Just send one unit in and see if your FBA offer can bump the buy box. We test this all the time against vendors who get their hands on our stuff.
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But no one communicates to any coder what is intended. Because the sole intent is to do something, anything, and the decision to do something is made by someone with no clue other than perhaps a newspaper headline.
There is less to Amazon than appears. There are few if any who have an understanding of the marketplace. There are few or any who understand any big business on the Internet. The history of PayPal was another case of the amateur hour. When Pierre started Ebay he was violating the laws governing auctions in many states, and the popularity of Ebay kept the politicians from shutting him down.
A decision to send to FBA is only going to be correct if the product sells fast, survives the warehouse environment, triggers no policy issues and is priced at the lowest price on the Internet. And even then, there is the risk of authenticity issues, and the Voice of the Customer.
@VTR suggestion is a way to limit your risk, but you will still be taking a risk with this product.
We all are flying without a safety net, and all need to decide how high to place our trapeze or tightrope.
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I would have to send the item in, then play around with the price to figure out where Amazon bumps the BB. There is no guarantee that this will be at a sustainable margin, and likely will not change (ever) because Amazon has the price nailed to their BB price. This means that when the manufacturer raises their prices, which is usually in April or May, my margin will shrink even more.
Due to the nature of the issue, specifically Amazon themselves interfering with the price, I have no faith that even if FBA listings are able to snag the BB for a reasonable price, that it will stay snagged. I donât want to send in 1, get the BB at a price that is reasonable, send in 50, then have it revert a week or a month later.
I understand this. This is, in fact, my point. The decision to run their business this way, and the ideology behind it is, as I said earlier, stupid. Top to bottom stupid. It works only to the advantage of individual employees at Amazon and to the detriment of the company, sellers, buyers, and the entire eCommerce ecosystem.
Ranty McRantface will show himself out now.
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There are many times an FBA offer will bump the buy box at a higher price than an Amazon vendor price when not available. The formula is different for FBA offers than MFN in the algo.
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I am aware. I am also aware that Amazon awards the BB differently when they are on the listing.
Either way, I will still have to fiddle around with my price to figure out how much I have to drop to get the BB. Amazon isnât going to let me charge what I want.
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When using FBA I wouldnât concede that as a given. We have several items we win the buy box at a higher price than vendor inventory on a daily basis, that we get destroyed on for MFN. We have an item today selling at $139 and Amazon is at 135.99 but they cannot get it out as fast as FBA so we get the BB.
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Thatâs still a pretty close price to Amazonâs. In the case of the items I am talking about, Amazon is selling for about my break-even point, or less. In at least 2 cases I have found in the last couple of days, Amazon is selling for over $150 less than the price I was selling at before the high price bot whacked me. If I have to drop the price to within a few dollars of Amazon, even if I donât have to match them, many of these items wonât be worth selling.
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Well yes, because in my example they actually have something to ship.
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I just found some ASINs where Amazon is keeping the BB at ridiculously low prices on items that have been obsolete for 2 years. I canât even sell these items at cost.
Amazon finds ways to make me glad I kept our ebay account active all this timeâŚ
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