There’s no rest for the weary seller on Amazon. Prepare for 10 of the most important changes expected to take place in the following weeks.
Happy to have survived the holiday season, many Amazon merchants may assume that now would be a good time to take a break. But if history teaches us anything, it’s that January’s not the time to put off dealing with Amazon returns, refunds and many other issues.
So, let’s look at some of the things you should expect to see happening in the coming weeks, and that you should try to tackle as early as possible:
More Returns to Deal With
Now that recipients can return unwanted gifts without letting the sellers know in advance, returns can be especially challenging. Amazon has streamlined the return process so that both buyer and recipient can apply for one. It only takes a few seconds to print your labels, as explained here. Recipients get gift cards in exchange for returning the items, while buyers receive refunds.
We shared some tips from Opened Box Returns in a guest post a couple of years ago. ‘Don’t Procrastinate’ was at the top of the list, and we can’t stress enough how important it is to handle your returns promptly. With fewer sales coming in, this is a good time to catch up on old returns, too.
More Refunds to Process
As we explained in a previous post, Amazon expects you to issue refunds within 48 hours of receiving the items back, or 15 days if you’re made an appeal and it was declined. In terms of restocking fees, you can continue to charge customers or recipients returning unwanted gifts up to 20% of the price. Expect to spend a few more hours this month trying to decide what to charge which customer.
More Rebates to Offer
You’ll probably try to offer every customer who says they want to return their items a discount first, and then a refund. These negotiations can take up a lot of time and effort, so make sure you have a good template in place for partial refunds and deductions.
More Discounts to Calculate
It’s not unusual to find yourself stuck with excess inventory in January. If so, now would be a good time to decide if you’d rather spend money storing those goods or sell them for discount sale prices. That’s especially important if you use FBA and want to avoid increasing storage fees. To apply discounts across all or part of your inventory, consider using Sellery Smartlists.
More Customers Redeeming Gift Cards
More and more customers rely on Amazon gift cards and vouchers when they’re out of Christmas gift ideas. So, you may see orders pouring in unexpectedly even in January. Make sure your stock levels are sufficiently high, and be more flexible with your seasonal workers. To keep a close eye on stock levels and safety stocks, use Sellery Smartlists and scheduled exports for accurate and up-to-date information.
More Metrics to Monitor
Improving your performance metrics may not have been on your list of New Year’s Resolutions, but it’s something you should give some thought to. Metrics matter now more than ever. Complaint and return rates are higher after the holiday season, and feedback scores and metrics tend to be lower.
More Scouting To Do
You need to stock up on new merchandise for Q1, and now would be a good time to be prudent. After the holiday season, sales ranks tend to soar for best-sellers. Sales ranks are category-specific and only the best ones are updated hourly, so don’t base your buying decisions on them alone. It’s best to look up an item’s sales rank history using apps with that type of functionality built in (like the CamelCamelCamel feature embedded in Profit Bandit).
More Prices to Tweak
In terms of sales volume, you may have a mid-January slump. So make ready for Q1 by rethinking your repricing strategies. If you’re not using a repricer, now would be a good time to start looking into some software solutions. Which brings us to point 9 below…
More Tools to Test
From scouting to label printing, there are countless business processes that Amazon sellers could streamline using dedicated software tools. A list of the ones we offer is available to browse on our Products page.
More Research to Carry Out
Whether your sales in January are strong or dwindling, this would be a good time for an assessment of how things went in Q4. Strong points, weaknesses, risks, avoidable problems, showstoppers and all manners of issues need to be examined and addressed now.
The new year has a lot in store for Amazon sellers. But it’s not only past and future changes to Amazon policies or fees that you need to factor into your analysis. Come up with a backup plan and make allowances for power outages, bad weather, influenza epidemics, or any other problem that may have affected your performance in Q4.
Iulia is one of SellerEngine’s Repricing Experts. She takes pride in being kind and helpful and goes by the saying ”sharing is caring”.