shipment need be in your Amazon catalog as a “Fulfilled by Amazon” product. On the Amazon properties page if set as Merchant Fulfilled open the Action Menu and select Change Fulfilled by.

  • If the product has already been posted to Amazon, press Change and Update Amazon.
  • If the product has not been posted to Amazon, press Change and do not update Amazon.
  • Launch the product to Amazon as an Amazon Fulfilled product. In either case, it can take up to
    fifteen minutes before Amazon process your product and puts it in to FBA inventor.

Default status

By default, new items that are created in Sellercloud will be created with a Merchant Fulfilled status. However, this can be controlled by the following Amazon setting. Open the toolbox and hover over Amazon Settings > Product Defaults. Set the default Fulfilled by Status.

To update multiple product as fulfilled by Amazon, select the products on the Manage Inventory page, then open the Action Menu and click Switch to AFN and click GO. This action will change the product in Sellercloud and also update Amazon, so it should only be done for products already posted to Amazon.

To update the fulfilled by status in Sellercloud with a bulk update file use the column header FulfilledBy and enter the values Amazon or Merchant. A bulk update file will only update the status in Sellercloud. The products’ status will not change on Seller Central through the bulk update.

Getting the FNSKU

After the products are in the FBA Inventory, you will be able to retrieve the FNSKU which is required for creating FBA Inbound Shipments. The FNSKU, or FBA SKU, is an Amazon product identifier that Amazon uses for FBA Inventory.

  • On the Amazon Properties page open the action menu and click Get FNSKU.
  • You can also retrieve the FNSKU’s in bulk by selecting the products on the Manage Inventory
    page and selecting Get FNSKU from the Action Menu.

Amazon labeling service
Items shipped to FBA must have unit labels affixed to each item unless they are eligible for commingling. You can sticker on the labels yourself or you can request to use the Amazon Label Service to have Amazon apply the labels on your behalf.

Enabling labeling services and setting default option

  1. Go to your Seller Central account.
  2. Open the Settings drop down and scroll down to Fulfillment by Amazon.
  3. Press the Edit button on the Optional Services section and enable the MWS service.
  4. Select the default labeling preference. This will determine the default preference of who
    will label the items in the shipment. The following three options only apply to items that
    require labeling. This sets the default labeling option but it can be overridden on each
    shipment individually.
  • Amazon should label the items and reject items that cannot be labeled. Be aware that Amazon charges a fee per item for labeling.
  • FBA should label my items, however I will label my items as necessary. This means that Amazon will label any items that you have not labeled.
  • I will label my items. This means that you will label your items and Amazon should reject any items that are not labeled

 

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