- Hi and welcome back to another Amazon selling video.
My name is Nikki Kirk and I've been selling on Amazon,
doing retail arbitrage, for four years now
or just about.
We're coming up to four years.
And I am finally back in my RV office.
If you've been hanging out for a little while,
I have been out renovating my RV,
so I've not been living in it.
But last night, we moved back in
and as you just probably saw,
my cats are back in and ready to run.
So it's not totally done 'cause I'm not sure if you can see,
but the stairs there are not finished.
So we're gonna finish up a few things
and then hopefully hit the road soon.
Here's a photo of the office so far.
I am really excited about my desk
because one, I built it myself, really.
I mean, it's just a butcher block that I stained
and then I got the legs off of Amazon,
and you just drill 'em in and voila.
I love this desk. I'm super excited.
All right, enough about that.
So in this video, really quickly,
I just wanna break down meltable inventory.
And you probably got a email from Amazon
that just says from April 15th to October 15th,
you can't sell anything that's meltable.
So what is meltables and why do they have this going on?
Every year, this email goes out and it's a yearly thing.
So in the summer, obviously,
the shipping trucks and warehouses get too hot.
And so Amazon can't deliver a product that's meltable
to a customer and assure
that it's gonna get there not melted.
This email is only talking about FBA inventory
because it's just talking about the warehouses.
You could still FBM meltables if you want to,
and a little bit later on,
I'll break down why you might want to.
But just know that this video is only talking
about FBA inventory.
When you think about meltables,
you probably automatically think things like chocolate
or candles, things that melt,
but it's also talking about items like gummies or vitamins.
It's any items that Amazon deems heat-sensitive,
and that just means that it can't withstand temperatures,
like stored temperatures of 75 to 155 degrees.
Amazon has a whole spreadsheet of the SKUs for 2021,
which I will link below,
or you can just search in Seller Central
for meltable inventory and it breaks it down right there.
There's a link there that says the ASINs.
The good news is that there's actually
not that many products that fall into this meltable,
heat-sensitive category,
and there's even better news if you're doing FBM.
Because the items that do fall into that category
go up in price on Amazon.
So if you are willing to sell and send
these meltable items,
which, obviously, you don't wanna send
like chocolate in Florida.
There's considerations, but things like gummies
that maybe won't melt,
you can actually send them FBM.
And I'm telling you that I've actually done this.
So you have to use it at your own discretion,
but I've shipped gummy vitamins, I've shipped chocolates.
So it's really up to you and what you think is best,
because you really don't want your customer
to get something melted,
so you have to use your judgment on that.
But if you can do it or there's things
that fall into the category
that maybe shouldn't necessarily be
or that won't really melt,
those kind of items you can make a lot of profit
doing FBM during the summer.
So definitely something to consider.
There's actually some protein bars
that year-round don't make a lotta profit,
but then in the summer months
when you can't FBA 'em anymore,
they start making a lotta profit.
So that's what I look forward to every summer.
'Cause they're not really meltable.
They'll be totally fine being shipped,
but Amazon deems them meltable.
They can't sit in the warehouse.
So I win.
Okay, now for the bad news.
It doesn't tell you this when you're scanning.
It very rarely will tell you
that the item is considered a meltable.
So when you're out scanning, you think you found something,
and you get it home and you find out
you can't send it in 'cause it's meltable.
Sometimes you eat the product,
sometimes you gotta take it back to the store.
It's really up to you.
There's a few ways that you can determine in store
if you think it might be a meltable,
if Amazon Seller app is not telling you it is.
One is if it has chocolate in the name,
that's pretty much a given.
And I mean that because one time I was scanning
a chocolate, I think it was like a brownie mix or something.
It was like a dry cake brownie mix of some sort.
It was chocolate flavored,
but there was nothing in it that was gonna melt.
So I grabbed it, didn't think anything of it,
and then I got home and it said
I couldn't send it in 'cause it was meltable.
And I was like, "What?"
It was because it had chocolate in the name.
Another thing, which is honestly the best way to go,
is if you don't see any FBA sellers on it,
the price is pretty high,
and it's a lotta FBM sellers,
that is pretty much a given that you can assume
that that is a meltable product
and that's why you're not seeing any FBA sellers on it.
So those are just two ways to kinda help you.
