Amazon FBA Box Content Guide and Solution

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]y now you’ve probably all heard of the new FBA box content changes that are coming to our world on November 1st.  Amazon has been talking about it for some time now, or as some like to say…”threatening it” for some time now… but sure enough…it has finally arrived.  There timing is of course horrible, as is much of the timing of major process change rollouts from Amazon… but what’s good for Amazon will undoubtedly be good for the rest of us. Even if it’s not immediately apparent to us. Either way, however… rolling out a major process change like this can be VERY SPOOKY around this time especially since we’ve already entered into the 4th quarter.  This is the time where a lot of sellers take the chains off of their Amazon FBA business and “let it rip.”  Not double down on process and procedure and add extra barriers to the sales path?  None-the-less, FBA box content requirements are here and it’s time to take this Frankenstein head on.

What is FBA Box Content?

Amazon doesn’t make a move in their business unless they’ve crunched a million bits of data…three times over and twice on Sunday… before they roll out major changes like this, but this one was a real easy one for Amazon to come to quick terms with.  They’ve created a monstrous following with FBA sellers and because of that they are seeing record breaking volumes of inventory flowing into their warehouses each week. Especially during 4th quarter. It’s actually just too much for them.  There warehouses are bursting at the seems, their robots working double-time and their employees probably taking shorter breaks than usual.  In an effort to streamline more of their receiving process, they’ve introduced Box Content rules for you’re incoming shipments. Simply put, if you ship more than one box of items to the Amazon warehouses for sale…then they want you to create a “shipping manifest” that tells them exactly what items are in your cute little box.

What if I ship one box at a time?

Like me (I’m not that much a volume seller) you could be one of those sellers that only ships one box at a time.  If that’s you then you shouldn’t be “scared” of this latest change in process by Amazon.  If all of your items can fit into a box that doesn’t weight over 50lbs then you fine sir (or madam) are GOOD TO GO. Simply place your items in a box and send it off to Amazon.  They aren’t sweating it because your box has everything in the same box together and thus it’s easier for them to route your items within their warehouse.

What if I ship more than one box at a time?

There are lots of sellers that do, so you’re in good company.  Typically this happens for a variety of reasons but the main reasons why are:

• You are a high volume seller
• You want to save on shipping charges so you send as many boxes as possible in one “shipment”
• You send in larger items so naturally you need multiple boxes.

What solutions are there?

Right now, some 3rd party listing apps have some sort of solution to the problem to make your selling lives a little more comfortable.  Some of these solutions however are still in their infancy and can be more confusing then if you just did it manually yourself.  Some listing applications don’t have a built in solution at all.  And some are charging an extra fee to help you with this solution AccelerList has a built-in solution yet for FBA box content.   Right now you can list in both Private and Live mode within AccelerList and have a solution to your box content needs.  No reason to pay for a separate solution or use another listing application.  Our’s is easy to understand and easy to use within the application.