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Sep 06, 2023

Sell Toys on Amazon: Meeting Their Requirements Before the Holidays

Brian Connolly August 21, 2020 Amazon Policies, Selling on Amazon Sharing is

Brian Connolly

August 21, 2020

Amazon Policies, Selling on Amazon

Sharing is caring!

It's that time of the year again: the holiday season is approaching, and Amazon sellers are stockpiling their inventories and looking forward to the major sales boon the end-of-year consumer bonanza brings to their bottom line.

Yet every August, Amazon sends an email to sellers that can deliver a crushing blow to those who don't know what's coming.

Did you see it in your inbox?

Amazon's email tells sellers all the strict criteria they must meet in order to sell in ‘Toys & Games’ during Q4. Unsurprisingly, ‘Toys & Games’ is one of the top-selling, most lucrative categories during the holidays. So, if sellers don't comply with the rules, they can miss out on massive sales.

Remember: Amazon wants to be sure its sellers are able to deliver. Thankfully, it reminds sellers of these requirements early enough that you can still get ready for selling in ‘Toys & Games’ this holiday season.

Here's a break down of exactly what you need to do.

Let's take a look at Amazon's email regarding the 2020 holiday season so we can get a better understanding of all this.

"Dear Seller,

As in previous years, we are implementing holiday selling requirements for Toys & Games to maintain a great customer experience this holiday season. We appreciate your support in continuing to delight customers.

Sellers must meet the performance criteria below to sell in Toys & Games through seller fulfillment from November 2, 2020, through January 3, 2021. All seller-fulfilled orders are considered when determining your performance.

Go to your performance report at "https://sellercentral.amazon.com/performance/report/performance-over-time" and filter for "Fulfilled By: Seller" and a specific date range to monitor your metrics in Seller Central.

We will notify you about your eligibility to sell in Toys & Games during the holidays in the week leading up to November 2, 2020. Eligibility for selling in Toys & Games is determined separately for each country. This means you will need to obtain approval to sell in Toys & Games from each individual country you sell in.

Orders that use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) will remain eligible to sell in Toys & Games regardless of your eligibility to sell in seller fulfillment. Your account must adhere to general policies and code of conduct. Amazon reserves the right to cancel listings, remove selling privileges, and prohibit the sale of specific products to maintain a quality customer experience and customer safety.

Thank you for selling on Amazon and ensuring we provide customers a great holiday shopping experience.

Regards,

Amazon Services"

Note: This requirement is just for sellers who are merchant-fulfilling toys from November 2, 2020 through January 3, 2021. This announcement does not apply to FBA . If you are using Fulfillment by Amazon exclusively, you don't need to worry about meeting the criteria laid out above. If you are approved to sell in ‘Toys & Games’, you can sell as much as you want using FBA.

These two pieces of criteria should be pretty easy to meet. Basically, if you’re a new seller, you must make a sale before September 1, no matter the category. And you must also ship out at least 25 Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) orders between August 15 and October 14.

All of these metrics are always in place when fulfilling orders through FBM, except the pre-fulfillment cancel rate percentage. It is stricter than it normally is.

Typically, you want to keep your pre-fulfillment cancel rate (seller-canceled orders) under 2.5%. But for the holiday season, Amazon has made this rule stricter with a 1.75% cancellation rate. Basically, do not cancel any FBM orders you receive.

Your late shipment rate increases if you are confirming your order shipments after the expected ship date. For example, if you received an FBM order on 8/21/2020 and have an expected ship-by date of 8/25/2020, then you MUST ship out that order before or on the 25th. If your shipment is confirmed after that date, your account metrics will worsen.

Your order defect rate is all orders with a defect (defined below) as a percentage of total orders during a given 60-day time period.

A defect is defined by an order that results in negative feedback, an A-to-Z Guarantee claim that is not denied, or a credit card chargeback. Your goal, at all times, is to keep this below 1%.

Amazon uses this metric to measure your ability to provide a good customer experience.

To keep an eye on these metrics in Seller Central go to the Performance tab > Account Health.

On this page, you’ll be able to track all three key metrics:

The holidays are by far the busiest season for Amazon, and for retail in general, so they’re doing everything they can to maintain and exceed customer expectations.

If you’ve been selling on Amazon for a while, or frequently buy from Amazon, you know Amazon is customer-obsessed. With their lax return policies, 24/7 customer service, ultra-fast free-shipping — they’re a consumer's dream.

