Maybe you’re tired of using your garage and all of your free time working on your FBA business. Maybe you’ve found a good groove, and become more successful, and now you are looking to expand and invest more into your business. Or perhaps, you are unhappy with your current prep center and looking to make a move. No matter the reason, we understand that researching and choosing a new prep center can be overwhelming.
Here are a few simple tips to help make the decision, besides pricing.
Location:
You might look into location as a starting point when doing research on your own. It is helpful to know which states are exempt from sales-tax. These states are: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. That’s three states in the Northwest and two in the Eastern United States.
Why is this important to consider?
- In a tax free state, you have more spending power. Simply put, you do not need to waste money on sales tax, and therefore, can put more of your budget towards purchasing items to sell.
- This might manifest as purchasing more of your best selling products, or being able to take risks to see what else might do well.
That being said, if this is not important to you, then you have more states to consider.
Proximity to Fulfillment Centers:
While no prep center can control where shipments are routed to (that’s in Amazon’s control), proximity to Amazon Fulfillment centers might mean that your shipments get routed close by
For example, we are located in Oregon, right above California.
There is a large FBA Distribution Center in Stockton, California, where many shipments from our facility are routed to.
- This saves you money on shipping to Amazon, gets your units checked in more quickly (because they arrived so fast), and are therefore available for sales quickly. So you get paid faster, and your end customer receives their purchases so fast.
Reviews & Word of Mouth:
See what other sellers/people who have used our services in the past are saying.
Read reviews about the prep centers you’re considering, and weigh the negative reviews against the positive ones. Remember to take some with a grain of salt, but also pay attention to how the owners respond.
In addition to reviews from the internet, do you have any friends who are FBA sellers that have used us or another prep center? Have you heard about a specific prep center at conferences or from acquaintances? That might help narrow down the list to places you are truly interested in gathering information about in order to make your decision.
Technology:
What kind of technology do the prep centers you’re looking at use? A lot of prep centers use spreadsheets or google docs, requiring you to enter in tedious information everytime you make an order. Others might require you to pay for software like Inventory Lab. And then, there are others, like us, who have their own easy-to-use proprietary software. It all comes down to what you are used to, and how much time and money you want to spend.
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