It was with much excitement earlier this year, that we announced we were going to be an Amazon fulfilled product. This was going to open us up to a whole new customer base and really improve our exposure. All that was true, we got some good exposure, got some product reviews, and customers who may not have found us otherwise.
However, with that good came some bad. Their requested wholesale price was half of my typical wholesale price. This was a steep cut that made it hard to make money on their orders. Our thought process was that overtime the increased exposure would increase their number of orders and lessen the impact of the purchase price. While they have placed a good number of orders in the last few months, it still was not a profitable venture for us.
We also had to battle them a few times on our invoices. They would try and shortchange us by saying we did not send the full order, even though their stock level would change to reflect a full order was received. We won some and lost some of those disputes. They were a major hassle and created even more of a loss.
Our final issue came recently where they returned product to us as damaged, yet the bottle of rub was in perfect condition. Then it was because it was expired, thought that was not the case either. It ended up being another loss for us as it was deducted from our latest invoice.
I know many businesses have had great experiences with Amazon Fulfillment Centers, it just has not been the case for us. The pros did not outweigh the cons for us, since we are still a small and growing company cash flow is important to us as is the ability to make some money on our wholesale deals so we can keep growing. When we have grown much larger and can absorb the lower price they are willing to pay, we will revisit it. We will not be filling new product requests from them and will remove products as their inventory sells out.
It is not the end of our relationship with them, when you checkout on our site Amazon Payments is still an option and we hope to have products listed with them again in the future.