Both Amazon FBA and FBM come with numerous pros and cons. In this blog post, we’re going to tell you how to take a smart strategy to list your items with both fulfillment methods to literally have the best of both worlds! Let’s go!
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What Are Amazon FBM and FBA?
Amazon FBA is one of the most innovative eCommerce solutions. It simplifies sellers to sell faster without overthinking shipment and fulfillment. Amazon has one of the most advanced fulfillment networks in the world. With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you store your products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and Amazon takes care of picking, packing, shipping, and providing customer service for these products. As a result, FBA can help sellers scale their business and reach more customers.
For the customers, the benefits are enormous too. If the customer is prime, within 1-2 days, the customer can receive the item without paying the additional cost and enjoy Amazon customer service. However, 97% of prime customers do not look at who is selling the items. They trust Amazon’s capability to check the quality, package, and delivery in the expected time frame. The seller can start benefiting from this trust from day one.
See Also: Amazon FBA vs FBM
Can I Do Both FBA and FBM?
Yes, you can. Amazon lets you list the same item for both FBA and FBM. Currently, selling FBA is the primary way for Amazon private Label sellers and Resellers. It is a great practice, but for the same item, there are ways where FBM can help.
FBM stands for “Fulfilled By Merchant,” meaning that the seller ships the orders, similar to selling on your website. The seller sets the shipping rates and processing times, and the seller is responsible for getting the order to the customer in the time you’ve specified.
Eva is the only software service where you can manage both FBA and FBM simultaneously. Most of the new sellers are not aware of that, and there are several advantages of doing that.
Benefits of Listing on Amazon FBM and FBA
Stock-out Problems
Stock-outs are a nightmare for private label sellers. Eva uses sales velocity, category analysis, and seasonal trends to avoid Stock-outs or delay the stock-out. Eva checks various factors for the best time to replenish the items and immediately alerts the Private label seller on re-stocking time. But sometimes, there are challenges with logistics or manufacturing where the seller cannot re-stock the items. Like, such as a customs issue or an ingredient to manufacture the product is missing.
In all these cases, having an FBM listing is a great help. We can not assume the same sales velocity with FBM as the FBA, but it helps the Keyword rankings and BSR Rankings stay stable or minimizes the impact. Customers still have the option to buy the item, which affects customer satisfaction.
Reaching Out to Non-Prime Consumers
Do you know that Amazon is projecting to have more than 150 Million households have prime membership by 2022? Amazon Prime is a fantastic service with many advantages, but some other customers are not prime. Also, prime consumer numbers are much less in other Amazon marketplaces like Mexico or Canada.
When non-prime customers want to buy Amazon FBA, Amazon may charge them shipment fees. So at least they can also have an option to purchase via FBM, which can perhaps be a little bit cheaper. Giving both options to the customer can accelerate the decision. The essential decision factor for FBA will be the speed of the delivery, wherewith FBM; the seller may decide to pay less.
In any case, for FBM customers, the seller has complete visibility of the buyer’s personal information, which is a unique value that’s not available via Amazon FBA.
Know Your Customer
If you are a Private Label, you may want to know your customers and build customer-focused strategies. Even if you are an FBM seller, you might find this approach relevant. We recommend you use FBA as the main fulfillment strategy but getting information about your customers is valuable. It may help you do surveys, understand customer intent, and offer these customers new products. So it would not hurt to have a small set of customers that you know and who are using your product.
Read More: Amazon Plan of Action (POA)
Conclusion
Eva is the only repricer software for Private Labels and Resellers that can price both FBA and FBM options of the same SKU.
Eva calculates the initial pricing based on the product and shipment costs and your Minimum ROI. After that, Eva ensures that FBA SKU gets the Buy Box while FBM SKU is priced based on the competition and FBA SKU follows the FBA SKU.
If you have more questions about this smart trick, feel free to get a Free Consultation from Eva now!
