Amazon Sellers: Don’t get caught in 2018 without an inventory management system
As a seller, your goal is to find the right product to sell to your target market. Not solve the inefficiencies of online selling. Most sellers are under the impression Amazon will handle it for you as a seller. So you create an account on Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce. And then, move to create an Amazon account. You’re all set to start selling, right?
Not quite. You may ask, what are all the technical questions and information you’re asked before you sell your products on Amazon? You thought it was as easy as we did! Amazon puts your knowledge to the test. How much do you know about inventory management? Uploading product details to the correct field? Editing product page details? Adding product images? And most importantly, how will you regularly know the available quantity and actual prices?
In the article, we walk you through what many new Amazon sellers do not already know before selling on Amazon. Why listen to us? We’re experts in the eCommerce industry. And, just like you, we’re Amazon sellers. We’ve heard the horror stories from your experience, listened, and we want to help you.
Time versus cost
Inputting and updating routine activities on Amazon is labor intensive for over 50 products for your eCommerce business. It can be time consuming and costly. Should you take on the task yourself, or outsource it via Upwork? Maybe you choose to hire a contractor at a 12 to 15 dollars an hour. It can easily cost you hundreds or thousands. At first, you may think to yourself, it will save you time because they will transfer the information on the listings from the CSV.file, complete updates, and track incoming and outgoing products.
However, it is difficult to guarantee the results you expect without double-checking, and triple-checking. So what you thought saves time. It costs you time, and takes you away from the business to review contractors work. Worst case scenario is when the working relationship does not work and it ends. It may be a mutual decision, your own, or the contractor. Despite whatever happened. You need an alternative solution.
Think of your inventory as the nervous system in your body. What happens to the nervous system when something goes wrong? It doesn’t function as it should. In this case, your eCommerce store inventory can impact your business and won’t operate properly.
Bottlenecking or Stalling your Sales
Amazon sellers attempt to connect their account to Shopify. It can be an arduous task without technical skills or knowledge about their issue.
So we emailed Amazon Support to confirm theory. Their response was quite generic, and vague in regards to our concern. We were forwarded with links for instructions to follow, and in case we didn’t understand the definitions of the terms used for what is required on the category specific template to upload our products — terms like data definition and valid value.
According to the Amazon sellers, their best recommendation is using a tool versus the manual input. In most cases a tool pays for itself, takes away the cost for human labor: your time or outsourcing the tasks. Provides security and a peace of mind. Enables sellers to get the best results.
Further evidence, a seller wants to upload photos and product details. Amazon is very strict on what they permit. So it is crucial to understand their requirements. Navigating the photo upload section. It can be cumbersome and complicated. After spending some time sorting out the problem on the Amazon Seller Central. You may ask, is there an easier way to do this?
What is the Solution to Succeed on Amazon?
Do you remember when we said we’ve heard horror stories about Amazon sellers experience? We listened to you, and we built a solution.
We understand it is a seller’s priority to decide on the least riskiest solution for the business to track inventory. Without a process in place, the business is losing money and customers are buying from the competition. Just as your fellow Amazon sellers said, the answer is automation to increase productivity and efficiency, manage inventory and increase sales across all channels through a multichannel sync feature. Unused inventory or running out of inventory can be a thought of the past with a solution to manage your inventory across all eCommerce channels.
How will an inventory management solution take care of all the heavy lifting for your eCommerce Amazon store? You’ll have sync capability to allow the multichannel inventory management solution to automate: upload product details to the correct fields, add product images, allow for updates to sync across all channels, and the know the quantity of products in your inventory.
Automation will increase your eCommerce store sales. Automation resolves a majority of the hassles and headaches. Reduces manual input. Or working with a third-party to entrust the most important part of your business — products and revenue remains intact and organized.
The advantages
- Automatically updates to eCommerce systems and marketplaces or multichannel: Shopify, Etsy, Magento, WooCommerce, and Amazon.
- Increase productivity to focus on customer engagement
- Closely monitor inventory in and inventory out
Sellbery built a multichannel inventory management because we answered, what is the foundation to the eCommerce marketplace? Based on research, we found a lot of sellers need an inventory management solution. We believe the biggest challenge is moving inventory and managing more than one eCommerce marketplace, without the frustration and headache to keep up with the demand of inventory from your customers.
Contact us for a free eCommerce multichannel evaluation.
