Amazon Requiring Send to Amazon Workflow for Sellers: September 2022

UPDATE: Send to Amazon has been postponed until October 16, 2022. In the ever-changing world of Amazon, a new requirement is launching starting October 16, 2022, resulting in a new way to send products to Amazon FBA.

We had previously reported on a new process that Amazon is rolling out called Send to Amazon, which changed the way that 3P sellers ship products in to Amazon (read below). This change was previously set to go into effect on September 1, 2022. As we expected, in Seller Central, we saw a notice that Amazon has postponed the mandated rollout of this program to October 16, 2022, which gives sellers some additional time to react and create processes that adapt to the new workflow.

We suspect that Amazon postponed this rollout in response to the negative feedback that they were getting from sellers as well as bugs within their system that had not been fixed. Although we could see that October 16 date change again, we urge sellers to continue adapting this new workflow into their process so that they are prepared when Amazon makes it a requirement.

 As always, if you have questions or need help adapting to this change on Amazon, please reach out to us!

What is Send to Amazon?

Amazon has announced that the older version, Send/Replenish Inventory, which historically has been the way most sellers send in their products, is being permanently depreciated and replaced with a new workflow called Send to Amazon. We have recently begun implementing this new workflow, and have found challenges and issues with the changes along the way. While reporting these issues to Amazon, we have had to adapt to the changes and found workarounds for the challenges that have appeared during the migration.

In their News release regarding the update, Amazon said that the new workflow allows you to do the following:

• Create shipments with simplified steps that include training videos.
• Create reusable case-pack templates to save box-level information and prep and labeling details when you use the same configuration for single-SKU boxes. With these templates, you can avoid re-entering the details each time that you replenish inventory.
• Add both single-SKU and mixed-SKU boxes to the same workflow.
• Pack your boxes in advance or just in time when you’re ready to ship.

Adapting to Send to Amazon 

From our experience testing this rollout, and comparing it to Amazon’s noted enhancements, we have found that:

• Creating shipments is simpler, as you can select prep-requirement defaults, and no longer must do so at the SKU level
• The templates are not helpful, and provide little value for sellers who have multiple arrangements of products being sent in
• The UI workflow, and breakdown is tougher to find/follow shipment paths than the original dashboard
• Our warehouse team has had to adapt to how we track each individual shipment through our internal system, while also having a record to pick/pack against
• We are working with larger amounts of inventory at one time because we are working with the workflow upload, and not the individual shipments (which historically, were smaller)
• We do have more inventory going to one specific warehouse than previously, because of us packing inventory into the same box that we previously would not have

As we navigate these recent changes, we know that Amazon has not worked out all the bugs, and expect that over time, additional enhancements will be made to make it more accessible to all sellers. If you are a client looking for additional information, contact your strategist or if you are interested in learning more about how Retail Bloom can assist your brand efforts in online marketplaces, schedule a consultation with our team. 

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