Royal Mail FBM reporting

[jay allen]

Struggling to find anyone that has managed to do this problem. I have a amazon account and we dispatch ourself and buy the shipping through amazon. Im after a report that can attribute the postage cost next to the amazon order. Royal mail do not have this i have contacted them and searched anywhere. Only the totals of each service and qty. And also as far as i can see amazon also do not have this. Its unbelievable that I cannot have some report as im trying to work out profit but if you dont have accurate postage details you can never accurately complete this.

Has anyone managed to do this? I can see the cost manually but we do hundreds a day so its too slow to click into each transaction to do this.

 

[Nudge]

A potential workaround could be using Amazon’s Transaction Reports in Seller Central. Sometimes the Settlement Report or the Order Report can include partial shipping cost data. If Amazon doesn’t break it down per order, another option might be using a third-party integration like A2X Accounting or Sellerboard, which can pull more detailed financial data and help attribute costs correctly. Some sellers also use custom scripts via Amazon’s API to extract shipping details, but that requires a bit of technical setup.

 

[AmazonGeek]

Sellerboard will probably do this and it isn't expensive. Any reason why you are doing all the legwork yourself and not using FBA? Is it a big/heavy product for example?

 

[AlanJ1]

Sellerboard will probably do this and it isn't expensive. Any reason why you are doing all the legwork yourself and not using FBA? Is it a big/heavy product for example?

+1 to sellerboard from when I last used it.

I'll comment on FBA it has massive pros which we know of but also massive cons. Getting re-stock in at Chrismtas is a nightmare and storage fees if things are going slower than expected. No mind limits on some accounts too! (My UK account was fine when I last properly did Amazon but our USA had tiny limits).

 

[AmazonGeek]

Yes you have to manage you inventory but there are tools to help with that (Helium 10 for example). If you have stock to hand (which you must have to fulfil them yourselves) then it is relatively easy to manage (harder for people like me who ship from the factory in China directly into amazon).

Little and often is the key - start small with cartons for your best sellers and work your way up to pallets. The advantages are huge - not least being that you are visible to prime customers ticking the green box (if you are FBM and not qualifying for seller-fulfilled prime then you are invisible).

Also, in many cases the cost is the same or cheaper (especially when you factor in the cost of fulfilling yourself - staff, customer service, warehousing, insurance, utilities, being responsible for delivery, etc)

 

[AlanJ1]

Also, in many cases the cost is the same or cheaper (especially when you factor in the cost of fulfilling yourself - staff, customer service, warehousing, insurance, utilities, being responsible for delivery, etc)

I would agree with this, however not if Amazon isn't your main platform.

When I was with my last company doing a few million on Amazon, B2B was much more of the business so the stock in Amazon was only able to be sold on Amazon which could cause stocking issues as it can be "stuck" - I am sure you are well aware how long when they are "busy" it can take to remove stock as well as them sending them in 1 box at a time! Think our record was 300pcs of stock came back in 85 Amazon boxes from different FCs!

We aren't big on Amazon with current role. Most brands won't allow us to sell.

 

[AmazonGeek]

I get that. Not for everyone and yes, removing stock can take a while since it is spread across about 20 locations and they don't prioritise it.

However, at the very least sellers should look at their main sellers and consider sending them into FBA. All things equal you will always sell more with an FBA offer than an FBM one because of the extra visibility and the fact that Amazon customers prefer FBA rather than someone they have potentially never heard of.

You can of course use MCF to fulfil non-Amazon orders from your FBA inventory. It is more expensive but simplifies things. For example I also sell on Ebay and my website but everything automatically gets fulfilled by Amazon.

 

[AlanJ1]

You can of course use MCF to fulfil non-Amazon orders from your FBA inventory. It is more expensive but simplifies things. For example I also sell on Ebay and my website but everything automatically gets fulfilled by Amazon.

100% agree,

but at a busy period Amazon will always prioritise FBA orders from there warehouse. We had many issues where a next day took days to dispatch from the FC.

However, at the very least sellers should look at their main sellers and consider sending them into FBA. All things equal you will always sell more with an FBA offer than an FBM one because of the extra visibility and the fact that Amazon customers prefer FBA rather than someone they have potentially never heard of.

Fully agree with this!