If you've been reading this blog for a while you've probably noticed that I've been tracking my Amazon FBA profits to the penny. Every single library book sale, thrift store, and other sources are tracked so I know whether to return to the same place in the future. It also helps me to make informed decisions regarding my buying parameters and repricing strategy. Right now, my average profit for a library book sale is $439.91. Nothing life changing, but it's a great way to make some extra money and get out of the house at the same time.
I've been able to do this using a software program called Inventory Lab. They are the only FBA listing program (that I know of) that offers listing, bookkeeping, and analytics. If you're interested in a free one month trial and a bonus, please keep reading. Here are the benefits for their Listing, Bookkeeping, and Analytic features. You can also view this on their website as well.
Listing
| Features | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Turbo fast listing. | Cut down time on repetitive tasks. |
| Print individual labels. | Removes the need to manually sort labels. |
| Save your buy cost details. | For FBA Sellers, removes the need to manually sort labels. |
| View your total net profit by batch. | Know your profits while listing. |
| View average sales rank. | Helps source the right products. |
Bookkeeping
| Features | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Track business expenses. | Let go of tedious excel spreadsheets. |
| Export inventory reports to excel. | Avoid typing or recreating your reports. |
| View sales breakdowns. | View all your sales and export them from one place. |
| View net profit for each sale. | Effectively manage your time by using our formulas. |
Analytics
| Features | Benefits |
|---|---|
| View net profit by date. | Know how much you’re making per day. |
| Profit and loss report. | Utilize report for submitting your income tax. |
| Expense graphs. | Adjust expectations and change behaviors to increase profits. |
For a one month free trial, please go to InventoryLab.com. If you sign up before January 31st, 2014, I will also throw in a free copy of Adam Bertram's book, How to Source Used Books ($27 value). Just email me after signing up, and I will send you the eBook.
Do you use this option they have: “Build FBA shipments. Outsourcing your FBA fullfillment process to amazon, ship once to amazon instead of shipping individually.”
Just curious what that really means. Does it mean I can ship one big box of items and they get it all to the places it needs to go? Drives me nuts to input inventory and have 5 boxes to ship to different locations.
You can adjust this option on your Amazon seller account. Go to Settings —> Fulfillment by Amazon —-> and enable Inventory Placement Service. It costs an extra 30 cents each, but I think it’s worth it.
Thanks, Nathan, for this tip. This is really helpful.
ah, I did not know that! Can I do that with a shipment I have already approved and not shipped yet or must do it before? Also is it done once or each new shipment? Thanks!
I believe you need to make the switch before creating the shipment. You only need to enable it once.
Is this service cost effective for new to medium FBA sellers or is it more for medium to high FBA sellers? And what is the average cost per item if your listing 300 items a month on Fba for this service?
Well it costs $40 a month so I guess the cost per item for listing 300 a month would be 13 cents. It has a lot more features than just listing so I think it’s cost effective for all FBA sellers.
The Inventory Lab FAQ says they: “highly recommend a thermal label printer and base scanner for a faster workflow.” Nathan what specific tools are you using with Inventory Lab to make the work go faster? I could search for the thermal label printer with ease but nothing understandable came up for the search phrase “base scanner”. I know you’ve talked about scanners previously but I don’t have that info at hand. Thanks!
I’ve used both the DYMO 450 and the Zebra LP 2844. They both work really well.
Go to Amazon and search for UPC Scanner. You’ll get a bunch.
A typical one might be this: (not an affiliate link)
http://www.amazon.com/Handheld-Automatic-Barcode-Scanner-Reader/dp/B003VR2UQ6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1386878217&sr=8-3&keywords=upc+scanner
Nathan, I have often wondered how you know what your profit is when you buy a raft of books and they don’t individually price them on the receipt, so you don’t know your cost for a particular book. Do you just divide the total cost by the number of books and price each book equally? That would work against you if you had one or two very valuable books among the not very valuable ones. Also, if you want to sell books, for which you no longer have the receipt, from your own bookcase, how do you manage this tax-wise?
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, I just divide the total cost by the number of books. I normally enter the buy cost later. With InventoryLab, you can import the buy cost later on so you don’t have to do it while you’re listing.
That’s a good question regarding selling books at home. I don’t know what the correct way to handle this tax-wise. I just enter “0” as the buy cost and put the code “home” in the SKU number. Maybe one of my readers can answer this?
Nathan,
I really like Jennifer’s questions…especially:
“Also, if you want to sell books, for which you no longer have the receipt, from your own bookcase, how do you manage this tax-wise?”
Do you have any answers to that question? If one is just starting out in selling personal property items from around the house (asset conversion?) on FBA (books, dvds, video cassettes, etc.) and hasn’t kept receipts, how should this be handled?
I’m new to posting anything here, but have read Nathan’s material for quit awhile now. As far as sales tax goes, if you’re in business with a tax number, I would collect the tax from anyone buying within my State that collects it.
All I can talk about with any certainty is Texas. In Texas it is called a State Sales and Use Tax. if you sale at a garage sale (yard, patio, porch, rummage, whatever it’s called in your area) for example you are supposed to send in sales tax. It’s not inforced and no one does it. But, as a business you should collect the sales tax no matter what you’re selling. New, Used or Collectible.
If you buy an item for re-sale and then decide to keep it, enter it in your accounting spreadsheet as a sell and put aside the sales/use tax for it to be paid later.
I hope this has helped in some way and not cluttered the issue even more.
Hello Clayton,
Thanks for your advice regarding sales tax.
Unless your selling more than $20,000 a year. Amazon doesnt notify the IRS of any money paid to you so taxes isnt much of an issue at that point. From reading her post she is just getting started and wouldnt hit that point. You have to sell a bunch of stuff to get to that point in the book market. I’m 2 years in and am just getting to that point with an avg inventory at Amazon of 2000+ items. I let my inventory slip around Nov as I dont get into the seasonal selling right now and my book sales always taper off big time from Nov to middle of January.
Thank you all for your answers. I am just starting and am about to send in my first lot of books and was worried I should get all the accounting straight from the start. If I could earn $15,000 I would be delighted, so can probably easily stay under the tax radar.
I use Inventory lab for my listing service, the only problem I have had is if there is a problem with listing certain restricted items on Amazon. You dont get the notification until the product gets to amazon, then its considered unfullfilable. This happens quite regular on Dvd’s and a few books. The Dvd’s are probably Chinese copies and I understand that. But I have had a few text books get caught up in this problem. But Amazon doesnt charge very much to ship back to me. Great program overall, I love the book keeping aspect. You simply enter shipping costs, scanner subscriptions, etc. You get your actual profit, no guessing.
Can inventory lab easily be used on a phone as well or just a pc? What I really want to know is can I list with phone, check price with phone, etc. Thanks
Inventory Lab can only be used on a PC or Mac.