how's it going everybody my name is
warner fields with fields of profit i'm
a full-time high six figure amazon
seller and in today's video i'll be
breaking down exactly how you can use
prep centers for your amazon fba
business basically what a prep center
does is it's going to receive your
inventory from suppliers and ship that
stuff off to amazon for you there's a
lot of nuance within that so we're going
to talk about how we can use those for
our amazon businesses to grow and be
much better healthier businesses in the
long run before we do that if you want
to check out the link down below to
learn even more about selling on amazon
we have a link to our completely free
amazon seller discord community there's
about 17 000 people in there now with a
ton of great free information would love
to see you in there but let's go ahead
and jump into the video
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so first off just in case you are
completely brand new to the idea of a
prep center basically what a prep center
is going to do is let's say you're doing
wholesale online arbitrage private label
any of those business models where
you're ordering things online and then
shipping that stuff into amazon you know
right now you're probably sitting at
home labeling the units yourself
covering the barcodes shipping that off
to amazon which is a lot of work but it
is a little bit more profitable than
using a prep center basically what a
prep center is going to do is do all
that work for you they're going to
handle the labeling the items they're
going to ship it off to amazon on your
behalf they're going to receive the
boxes and unbox everything so there's a
lot that goes into prepping i'm sure
you're well aware of what all goes into
prepping i assume based on you clicking
on this video you're ready to kind of
consider looking into a prep center so
that's basically what a prep center does
is they're just gonna receive anything
you buy and send it on to amazon on your
behalf for a per unit fee generally that
fee is gonna be anywhere from one dollar
if you're sending in a whole bunch of
stuff all the way up to two dollars if
you're a beginner depending on the prep
center depending on you know whatever
you can negotiate that's a kind of a big
tip with using prep centers is negotiate
the rates as much as you can a lot of
times they'll have different quotes so
you know let's say this prep center says
if you do more than 3 000 units a month
you get a dollar per unit this one says
you know if you do a thousand plus you
get 1.25 so kind of shop around when
you're looking for a prep center look at
what works best for you so that kind of
brings me into my next point just a nice
natural segue into how you're going to
be able to find a prep center so when
you're looking for a prep center you
want to think about a couple different
things for one looking into a prep
center that sales tax free might be very
advantageous to you online arbitrage
sellers you have to think about the fact
that if you are buying an item let's say
so for example i lived in arkansas as i
was coming up on amazon the sales tax
rate there is just shy of 10 so for me
to order a 10 item i would pay basically
a dollar in sales tax whereas if i just
sent it to a you know a prep center i
could get a dollar per unit probably
with my volume so when i consider that
even on a 10 item it would be net zero i
would not lose any money and then i
would be skipping the work of prepping
the products myself so you think about
that in terms of the sales tax rate in
your state if you're already in a sales
tax free state it's maybe not quite as
big of a bump for your business in terms
of profitability but that's something to
think about if you're an online
arbitrage seller if you're doing
wholesale or want to scale into
wholesale it's nice to have prep centers
on the coasts or near some of your
biggest distributors that way when you
buy from your wholesalers generally you
have to pay shipping when you're doing
wholesale so when you buy from your
wholesalers your shipping is going to be
way way cheaper if you ship it you know
just across the state rather than let's
say you know if i had a wholesale
supplier in california and i had to ship
it all the way to arkansas to get my
stuff prepped there that's going to be a
lot more expensive in terms of shipping
than if i just got a prep center in
california and with wholesale these
sales tax implications are not really
there so those are some of the things
you're going to want to think about in
terms of getting a prep center obviously
you're going to want to shop around for
the best rates for you negotiate with
them and honestly when i'm shopping for
a prep center i like to find a prep
center that will get on the zoom call
with me just so i can put a face to you
know where i'm about to be sending
thousands of thousands of dollars worth
of inventory i'd like to at least know
who i'm associating with right because
in a way a prep center is almost your
business partner right they're gonna be
handling a ton of your logistics
problems so make sure you you know you
hop on a call with them if possible
sometimes they don't want to and in that
case i would personally move on from
those but that's up to your own better
judgment i like to at least try to talk
to someone at the prep center before i
start sending them thousands of dollars
worth of stuff so i would recommend
trying to do that see what they you know
