Ask me anything about eCommerce (Ongoing)

[biophase]

Hi @biophase!

Thanks for offering your wisdom and time to help others out!

I'll try to make it as short as possible, so here it goes:
I'm standing only an inch away from finally launching my product on Amazon, however the product appears to be bugged. Whenever I try to look at the listing through Seller Central, I'll get a 404 Error that the page is not available. The product is active and everything is like it should be, according to the Amazon Support which I don't even want to get started on. They tell me that the product is available and working for them, if they try to open it. However, neither on my laptop, my smartphone, my other computer nor on 3 different terminal equipment of friends, two of which are currently located in Germany (incase it's somehow flagged by an internet provider), the link will generate a 404 and it can't be found in through the search engine.

It's been one week and ten emails since I started the convo with the support, however no solution was found. I told them that it's probably because they access the data directly from their servers through their intranet and that the data isn't available for anyone outside their network etc. etc. Long story short, the case is getting pushed around by employees who obviously* don't care as much as I do (*), so I figured maybe it's a glitch you've come across in the past years.

Thank you!
(I'll keep you guys updated if the problem gets solved in the meantime and how they managed to do it, in case some of you experience the same fate as me)

Do you mean when you look at it through the amazon.com front end or seller central backend when you are logged in?

 

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[AG356]

Do you mean when you look at it through the amazon.com front end or seller central backend when you are logged in?

Both times. I can't even preview it, it goes straight into a 404 just as it would when you type a wrong/non existing ASIN into the address bar

Working ASIN URL:
Kohler K-13435-G Coralais Towel Ring, Brushed Chrome - - Amazon.com
Example of non exisiting ASIN:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015J8QFX/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

The later error is occurring every time when I try to preview it through the seller central. It says it's active and so does the support, they could even order it according to them however I cant even find it on the amazon front end when I search for the exact title.

Edit: The product link is completely random since I picked the first item I've come across

 

[biophase]

Both times. I can't even preview it, it goes straight into a 404 just as it would when you type a wrong/non existing ASIN into the address bar

Working ASIN URL:
Kohler K-13435-G Coralais Towel Ring, Brushed Chrome - - Amazon.com
Example of non exisiting ASIN:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015J8QFX/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

The later error is occurring every time when I try to preview it through the seller central. It says it's active and so does the support, they could even order it according to them however I cant even find it on the amazon front end when I search for the exact title.

Edit: The product link is completely random since I picked the first item I've come across

Is this FBA or FBM? All I can think of is that it thinks your product is out of stock?

Ask them to send you a screenshot of the working URL and see what is in their URL? Is it the exact same?

 

[AG356]

Is this FBA or FBM? All I can think of is that it thinks your product is out of stock?

Ask them to send you a screenshot of the working URL and see what is in their URL? Is it the exact same?

It's FBA.
I've just sent a fresh charge of products which are ready to be sold.

They already sent me two screenshots of them using Firefox and Microsoft Edge, it worked on both browsers (for them).
That's why I suggested them that there's a difference between using their network access inside their working place (intranet) and using the internet. I even asked the amazon support employee I've spoken to on the phone to use her smartphone without connecting to their local network Wifi and voilà: It didn't work either.

I honestly don't know what to do anymore. I've found two additional cases on the seller forum were both cases were not answered and one reply of another seller mentioned that he has had this problem for 6 weeks without it getting fixed.

I try not to feel discouraged or pissed but I'm really not that type of guy who likes to rely on others.

 

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[samuraijack]

Hey guys!

Does anyone know a good site for getting E-commerce product videos produced? I have been looking around for a few days now and everyone I can find is like $10K for 4-8 products.

Thanks in advance for any tips/leads.

Yeah videos can be expensive. Depending on your product, I'd really sit down and think about whether or not you really need a professional video at this point in time. Not sure where you are in your business, but I personally would get sales first while using more cost effective forms of adverstisment. Then when I built up the bankroll, I'd consider dropping $10k for a professional video.

Also, some business use home made youtube videos for how-to's, demos, reviews, etc. See if you can use that instead.

 

[AG356]

Update:

I've spent another two hours researching this problem and trying to fix it myself. The support didn't answer for 2 days and I just triple messaged them with possible solutions which they may want to consider.

What's absolutely mindblowing is the amount of cases which just weren't answered even if they reach back several years and are all the same. I've searched for the 404 errors and cases from <2012 came up with the exact same problem without a solution.

Most of those people didn't use FBA so they deleted their listing (yes, even those with good standings/reviews/bsr) and set them up completely new.
I asked the support if its possible to transfer a working ASIN to another product (since they are already tagged and stored in their logistic centers) and create a completely new listing.
This surely is a PITA but since it's a completely new product it's not THAT bad. I don't even want to imagine this problem after a year of launching, branding and marketing a product to reach the bestseller ranks.

