Goodbye To Clunky Software, Meet Boxem.

To get to the shipping templates page, you’ll go to the gear menu in the top right of the seller central page, then hit shipping settings, from there, you’ll hit create new template. 

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This is a basic shipping template example to use, and you’ll build your own strategies overtime. It’s important to not that when you sell on Amazon FBM you don’t pay FBA fees, but you do pay individual shipping costs, and when you sell on Amazon FBA you don’t pay individual shipping, but you do pay Amazon FBA fees. Which are both based on size and weight, so there typically isn’t much extra profit in general for selling a product with either fulfillment type, the one exception is items that are above $20+ but well below 1lb, which tend to FBM really nicely. Just make sure you actually run the FBM numbers in SellerAmp when calculator your numbers.

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To start, we recommend doing free shipping for economy and standard orders for all areas, as shown below:

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Now here’s where it gets fancy, for next day, 2 day, and expedited orders you probably do want to charge something between $30-50 + $1/lb, if you don’t want to unnecessarily lose profit in some cases. Amazon does however weirdly police some people on this and others not, so if you get an email from Amazon saying you are charging too much just update it.

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In Q4, TONS of customers will pay big $$$ for shipping to get their items to you sooner, if you have your shipping templates set up correctly, you’ll make extra profit and never get caught overpaying out of pocket for shipping.

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In terms of purchasing shipping for FBM orders, always buy whatever is cheapest via Amazon, occasionally Amazon will be super expensive, in which case you should test PirateShip.

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If a customer pays for $42 expedited shipping for an order and when you go to buy shipping on Amazon it gives you the option to pay $12, you just made an extra $30 on that sale, it just means that even the cheaper shipping will still get your order on time to the customer.

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Overtime you’ll get fancier and charge specific amounts extra for certain locations far away from you, and may even do shorter transit time as well, just make sure your customers are happy.

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0 Day Handling time is another great way to increase your FBM buybox share, found via hitting shipping settings then general shipping settings.

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Boxes from Walmart and polymailers from Amazon in 9x12 and 12x15.5 are great places to start for FBM suppliers.

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Boxem now offers FBM listing, on top of FBA shipments, 2D barcodes, and advanced analytics, you can get a 2 week free trial here.

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Hope this helps!

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How Merchant Fulfillment Works

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Merchant fulfillment is the other way to sell on Amazon along with FBA.

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With FBM, you ship products directly to the customer instead of shipping them in bulk to FBA.

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So rather than big UPS bulk boxes it’s individual packages via USPS and UPS generally speaking. 

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When FBM > FBA

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There is a very bad myth out there that FBM doesn’t work or isn’t scalable. This is very false. I write this as somebody who has done multiple $50,000+ proift months off FBM orders alone, not even counting FBA.

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While Amazon does favor the FBA sellers on a listing in general, there are still so many cases where you can verifiably see FBM sellers getting BuyBox and making sales. Especially look for listings where right when you open it you see the seller in the BuyBox does not ship from Amazon, they ship from themselves.

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When FBM makes the most sense are two scenarios - lots of other people FBMing a listing or when that item is in high seasonal demand.

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If you see price going up and competition going down, they generally qualify an item as FBM friendly.

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Basically everything is FBM friendly in December during Q4 - the best time of the year for FBM.

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FBM lets you avoid check in times to Amazon as well as learn quicker, make sales quicker, and you can test items lighter, it’s a major win for new sellers.

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How Shipping Works For FBM

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For FBA, you print the FBA box labels and shipping labels on Boxem, then take them to UPS and ship them out.

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For FBM it’s a tad more complicated, typically for individual orders you’ll have lots of different items so it’ll be a mix of USPS and UPS.

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Luckily Amazon’s buy shipping portal makes this easy. 

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You bake the shipping into your cost and charge free shipping for standard and economy orders on Amazon…

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The reason this works is because with Amazon FBA you pay FBA fees but you don’t pay individual shipping but you do pay FBA fees, which are based on size and weight.

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When you do FBM you don’t pay FBA fees but you do pay individual shipping, which is based on size and weight.

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It’s pretty much the same thing in most cases. 

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Estimated Shipping Costs

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This is very important because it’s a huge mistake lots of new sellers make - not doing FBM numbers correctly on SellerAmp.

Instead of doing what they should be doing and scrolling down then toggling to the FBM numbers on SellerAmp, they simply subtract the FBM shipping cost from the FBA profit calculator numbers. Wrong.

