Seller Essentials, Author at Seller Essentials

Unpacking Amazon FBA Poly Bag Requirements in 2023

Amazon FBA Poly Bags Navigating the world of Amazon FBA can be a complex task, especially when it comes to understanding the various packaging requirements. One essential aspect that sellers must be aware of is the proper use of poly bags for packaging their products. Not only do these bags ensure that items are protected during transit, but they also play a crucial role in maintaining seller reputation and customer satisfaction. So, what exactly are the requirements for poly bags, and how can sellers ensure that they are meeting Amazon’s guidelines? Let’s dive in and explore the ins and outs of Amazon FBA poly bag requirements in 2023.

In this comprehensive guide, we will unpack the various aspects of Amazon FBA poly bag requirements, such as size and thickness guidelines, suffocation warning labels, and types of poly bags. We’ll also discuss the reasons to use a poly bag for Amazon FBA, packaging oversized items, and where to buy Amazon-compliant poly bags. With this information in hand, sellers will be well-equipped to make informed decisions regarding their packaging needs and ensure they remain in good standing with Amazon. Short Summary

Understand Amazon FBA poly bag requirements and adhere to size/thickness guidelines.
Self-sealing or impulse sealer bags are efficient packaging options for FBA businesses, offering product protection & cost savings.
Buy compliant poly bags from our recommended Amazon Seller Supplies page or trusted vendors such as I Love Supplies or Bubblefast.

Understanding Amazon FBA Poly Bag Requirements When it comes to packaging products for Amazon FBA, poly bags are a popular choice among […]

Unpacking Amazon FBA Poly Bag Requirements in 2023Seller Essentials2025-12-15T05:04:16+00:00

Fulfillment By Amazon vs Fulfillment By Merchant

As an Amazon seller, you need to determine the best way to get your products into the hands of the customer. You have two basic choices: Fulfill the orders yourself (Fulfillment by Merchant, or FBM)), or take advantage of the Amazon system of order processing known as FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). Let’s take a look at both options.

When a buyer visits the Amazon marketplace, the products that they purchase may be coming directly from the Amazon Fulfillment Center, or they may be coming straight from the third-party seller’s home or place of business. As a seller, when you add inventory through Amazon Seller Central, you are prompted to decide whether to ship it yourself, or to have Amazon store, process, and ship your items to the customers.

Amazon Merchant Fulfilled orders are shipped by the seller directly to the customer. In this scenario, the person that is selling on Amazon keeps the inventory in their possession. As orders appear in your Amazon Seller Account, you process the order, package the item(s), and ship them to the customer. Amazon deducts their sales commission from the amount paid by the customer, and the balance is credited to your account.

What is Fulfillment by Amazon?

Alternatively, you have the option of processing the inventory and shipping it, in bulk, to one or more of Amazon’s fulfillment centers prior to the items actually being made available for sale. Currently, there are over 100 of these massive warehouses in the US with more being built all of the time. At the time of this writing, Amazon […]

Fulfillment By Amazon vs Fulfillment By MerchantSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:49:25+00:00

How to Check Your Amazon FBA Returns Report

Amazon FBA Returns are a part of every Amazon seller’s business. Everyone gets them, and nobody likes them, but it’s important to keep track of your returned items as some may be unfulfillable and need to be removed from the warehouse. You do this through the Amazon FBA Returns Report available through Seller Central. Here are the simple steps to access that report:

Click on the “Reports” tab in the menu at the top of the page in Amazon Seller Central.
Select “Fulfillment” from the option in the drop-down menu. This will open a menu on the left side of the page.
Looking at the menu on the left, under Customer Concessions, click “FBA Customer Returns.”
Select the date range you want to view. 30 days is a good time frame to work with, but you may need to do this more frequently as your business grows. If this is your first time looking at this report, you may need to go back further in time to see all of the returns.
After you select the appropriate length of time, select “Generate Report.”

Here you will see all of the items returned during that period, and on the far right you will see the status.

Most items are returned to inventory, although some may be damaged or defective and will be in your “unsellable” inventory. Others will be in good condition and will be returned to your sellable inventory. Items that Amazon has taken responsibility for will be removed from your inventory and reimbursed.

If you find inventory that has been marked as Unsellable, you will need to create a removal order to get the […]

How to Check Your Amazon FBA Returns ReportSeller Essentials2026-03-22T12:42:54+00:00

You Can Learn How to Sell on Amazon

If a How to sell on Amazon article actually existed, one that:

taught the basics of becoming an Amazon Seller
how to set up an account in Amazon Seller Central
how to find products to sell
How to sell them on Amazon
the shipping process
Whether to send products into an Amazon Fulfillment Center
vs. shipping them first to an FBA Prep Center
vs. shipping them one by one from your home or place of business

…that article would actually have to be a complete course, or at the very minimum, a series of articles, and even then, it would likely be incomplete.