I guess those are the risks you have to take if you don't own the C in CENTS.

 

[Denim Chicken]

@biophase How accurate is your FBA fee estimate under your Amazon Seller Central > "Manage Inventory" > Fee Preview (Column)?

Its estimating less than what I calculated using my competitors product with the FBA calculator.

 

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[biophase]

@biophase How accurate is your FBA fee estimate under your Amazon Seller Central > "Manage Inventory" > Fee Preview (Column)?

Its estimating less than what I calculated using my competitors product with the FBA calculator.

It's pretty much 100% accurate.

Amazon's fee is pretty simple. There's not much room to be wrong. I can look at a product and be 100% accurate in my calculations. You are only going to be off if you are estimating the weight wrong.

Update: just saw you said in seller central. In that case it should be dead on. The only thing it doesn't do is take into account the sale price.

 

[Esoteric Wealth]

Okay @biophase so, I recently got another job, I'm making about $300ish weekly, minimal expenses. I can save probably $200-$250 every week for e-commerce purposes. I have no plans to sell on Amazon really, I'm just interested in starting with eBay, and redirecting that traffic to a shopify site. Would it be smarter to buy product as I go (I'm really eager to start doing something), in smaller quantities, or save $2000-3000 at a time and purchase products?

 

[Denim Chicken]

It's pretty much 100% accurate.

Amazon's fee is pretty simple. There's not much room to be wrong. I can look at a product and be 100% accurate in my calculations. You are only going to be off if you are estimating the weight wrong.

Update: just saw you said in seller central. In that case it should be dead on. The only thing it doesn't do is take into account the sale price.

Thanks, how are you able to be that accurate in the estimate?

The amazon calculator requires me to pull up an existing listing which means any item I want to import that doesn't exist or an OEM product like mine, just isn't in the system yet. So I used my competitors listings to gauge the fee since the dimensions and weight are nearly identical.

Which is also why I'm a little confused why it's cheaper than I estimated. It showed me $7.50 in fees for 1 competitor, then $8.20 for another. (Fee calculator before I imported my product)
My dashboard is showing around $6.90. Not sure how it would know this I haven't filled out the weight in the item description yet (but it will be similar to my competitors)

 

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[biophase]

Okay @biophase so, I recently got another job, I'm making about $300ish weekly, minimal expenses. I can save probably $200-$250 every week for e-commerce purposes. I have no plans to sell on Amazon really, I'm just interested in starting with eBay, and redirecting that traffic to a shopify site. Would it be smarter to buy product as I go (I'm really eager to start doing something), in smaller quantities, or save $2000-3000 at a time and purchase products?

Is the price for $250 worth the same as $3000 worth? Are you in the USA? If so, why not Amazon?

 

[biophase]

Thanks, how are you able to be that accurate in the estimate?

The amazon calculator requires me to pull up an existing listing which means any item I want to import that doesn't exist or an OEM product like mine, just isn't in the system yet. So I used my competitors listings to gauge the fee since the dimensions and weight are nearly identical.

Which is also why I'm a little confused why it's cheaper than I estimated. It showed me $7.50 in fees for 1 competitor, then $8.20 for another. (Fee calculator before I imported my product)
My dashboard is showing around $6.90. Not sure how it would know this I haven't filled out the weight in the item description yet (but it will be similar to my competitors)

If you know the dimensions of your completed package and its weight, you can be 100% accurate in the fulfillment fees.

 

[Esoteric Wealth]

Is the price for $250 worth the same as $3000 worth? Are you in the USA? If so, why not Amazon?

Yup USA. The products I want to sell falls under Amazon's restricted category, which would mean I need to have a certain amount of Merchant Fulfilled items, and 3 months on Amazon. This is why I rather start with eBay.

I can obviously get more units for less money if I order a higher quantity, but I'd like to start selling things now. Is it not viable to order a small amount of product, sell out, buy more than I started with, and repeat?

 

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[biophase]

Yup USA. The products I want to sell falls under Amazon's restricted category, which would mean I need to have a certain amount of Merchant Fulfilled items, and 3 months on Amazon. This is why I rather start with eBay.

I can obviously get more units for less money if I order a higher quantity, but I'd like to start selling things now. Is it not viable to order a small amount of product, sell out, buy more than I started with, and repeat?

Sure you can start that way. I would do it that way so you are not stuck with a bunch of product if it doesn't sell.

 

[Esoteric Wealth]

Sure you can start that way. I would do it that way so you are not stuck with a bunch of product if it doesn't sell.