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Scroll down and toggle to FBM numbers on SellerAmp to get the FBM calculator working, then use these estimates relative to weight:

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0-3oz $3.5-4.5

4-7 oz $4.5-5.5

8-11 oz $5-6.5

12-15oz $5.5-6.5

1lb-3lb+ $9-13

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Nice and easy and eventually you’ll memorize it!

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What Supplies To Use

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Supplies to use, don’t overcomplicate it!

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Most FBM orders I’ve sold go in a polymailer. I like the grey 9x12, 12x15.5, and 19 x 24 poly mailers from Amazon.

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For FBM you don’t need any FNSKU labels, just the 4x6 (or close) labels that you can get free from UPS or cheap from Amazon. Just look up “UPS free shipping supplies on Google”.

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Boxes I like to use Walmart and Uline ones, you specifically will know the sizes you need, start with Walmart then go to Uline to buy bulk.

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The nice thing is Amazon prime can get you supplies ASAP and Walmart rarely runs out, so you can get more on the fly if you need. 

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FBM Shipping Templates & Settings

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Shipping templates and settings can be confusing for beginners - no more though!

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For shipping templates, we recommend charging free shipping for economy and standard orders (remember for FBM there are no FBA fees, so it's basically the same) and just bake it into your costs.

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As well for the next day, 2 days, and expedited orders charge $30 + $1/lb.

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Occasionally, a customer will pay $32 for a 2lb expedited FBM order and Amazon will only charge you $12 if you buy the label fast, leading to lots of extra profit!

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Always buy whatever shipping is cheapest, which will primarily be USPS for under 1 lb and UPS for over 1lb. Buy shipping through Amazon but if it is randomly super expensive buy on Pirate Ship. This will happen occasionally. 

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0 day handling time is a major hack to get more BuyBox shares as well in shipping settings.

It’s more work to ship items out the same day if they’re before the handling time you set, but Amazon also gives you a lot more BuyBox. We highly recommend putting in the extra effort with 0DHT to get moving in the algo. 

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What Items Sell Best FBM

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Everything sells well on FBM, if you can see other sellers FBMing it. If its dominated by FBA sellers or entirely FBA sellers, it’s probably not a good item to FBM. 

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Learn to look at the BuyBoxStatistics on Keepa to gauge how FBM friendly an item is. 

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Purely on a math basis there isn’t much difference between FBM and FBA. But items that are above $20+ but below 1lb tend to be a little bit better FBM.

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The same goes for items that have multiple listings to list on, FBM gives you the flexibility to spread your stock around and move it back and forth as you get orders on the different asins. 

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Best Times Of Year for FBM

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The best times of the year for merchant fulfilled are during back to school and Q4 when all the holidays hit like Black Friday, Christmas, and Thanksgiving, because Amazon fulfillment center’s get so backed up with check in times, FBM get more and more share of the BuyBox. This is when it’s really time to capitalize with FBM. 

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Every item is unique and if you see other seller’s FBMing an item, you probably can too. All times of the year there are items that are seasonally seeing a demand increase, these items tend to be FBM friendly always, but once again, check the data.

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There is a simple magic of buying online pickup in store orders or retail arbitrage then listing the items the same day and getting sales during BTS and Q4. 

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We hope this guide was helpful for you guys, it’s our goal at Boxem to make selling products on Amazon simple and profitable.

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Other FBM FAQ

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How does pricing for FBM work?

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Same as FBA! Start out matching BuyBox. 

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How does listing for FBM work?

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List your FBM items via Boxem nice and easy. 

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Are there special labels for FBM?

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Nope! Nice and simple you just put the shipping label on the package, the item in the package, seal it up and you’re good to go. 

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What is vacation mode?

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If you’re going on vacation, vacation mode temporarily shuts down your FBM listings, not your FBA listings. 

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Can I do FBM and FBM at the same time, or even on the same listing at the same time?

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Yes and Yes!

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Can I do USPS and UPS pickups for FBM orders?

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Yes you can! Pirateship is a great place to do this.

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If you enjoyed this guide, check our out full Q4 guide to help you maximize your Q4 this year (Hyperlink to Q4 guide)

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Or our 6 hour free course for the whole free blueprint. 

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-Miles

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Important Dates For Q4

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Q4 is the fourth quarter of the year, spanning from October 1st to December 31st when consumer spending is the highest it is all year. This provides a massive opportunity for us as sellers to take advantage of higher demand, which leads to higher prices and lower competition.

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Early October - October Prime Day. Underrated sourcing time as retailers are competing with Amazon’s prime day deals which means more profit for us as sellers. This is mostly stock to FBA unless you see lots of people FBMing a listing, pump that stock to FBA with Boxem. Important to not speculate on inventory going up in price. This is a huge mistake beginners make. Focus on quick flips the whole time. 