Selling on Amazon, much like selling on eBay, is something that millions of people can already put on their resume. The Amazon marketplace is huge, and while they are not the world’s largest retailer (yet), they have become the world’s largest online retailer, one Amazon sale at a time.

So you want to sell on Amazon. Easy enough – Open a Seller Account, and list some products for sale.

Here are the simple steps to get started:

How to Sell on Amazon – Opening an Amazon Seller Account

Step 1: Go to https://services.amazon.com

From there you can click the “Start Selling” link.

Step 2: Fill out the short form. Enter your name, email address that you want to receive communications from Amazon through, and choose and enter your password twice. Click “Next”.

Step 3: After clicking Next, you will then enter your business, tax, and banking information to set up your account. For additional information, there are two basic types of Amazon Seller Accounts discussed here. Go through the sections of […]

You Can Learn How to Sell on AmazonSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:49:15+00:00

Free shipping – Amazon Prime vs. non-Prime

Amazon Prime has many benefits, and FREE two-day shipping is one of the better ones. But if you are an Amazon seller and are buying things from the Amazon website with the intention of reselling them (on or off Amazon), it is against the Amazon Terms of Service to use your Prime membership for these orders.

“But what if you choose something other than the Free two-day shipping?” you ask…

Let’s take a look at an example: I placed a countertop microwave oven into my shopping cart in both my Amazon Prime account, and my non-prime account in order to see the shipping options. Today is Nov 13th.

The Prime account has these 2 options for shipping :

Get it Nov. 15 – FREE
Get it Nov. 18 – FREE (plus receive a $1 reward for select digital items for having all Prime orders delivered together one day per week)

Since I am a Prime member, I automatically get free 2-day shipping (Nov. 15), or I can opt for the combined Prime delivery (one delivery day per week), in which case Amazon will give me a $1 credit on a digital purchase.

The non-prime account has these options:

Get it by Nov. 15 – $31.51 shipping (Prime is FREE)
Get it by Nov. 19 – $17.31
Get it sometime between Nov. 19 and Nov. 22 – FREE

As you can see, no matter which of the non-Prime shipping choices I make, the Prime option is BETTER, and costs Amazon more money. Non-Prime members have to pay over $31 to get the microwave by Friday, but Prime members get it for FREE. Non-Prime […]

Free shipping – Amazon Prime vs. non-PrimeSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:48:03+00:00

Advanced Online Arbitrage Tips for Amazon FBA

Do you know how to do Online Arbitrage? What is Online Arbitrage? Is Online Arbitrage legal?

Online Arbitrage sourcing for Amazon FBA sellers is a great way to operate an Ecommerce business without needing warehouse or office space. You can run your Amazon OA business with nothing more than a laptop computer from anywhere you can get a WiFi signal, while utilizing one or more Third-Party Prep Services to process and ship your items to Amazon. There are many Online Arbitrage Tips that can help you scale this business model, whether you are brand new to Ecommerce, or an experienced business owner who has been selling on Amazon since 1997.

Online Arbitrage Tips

Below I’ve selected 10 Online Arbitrage Tips and Strategies that you can implement right now to optimize your OA business. Even if you are using some arbitrage software, these strategies can help you to realize higher profits, fewer returns, and a better overall OA experience.

Feel free to post questions and comments below the article.

Most OA sellers find that it is impossible to research enough products on their own to run a successful full-time Online Arbitrage business. Arbitrage opportunities are usually tied to the fact that the item is on sale, and replenishable inventory items are few and far between. This forces the OA seller to always be searching for new inventory opportunities.

The best way to overcome this obstacle and accomplish this is by taking advantage of other people’s time and […]

Advanced Online Arbitrage Tips for Amazon FBASeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:48:55+00:00

Amazon Resellers – Arbitrage is hard

IP claims and Restrictions make Retail and Online Arbitrage harder today than ever!

Amazon resellers using OA lists need to be especially careful when Reselling on Amazon.

If you have been selling and reselling on Amazon for any length of time, you no doubt have observed the rise in Intellectual Property violations being filed against sellers by brands, under the guise of “Protecting their rights”. While counterfeit products, trademark infringements, and copyright violations are certainly a reason for concern, many brands have taken the protection of their Intellectual Property to a level that has caused many Amazon resellers to reconsider selling on Amazon altogether.

Here are four easy ways Amazon resellers can protect themselves when reselling on Amazon.

#1 – Join https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmazonSellerPerformance

This Facebook group has up-to-date information on Brands that file claims, Amazon Seller Performance, and how you, as a seller, can respond, and more importantly, how you can keep your account safe. This is the best group on Facebook for real information, not speculation, about safely reselling on Amazon.