come with some specific questions for
them so when i was shopping around for a
prep center i was talking about like so
how much is your polybags and if i do x
units per month can i get this discount
on prep or you know can i waive the fee
on this certain product prep if i do
this kind of volume just kind of get
into specifics with them on those calls
maybe if you're someone who sells a lot
of shoes a lot of prep standards will
actually have special rates for shoes
because they are kind of an extra task
to really package a lot of prep centers
really don't like doing shoes so if
you're somebody who does shoes go ahead
and contact them talk about that come
with specific questions when you do get
them on a zoom call that are going to
help you feel a lot more confident in
your prep center decision so now you're
familiar with what a prep center is you
know what to look for when you are
looking for a prep center but let's talk
about when it is actually time to go
ahead and get a prep center so i've been
sitting on a lot of youtube lives lately
hopefully you've been in the chat those
have been a lot of fun but there's been
a lot of people asking especially like
brand new beginners asking about how do
i get a prep center where can i find a
prep center when really if you're a true
beginner you probably aren't ready for a
prep center yet but maybe you are so let
me go through a couple of the criteria
where i would say you're probably ready
to get a prep center so right off the
bat if you're someone who is just trying
to optimize their dollar trying to scale
they have a bunch of time to sink into
this business i would say don't get a
prep center until the one to two
thousand units a month mark once you get
there it's probably going to make more
sense for you to devote that time to
sourcing we'll talk about that here in a
second but if you're someone who has a
full-time job you know wants to treat
amazon you know make a little less
profit sacrifice profit to pull yourself
out of the business a little bit if you
just want to treat it like a side hustle
do as little work as possible that
decision-making process is gonna look a
little bit different to you but the main
decision you should be making when you
are looking into a prep center
especially if you're trying to optimize
the dollars that go into your business
is you should be considering the time
when you are prepping products if you're
you know if you're sitting there
prepping products and you know for a
fact you've got 10 grand 15 grand
sitting in the bank that's unspent on
inventory but you're having to devote
that time to prepping products that
means it's absolutely time to get a prep
center so that you can devote more time
to getting through your money spending
that capital because at the end of the
day amazon is all about getting through
that capital that's available to you so
if prepping products is preventing you
from getting through your capital it's
definitely time to go ahead and get a
prep center that's kind of the easy
litmus test i would say for when you are
ready for a prep center so now you've
done all your research you know when you
need to get a prep center you know what
to look for in your prep center let's
talk about how the actual processes work
when you do have a prep center because
it's going to vary from prep center to
prep center but i'll go ahead and share
my experience for the prep center that i
currently work with by the way if you
are looking for a prep center i work
with a prep center down in florida
called ilogistics they've been very good
for me i've been working with them for
quite a bit now the link is down below
for them if you want to go ahead and
check that out that helps support the
channel if you do go ahead and check out
eye logistics and all that kind of stuff
so when we are working with these prep
centers it's going to vary from prep
center to prep center but for the most
part they're going to give you an excel
sheet so this prep sheet right here is
probably going to be very similar to one
that you would get from your prep center
so when you do get an item obviously
this is just a sample that i made for
the video so when you do get an item
you're going to go ahead and fill out
all this information this is
specifically what i logistics asks for
some other prep centers might ask for a
little less or a little more information
but basically when i buy an item so let
me find a sample item here and we'll
just pretend like we're listing a
product so let's say we wanted to list
this product right here we found this
product profitably from another website
and we wanted to go ahead and send this
in to our prep center for them to prep
send off to amazon for us so
specifically for my prep center again
this is going to vary from prep to prep
i would go ahead and throw in the item
title here you know you're going to say
how many units you actually got so let's
say i ordered 10 units of this it was
just a nice little test buy here so 10
units and then on the received here a
lot of prep centers are probably going
to do something similar when they
actually receive your inventory check
your inventory and they're going to say
hey we only got you know we only got
nine then from there you can go ahead
and you know audit what's actually been
shipped to you see if you got shorted
see if they sent the wrong thing at all
again it's going to be very important to
have a prep center that does communicate
