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Is everyone leaving FBA?
We know quite a few amazon sellers who are leaving FBA. Undependable inventory space, (can’t plan) lost shipments, broken products that amazon charges us for - a white paper from Harvard business school shows that for every $1M in revenue, Amazon takes $50,000 it should not be getting because sellers don’t follow up on all the little charges. Our shop is eliminating 90% of FBA products, shifting to FBM, and moving to other platforms altogether. Just curious - how many of you are walking away from FBA?
Seller_qO71Fi13VQOkT
cant be sure…
188 replies
Seller_G3tKlxqw9EUfb
I walked away a long time ago, and have since dipped my toe back into the water.
However, it appears that Amazon is playing some of those ‘little charges’ games with me already after just 4 months, so I may very well cancel in the 1st or 2nd quarter. We shall see.
I also have a $200 item that went missing after it was received. It was in FC transfer, then went into stock and simultaneously went back to receiving. Now it only shows as being in receiving. (Edit: I just checked, and it has now gone back into inventory.)
I suspect that the $50,000 (5%) amount is vastly understated when one figures in missing inventory that disappears at receiving plus the inventory that disappears in the course of waiting to be sold/not returned.
And some people don’t even audit their FBA inventory… smh.
Seller_rSX5Xca68Ebsr
Yes, everyone is leaving. I know. I called them
Seller_olet7eVOHxQZd
Many run their business using FBA and are quite happy with it.
You should have already been selling on other platforms. Good that you are finally starting.
Be sure to keep track of the slower sales via FBM. Would the FBA sales have made more profit even with its issues?
Seller_uo5RmHNtKmAU1
There are numerous reasons we left FBA altogether and went FBM:
Higher fees for FBA fulfillment
Lost inventory during warehouse transfers
Delays in receiving inventory sent in well in advance
Placement of used/damaged returned items back into sellable inventory, shipping them out again, then claims of used sold as new against us.
Acceptance of fraudulent returns with no compensation for us and no deterrence for continued abuse
the list goes on…
but the final straw was limiting the inventory we could send in during the critical holiday season.
We had products that had a clear sales history for several years that sold very well during the holidays.
Their AI is clearly not intelligent at all, or designed to take that into consideration.
Amazon throttled us back by so much and limited our potential. No one to talk to there, boiler plate responses, and overseas support who always start the response to a case by saying “I understand your concerns…” they don’t at all, not a clue, useless. We are so much happier and at least have slightly better control doing FBM, although it requires filing Safe-T claim to get compensation for the dishonest returns.
Seller_Pv6RDzovyEDGO
The problem is the boost in sales you get from FBA. It seems to be increasing exponentially. I’d say we are in the top 1% in our category for shipping service, yet merchant fulfilled sales feel like a disappointment. We offer zero day handling and cover a large number of states with 1-2 delivery with FREE shipping. Yet Amazon continues to push FBA offers with awful delivery times and higher pricing.
I have no idea why they made Seller-Fulfilled Prime so restrictive. At the very least they should bring back Regional SFP for areas that offer a 1 day delivery window with same day shipping.
Seller_fsNHBXJZNVJpE
Walked away from FBA after sending in a few hundred products 3 years ago. When I recalled my remaining inventory a few months later, half of it was trashed, I am glad it wasn’t shipped to customers…I have given up on Amazon about a year ago and shifted to the bay as primary sales channel…I just trickle in a few sales a week here still…
I keep visiting the forums for the popcorn…but of course they figured out some people were having fun here, so they had to fix that right away.
Seller_DLuLFe9eg9z9x
Yes I’m in process of switching from fba to fbm. I calculated and between all the losses and time I spend trying to fix issues with it I make about the same profit even though I get less orders and I don’t have the frustration.
Seller_i82wV4v2ctjvG
I would not stop using FBA, even if the correctly described issues and fees would increase. That’s the brutal truth. My business, my life, would be very different, and I can only imagine, much more stressful without it. I don’t want a warehouse with lots of employees, permanent stress with shipping deadlines, fixed expenses like rent that have to be paid no matter what, and so on and so on. The reason why FBA works and is so popular is because it just… works. And I never expected perfection either. Nothing is perfect. And I would screw up royally as FBM, and create far more issues for myself and customers if I was doing FBM. Here, I said it.
Seller_cZmOMN723GBxZ
Would love to but a few problems.
- Sales are 10-30x FBA vs FBM (This is actual numbers for my biz as a new item was selling faster than they could check in. I listed both options and FBM barely sold. FBA would sell out even before it was checked in and still had a week delivery time).
- Amazon’s fees (even including lost stuff) are still cheaper than I can ship
- I save countless hours each week and/or paying employees by shipping a few big boxes instead of hundreds of individual orders.
Yes I would like to leave. But the numbers don’t lie. It’s a numbers game. If you have the profit and it saves money then don’t get upset over what they do. It’s a business expense. Though if anything gets me to stop it may be returns. When starting FBA they were less than 1%. Since covid it’s gone crazy and even worse this year. Returns that are used plus they are up to 5%. So I increased prices. Done.
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