Ecommerce News Roundup: January Recap
We’ve provided an overview of some of the past month’s top Amazon news. Check out Amazon’s latest policies and updates below.
New bulk image upload tool
Now Amazon sellers can upload their product images faster with the new bulk image upload tool. Previously, sellers could only upload images and view the upload status for one product at a time. They can now upload up to 5 GB of images at once and view the status of all the uploads in Seller Central.
Updates to the Inventory Performance Index (IPI) Help page and IPI FAQs
Inventory Performance Index (IPI) is a score that measures how efficient and productive sellers are in managing your FBA inventory. Amazon has recently updated the Inventory performance (IPI) Help page and IPI frequently asked questions Help page to provide additional guidance on how to understand, improve, and maintain your IPI score.
Free EORI and VAT registration in UK and EU using VAT Services on Amazon
Starting January 1, 2021, there will be a customs border between the UK and EU that will affect businesses working across the border. Sellers need to obtain both a UK and EU EORI (Economic Operators Registration and Identification) number to move inventory into or out of the UK and any EU countries from January 1, 2021. A single EU EORI number will be sufficient for all EU countries.
Amazon is offering a free one-year subscription to VAT Services. The VAT compliance solution allows sellers to manage European VAT registration and filing obligations through a third-party tax service provider. VAT Services on Amazon can handle registration in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Sellers can also obtain both UK and an EU EORI number free of charge*. To avail this offer, you need to log in through your EU Seller Central account.
* Free EORI service is provided by your tax service provider, who will also determine the appropriate country in the EU to apply for an EU EORI number.
Browser changes for your Seller Central experience
Starting January 31, 2021, Amazon no longer supports Internet Explorer. This change will empower Amazon’s development teams to innovate and deliver upgrades to the Seller Central website.
If you are currently using Internet Explorer, you can switch to a supported web or mobile browser to avoid any disruption. The options include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge.
For more information, see a list of browsers and operating systems supported for Seller Central.
All Offers Display (AOD) launching to help customers compare offers
All Offers Display (AOD) is a new way to compare offers on Amazon and replace the Offer Listing Page (OLP).
On desktop, this change makes it easier for customers to view and compare additional offers without leaving the context of the Search and Detail Page. In the new experience, Amazon has increased the prominence of AOD links on the Detail Page by switching from a link to a button to improve the discoverability of links for customers. On mobile, the updated experience provides customers access to key information at a glance without navigating to a secondary view to see all necessary information.
To learn more about All Offers Display, click here.
How to prevent FBA shipping problems
Your inventory can be available for sale sooner when your shipments comply with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) policy. Common shipping problems include abandoning shipments (not shipping certain shipments from your approved plan), deleting shipments, and deleting ASINs from certain shipment IDs when those ASINS are also being shipped on other shipment or manifest IDs.
How to avoid these shipping problems:
- Train your employees on FBA’s shipping policies.
- Have your suppliers confirm that inventory is available for the entire shipping plan before you confirm the shipping plan with Amazon.
- Once you approve a shipping plan, add validation steps to make sure that your products are shipped to Amazon as stated in the plan. This includes sending the stated quantity of each product in that plan to each assigned Amazon facility.
Don’t delete any of the shipments in a multi-destination shipping plan after you approve that plan. If you delete portions of a shipping plan, or if Amazon doesn’t receive all of the shipments in your approved multi-destination shipping plan within 30 days after the first shipment in that plan arrives at our facilities, Amazon will notify you that your shipments aren’t compliant with this policy. The exception is when one or more of your shipments is delayed solely because of the action or omission of an Amazon partnered carrier.
For more information, see FBA inventory requirements.
Watch the new Brand Analytics video
Brand owners selling in Amazon Stores can make smarter, faster business decisions with powerful reporting from Amazon Brand Analytics. Brand Analytics allows you to monitor your brand performance and get customer insights with reports on search terms, repeat purchase behavior, market basket analysis, item comparison, alternate purchase behavior, and demographics. You can watch Brand Analytics video to learn more information.
Manage your advertising in a single dashboard
A Manager account is a centralized solution for advertisers, agencies, and tool providers that manage multiple sponsored ads advertising accounts.
Now sellers can link accounts, manage user access, and view account-level alerts, insights, and performance metrics in a single dashboard. Here are the benefits below:
- Effective prioritization: Easily determine account and campaign prioritization by sorting and filtering based on your goals.
- Improved insights view: View and export all performance metrics (sales, spend, orders, clicks, impressions, CTR, CPC, etc.) in a CSV file for all your linked accounts.
- Streamlined billing and payments: Invite your accounts payable team to download invoices, monitor your linked accounts, and get notifications for overdue invoices or account suspensions.
- Efficient user access management: Invite new users to all your linked accounts at once.
If you operate in multiple locales, you can now link country-specific accounts into a single, regional-based manager account. For example, you can link European accounts for the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, or North American accounts for the US, Canada, and Mexico.
Create your first manager account or learn more in Amazon’s blog post.
Important: Drop Shipping Policy update
If you fulfill using drop shipping, you have to follow all Amazon policies in order to ensure a consistent customer experience that easily identifies only you as the seller of record.
Any violation of our Drop Shipping Policy will negatively impact your account health and your ability to fulfill future orders using our Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN).
The following drop shipping methods are strictly prohibited on Amazon:
- You may not purchase products from another retailer and have that retailer ship directly to customers, if:
- the shipment does not identify you as the seller of record
- anyone other than you appears on packing slips, invoices, or external packaging
Note: This means that the name, logo, or any other identifying information from the other retailer may not appear on what the customer receives.
- You may not ship orders with packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information indicating a seller name or contact information other than your own
If you fulfill using drop shipping, you must strictly adhere to the following requirements of our policy:
- You must always be the seller of record of your products, meaning you identify yourself as the seller of your products on all information included with the item.
- Remove any information identifying the third-party drop shipper before shipping.
- Be responsible for accepting and processing customer returns.
You should comply with all terms of your seller agreement and applicable Amazon policies. If you have questions, see the Drop Shipping Policy page.
FBA New Selection program
Last April, Amazon announced the FBA New Selection program, and since then, over 60,000 enrolled sellers have sent over 680,000 new-to-FBA ASINs to their fulfillment centers. Amazon is expanding the program this year. The new benefits are included below:
- Oversize item eligibility
Starting April 1, 2021, for up to 30 units per parent ASIN, Amazon will provide free storage for up to 90 days and free removals for up to 180 days for eligible oversize items.
- Sponsored advertising
Starting April 1, 2021, for eligible sellers, Amazon will offer promotional credits for sponsored ads.
- ASIN limit
Starting April 1, 2021, Amazon will remove the 500-ASIN limit, allowing an unlimited amount of eligible, new-to-FBA ASINs to qualify for program benefits.
- Benefits for apparel and shoes
Starting April 1, 2021, for eligible parent ASINs, Amazon will extend free storage from 90 days to 120 days for up to 100 units per parent ASIN (up from 50 units). In addition, Amazon will extend eligibility for the customer returns processing fee waiver from 120 days to 180 days, and the waiver will apply to 20 units instead of 50 units, per parent ASIN.
Get more information on the FBA New Selection Program
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