Amazon Seller Support Blog (Amazon.co.uk)

Using the Amazon SellerCentral Inventory Report

Did you know that SellerCentral allows you to request an inventory report for your offers? Apart from the product’s SKU and ASIN, the inventory reports also contain your product’s current stock and price information, thus providing you with a quick offer overview. As the inventory reports are generated in the standard reporting format (tab-delimited text files), you can import the reports into Excel or process the reports for uploading the information into your data warehouse.

How to request an inventory report:

In SellerCentral, select the „Inventory“tab and then select option „Inventory Reports“. Request an inventory report. SellerCentral will process your request as a background process; creating  an inventory report can take up to one hour.

 

Once the report has been prepared for you, the file can be downloaded from SellerCentral. Save the file onto your hard drive and select „Text file“as file type.

 

Note: In case you participate  in the „Fulfillment By Amazon“ program, SellerCentral’s „Inventory Report“ also allows you to request an inventory report for those items that are fulfilled by Amazon.

Importing your Inventory Report into Excel:

Run Excel, then open the inventory report file that we’ve just saved. Excel will now start the import wizard for your file.

Please select “Delimited” as Original Data Type, then go to the next screen.

 

If not already selected, please check the „Tab“ delimiter option. The dialogue should now show you all four columns SKU, ASIN, price and quantity as separated information. Proceed to the next step.

Now you can set the format for each of the columns. We recommend choosing format option “Text” in order to retain leading zeros in your numeric information – otherwise Excel might just remove these leading zeros from your inventory report.

 

Confirm your selection and click the „Finish“button. Excel will now import your inventory report.

 

A follow-up article in this blog will show you how you can use the inventory report in combination with the ListingLoader template in order to create a product inventory report from scratch (e.g. in case you’ve lost the original file).

The Basics of Selling on Amazon.co.uk

Did you know that Seller Central has a wide range of reports that show you your most-browsed and purchased items in addition to the functionality to create multiple promotions. However, all of this is irrelevant if you do not get the basics right first.

There are three key areas you should consider before doing anything else.
1. The quality of your product detail pages.
2. Your store settings.
3. The overall customer experience you provide.

Let us begin with your product detail pages. Customers are searching for products not sellers, therefore it is essential that you make the right impression on your product page otherwise you will not keep the customer’s attention. Are your images on a clear white background and is the title in the correct format? If yes, you should now set up keywords/search terms for your products. It is important that you also browse node your product correctly (for example don’t just put your MP3 player into Electronics, choose the browse node for Portable Audio Devices). This is vital for two reasons, a) your search terms will not work if the product is not browse noded. b) Customers use the browse-tree guide to view the range of products available. You should also ensure that the description and/or bullet points are complete to the point that the customer can find out everything they want about the product without having to go elsewhere. Additional images also help – did you know that Amazon allow you to provide 9 images per product? Now your detail page is built you should ensure that you are competitively priced (the Low Price Indicator in Seller Central allows you to compare your prices against other sellers. However, please note that this doesn’t include shipping charges).

Now you can look at your Store settings. You should review your Shipping Charges – you can charge for shipping according to weight, number of items or have price banded shipping. Have you considered free shipping to bring you in line with Amazon? Better still you can look at our FBA program that gives sellers access to Amazon’s vast fulfilment network at very competitive prices. This can be a particular advantage when you first start selling on Amazon and do not have the benefit of having built up your feedback profile. Finally adding your company logo can help your listing to stand out on the Offer Listing Page.

The final and most important thing you need to consider in order to become a successful seller on Amazon long-term is the overall experience you provide to customers. First of all how quickly can you ship? Customers expect everything to be in stock and you need to ensure that you can ship as soon as possible. Are you able to offer a next day delivery shipping option as well as standard shipping? If you do all this you are helping to ensure you are making the right first impression on the customer. However, as with any sales channel be it online or offline, the after sales service you provide is vital. Do you have a customer services email address and how quickly do you respond? Ideally you should ensure that there are no outstanding queries left in this inbox at the end of the working day. It is also important that you handle customer refunds as speedily and efficiently as you would a new order as this can help to turn an unhappy customer in to one who would return to shop with you again.

Video Tutorial - Shipping Options Basics

Learn the basics of the shipping service and the options to set your shipping regions.

This tutorial will teach you how to: 

• Choose how the shipping cost will be calculated.
• Decide where to ship the orders to.
• Decide what service levels will be offered for the domestic shipping region.