I appreciate it.. one more thing, what's your opinion on finding suppliers through Google? For example "wholesale [niche or product]". It seems a lot simpler than Alibaba, and I can even find Chinese suppliers. Although I'm not sure if they're manufacturers... that doesn't matter to me at this point though. I like the idea of U.S. distributors too for brand name products, to have a more complete store feel.

 

[Ivan2BAlive]

@biophase

Greetings biophase, thanks for taking time to read my question.

Do you have any problems with Paypal/eBay. Paypal, in general, always seem to be a pain in my a**. Whenever a sale is completed, I either have one of the three problems happen to me:

1.) When I transfer funds to my account, the next day the funds are not in my bank acct. because it's "processing" in turn, I cannot keep my sales flowing like it should.
2.) I would get more eBay fees than I would profit (eg. $300 mo. profit & 450$ fees)
3.) It seems like eBay fees are due weekly instead of monthly. Just when I pay off a bill one week, the next week another bill pops up.

I would like, all together, drop Paypal and use a merchant acct. Would this work?

I know that this is being a "passenger" in the fast lane process, but I am just using this temporarily to springboard into another business I have lined up. Any feedback would be helpful, thanks in advance.

 

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[LouieLouie]

@biophase

First thanks for investing the time to share this thread

In an early post you mentioned setting up multiple companies as sellers on Amazon.

Could expand a little on how to do this?

Does this limit exposure if one company gets shut down?

Or put another way if you have 3 companies listed on Amazon is there a way to make sure they don't get traced back to me personally and all get shut down.

The reason for the paranoia.... I lost one stream of revenue to Google Panda, and understand control.

AND

I have had an Amazon Seller account for a few years as a hobby, and all of a sudden I got locked out.
That was 3 months ago, and I called in and they said it was in their fraud department and could give me no answers as to if or when, or really anything useful....
So glad it's not my families bread and butter stream.

This is why I have held off using Amazon for so long. But if I build 3-5 channels inside of Amazon I would feel better about the risk of having one stream of income dry up.

 

[Denim Chicken]

If you know the dimensions of your completed package and its weight, you can be 100% accurate in the fulfillment fees.

Thanks

 

[biophase]

@biophase

Greetings biophase, thanks for taking time to read my question.

Do you have any problems with Paypal/eBay. Paypal, in general, always seem to be a pain in my a**. Whenever a sale is completed, I either have one of the three problems happen to me:

1.) When I transfer funds to my account, the next day the funds are not in my bank acct. because it's "processing" in turn, I cannot keep my sales flowing like it should.
2.) I would get more eBay fees than I would profit (eg. $300 mo. profit & 450$ fees)
3.) It seems like eBay fees are due weekly instead of monthly. Just when I pay off a bill one week, the next week another bill pops up.

I would like, all together, drop Paypal and use a merchant acct. Would this work?

I know that this is being a "passenger" in the fast lane process, but I am just using this temporarily to springboard into another business I have lined up. Any feedback would be helpful, thanks in advance.

1) I never noticed this happening.
2) So you actually aren't profiting then. You need to sell your products for $150 more?
3) I don't know. The fees are automatically charged to my card or paypal.

I don't think you can get away from Paypal while on Ebay.

 

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[TTG SS]

@biophase

I am trying to setup a new listing, this is the first time I have a product that has two variations.(color).

I am not sure that I am doing it correctly. In my SellerCentral, under Manage Inventory I have the "parent" which has its own SKU & ASIN. Under the main parent I have the two variations, both of which have their own SKU & ASIN.

When I click the "parent" SKU and it opens up the listing to the 1st color. Does that sound correct? Since I do not have any inventory actually sent in yet when I open the listing it does not show the option to toggle between the two colors via the images that would normally appear (still currently unavailable)

The question I have is: Does this sound like it is setup properly? Once there is inventory at FBA will my listing show both of the color options and have the ability to toggle back and fourth such as seen in the example below? Ultimately this is the goal I am trying to achieve but I am unsure I have it setup properly. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Ivan2BAlive]

1) I never noticed this happening.
2) So you actually aren't profiting then. You need to sell your products for $150 more?
3) I don't know. The fees are automatically charged to my card or paypal.

I don't think you can get away from Paypal while on Ebay.

Cool, that's what I thought. Paypal and eBay are a marriage, you can't separate the two. Thank you.

 

[biophase]

@biophase

I am trying to setup a new listing, this is the first time I have a product that has two variations.(color).

I am not sure that I am doing it correctly. In my SellerCentral, under Manage Inventory I have the "parent" which has its own SKU & ASIN. Under the main parent I have the two variations, both of which have their own SKU & ASIN.

Not 100% sure what stage you are at. But if you click from the sellercentral onto the variation, it should go to the product in that variation and show unavailable.