But like I said, you might just have to return stuff
to the store, or hey,
if it's gonna make a profit,
just go ahead and list it as FBM.
Now, there may be items that are very clearly meltable,
but for whatever reason,
Amazon will allow you to send them in FBA.
I don't recommend this.
If you're sure that it's not gonna last,
you don't want a customer to get a melted product
at the end of the day because it's gonna look bad on you
and the seller, and we are all trying
to run professional businesses here.
You don't wanna skim.
You don't wanna take any cut corners
because it's only gonna hurt your Amazon account in the end.
So just because it lets you send it,
you need to really consider, should you send it?
Depending on how quickly your warehouse
is checking stuff in and how fast your item is gonna sell,
obviously, the lower rank is gonna sell faster,
I would still keep sending stuff in
until around March 24th, which hey,
happens to be my birthday.
'Cause that will allow you enough time
to get it to the warehouse, it to be checked in,
and you still have like two weeks of sales.
And most of my stuff, I try to have sold within two weeks,
and if it's that kind of product,
it should be selling fast.
So just things to consider,
but don't freak out and stop sending it right now
because you still have another couple of weeks to go
and you can send it in.
If you wanna know if any of your inventory
is on the meltable list,
Amazon has the whole Excel list
of what they're considering meltables for 2021.
I went ahead and pulled a couple items up
just to show you some examples.
So if you were just to search on Google
or in your Seller Central, meltable FBA inventory,
you'll see this page,
which breaks it all down for you.
It is probably literally word for word
what was in the email that we were sent.
But here is the list of meltable ASINs
if you wanna go ahead and check on it.
I will link this page to the video description below,
just so you can find it easier.
But it's there for you.
So I pulled up some so you can take a look
at what they actually are.
So here is one example of these Whole Foods bars
that were on the list.
Because they are chocolate chip, they are going to melt.
Another one is obviously Cadbury chocolates.
One, these sound delicious.
I don't even know what these are, but they sound good.
But two, they are meltable.
And then another example is these vitamins.
So any kind of gummy vitamin,
and these are the ones
you might not necessarily think are meltable, but they are,
because they'll kinda like smoosh to the bottom
of the thing if they are stored at too high of a heat.
Now, when October rolls around
and it's Halloween candy time,
unfortunately, in 2020,
they pushed the date to October 15th,
but it used to be September 30th.
But anyways, now it's October 15th,
so it's too late for Halloween candy.
But here's a tip for you for when October does roll around.
If you start scanning the Halloween candy
when it starts to get on the shelf,
you will notice that there's a lotta high profit,
especially in bundles.
And the reason is that it's still not be able to send FBA,
so FBM commands usually a little bit of a higher price
for those kinda items,
and you'll see some really great profits.
And normally in October, on most of the states,
it's totally fine to ship stuff
because the temperatures are not as hot anymore,
but we'll see.
But just know that because I was scanning,
I think it was in early or late September,
some Halloween candy and it was really high-profit.
So just something to consider and tip for the future.
Now, they do tell you that you can remove your product
or they'll remove it for you if you need to.
And if you've never done a removal order before,
I'm just gonna show you how to do it.
It's super simple.
It costs 50 cents an item to have stuff shipped back to you.
Sometimes when things like this happen,
they might do a free removals starting like April 1st,
so we'll see if that happens or not,
where you can ask for anything back.
It's not just meltable, just anything back,
and you will get it back for free.
There's no cost to you.
So let me just really quickly walk you through
how to do a removal order if you want it.
From your manage inventory screen,
you're just gonna click on the product you want
to have removed or products if there's multiple.
Then you will go here to create removal order.
You'll click that.
And if you've never done one before,
it will not have your address,
but if you have done one before
or it just has your address there,
you can go ahead and save your address now, which is nice.
But you just say which ones you want back
and they will ship back.
It does take a couple of weeks sometimes
to get the product back, so just know that.
And that's really it.
That's the meltable inventory.
If you guys have any questions or wanna see
a future video from me, please let me know.
I'd be happy to make them and help you out.
If you need help ungating as a U.S. seller
or a Canada seller, I have my ungating guides.
As always, they are linked below.
They are affordable and new seller specific,
so you can get ungated and start shopping
in the high-profit categories like grocery,
topical, health and personal care,
beauty, toys, all of that.
And as always, thank you guys so much for watching
and happy sourcing.