FBA Shipments Workflow

Overview

FBA Shipments are important for keeping your stock replenished in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. You can create, process and fulfill your FBA Shipments from Sellercloud easily by following the workflow described below.

Make sure you’ve familiarized yourself with the different settings and configurations before creating your FBA Shipment. You can find information on these settings and configurations here.

Sellercloud also offers the ability to Consolidate FBA Inbound Shipments.

To create an FBA inbound shipment, you must:

• Enroll in Fulfillment by Amazon.
• Ensure your account is configured in Sellercloud to allow for FBA inbound shipments.

Set up a shipment

1. Click Inventory > FBA Inbound Shipments.
2. Click Create New Shipment.
3.  If you have multiple companies, select the company from drop-down menu from which the inventory is being shipped.
4. The Description field will default to the date and time for future reference, but can be edited any descriptive term.
5. Press Continue.
6. Click on Add Items (on the lower right hand side of the page).
7. Enter a search term and press the Search button, which will display the selected
   product(s). By default, you may not be able to add Fulfilled by Merchant products. There is a client setting to control this restriction.
8. Select the item and quantity you want to add to the shipment. Quantity can be added later. Important Note: Kits must have an inventory dependency set to Independent. Read more about Kits and FBA.
   • To require the product to have available inventory, enable the client setting Enable
     Validate Inventory For FBA Inbound Shipments. When enabled, the shipment will not
     Preview if the product has less inventory than the amount that is added to the shipment.
   • Product must have inventory in a warehouse that has the option “Allow to use qty for FBA Shipments” enabled.
   • Product must be from the same company as the company you are shipping from; otherwise, you will see an “Unknown SKU” error message when previewing the shipment.
9. To add multiple items simultaneously, click Show/Hide text box to paste SKU list, and paste multiple SKUs into the drop-down box.
10. Click Add Products.
11. Click Finished, Close Window.

Prepare the package for shipping

For products that have never been FBA-shipped:

1. Read how to prepare quantity to ship.
2. Select Edit from the Action Menu and click GO.
3. Select the product.
4. Select Get FNSKU from the Action Menu and click GO. This will only work if the product already has an FNSKU at Amazon. This process is like retrieving an existing ASIN. Read more about getting the FNSKU.
5. Select Revise Dimensions and Weight on Amazon and click Go. (Update Weight and Dimensions of the product by clicking on the box next to the product)
6. Save Shipment.

Usage of Amazon Labeling Services

Units that are not eligible for commingling must have a Unit label affixed onto each unit. After previewing the shipment (see below), Amazon will inform you if, and what type of, a label must be affixed on each item. You have the option of labeling your products yourself, or, for a fee, request that Amazon label the products on your behalf.

You must inform Amazon as to which party will be labeling your items with the following steps:

1. Log onto SellerCental.
2. Navigate Settings icon > Fulfillment by Amazon > Optional Services.
3. Click Edit to enable MWS Label Service and select a default labeling service.
4. The default can be overridden on the FBA Inbound Shipment. Under the Label Prep Preference column select who label the products:
   • Seller_Label – This notifies Amazon that you label them as required. If the item is not labeled you may be subject to unplanned label fees.
   • Amazon_Label_Only – This instructs Amazon to label the products as necessary when they receive it at the Amazon Fulfillment Center. There are fees associated with this
     service.
   • Amazon_Label_Preferred – Asks Amazon to label any products not labeled by the seller. Fees are applied as needed. Note that this is just a request, and if Amazon requires something else, they may still send back a Label Type indicating that the seller is required to label the products. If the seller does not label the product, their account may be affected.

All products continue here:

1. In the Box Content Source dropdown, select one of the following options by which you will communicate the box contents to Amazon (box contents are generated later in the process and are explained further down in this topic):
   • None – Enables you to download a box contents file to upload into Seller Central.
   • Feed – Enables an action to upload box contents directly from Sellercloud.
   • 2D Barcode – Enables you to download a d barcode label with the box contents.
   • You can set a default box-content value in the Client Setting Default FBA Shipment Content Source by choosing one of the above values from the dropdown list
2. Select Preview from the Action menu. Amazon will assign a temporary shipment ID. The temporary ID expires after 48 hours.
   • Product must have inventory in a warehouse that has the option “Allow to use qty for FBA Shipments” enabled. Otherwise inventory in that warehouse will not be able to be used and an error of no inventory available may be returned.
   • If the product does not have the required values ‒ FNSKU and Dimensions – an error message will appear stating that the preview failed. Click on the icon next to each individual item and update the Ship Weight and Shipping Dimensions. Re-select Preview from the action menu. See below how the page refreshes.
3. Select Print Product Labels from the Action Menu, if needed, and click GO. See below for an
   explanation of Label types.
4. Select Set Status to Working from Action menu and click GO.

Important: You must set the status to Working within 48 hours of previewing the shipment. This is because the previewed shipment’s temporary ID expires after 48 hours.