If under your inventory you have a parent and need to click on the small arrow to see the colors, then you did it correctly.

 

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[TTG SS]

Not 100% sure what stage you are at. But if you click from the sellercentral onto the variation, it should go to the product in that variation and show unavailable.

If under your inventory you have a parent and need to click on the small arrow to see the colors, then you did it correctly.

@biophase Thank you! I believe I did it right, here is a screen shot of what it looks like in my sellercentral.

So, it should show like the sheets example I gave above where it has the thumbnail and color option once I send in my inventory? Just want to make sure I get this right before sending in my inventory and having to deal with a nightmare of it not being setup properly.

Thanks for help! Much appreciated

 

[becks22]

Just ordered by product a few weeks ago. Received an email last night about the final cost since shipping wasn't calculated in my original wire transfer that I sent over. My order is 42 kgs (92 lbs) and was quoted around $198. This adds about .33 onto my product cost per unit. I think that seems reasonable from what I have read. Any opinions? Also this thread is amazing, I can't think everyone enough for their contributions.

 

[Sfbloo]

@biophase . I think I’ve almost decided on a ecommerce startup. A fairly broad subject that requires a decent range of products i.e 10 categories with 5-15 options in each. Do you have any advice if I wanted to sell a range of product lines whilst minimalizing the initial cost, and risk of some not being great sellers?

I think the site would benefit from choice rather than a minimal product range. It needs to be a one stop shop eventually. I need to assess how limiting it would be and prevent customers returning if it only offered a few products initially.

Ideally:

I didn’t want to invest ££££’s on stock & storage.

Yet I also didn’t want to provide affiliate links (not enough return or control over customer service) or dropship (I want Customer Service to be 110%). Is a mixture of these options the key?

Maybe get started with a little less control by dropshipping/buy locally certain products – whilst stocking the key items myself. Assess what sells and then stock these myself for greater control. I’m just not comfortable this can be done without affecting customer service and delivery times.

Or do I take it seriously and go in cash heavy with a lot more risk – only sell what I want to stock?

Or start small, scale up and hope customers return and don't see me as the site that only sells X rather than XYZ

I would be interested in your opinion? Thankyou

 

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[biophase]

Just ordered by product a few weeks ago. Received an email last night about the final cost since shipping wasn't calculated in my original wire transfer that I sent over. My order is 42 kgs (92 lbs) and was quoted around $198. This adds about .33 onto my product cost per unit. I think that seems reasonable from what I have read. Any opinions? Also this thread is amazing, I can't think everyone enough for their contributions.

Sounds about right, it's probably 2 boxes at $100/box.

 

[biophase]

@biophase . I think I’ve almost decided on a ecommerce startup. A fairly broad subject that requires a decent range of products i.e 10 categories with 5-15 options in each. Do you have any advice if I wanted to sell a range of product lines whilst minimalizing the initial cost, and risk of some not being great sellers?

I think the site would benefit from choice rather than a minimal product range. It needs to be a one stop shop eventually. I need to assess how limiting it would be and prevent customers returning if it only offered a few products initially.

Ideally:

I didn’t want to invest ££££’s on stock & storage.

Yet I also didn’t want to provide affiliate links (not enough return or control over customer service) or dropship (I want Customer Service to be 110%). Is a mixture of these options the key?

Maybe get started with a little less control by dropshipping/buy locally certain products – whilst stocking the key items myself. Assess what sells and then stock these myself for greater control. I’m just not comfortable this can be done without affecting customer service and delivery times.

Or do I take it seriously and go in cash heavy with a lot more risk – only sell what I want to stock?

Or start small, scale up and hope customers return and don't see me as the site that only sells X rather than XYZ

I would be interested in your opinion? Thankyou

I think you have too many products. You are talking about 50-150 products to start. There is no way you can even begin to give each product or category the right amount of work to develop. How are you going to market? PPC? How many keywords? I would start with 1-2 categories and make them the best that they can be.

 

[Sfbloo]

I think you have too many products. You are talking about 50-150 products to start. There is no way you can even begin to give each product or category the right amount of work to develop. How are you going to market? PPC? How many keywords? I would start with 1-2 categories and make them the best that they can be.

Thankyou, I've slept on it and completely agree. I need to see if dropshipping is feasible (within my own country only) for some products but assess how minimal I can start without it looking scarce. Thank you for taking the time to respond

 

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[becks22]

Sounds about right, it's probably 2 boxes at $100/box.

Perfect. Thank you Bio. I've done the math and it looks like once Amazon gets their cut, I will be left with around $4.50 per unit

 

[samuraijack]

Just had a competitor upvote all my negative reviews (the handful that I had). How do i fix this? Or can I even?