What I’m trying to say is: Amazon is all about customer happiness and satisfaction. And during this time of year, customers are shopping more than ever and are much less forgiving of mistakes/delays.

Amazon does not want to put trust in merchants who have not proven to be rockstar sellers. Fast fulfillment is what Amazon has built its business around, so they want to maintain that status.

Think about it this way: if you ordered a gift for someone on Amazon and it arrived late, would you blame the seller or would you blame Amazon?

If you really want to meet this requirement but have not merchant-fulfilled many orders this year, here are a couple of tips that can help you reach the 25 FBM order requirement.

First, go to a retail store such as Walmart. Next, begin scanning the shelves using your Amazon seller app — or any other scanning app you prefer. Finally, try to find items you can purchase cheaply so you can resell them on Amazon. This is called retail arbitrage.

A great thing about using the Amazon seller app is that it will show you how many sellers are on the listing. It will also show you if there are any FBA offers; look for listings without any FBA offers. That way, you won't be competing against an FBA seller for the Buy Box.

Have any used books lying around your house? Scan those as well and see what they’re selling for on Amazon! (P.S. Books are very cheap to ship!)

I know this sounds easier said than done. The point, though, is to just find cheap items you can flip quickly and ship yourself to meet this requirement. Even if you only break even, it’ll be worth having the ability to merchant-fulfill toys during the last few weeks of the holiday season.

If you are selling private label or wholesale products and have some spare inventory at your house/warehouse, you can pause your FBA offer and replace it with an FBM offer. This works well if you are the only seller on the listing. That's because your FBM offer will replace the FBA offer in the Buy Box.

Do this until you reach 25 FBM orders.

Note: Because your conversion rate may decrease if your listing no longer offers Prime shipping, only do this if you are confident your listing will go back to normal once your FBA inventory is active again.

This was a lot of information, but here are a couple of key takeaways.

And that's it! If you want to be sure you can list toys as FBM during this holiday season, simply follow this guide and you will be good to go.

Have any other questions regarding this update? Let me know in the comments below!

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Brian Connolly

Brian is a writer and entrepreneur with over 6 years of experience in e-commerce and selling on Amazon.

local_offer Tags: Amazon Policies, Amazon Seller, Selling on Amazon

Hi,THANKS FOR ARTICLE. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THAT I WANT TO SELL TOYS FOR KIDS BUT I DIDN’T MAKE ANY PRIOR SELLING OF ANY KNID OF PRODUCT.THIS IS MY FIRST TIME. COULD YOU PLEASE GUIDE ME WHAT CERTIFICATION DO I NEED IF I WANT TO SELL TOYS IN INDIA AMAZON AND HOW TO GET IT?

Hi Navjot,

To sell toys in India, you will need a BIS certification. Search it on Google and search if you’ll need any other kind of certification.

Hello i am a new seller my first product june 2021 now i can sell on toys catgory on amazon uk. Thanks

Thanks for reading!

Hi Brian, Thanks for this article.

I have a unique toy I designed and is currently being made in China. I hope to sell FBA under my own brand.What do I need to do make sure I can sell my toy FBA on Amazon?Are there safety requirements or health requirements I need to pass?

Thanks for your guidance.Matt

Hi Matt,

Please see Amazon's terms on this subject to be sure you are fully compliant: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help.html?itemID=5SB2HLMUYFK4MXC

Hey there,I do not meet any of the requirements above. Here is my product which is currently FBM, but I’d like to convert to FBA so that I can sell it this holiday season.https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08L71MBW3?ref=myi_il_dp

Is it possible to convert right now?

Good morning, i would like to ask you for the help which requirements Amazon demands for selling toys and games on its platforma, i mean which documents of health or maybe other documents so i can sell in EU .

Thanks for answer

Sincerely yousOlga

Hi,Thanks for the informative blog! We have another question…If our game is ready for shipment to FBA by November 1,2020 from China…. will we make the Christmas season? We are now gathering prices for air and sea shipments.Thanks for your help!

Hi Jennifer,

It is possible but that is cutting it pretty close. If you are shipping by air, you should be able to make it. During that time of year, inbound shipments take longer to be received so there is no guarantee your inventory will be live before Christmas.

Hi, Thank you for the blog! We are in the process of signing up for the FBA accounts now and have registered for the IP Accelerator …hopefully we will receive Brand Registry in a couple of weeks. Our question is do you think we will make it for Christmas? Our game will not be ready to ship from China until mid October?

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