Amazon Commingled Inventory: Pros and Cons.
What is Commingled Inventory?
Making the decision to sell on Amazon involves making a number of choices, one of which is whether to use stickered or commingled inventory. In Amazon’s fulfillment centres, commingling is a technique where your products are mixed with same products sent by vendors.
Simply said, commingling is when you prepare a shipment without placing your label on the merchandise. Instead, Amazon scans the UPC code to identify and track the item when it is received. If a consumer purchases your item, they might receive the one you sent or Amazon might ship one that is sent to Amazon by another seller and that is closer to the shipping address. If a customer from BC places an order with you and all of your inventory is kept in Ontario, Amazon might fill the order from the inventory of another seller located in a Surrey(BC) warehouse in order to expedite delivery to the customer.
This blog post offers astute insights into the benefits and cons of being a seller on Amazon’s commingled inventory system. Stay tuned to find out if using this tactic will benefit or hinder your business operations!
What Items Can’t Be Commingled?
Amazon barcodes are required for all products that are not tracked using manufacturer barcodes, products that are expiration-dated, as well as consumable and topical products such as skin creams, shampoos, and cosmetics.
Also media items, including books, are not able to be commingled either since they can be sold as used, but they are not explicitly mentioned in the Amazon guidelines.
Pros of Using Amazon Commingled Inventory for Sellers
For sellers, using Amazon commingled inventory has a number of advantages. One benefit is that time and effort can be saved by labelling and shipping in inventory more quickly and easily. Using commingled inventory also has the advantage of faster delivery times because products are kept closer to customers for quicker fulfillment. Finally, because Amazon handles the selection, packing, and shipping, merchants can benefit from lower labor expenses.
Quicker and easier labeling and sending in of inventory
For Amazon sellers, labeling and shipping in inventory can be labor-intensive tasks. But this process can be made simpler by utilizing Amazon’s commingled inventory system. It is not necessary to individually mark every item before shipping it in when using commingled inventory. This allows you to promptly submit in your inventory without having to deal with the trouble of labeling each item by hand, saving you a great deal of time and work.
The expedited procedure guarantees that your inventory is precisely tracked and maintained by Amazon’s cloud-based technology in addition to saving you time.
Improved delivery times
For merchants, using Amazon commingled inventory might result in faster delivery times. When your inventory is commingled, it becomes part of a larger pool of products that are available for quick shipping.
As a result, orders placed by customers will be filled more quickly because the goods is already kept in a nearby Amazon warehouse. You can give customers a better shopping experience and raise customer satisfaction with faster delivery times.
Faster delivery could also have a favorable effect on your platform sales overall and your seller performance indicators.
Reduced labor costs
For sellers, using Amazon commingled inventory can mean lower labor expenses. This technique saves time and effort by eliminating the need to individually label and submit each item.
The cloud-based, stickerless labeling solution makes inventory management easier and more efficient. This implies that you and your staff will have to do less manual labor, freeing you up to concentrate on other facets of your company like marketing, customer satisfaction, and logistics.
Cons of Using Amazon Commingled Inventory for Sellers
There are certain disadvantages to using Amazon commingled inventory that vendors need to be aware of. Cons to be aware of include the potential for mixing authentic items with counterfeit or defective units, lack of control over the quality of inventory, and higher risk of negative customer experiences.
To find out more about these difficulties and how they might affect your company, continue reading.
Potential for mixing authentic items with counterfeit or defective units
Using Amazon commingled inventory raises serious concerns about mixing genuine goods with fake or damaged products. Because it becomes challenging to monitor and guarantee the quality of each individual item that is sent out to buyers, this method puts merchants at risk.
Products that have been combined together increase the likelihood of unintentionally sending out fake or faulty items. This may result in unfavorable consumer experiences, harm to the reputation of your business, Amazon account deactivation and even possible legal problems.
When choosing commingled goods, sellers must carefully analyze the risks and determine whether the convenience justifies the disadvantage.
Lack of control over the quality of inventory
You may lose control over the quality of your product if you use Amazon commingled inventory. In Amazon’s warehouses, your products are combined with those of other sellers when you have commingled inventory.
This implies that you are unable to ensure the authenticity or condition of the products you offer. There is a chance that real and fake goods will be mixed together because it is impossible to distinguish between individual units.
This loss of control over the caliber of your inventory as a vendor might harm your reputation on the marketplace and result in unfavorable client experiences. It’s crucial to take this possible disadvantage into account before choosing to use Amazon commingled inventory for your company.
Higher risk of negative customer experiences
Customer experience issues are more likely when using Amazon commingled inventories. It’s possible to combine genuine products with faulty or fake ones while using this fulfillment option.
Less control over inventory quality means that as a merchant, you may end up with unhappy customers who receive inferior goods. When choosing commingled inventory, it’s critical to take into account the possible effects on customer satisfaction and brand reputation.
Assessing substitute fulfillment choices could assist in reducing these hazards and guaranteeing improved customer experiences all around.
Conclusion
In summary, there are benefits and cons to the commingled inventory arrangement that Amazon provides. It decreases the possibility of long-term storage fees, expedites the fulfillment process, and lowers shipping costs. However, prepEX strongly discourages its partners adapting commingled inventory setting due to high risks of mixing their inventory with defective or counterfeit items of other sellers.
It’s critical for Amazon sellers to carefully consider these advantages and disadvantages in light of their own business requirements and priorities. Ultimately, the success of your e-commerce endeavor on the biggest online marketplace in the world will depend on your ability to stay informed and make wise decisions, regardless of whether you decide to accept commingled inventory or go for an alternative fulfillment technique.
How to Disable commingled inventory?
You can turn commingling settings off from within your Seller Central settings by going HERE (you will have to log in to your account). Here are some screenshots to show you where to make the changes:
1. From Seller Central, click on Settings and then Fulfillment by Amazon
2. Scroll down to FBA Barcode Preferences and see your current settings. You can click the edit button to make changes.
3. After making any changes, remember to click Update.
