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How to Maintain Excellent Supplier Relationships for Amazon FBA Sellers

Posted by Nate Lind in Articles
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Amazon FBA sellers will see an increase in the streamlined management of their company as well as their ability to sell for profit when they have established solid relationships with existing suppliers. If your ecommerce business is already picking up speed, your supplier relationships are likely a key part of that.

Some of these suppliers might already drop shift to FBA warehouses as your representative. Others might give you outstanding incentives for ordering at a particular volume. Others can allow you to private label their products; meaning that you have more opportunities now and in the future. However, it’s not just about establishing these relationships, but also about maintaining them in order for success. Here are some top tips to ensure that your supplier relationships are always properly maintained.

Begin with The Basics

You need to track many of the most important details associated with supplier records including assumptions around lead time, mailing and ship from address, the supplier company’s name, their main point of contact, phone numbers and addresses, discounted freight or free freight minimums, payment terms and purchase order instructions, and policies around minimum advertised price.

You might have started out using a spread sheet to track these details, but information can be accidently deleted or lost. Having a better supplier information management tool, such as a piece of software, can be extremely helpful. Make sure that you have this information backed up in the cloud so that you can access it from anywhere.

Identify Common Problem Areas

As you probably already know, not every supplier relationship is a great one. Some suppliers can be extremely difficult to work with. While you can’t force every supplier to play by your rules, you can take steps to better manage things on your end. Make sure that you have considered key questions such as:

  • Whether they have frequent discrepancies that should cause you to question this relationship overall.
  • Whether the restocking model is not currently working.
  • If you have unrealistic expectations for certain suppliers that are causing consisting problems.
  • Whether or not it is the person at the company rather than the company itself that is making things challenging for you.

You do have wiggle room and opportunities to improve these problem areas when you take a step back and are more objective about the situation.

Use Technology to Streamline Your Needs

A dedicated supplier management tool is instrumental in showing that you are on top of your game. This information can prove extremely helpful when it comes time to value your company and to list it for sale.

You will also be able to access all necessary information about your suppliers at the click of a button, which can be much easier when you are planning to list your company for sale. This shows that you have removed yourself from the business as much as possible and that another buyer is poised to enter and address questions and concerns quickly and get their investment back sooner rather than later.

 

 

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