Fulfillment by Amazon Newsletter - July 2011

in this issue... FBA News Estimate Long-Term Storage Fee with the Inventory Health Report Create removals of aging inventory easily with the Recommended Removals Report Seller Success Central Chef Finds Recipe for Success with Amazon Services Tools & Tips Auditing Best Practices   reminders Inventory Cleanup coming in August In May we announced the first Inventory Cleanup event coming on August 15, 2011. Any inventory Units that have been in our fulfillment centers for 365 days or longer on an established Inventory Cleanup date (August 15 and February 15 of each year), will be charged the annual Long-Term Storage Fee (excluding the one Unit per ASIN exemption). You will not be charged the Long-Term Storage Fee if you submit a removal request for those items prior to the Inventory Cleanup dates. Learn more about the FBA Long-Term Storage Fee. New Fulfillment Rates In April we announced new rates were going into effect on May 19, 2011, for FBA fulfillment fees: Media on Amazon.com Pick & Pack Fee Oversize Media and Non-Media Multi-Channel Fulfillment Weight Handling Fee Oversize Media and Non-Media Special Handling Fee Removal Fees If you have downloaded a PDF version of the FBA fulfillment fees, it is no longer current. You can now find the FBA rates in Seller Central Help. Go to 3.0 Pricing for current rates.   useful links Calculate your FBA Inventory Storage Fees Take the mystery out of Inventory Storage Fees with this interactive calculator. Just enter the length, width, and height in inches, and it will tell you how many cubic feet and the estimated cost of storage at standard pricing and during peak holiday months.  Go to the FBA Inventory Storage Fee Calculator. FBA Updates You can read recent issues of FBA Updates in Seller Central Help. There's also a link to provide feedback. Check them out.	From the editor Greetings from Fulfillment by Amazon, In May we announced the semi-annual Inventory Cleanup coming in August. This has generated a lot of discussion about how this change will affect sellers. To address those concerns, this issue of the FBA Seller Newsletter focuses specifically on two new features that will help you manage your inventory. First, we have enhanced the Inventory Health Report to help you better identify what inventory to take action on. Second, we have launched a Recommended Removals Report, to make it easier for you to create a Removal order for your inventory.    FBA News Estimate Long-Term Storage Fee with the Inventory Health Report After launching the Inventory Health Report in May, many sellers commented on how valuable this report is and provided suggestions for ways to improve it. Our recent update of the report incorporates two primary changes that sellers requested to improve its usefulness. First, we have added new columns to provide more insight into how much aging inventory will be assessed the Long-Term Storage Fee and what the cost will be for the Inventory Cleanup in August (assuming no further sales of your inventory). This version of the report now shows you specifically how many Units of each product will be assessed the Long-Term Storage Fee (i.e., the number of Units that will have been in the fulfillment centers for 365 days or longer on August 15, 2011) and the projected fee applied to each product if a removal request has not been placed prior to the next Inventory Cleanup event. Another requested addition was a field that would enable sellers to compare their prices to other sellers' matching listings. The fields "your-price" and "sales-price" are now available, so you can see how your prices measure up to other FBA listings and non-FBA listing for both new and used products. We also have added an online version of the report. By trimming down the 41 comprehensive fields available in the downloadable report to 18 fields, we have focused the online version on the information that is most frequently requested by sellers. We will be retiring the Inventory Age Report shortly; the Inventory Health Report is now the preferred source of inventory health data including age information. If you have been using the Inventory Age Report, you should move to the Inventory Health Report by August 15, 2011. Learn more about the Inventory Health Report. Create removals of aging inventory easily with the Recommended Removals Report Another requested feature has been an easier way to identify and take action on aged inventory. The new Recommended Removals Report is a scaled-down version of the Inventory Health Report that enables you to generate a list of Units in Amazon fulfillment centers that are at risk of being charged the annual Long-Term Storage Fee at the time of the next Inventory Cleanup. The report then enables you to create a removal order to have those Units returned to you or disposed of. This report will automatically calculate on an ASIN-by-ASIN basis the quantity you would need to remove (assuming no further sales of your inventory) to avoid the Long-Term Storage Fee. By default the report automatically leaves one Unit of each ASIN in our fulfillment centers that will not be charged the Long-Term Storage Fee. You can then click the "Begin Removal Process" button to pre-populate a removal order request for those Units you choose to have returned to you or disposed of. The report will recommend that you remove all Units of all products that will have been in Amazon fulfillment centers for 365 or more days as of the next Inventory Cleanup event (February 15 and August 15 of each calendar year). Clicking "Begin Removal Process" on this report is a fast and easy way to avoid being charged a Long-Term Storage Fee. Learn more about the Recommended Removals Report.       Seller Success Central Chef Finds Recipe for Success with Amazon Services Specializing in hard-to-find and high-end kitchenware, Central Chef opened its online business in 2005 out of CEO Michael Eisenberg’s hometown of Tampa, Fla. After its first year in business selling solely on CentralChef.com, the company began Selling on Amazon with a limited array of products. “Customers demand free shipping and Fulfillment by Amazon helps us offer this to customers.” Michael Eisenberg, CEO, Central Chef Read the Central Chef Success Story Have success or a best practice to share? Scroll down to the bottom of this e-mail and click the "Share your feedback" button.     Tools & Tips Auditing Best Practices So you just received a shipment of inventory from your supplier and you're ready to ship it to Amazon to sell online. Not so fast! Are any of the products damaged? Are they they right model? Do the UPCs match what you ordered? There are many risks associated with accepting products that could cause headaches down the road when customers receive their orders. To ensure that your business model will meet FBA's requirements, we recommed the following audit measures to mitigate these risks: Check that the manufacturer’s UPC numbers are identical with the products and model numbers. Check that the physical carton counts, UPC counts, and total counts do not differ from the BOL/Supplier information. Make sure the physical products do not vary from the BOL/Supplier information The Fulfillment by Amazon policies and requirements are centered on accuracy both at an item level and a carton level. Doing a physical audit of each carton you have purchased during the receipt will provide your business with several benefits. Enable accuracy in inventory accounting so that your supplier can be fiscally responsible for misships, shortages, damages, and overages that could cause a direct fiscal loss to your business if not discovered. Lower labor resource costs, which can often be covered by the supplier defects discovered. Eliminate the need for more extensive quality checks when sending shipments to Amazon. If the product is accurate when it comes to you, it will be accurate when it leaves. Visit Shipping Best Practices for more information on meeting FBA's shipping requirements.   We want to provide you with the information you need to successfully grow your business. Take a minute to share your thoughts on the current newsletter, future topics you'd like to see covered, and any best practices you'd be willing to share. Regards, The Fulfillment by Amazon Team
We hope you found this message to be useful. However, if you'd rather not receive future e-mails of this sort from Amazon Services and Seller-Interest.com, please opt-out here: Unsubscribe Please note that product prices and availability are limited time offers and are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time this newsletter was sent; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com, AmazonServices.com or other Amazon.com Inc. affiliate sites. (c) 2011 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com and the Amazon.com logo and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210