Proven Wholesale Course Week 5

Review Notes  You can change information on a listing  Never change the item only to enhance descriptions and photos  First try through details page or flat file  Then issue ticket with Seller Support  Bonus Session

Maintaining Your Wholesale Accounts  Develop relationships with your contacts  Remember Personal Details?  Does she love all things Star Wars?  Be their favorite- always polite and professional

Maintaining Your Wholesale Accounts  Answer calls and s in a professional and timely manner  Give feedback on the item from customers or packaging  I noticed you switched to the heavy duty shipping boxes and it really helped the amount of damaged items.  Have you thought about doing this product in red because ______

Maintaining Your Wholesale Accounts  If you are having trouble getting shipping or invoice updates from a vendor  Call and follow up with  Make sure you are dealing with the right person  Give them the benefit of the doubt  Be realistic

Maintaining Your Accounts  Don’t be afraid to ask for terms  Ask for free shipping (offer to increase order)  Know which shows they attend- expect the show discount. Ask for it directly  Will they ship directly to Amazon  You will need to label if no UPC tied to single ASIN  Is prep required?  Shipments will still be split  Best on items you can send as a case back

Managing Inbound Shipping  Once you have multiple shipments coming in use a shipping board  Put order date on board to watch for delayed or missed shipments. Use PO’s to manage payments  Once shipment dates are confirmed put it on the board so everyone on the team knows when it is coming

Managing Inbound Shipping  Use the invoice and packing slip to make sure that all items were received and follow up with damage or back ordered items within 2 days.  Make sure you update your schedule/board with back order dates  Reconcile every shipment from every vendor  Call to have damaged items returned  Get updated expected ship dates for BO items

Damage Items  Take photos of the damage  Send an with the photos attached  If possible see if they can just send an empty box  Make sure you know what the policy is for damage items for each vendor.  Some will reimburse for damaged item  Some will replace entire unit  Usually on will get a shipping credit if a large % are damaged

Using a Shipping Board  Helps to make sure everyone is clear which shipment is the priority  Helps to ensure everyone knows when each shipment is supposed to be done  Allows you to assign prep work  Don’t be afraid to hire temp help during busy seasons

Using a Shipping Board

Assign Priorities and Workflow

Ideas for expanding into new lines  Continue what you have been doing  Ask your vendors what shows they are attending  Ask your vendors if other companies are finding certain products complimentary (ask for referrals)  Sales Reps usually carry multiple lines  Look for companies that are show up in the “Customers also viewed…”

Expanding Your Lines  Continue to look at new sources  Bring a different set of eyes to the show  Expand into new categories  Re-Run the numbers on old products

Building Depth In Your Lines  Add new SKUs to each line until every item is being run every time you re-order from that company  Look at “Customer Viewed” to look for complimentary lines (potential new bundles)  Look at carrying competing lines

Multi-Channel Fulfillment  Look at completed sales on Ebay or other markets to see if you can sell your item profitably on other venues (price parity)  Items can be MCF’ed when sold  Stitch, Solid Commerce, AutoMCF will even do the order processing for you.  Make sure you have included cost to ship from FBA into your profits

Price Parity

Automating Reordering  Its all about the data  Save lists from data analysis and in between shipments add all the other SKUs from that line. Refresh your data before every order and order based off a ROI and day stock levels.  Make sure to account for seasonal changes in your orders  Updating Existing Listings

Using Systems for Re-Orders  Takes emotion out of re-ordering  Don’t get married to lines  Allows for you to maximize capital that you have  Remember to stay diversified

Determine the Amount of Capital You Have To Place Orders  Check weekly cash flow report and determine amount allotted for purchases  We use a 13 Rolling Cash Flow Report  Microsoft has a template  This is not the same as the books your accountant keeps

Example of Weeks of Coverage

What Amazon Says  Making a replenishment decision requires three primary data points: sales velocity (average weekly sales), on-hand inventory (fulfillable quantity) and inbound quantity. These three data points are used to calculate your inventory coverage before you run out, commonly known as Weeks of Cover (WOC) and calculated as On- hand + Inbound Quantity divided by Average Weekly Sales.  Reports suggested: Inventory Health Report (which contains the three data points and the WOC), Manage FBA Inventory and Amazon Fulfilled Shipments Report.Inventory Health ReportManage FBA Inventory Amazon Fulfilled Shipments Report  Best Practice Tip #1: Try to keep your WOC between 2 (or the number of weeks it takes you to replenish) and 13 (inventory for a quarter), except when stocking up for the holiday season, etc.  Best Practice Tip #2: Review your WOC based on different average weekly sales periods. For example, if your WOC based on the last 30 days of sales is larger than your WOC based on your last week’s sale, it could mean

What Amazon Says (in English) Weeks of Coverage = Quantity you have in stock and inbound Average number of sales per week during the period of time being measured 1= 400 items/30 days 100 = 13.3 = 7.5 days or 1 Week

Reordering Automatically

Re-Order Process  Download Reports, Inventory Reports, Fulfillment, Inventory Health Report  Sort by Weeks of coverage –t90  Identify lines with less than 4-6 WOC  Check for Profitability and stock levels

Re-Order Process  Re-order based on number ofsales over the last 90 days of coverage  Take the total sold over 90 days and divide by the number of weeks (12) to give number of items on average sold per week  Multiply by 4 weeks or 6 weeks to get order number and round to closest case number.

Re-Order Process  If there is an item with 3 WOC  That item had 25 sales in the last 90 days To find the number of items sold per week-  25 items /12 weeks=2.01 items per week Multiply the number that of sales per week by the number of weeks of coverage you are looking stock  2.01 items per week *8 WOC=16 then round to the nearest case (18 for 6 packs)  Make sure to adjust at beginning/end of seasons

Using Sku’s  We put a product code in our skus so we can search by vendor  RCI= Really Cool Items Inc.  ACME16=Model Number  =Pricing Code RCI-ACME

Filtering By Line  We then use Excel’s filter function to only show the items for that line on Inventory Health Report  Re-run analysis for items with less than 6 weeks coverage and use numbers to determine number of cases to order  Print out Analysis Sheets with Order Numbers for Each Line

Determine Lines to Re-Order  Look at  rank  items sold per week  profitability (from analysis)  Use to rank which lines to re-order first.

Submit Invoices to Vendors  Add item to shipping board  Create labels  Check levels for any prep required  If any listings need to be created do that before the shipment arrives

Items to Consider During Re-Ordering  Stock items first that have  Higher profitability  Quicker Turn  Restocking should be based of more than just a set number  Use reports to determine weeks of coverage on a product

Items to Consider During Re-Ordering  Looks for lines that have excessive returns  Watch for items that are easily damaged and see if additional packing is required  Try to stagger orders that require a lot of prep

Keys to Re-Orders  Always look at fresh profit data  Make sure you are including prep and shipping  Eliminate items that have high return or damage rates  Consider if additional prep is needed and include that in your costs  Stay wide and diverse in your inventory

Homework for Session 5  Find at least 3 listing that in your inventory that could be updated to increase visibility  Get at least 3 more lists and run those numbers

Q and A