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Late October - Halloween. Good sourcing sales this Holiday. Similar to any other major Holiday, Q4 demand has not peaked here yet, it hasn’t even really begun. 

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Early November - Early Black Friday Sales. The most underrated time of the year for sourcing! Deals are flowing left and right and it’s a great time to get your last stock to FBA for the year and to start to get FBM listings up on items that you can see other sellers FBMing on. 

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November 15th - 20th. This is always a popular question, when to slow down on FBA shipments and transition to FBM. This highly depends on your strategy and what warehouse you ship to and how their check in times are. But it should be around November 15th to 20th. Every specific product is unique and will become FBM friendly at a different time, but industry wide mid November is when a lot of items start to wake up, and when FBA check in times slow down. You don’t want to get caught with backordered FBA stock during peak Q4 in December, and don’t forget to use 2D barcodes for faster check in times. 

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Sunday Before Thanksgiving - This is when Black Friday sales officially kick off, several days before actual Black Friday. This gives you the chance to have FBM inventory listed during BF that you bought several days before during BF sales. Very important to be ready for the best deals of the year here. 

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Black Friday Cyber Monday - The best sourcing days of the year, and it’s not even close. Deals are going on everywhere here. Focus on taking full advantage of testing wide on as many asins as possible and getting them listed ASAP via merchant fulfilled.

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December 1st - Major FBM season officially kicks off. No more time for FBA shipments as check in times are very slow. Very important to note, many deals continue to be good all through early December for “early christmas” sales that are either the same as BFCM or a slightly worse version that ends up being better because Amazon prices rise. 

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December 5th to 20th - Peak Q4! The best time of the year by far. If you are planning to take any time off from your 9-5, do it in this timeframe. This actually won’t consist of much sourcing if you do it right, you’ll just be restocking stuff. This is also when you raise expedited shipping costs and raise prices on proven winners if you wanna get extra profit. I only recommend playing the raise pricing game for proven items. December 10th to 12th tend to be the best days of the entire year. But it’s important to note those days will be whenever you have your inventory and pricing strategy dialed in the best. 

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Christmas - Early January - Gift card season! And FBM slows down. However every item is unique. Listings don’t just go from good to bad in 1 day, they slowly become worse, and you don’t restock them. Many beginners think one day Q4 season just ends, when every item has its own timeline. 

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How to Change Your Gameplay During Q4

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During Q4, your strategy should be different from other times of the year. Q4 is a very compressed 2 month window of massive opportunity between Early November and Late December that can produce 30-50% of your results for the entire year, and catapult you to new heights. 

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Instead of doing lots of FBA, Q4 will have lots of merchant fulfilled, because competition is so low at the peak, prices skyrocket, and demand is through the roof because of all the holidays going on.

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Q4 is a lot of initial testing then hammering your best asins. The goal is to find 5-20 core asins you can squeeze to the moon. 

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How I Crushed My First Q4

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I had no idea what to do going into my first Q4, then I made $50,000 profit in just December. This was when I was building the strategies I’m sharing in this blog post for you guys in real time.

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It’s a mad rush of restocking, raising prices, and long hours fulfilling FBM orders.

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Really digging deep.

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I sourced a lot less than I expected too (was too busy restocking items), prepackaged items for FBM which was a game changer, and leveraged the early Christmas deals that kept going all through December as well as evergreen coupons.

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There are no rules, build your own strategy, have fun, think long term, and enjoy the ride!

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What Products Sell Best?

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This is a very popular question, truth be told everything improves in demand. A lot of new sellers get shiny object syndrome and want to pivot to toys.

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Focus on anything that is giftable. 

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Toys, beauty items, seasonal grocery, sporting goods, shoes, and clothing. Basically anything. Whatever you can consistently find profitable is the stuff you should focus on. 

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What To Get Ungated In

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Many new sellers are worried about getting ungated quick for new items during Q4, but truth be told you’ll be doing the least ungating you ever do most likely during Q4, cause you can be more focused and just take easy wins that are amplified due to seasonal demand.

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Definitely have the toy category unlocked, and as many big shoe brands as possible.

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Watch my full ungating tutorial here. 

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Sourcing For Q4

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Sourcing for Q4 does not exist. I want to make that very clear. Do not buy stuff and speculate, otherwise your competition will just pay less than you during BFCM. I recommend just sticking to your normal strategies and playing your game.

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As a beginner, you should primarily focus on storefront stalking, then do manual sourcing only on websites that have served you well. 

