PSA - Don't Send More than 50lbs in One Box to Amazon

This is a quick Public Service Announcement (PSA).

Shipping to Amazon can be very cheap and the best way to do that was always to stuff as many items as you can into one box (assuming Amazon allows it to all go in one shipment together).  The first lb of the box was almost the most expensive pound and any any additional weight is added at a much lower price per pound.

Privately, I had always told people that even though Amazon warns you not to send more than 50lbs in one box (if it is more than one unit), practically they didn't seem to care and I've sent many 70lb+ boxes without a problem.


Recently, it seems that Amazon is cracking down on this and suspending accounts for violating this rule.  I've heard rumors of it happening and it was confirmed to me from a friend as well.  Usually these types of suspensions are temporary.  You acknowledge your mistake and move on.  If you continue to violate it, you could receive a permanent ban.


From here on, both publicly and privately I recommend sticking to the 50lbs per box rule.  It's just not worth messing with your account.


Here is the message my friend received:

Shipping Box Overweight
One or more boxes in your shipment exceed our maximum weight requirements.
Products and shipments that do not comply with our policies may be received as unsellable or destroyed without compensation.

[5:09] 

Weigh and measure your boxes before sending them to FBA.
Boxes must not exceed the standard weight limit of 50 lb., unless they contain one single oversized Unit that exceeds 50 lb.
For a single oversized Unit that exceeds 50 lb., attach a label that clearly indicates "Team Lift" on the top and sides of the box

[5:09] 

Inbound Performance Alert - Shipment
Your shipment abilities have been suspended due to repeated problems.

Reader Poll - Should I Post Low Margin Deals?

Yesterday I posted a couple of deals which I consider to be low margin deals.  They are around 5% return on investment which I don't think to be enough profit for myself to buy both because of price decreases due to competition and because of returns from customers causing havoc on lower margin plays.

That being said, I am not everyone and there does seem to be some interest in these deals based on comments, maybe for hitting sign up bonuses.  

The big advantage is that because there are a lot of people who are not interested, competition on these deals will be much lower and possibly sustainable, though likely not.

Here is a poll, I'll give it a day or two to see what readers want.  You can vote that you do not want me to post these deals, that you do want me to post these deals or that I should only post them when there is increased eBay Bucks.

I'm curious to see what the results will be.

Should I Post Low Margin (~5% Return on Investment) Deals Knowing that Some Buyers May Get Burned?

A Deal for the Extra eBay Bucks - ~5% ROI

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Splender, eBay, Amazon


eBay is running a promotion with targeted increased eBay Bucks up to 10%.

In my last post I asked if readers were interested in deals that are around 5% ROI and the few that responded said yes so here is another one.  If this is or isn't what you are interested in let me know and I can decided whether to continue depending on reader interest.

Please be aware that these margins are tight and can change if too many sellers jump aboard but it still can be good if you are interested in hitting a threshold for a sign up bonus or something like that.

I usually don't do 5-10% ROI deals because I am afraid of the price of a return and tieing up my money for too long.  Video games are a little different.  I have yet to have a return on a video game.  Obviously that could change.

Gift Cards and Items to Buy on eBay with your 10% in eBay Bucks

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Splender, eBay, Amazon


As reported by Danny Deal Guru, eBay is sending out targeted offers for 5x eBay Bucks which is pretty much as high as it goes.

If you want to buy gift cards to sell, you can check out the full list of Discounted Gift Cards for Sale and check out Miles to Memories for his breakdown on what's available for profitable sales.

Best Buy (for sourcing) and Exxon Mobil (for personal use) stick out on the list of gift cards I would consider to purchase.




You can also think about this iPad Pro 32gb deal

They are going for $670 on eBay and some colors are going for $750 on Amazon.  Check out Silver.  After fees/shipping, you will probably bring home about $700-$705 (assuming you aren't paying sales tax).

That's about 4-5%.  Too tight for me.  I'd be afraid of any returns but if you are trying to hit a spending threshold, it might be good for some and you also get 10% in eBay funny money if you are targeted.

Start at Splender and you will earn an additional 2%.


There is a max of 10 and there is also a max of $100 in eBay Bucks per transaction so you have to buy them 1 at a time to maximize on eBay Bucks.  Only about 170 available so not so many people will buy but prices still can go down.