The shipping page should refresh with the with the following information:

• Shipment ID – The Amazon Shipment ID as determined by Amazon.
• Fulfillment Center- Amazon’s Internal Code forthe fulfillment center.
• Destination Address – The address of the fulfillment center.
• Package Name – The name you gave the package when you created the shipment.
• Status – The current step in the process of the FBA shipment. There are 6 different statuses:
  • Saved
  • Previewed
  • Working
  • Shipped
  • Closed
  • Canceled

Label types

There are 4 different types of Labels:

• Merchant Label – You have to put a Product label onto the product.
• No Label – No label is required.
• Amazon Label – This label type will display if you signed up underthe MWS Label Service to
  have Amazon label the items.
• FC_Prep – The product requires extra handling time at FBA Fulfillment Center

The label types are determined by Amazon via the ASIN/FNSKU. Different label types will not be allowed to ship under the same Shipment ID. Sellercloud has no control over these policies.

Amazon might split a large quantity of a single product into multiple shipments that will be shipped to multiple FBA warehouses across the country. This is determined by how you set up your Seller Central account. If you want to be able to ship to one warehouse only, you must first change your Inbound Settings from Distributed Inventory Placement (which is the default setting) to Inventory Placement Service. Be aware that there is a fee for this option.

When printing an FBA label on a Zebra printer, some tiny dots may print right near the barcode. If that happens, select the printer on your control panel and open Printer Preferences. Click on the Dither tab and set it to None.

Shipping labels and box content

The following instructions are for shipping small packages to Amazon Fulfillment Center. Read how to ship LTL/FTL to Amazon here.

Amazon partners with UPS for small parcel deliveries up to 150 pounds. UPS will pick up and deliver your FBA Inbound Shipment at a deeply discounted rate that will be billed to Amazon’s account. Amazon will pass the charge on to you as a “Inbound Transportation Charge. If you are shipping with a non-partnered carrier, read more here.

1. Select Manage Shipping Boxes from the Action Menu. Press Go.
2. Select a shipment from the dropdown.
3. Add boxes to the shipment. Set their Weights and DIM.
   • If you are sending each SKU in a separate box – meaning, all units of product x in one box – check the One SKU Per box only checkbox. A box will be automatically generated for each item in the shipment. You will not be able to add more boxes.

Note: This option should not be confused with the similar One SKU Per Box option on Seller Central. That option is a box tag that lets Amazon know there is only one item (single or multiple) in the box.

1. The next step is to satisfy Amazon’s requirement to provide accurate box contents information on the packing slip. (Ensure that the client setting FBA Inbound Shipment Use Unique Label Request is not enabled.)
   1. Select Manage Box Contents from the Action Menu > press Go.
   2. Select a package.
   3. Enter the unit count for every SKU in each box. Add contents to all the boxes in the shipment. You can also import a file to upload contents.
   4. Save and repeat for all boxes in the shipment.
   5. Select next shipment and repeat.
   6. Depending on your box content selection at the start of the shipment (see section above All products continue here), press the action to:
      • Save and Upload to Amazon – Sends an API call to Amazon with box contents. For example, it tells Amazon that Box 1 contains item ABC x 20. The shipping label identifies the box with its box number.
      • Save and Download Feed – Downloads a file to be uploaded on Seller Central.
      • Save and Download D BarCode – The barcode sticker should be placed on the package. Read more about D barcodes in the attached PDF.
2. Wait several minutes to allow Amazon to process the information before continuing in Sellercloud.
3. Return to the Manage Shipping Boxes page.
4. Select the package from the dropdown.
5. Select Shipping type – Small Package.
6. Click on Box ID and add dimensions.
7. From the Action menu, select Request Shipping Estimate.
8. Select Get Shipping Estimate. Only UPS estimates are returned. FedEx estimates are not available though MWS.
9. If you are satisfied with the estimate, click Confirm Shipping Estimate. Otherwise, click Void Estimate. (The Shipping Estimate process is broken up to allow Seller Central enough time to generate a valid label.) Amazon will return a tracking number that will be automatically placed into the Tracking Field on the shipping box row.
10. Select Print Shipping Labels from the Action Menu. A PDF will print Half label/Half packing slip.
11. To void the label, select Void Label on Action Menu. When voided, the tracking number will be deleted.

Mark Shipment as Shipped in Sellercloud

1. From the Shipment page, select Ship Items.
2. Select a Ship From Warehouse and an Interim Warehouse.
3. Select shipments you want to ship.
4. Press the Ship Items button at the bottom of the page. The shipped items will be moved from the Ship From warehouse into the selected Interim Warehouse.
5. A service will automatically query the status of the shipment. When the items are received at the Amazon Fulfillment Center, the received inventory will be removed from the interim warehouse. The FBA shipment will be updated with the received quantity.
6. Inventory will be updated automatically in the Sellercloud FBA warehouse based on the FBA Manage Inventory report provided by Amazon.

Delete FBA Inbound Shipments from Sellercloud

You can delete FBA Shipments by navigating to Inventory > FBA Inbound Shipment. Select a shipment, and navigate to the Actions Menu > Delete > Go. Once a FBA Inbound Shipment is deleted in Sellercloud, the shipment in Amazon will be updated to Canceled.

Attachments:

• 2D Barcode Requirements PDF