#2 – If Arbitrage is your business model, join the Essential Daily Deals OA subscription service.

In operation since 2015 (when arbitrage was easy), Essential Daily Deals uses the most advanced and up-to-date tools to see what products are and are not restricted for new sellers, as well as which brands are known to file IP claims against Amazon resellers. Each business day, the spreadsheet of deals is emailed to the subscribers as well as posted into the private Facebook group. Deals are sorted by non-restricted and potentially restricted, and brands that are known to or thought to file IP claims are pointed out on the list of deals. Where else can […]

Amazon Resellers – Arbitrage is hardSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:50:01+00:00

How to use Keepa to analyze products on Amazon

If Amazon sellers had to eliminate all tools except one from their arsenal, it would be a safe bet that most would want to hang on to Keepa, the Amazon price tracker. But knowing how to use the data that Keepa provides to make informed buying decisions requires some practice. Let’s take a look at a Keepa graph to see what we can find.

AMAZON SALES RANK, as revealed by Keepa

The green line on the Keepa graph represents the sales rank at the time that Keepa looked at the product. The more Keepa users that look at the product on Amazon, the more times Keepa will see the rank, and the more times the change in rank will be recorded on the Keepa chart. It stands to reason that a larger number of sellers will be looking at the products that are currently popular, so Keepa will likely have more information on popular products than on non-popular products. When you look at an item for the first time, Keepa may actually have no information on that product at all.

The current rank shows how that product is positioned in its category in relation to all of the other products in the category. Sales ranks on EVERY product change every time ANY product in that category sells. If there are 1000 products in a category and only 100 of them sell in a day, those 100 will move up in rank and the other 900 will move down in rank. Since the sales take place at different times of the day, the ranks are constantly changing. Since most Amazon categories have hundreds of thousands or […]

How to use Keepa to analyze products on AmazonSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:50:09+00:00

10 Tips for Selling Liquidation

Liquidation is a category of merchandise that can be very profitable to the reseller. It can be very challenging for the inexperienced, so here are a few tips to help you get started.

1. Location is KEY. You, as the buyer, are paying the freight charges to have the inventory delivered to you (even if the seller tells you they are paying for shipping). The closer you are to the origination location, the less you will have to pay to transport the goods. Shipping pallets or truckloads of liquidation merchandise is not cheap.

2. Determine if the liquidator is also selling through retail channels. If they are also selling on eBay, Amazon, etc., chances are they are pulling the best merchandise and retailing it there, selling the remaining items as liquidation. Even if they don’t pull all of the best items for themselves, you don’t want to go into competition with your supplier. They are getting the merchandise cheaper than you and can beat you on price. Every time.

3. Your Reputation is CRITICAL to your success. Your reputation in dealing with liquidators will precede you, so manage your reputation with care. In the liquidation business, you need the suppliers more than they need you.

4. Read the Fine Print. It’s the things you agree to but didn’t read that can come back to bite you. The contracts that you didn’t create are not for your protection. They are not for your benefit (in most cases). Know what you are signing. If the liquidation deals are “so great” that the suppliers want you to sign without reading – Walk away.

5. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. […]

10 Tips for Selling LiquidationSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:50:18+00:00

Keepa and Jungle Scout – Vital Amazon FBA Research Tools

Recently I did a training video for my sourcing team where I demonstrated some interesting and surprising data regarding Keepa and Jungle Scout, two very important and highly recognized tools used by the Amazon FBA selling community. Here is a summary of what was discussed:

There is an item on Amazon that I sold 52 units of in a recent 90 day period. I was not the only seller at the time. My Buy Box percentage was 60% for this item. If all things were equal, based on that information, one could likely conclude that the item sells around 28 per month. For a fact we know that it sells at least 17-18 units per month on average based on my sales alone.

Let’s see what Keepa and Jungle Scout think.

Keepa

Most sellers count each spike or drop on the Keepa chart as indicating a sale. Based on this, Keepa shows 23 sales of this product over the same 90 day period of time. That averages to slightly fewer than 8 per month, which is less than half of my sales alone during that period.

Jungle Scout

Jungle Scout requires the user to click their Chrome browser extension icon while they are on the product page or the search results page, and it shows an estimate of the number of monthly sales based on their algorithm. For this item, Jungle Scout estimates 6 sales a month during the same time frame.

Here is the takeaway:

Keepa is not seeing everything that takes place on every Amazon page. If no one with Keepa has […]

Keepa and Jungle Scout – Vital Amazon FBA Research ToolsSeller Essentials2025-07-20T17:50:37+00:00

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