well with you and that's something i've
really liked about working with my
current prep center is anytime
something's messed up they're very
willing to work with me try to get it
fixed because a lot of this stuff
there's gonna be mistakes that are made
you know by the companies that are
sending you inventory like they're gonna
send you the wrong size of something
something that's been happening is
they're sending items with the security
tags on it so make sure you have a prep
center who's willing to you know get
into the weeds notice mistakes like that
and really help you out but really we're
just going to be grabbing some basic
information you know we've got the acen
that's easy to get the upc is a little
bit trickier to get and most prep
centers are going to require you to put
your upc's on the spreadsheets here i
use a tool that just converts asins to
upcs i'm not in love with the tool i'm
not going to specifically plug anything
but if you look up asin to upc that's
what i've been doing just because a lot
of source websites do not list the upc
on the website so i would grab this asin
plug it into my ace into upc converter
throw that on there and then for cost
per unit let's just say for the sake of
the video we're buying this for 11 bucks
that means they're gonna go ahead and
store this cost per unit in your
inventory lab account most prep centers
will require you to use inventory lab or
a similar listing software plus if
you're at the point in your business
where you're ready to use prep centers
and all that kind of stuff you should be
pretty easily able to afford inventory
lab subscriptions it's only like 50
bucks a month so finishing out here
walking through the rest of this for the
list price typically you're gonna be
able to tell your prep centers what you
want them to list the item for so you
know we could look at the keepa chart
down here see what it's been selling for
so in this case i would probably just
tell them to list it at like you know
probably 40 bucks and then when it
actually comes into stock obviously i'm
gonna be editing all these prices and
stuff in my repricer so i don't have to
worry about any of that down here for
the bundle if there's you know ever a
thing where you're buying a two pack or
a three pack or something like that you
could just go ahead and note you just
say yep it's a two pack that's it in
this case it's not a bundle so i'm just
gonna leave that blank in this case this
is my warehouse notes where if there's
anything that goes wrong with my
shipments they'll go ahead and tell me
in here so anytime that security tags
get left on stuff like that that i've
been talking about they'll put that in
here this is if i have any notes for
them to be on the lookout for something
sometimes i'll buy things in cases so
i'll say you know just be aware that
this comes in cases please break the
cases open and stick with the asians
that way but i don't use that very often
for supplier sku and month i like to use
these to create my inventory lab skus so
let's just say we bought this from
academy we can give it custom skus so
what i've done on my own spreadsheet
with ilogistics is i've made a custom
little sku here that just adds my
supplier my buy cost and my month
together so i have a rough idea of where
i bought the item from what i paid for
it and when i bought it that's going to
be some useful information for when you
are you know going back monitoring your
pricing going back auditing your
supplier profitability all that kind of
stuff be sure you're embedding enough
information in these skus and then after
that they're going to handle the rest so
once you've thrown all these items on
here i try to do it at the end of the
day after i've run all my purchases i'll
add everything to my prep sheet so you
know let's say we bought 10 units of
this i'm gonna add that to my prep sheet
that way i don't forget it because if it
arrives at the prep center it's not on
your sheet there's gonna be a little bit
of confusion there so i try to avoid
that confusion and just put everything
on this spreadsheet but that's basically
the whole process so after you go ahead
and add all your inventory in there
every now and then you're going to go
ahead and create an order it's going to
depend on the prep center sometimes prep
centers will say all right every monday
we'll send out all your inventory but
for most prep centers you're going to
say hey i have a thousand units there
right now can you go ahead and send that
in then they'll have that out within 24
to 48 hours sometimes it'll take 72
hours just depending on how backed up
the prep center is but try to find one
that does your orders in around 48 hours
that tends to be fairly standard fairly
reasonable time frame to get your order
prep done but once you do that you're
going to get an invoice usually for
whatever your negotiated rate is take
care of that as soon as possible be a
good client and they will be very
communicative with you you know treat
them well that treats you well simple
stuff here but i hope you guys found a
ton of value in this video if you did
please feel free to hit that subscribe
button down below i'd really appreciate
that that adds value to my business if
you have any questions comments anything
like that feel free to drop those down
below as well i'm always happy to answer
those but i really appreciate you guys
watching and i will see you next time
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you