You can juice it up a bit with eBay gift cards that you buy from Target.com with a RedCard for 5% off.  That effectively doubles your margins outside of funny money.




I haven't posted a deal like this in a while.  Please let me know in the comments if you are interested in deals like this that are in the range of 5% ROI before extras.  Competition will be less but interest will be less as well.

Turnover Tuesdays - Sometimes Patience Really Hurts + New Offers Feature in Keepa

For those who are not familiar, I started a series a while back called Turnover Tuesdays. Every Tuesday I like to highlight one item that I have resold. This will include profitable and non profitable sales. I hope that there is always something to learn.

Week 1 - First attempt at reselling

Week 2 - My second straight fail

Week 3 - My iPad mini collection

Week 4 - Bed Bath and Beyond

Week 5 - An iPad Idea for Your Staples Gift Card Collection

Week 6 - An iPad Idea for Manufactured Spending

Week 7 - The Great iPad Deal that Wasn't

Week 8 - Lenovo Tablets

Week 9 - iPads at Staples

Week 10 - Loving that Groupon iPad Deal

Week 11 - iPads on Sale at Sears

Week 12 - Roombas at Bed Bath and Beyond

Week 13 - My Sam's Club iPad Collection for the $20k Challenge

Week 14 - Best Buy Gift Cards Fail

Week 15 - Staples Ink Recycling and Staples Rewards

Week 16 - What Happened to My Surface Pro 3?

Week 17 - Dell - Love that AmEx Offer

Week 18 - XBox Saves the Day

Week 19 - Using Amazon Chat and the Importance of Organization

Week 20 - The Impact of Returns

Week 21 - Apple Watch is the Best Watch

Week 22 - Headphones, Lots of Headphones

Week 23 - Storage Fees - I Don't Like Heavy Items

Week 24 - Some Companies try to Bully!

Week 25 - An iPhone is not an iPad

Week 26 - Patience vs. A Quick Hit and Fewer Deals Coming!

Week 27 - Competing Against Amazon

Week 28 - Toys and Retail Arbitrage vs. Online Arbitrage

Week 29 - Check Your Listings Carefully - My Big Fail

Week 30 - Killing it at Walgreen's!

Week 31 - Sometimes You Need to Stop, Refocus and Reprice
Week 32 - Target Cartwheel and other Coupons can have a Major Impact
Week 33 - Got a Return?  You Might need to Reprice
Week 34 - Sometimes Returns Can be Very Profitable
Week 35 - Best Buy Gamer's Club

Week 36 - Reselling in Earnest Has Hurt My Credit Score

Week 37 - A Purchase Just for the Points

Week 38 - Don't be Afraid to Recall Your Inventory
Week 39 - Sourcing From Slickdeals Works but Everyone else is Doing it Too
Week 40 - I Should Have Taken My Own Advice

(Lots of?) Free Tall Starbucks Drink(s?) at Target Stores

Target is sending out coupons to many people's email addresses offering a free Tall (that's another way of saying small, duh!) drink at Starbucks in your Target stores.  The email comes with a unique bar code to scan.

Coupons expire on 3/19/2016

It's nice to have a free drink available when you are sourcing, I mean shopping, at Target.

If you look at the Terms and Conditions, you may be able to use this coupon 4 times a day, every day until the 19th.  That's pretty amazing!  We'll see if it work

^∗Item Coupon. Valid in store only. Limit one manufacturer and one Target coupon per item. Limit of 4 identical coupons per household, per day. Void if copied, scanned, altered, transferred, purchased, sold or prohibited by law. Item(s) may not be available at all stores. Quantities limited; no rain checks. Maximum retail value $14.95 for free item.  Coupon value may not exceed value of item purchased. No cash value.


(highlighting is my own)

A Good Day to Look at Kohl's...

There are quite a few reasons why today is a good day to look for items to buy from Kohl's


If you have a Kohl's Charge Card use coupon code SUNNY for 30% off.

Earn $10 in Kohl's Cash for every $50 you spend

Earn $5 in Yes2You Rewards (need to enroll to earn Yes2You) for every $100 you spend

Use Upromise Shopping portal for 7% cashback.

Use a discount gift card for 12% off (current rate at Raise - affiliate link).  You can earn 2% cashback from Splender for the first $1,000 you spend at Raise across all portals.

