Amazon Sellers & COVID-19

How has covid-19 affected sales on amazon

After the government put in place social distancing and strict rules on why you can leave your house, Amazon have in turn experienced a huge increase in demand for certain items, mostly household essentials, food and healthcare products.
Actions Amazon will take

First of all Amazoon has made the decision to temporarily disable shipment creation of non-essential items to its North American & European warehouses on March 17th, and will remain this way until April 5th. However this date could change depending how the COVID-19 situation develops.

So what does this mean for FBA sellers? Well, in short, you won’t be able to restock into an Amazon warehouse if you aren’t selling in one of six approved categories.

Approved essential items

Amazon have categorised what they feel is classed as essential items. Each of the items eligible for approval fall into the below categories:

– Baby products
– Health and household
– Beauty and personal care (including personal care appliances)
– Grocery
– Industrial and scientific
– Pet supplies

What does this mean for you

You can still continue to sell approved items via FBA, however, now more than ever, you need to pay very close attention to your pricing. SInce demand has increased for products, prices are also rising. However, some sellers are inflating their prices making business very unfair on Amazon.

Being competitive but fair

Amazon are enforcing their fair pricing policy very aggressively, and if found price gouging your account will be suspended and you could even face prosecution. This means pricing your products correctly is paramount.

Amazon’s fair pricing policy states that you must not ‘Set a price on a product or service that is significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon.’ This might seem easy enough to comply with, but finding the balance between profitability and compliance can be tricky.

What if my products aren’t approved?

You can still sell items that aren’t considered essential if they are currently in Amazon’s warehouse, however, Amazon will not be re-stocking their warehouses with these non-essential items.
solutions

With Amazon temporarily stopping incoming stock for non-essential items through their FBA network, many Amazon marketplace sellers are faced with having to do the fulfilment themselves. This not always possible for the seller and moreover product listings could lose their competitiveness due to losing the Prime shipping option. At Lama Fulfilment, we can quickly integrate your Amazon account with our platform and perform the fulfilment on your behalf. In most cases we can also offer Seller Fulfilled Prime, whereby your products and listings will carry the Prime Badge.

You don’t need to have your products in Amazon’s warehouse to get the benefits of Amazon Prime. Get on board with Lama Fulfilment and continue business as usual with little to no down time.