Calculate Your Savings with USA’s Amazon Storage Alternative

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Big sellers are saving big dollars . . . could you be next?

Some savvy buyers are able to purchase large lots of inventory at significantly reduced cost. You know it will take months, possibly a few years, to sell all those units, but you’ll still make a nice profit. Even when you start to incur Amazon’s additional long term storage (LTS) fees, though that will eat away at your margin. But LTS can fatally damage your seller ranking, too. And that’s a risk you can’t afford.

USA Can Do Better

Looking for an Amazon storage alternative? By warehousing your inventory at USA Fulfillment instead, you can avoid Amazon’s LTS fees and protect your seller accounts at the same time. What a relief! It’s easy to compare costs, because our pricing structure is formatted just like Amazon’s. To make the switch, your costs will include:

Amazon charges a one-time fee to remove and ship inventory elsewhere.
We charge a one-time fee to receive and prepare inventory for warehousing. This is a labor-intensive process for us because goods arrive unsorted.
Amazon charges per cubic foot for storage, with some seasonal fluctuations. So does USA. However, once inventory has been stored for 365 days, Amazon adds a long term storage surcharge. The extra fees can add up rapidly, especially for companies that warehouse large volumes of larger size units that tend to move slowly. The longer items sit on the shelf, the higher the cost per sale. USA Fulfillment does not penalize long term storage.

What does this look like in dollars and cents? Every company is different, but here are a couple of examples of the savings your company might enjoy:

A real company:

A large international importer contacted us about long term storage of goods destined for sale on Amazon. They needed to warehouse 45,000 units representing 70 SKUs in varying sizes. After reviewing USA’s fees, the company saw that USA Fulfillment could save them significant money over time. The company put in a removal order, and Amazon sent between 250-300 pallets of inventory to our warehouse.

The importer is already saving money, and their savings will increase compared to leaving the inventory with Amazon.

A hypothetical scenario:

Let’s say you purchased 10,000 units for 10% ($2.50/unit) of the MSRP of $25 and expect to sell 300 units per month on Amazon. At that rate, it will take 34 months to sell through the inventory. Your costs will include Amazon’s selling fees plus storage fees during peak and non-peak times. You could leave the inventory in Amazon for that full time period, or you could pull product out just before peak time and send back in at the most cost-effective time.

What’s the difference?

If you leave the products in Amazon, you will lose $15,000 over the 34 months on the product for which they paid 10 cents on the dollar.
If you move inventory to USA to avoid long term storage and send it back at the most advantageous time, you can save $90,000 and show a $75,000 profit over the same 34 months.

Better yet, if you were to drop the retail price to $20 per unit and sell 500 per month, using the USA alternative would boost your profit to $58,000 in merely 20 months’ time. Either way, out LTS alternative provides rich returns, indeed, on your investment.

Save on Future Purchases, Too

Companies that choose the USA long term storage alternative gain a second advantage, too. Newly-acquired inventory can be shipped directly to our facility for warehousing and remain with us until it’s time to send product over to Amazon. For example, you might purchase 3000 units and have the entire lot delivered to USA. We could then hold all of it till later, or send 500 units or so to Amazon’s east and west shipping facilities right away to support near-term sales.

It’s Time to Talk

If you’re about to face additional LTS fees with Amazon, you owe it to yourself to check out USA’s alternative rates. Then turn in your removal order and give us a heads-up call. USA Fulfillment can do better, and you can continue buying – and selling on Amazon – profitably. Let’s talk.