Here is an example of what you can save:


If you spend $145, your total will be $101.50 after the coupon and you will be eligible for free shipping ($100 after all discounts).

You will pay about $90 for that $101.50 when you pay with a gift card.

You will also earn $2 from your credit card assuming you paid for the gift card with a Credit Card earning 2%.

In addition, you will earn $7.10 from Upromise, $20 in Kohl's Cash and $5 in Yes2You Rewards.


Let's assume you value Yes2Rewards and Kohl's Cash as regular money (you most definitely should not!), you are actually paying about $67 (add in tax somewhere there) for $145 of merchandise.
Goodness gracious!




If like a good lemming (joking of course), you bought Kohl's Gift Card on eBay when I suggested, your gift cards will actually be 17% off (instead of 12%), with 8% in eBay Bucks and 2.5% from Top Cashback on top of everything else.

If you don't have a Upromise account you can email me at orensmoneysaver@gmail.com for a referral and we will both get $20.

Amazon and the Mysterious Case of the Lost Inventory - Part 1 - Let's Do Math!

I really enjoy reselling merchandise on Amazon.  The buyer's experience is incredible and the number of customers is phenomenal.  I want to sell products where people are buying and that's the main reason I choose Amazon.  It also helps that Amazon has set up FBA and I don't have to store items or fulfill the orders.

After reselling for close to a year, the honeymoon stage has started to wear off and I'm beginning to see some major issues in the reselling platform specifically related to inventory tracking.

For a long time, I was using a spreadsheet for all of my tracking which was working for me but it becoming rather time intensive.  I looked to Inventory Lab for a solution and to avoid manual tracking.  I was extremely excited with Inventory Lab's capabilities but I've started to realize that Inventory Lab is great for tracking sales and COGS of those sales but does nothing for inventory tracking and reconciliation.

I need to know that if I sent in 10 units of one SKU into Amazon, that those 10 units have been received by Amazon, placed in my inventory and then sold.  If they are lost or damaged by Amazon, I need to know that I was reimbursed.  If there is only 8 units in my inventory and I only sold one, that's a major problem.

What happened to my missing inventory?  If I don't get reimbursed for that it's a straight loss and my wallet refuses to accept that.


The situation has gotten quite bad from Amazon that I am back to using a spreadsheet to track all of my inventory and whether anything is missing.  You too might be missing lots of inventory and you might not know it if you don't do a great job tracking.


This is part 1 of a series highlighting the major issues I have found in the Amazon tracking software.  Some are major only because of the consistency of the issue (a few dollars here and there really adds up) and some are major even if they happen just one time.

It's Math Time

Amazon has a very powerful reconciliation tool built into Seller Central.  You can put in any SKU for any time period and it will tell you in detail what has happened to this item.

Here is how to find it:

Click on Reports>Fulfillment

and then you can click on Inventory Reconciliation on the Left

Let's take iPad Air 2 64GB  Space Gray as an example:  Here is what comes up for me from the start of my selling history.

The most surprising thing to me is that I only sold 5 of them.  Really?  I guess it's possible.  Either way, I sent in 5, I sold 5 and I should have none in my inventory and I do not.  Everything checks out just fine.  Yay for Math!


Here is another more complicated example but once again everything is fine.

I sent in 15.  2 were lost but 2 were found.  I sold 15.  That's great.  3 were returned (that's what happens when you sell bad products) and 3 were removed and are currently in my basement.



What happens when it doesn't check out?  Let's take one example:

Hmm.  I sent in 5, didn't sell any and now I have 1.  None were lost or damaged.  Why do I have 1 instead of 5?  That's not good.  Especially since I have no reimbursement for that SKU.  How many do I actually have in my inventory?  You guessed it, one!

How about this one?

I sent in 14.  14 were received, 1 was lost and 1 was found.  How many should have? 14

How many does Amazon say I should have?  11.  How many units do I actually have?  9


Now, to Amazon's credit, the first screenshot was taken a couple of days ago.  The newest reconciliation correctly shows that I have 9 units but once again does not accurately reflect how they got to 9 when I sent in 14.   Of course, I have no reimbursement for these units because they aren't lost according to the system.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Amazonian math.

I hope you enjoyed Part 1.  More fun to come in upcoming posts...