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A lot of beginners waste tons of time doing manual sourcing on unproven websites, or buy stuff and hope for it to go up in price and become profitable. Those sellers tend to get steamrolled by those who just buy quick flips. 

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Finding an Edge

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Sourcing during Q4 is easier than any other time, if you use the right discounting methods.

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Saving leads in SellerAmp Google Sheets and using the Keepa tracking alerts feature. 

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The problem is most beginners still don’t use all the ways to make items cheaper.

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What do I mean by this?

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Discounted gift cards from CardBear and TopCashback for another 4-10% off.

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Using a Catchall email via NameCheap for unlimited email coupons.

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Using free extensions like Capital 1 Shopping to find coupons.

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Seeing if the retailer has any sort of email, account, or text signup coupon on their website. 

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Asking customer service, networking with other sellers, and digging around on Google for further coupons.

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Rewards programs like Kohl's Cash and RackRoomShoes rewards.

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Maximizing their cashback with Rakuten and TopCashBack. 

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If you combine multiple of these and factor them in, a lot more items start to become profitable. Very few items are profitable at the advertised price on a retailer, you have to make them profitable.

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Retail Arbitrage

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While I think retail arbitrage during Black Friday is a mess, I do love the idea of some RA during the quieter days and last minute buy online pickup in store orders.

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Big websites will let you source your local stores from home using the filter to my store settings, and there’s been 10+ times I’ve picked up 200+ units from one store, and gotten them shipped out to FBA the same day or the merchant fulfilled them ASAP within 24 hours.

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Compare that to the normal cash flow cycle and it’s obvious why RA can be such a game changer. Make sure your local retail employees know you and that you take care of them and make their life easier. 

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Merchant Fulfilled Strategy

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FBM is a game changer for Q4. With a normal OA to FBA purchase, even with 2D barcodes check in times can take awhile especially during Q4.

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It takes 3-7 days for the OA order to arrive, then 1-3 weeks for it to check in.

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Meanwhile with FBM you can load that item into your inventory right when it arrives from the OA supplier. Some sellers love buy online pickup in store orders to get items to market ASAP.

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With FBM you learn quicker, make money quicker, and can restock sooner.

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I love 0 day Handling time to get more BuyBox share. It’s in your settings, it’s more work, but also more profit. 

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Merchant Fulfilled Supplies

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This is super important!

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I like 9x12, 12x15.5, and 19x24 grey poly mailers from Amazon.

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And boxes from Walmart or Uline. Just make sure they don’t have any branding on them. 15x12x10 and 12x10x8 box ranges are my jam.

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Merchant Fulfilled Shipping Templates

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This is a big mistake beginners make by not setting this up.

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I recommend charging free shipping for standard and economy orders.

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Then $30 + $1/lb for next day, 2 day, and expedited orders, some people even do more, many people raise these as Q4 evolves. Build your own strategy. 

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Merchant Fulfilled Shipping Costs

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For FBM costs to put into SellerAmp, use this guide:

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0-3oz $3.5-4.5

4-7 oz $4.5-5.5

8-11 oz $5-6.5

12-15oz $5.5-6.5

1lb-3lb+ $9-13 

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Buy shipping primarily through Amazon, just doing whatever is cheapest. Occasionally Amazon will be super expensive so check pirateship. If you ever charge a customer $32 for an expedited order thanks to the $30 + $1/pound templates, and Amazon charges you $12, you just made an extra $20 profit. 

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A huge mistake lots of beginners make is NOT toggling to FBM on SellerAmp leading them to think nothing is profitable FBM, when they’re actually doing it incorrectly. 

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Restocking & Going Deep

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Beginners always ask me when the right time to go deep on items are, especially during Q4. 

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The only time to go deep on an item in my opinion is when it’s already proven, aka it already sold really well.

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Too many beginners go deep on unproven items. 

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The nice thing about FBM is that you can restock stuff super quick, so you don’t need to go super hard on anything that hasn’t already done really well for you.

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Q4 Mistakes To Avoid

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Q4 mistakes to avoid include getting shiny object syndrome and trying to buy just toys. As well as buying stuff and hoping they go up in price.

 Another huge one is not having your shipping templates and FBM settings set up correctly.

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When it gets easy is when you go hard, and Q4 is that time for Amazon arbitrage sellers. 

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Hope this helps!

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Q4 can be a completely life changing time for you, it’s time to go hard.

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Doing 9,000 FBM orders one December really took a lot out of me, but it was worth it for the money for another $50,000 in profit or so. FBA stock carries a lot of good weight too!

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Whatever your Q4 goals are, work hard, stay consistent, and take so much action that it would be unreasonable for it not to work.

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Your friend,

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Flips4Miles