Should You Merchant Fulfil Before Starting FBA

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So you've heard that Amazon FBA is a goldmine and you can make riches reselling with it. Great. I'm with you completely. You can make serious money with far less effort than you'd need selling the same quantity on eBay. You can see that in the near future, it's going to be something you concentrate a lot of your time in. Good. But you're not 100% if it's best to jump in with two feet from day one, or ease your way in gradually.

Positives of Self-Fulfilling First

Experience. Learning Seller Central takes some time. Understanding the different between this marketplace and others is essential and is something you won't understand until you give it a go.

Feedback. You're able to accumulate feedback from early on, before you turn your attention to the FBA programme. This will always benefit your account and, in turn, increase conversions in your storefront.

Free. The Pro Merchant Account will set you back £30 per month and isn't worth it if you're self-fulfilling and new to the platform. This allows you to learn the rope without incurring any fees.

Nearby inventory. When you're fulfilling orders yourself, you actually have the inventory there will you. This makes it far easier to change game plan, if needed. After you source an item, you might find that its Amazon value has decreased after a few days. In those cases, you may decide to either list it on eBay or return it. It's not so easy once you've shipped it to Amazon.

Negatives of Self-Fulfilling First:

Actually fulfilling orders. Packing, shipping, answering questions, handling returns are all done by you when you're merchant fulfilling. It's just like eBay, and many people don't fancy that prospect.

Restrictions. Assuming you have an individual account (rather than a Pro one) there are large areas of the site that you can't sell in.

Buy Box percentage. As a new self-fulfilling merchant, you need to prove yourself to be a good seller to Amazon. This mean that you're unlikely to earn the Buy Box, even when you have the lowest price.

Inventory storage. You will have to have the room to keep all of yours stock. Too little and you'll find yourself frustrated very quickly.

Motivation. The speed of sales through FBA is ridiculous, at least with the stock I source. This is what will drive you to want to grow the business. If things are moving slowly, you may not get to see the full potential of the platform.

Account Risk. Feedback is everything on Amazon. Let it slip and your selling privileges are likely to suffer. By letting Amazon fulfil orders, you’re immune from a lot of negative feedback.

Which Way Did I Do It?

My experience was that I'd done eBay reselling for a few years and reached my capacity with it. There was no time to grow it any further. I hadn't sold physical products through Amazon before, but read enough to commit to jump straight to FBA.

I understand that this isn't for everyone. The only reason I felt it made sense was because I could afford to lose money for a couple of months, if necessary. It turned out that every item was profitable in my first shipment (particularly so because half of them were freebies of one sort or another). Thereafter, it all just fell into place, but only because I’d read so much into it beforehand.

For those that haven't sold physical items online before, there is a lot to get your head around. The progression of eBay to Amazon Merchant fulfilling to Amazon FBA seems logical. If you have the money and enough experience, you can probably skip the second step. However, you will need to do a lot of reading first. If you're selling used goods, I'd say 6 months of eBaying is essential beforehand. If retail and online arbitrage seems attractive to you, you need to have that capital ready to go.