First-time experience testing FBA: what a %*!@#!( nightmare

So I decided to test out doing some retail arbitrage using FBA. Kept it small: 6 shipments over a couple weeks, just over 50 items and only in the red for a few hundred.

Shipment #1: shipped it Oct 17th, it’s still being received. All items have been checked right away in except 2 of one SKU which are what’s holding it up for no reason. And every time the date rolls around where I can open up a problem/issue w/ Amazon they push the date out a few days more. This has been going on for over a month with nothing I can do about it.

Shipment #2: 3 items, 2 SKUs. Everything received ok for a change

Shipment #3: 2 items, 1 SKU. Everything received ok

Shipment #4: 5 items, 5 SKUs. still being “received” because the picker screwed up. 2 of the items were similar (red model cars) but were different SKUs as they were two different models. Well, on one is says “1 unit expected, 2 received” and the other “1 unit expected, 0 received” and it’s that last one that’s keeping it open. Clearly they’re not going to find it because the person F-ed up and thought there were 2 of the same. And again the date for dispute keeps getting pushed back so I can’t open one, meanwhile someone’s going to order something and what they get won’t be what they ordered, and it’ll make me look bad.

Shipment #5: 6 items, 4 SKUs. All items received but one is search-suppressed because it’s missing a description. Why I have no idea, since it was a SKU already in Amazon’s system (all of my items were/are). Every time I try adding a description, it says it worked and will take up to 15 mins or whatever to apply, but it never does. This has been going on for weeks. I have a ticket open w/ Amazon but they still haven’t fixed this (and often don’t seem to understand what I’m telling them)

Shipment #6: 30 items, 17 SKUs. Still being “received” because of course it is… no way Amazon can handle a box this big without multiple F-ups. All 30 items have been “located” according to the list data so no idea why it’s still in “received” status. 1 item has the same description problem as the item in shipment #5. One item got a “not genuine” report (without a sample order) from some a-hole so its listing got pulled and because it was a one-off I can’t take additional pictures to prove its authentic, so that one is a loss. Another SKU that I had 6 of resulted in me getting a letter in the postal mail from some low-end legal firm complaining that I was selling unauthentic goods, or even if they were authentic that they could not be materially the same as their 1 “authorized” seller since they would be picked, packaged and shipped differently. Never mind the fact that the 1 “authorized” seller also uses FBA same as me, and there are 12 other sellers on Amazon, and that they sent the letter before I even had stock listed so the listing was already search-suppressed due to no stock. I’m still kicking BS polite emails back and forth with them, meanwhile 2 of the 6 have sold so maybe it can become moot soon.

And 2 items that I meant to ship to Amazon for FBA but have had to hold back because when I tried to add them to my inventory it said they needed “transparency codes” or whatever. But this item doesn’t have “transparency codes”… in fact this is just one of many “variations” of a particular product and Amazon doesn’t have ANY of the other variations as requiring “transparency codes” (I know because I’ve already sold some)… .just this one. So it’s an error in Amazon’s system as to requirements but I’ve been going back and forth with them for weeks now and they still can’t seem to understand the problem…. usually just repeating instructions on how to locate the transparency codes without comprehending my messages trying to explain that THERE ARE NONE TO LOCATE. This problem wasn’t clear when I checked the product in the app while in the store before buying the product so it remains stuck here, unlisted, unsold and unshipped. Probably another loss along with the others.

At this point I’ll be lucky to break even, let alone make any profit. Just not worth the trouble. Maybe if you have limited SKUs that you can sell endless numbers of after dealing with whatever BS Amazon kicks up about a given SKU, but definitely not worth it for retail arbitrage where you’ll scrounging up whatever you happen to find, which will be lots of different SKUs over time and lots of one-offs.