Packaging and prepping items correctly before shipping them off can make a huge difference in your sales as well as your account health. You may be thinking what does this have to do with my account health and sales? It’s important that sellers understand and follow the Amazon packaging and prep requirements in order to ensure their items get processed through the Amazon FBA warehouses quickly and to avoid any extra fees.
Let’s say you send your products in and they are supposed to be sold together, but you didn’t package them right and the FBA center sold them separately. The person who is expecting both parts of the product will now only receive one part of it, which will result in them leaving a negative review or simply returning the product. This can lead to problems with your sales and account health because the negative reviews and returns are going to hurt your health. New customers viewing the product will read the negative reviews and this will hurt your sales because as we know, people are not going to buy a product that has multiple negative reviews.
Amazon states they may refuse, return, or repackage any product delivered to a fulfillment center with inadequate or non-compliant packaging at your expense.
How To Avoid Problems with Amazon Packaging and Prep Requirements
The first thing to consider is the type of product you are trying to ship off. Double check the restricted items list to make sure it is something that is allowed. Below is what Amazon requires:
All Photos from Sellercentral.amazon.com
Amazon Packaging and Prep Requirements include the following:
Loose Products
When it comes to loose products, Amazon wants the seller to have each unit including multiple volume book sets be contained with a single secure package. If you prefer a visual example, check out this video below.
Prepping Products Sold as a Set
Products that are sold as sets have to be marked with a label that states that it is to be received and sold as a single unit. The label should read ‘Sold as Set’, ‘Ready to Ship’ or ‘This is a set. Do not separate.’
Boxed Units
Boxed units should all have six sides, an opening that doesn’t open too easily. If it does it needs to be taped, glued or stapled down to help it stay closed. It shouldn’t collapse if medium pressure is applied to the box. Another thing Amazon requires is ‘If the boxed unit has perforated sides or openings, the product must pass a 3-foot drop test, consisting of one drop on each side, and one drop on a corner. If the product does not pass the drop test, it must be placed in a poly bag with a suffocation warning.’ Watch the video below to see an example of the last requirement.
Poly-Bagged Units
If you don’t know what poly bags are, here is a photo of what we will be discussing. The poly bags have to be 5 inches or larger at the opening and must have a choking/suffocating warning on the bag. Below are other requirements:
Amazon packaging and prep requirements are that the thickness of the bag is thicker than 1.5mil, it must be transparent, it must have a barcode, completely sealed and the shrink wrap must not protrude more than 3 inches past the dimension of the product.
Photo from Uspolypack.com
Case-Packed Products
Case-packed products are limited to 150 units per case. Every Item that is included in the box must have matching SKU’s and have to be packaged together from the manufacturer. The reason they want everything to be the same is because when it arrives at the warehouse, they take into account the number of packed products and scan 1 and put it up for inventory. Below is a video on how to ship Case-packed products:
Expiration Dates
Products that are being sent to the warehouse must have an expiration date on it. They must be in the format MM-DD-YY and in a 36 pt. Font or larger. Below is a video showing how to prep products with an expiration date:
For a more detailed explanation of Amazon packaging and prep requirements for each category, you can click this link.
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