FBA Bundling: How Software Can Help

Bundling is an increasingly popular strategy for the profit-minded merchant.

As defined by Amazon.com, Inc. ("Amazon"), a bundle is a group of "highly complementary" items. Kitted products not only offer value to buyers, but they also help sellers differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Despite all the benefits, keeping track of bundled SKUs adds a new layer of complexity for sellers. In this post, we'll explore how software like RestockPro can simplify FBA bundling.

Easily Keep Track of Your Bundles

Product bundles are limited only by the seller's imagination (assuming that they're in accordance with Amazon's bundling policy). Many merchants get started with bundling by simply pairing items that are "frequently bought together," as visible on any Amazon product page. Taking this approach has its perks; namely, the merchant is familiar with the product category and most likely stocks one or more of the kit's parts.

However, bundling does have its share of challenges - especially when it comes to inventory tracking. Your kit will not have the same volume as its individual parts, which can make forecasting and re-ordering tricky.

A tool like RestockPro can simplify the tracking of bundles and their individual parts. For starters, RestockPro is customizable to your specific restocking model. This means that whether you prefer cross dock or maintain a local inventory, RestockPro has you covered. In addition, the software automatically tracks each kit's sales history, profitability, Amazon fees, cost information and relevant supplier data.

Need to compare how a kit is performing relative to its individual parts? RestockPro allows you to export your data to CSV for further analysis. Stop guessing about kit profitability...know for sure with RestockPro!

Re-Order Kit Parts in a Flash

You've determined that a kit is earning a solid margin, and it's time to restock. What should you do?

Let's imagine that you maintain a local inventory. Your first reaction might be to walk out to the warehouse, pull the necessary parts and start creating your FBA shipment. Unfortunately, without considering the bigger picture, this approach can be shortsighted and expose your business to an out-of-stock situation with Amazon. After all, Amazon demand is constantly fluctuating based on customer preferences, seasonality and your share of an item's Buy Box.

Since RestockPro tracks your kits and kit parts as unique SKUs, the system can help you find the right balance between using on-hand quantity and placing re-orders. As soon as you see that a kit is running low and needs replenishing, RestockPro makes it easy to see whether you already have kits available in your local inventory or how many you could build based on the parts you already own. (You might have items that you sell individually and as components of multiple kits.) With RestockPro, all of the information is at your fingertips to decide how best to utilize those items to maximize your profit potential.

And, for items that need to be re-ordered, RestockPro simplifies that process, too. Instead of punching your order into a purchase order document template, tracking down supplier contact information and saving the file on your computer, RestockPro merges your supplier and order details into an emailable PO. The purchase order data is then stored securely in your account, helping estimate the future profitability of your restocking decision.

While you're at it, you might also need to re-order the same item for sale in individual units. To save time, you can include such units on the same PO, but they'll be tracked separately in the system (to make your shipment prep easier and ensure accurate profit tracking).

Optimize Your Bundles with One Click

You might be wondering how RestockPro can help you find the right balance for your kits. I'm glad you asked! Our proprietary Kit Optimizer™ tool looks at everything that you have at that moment in your warehouse and suggests which kits would be best to build from a profitability perspective. Choose to optimize by estimated margin (or margin %) or profit potential, and let RestockPro do the difficult number crunching for you.

Try RestockPro for Your Bundling Needs

If you're ready to reap the greatest reward from FBA bundling, you need a tool like RestockPro. Give our software a try for 21 days - no contracts or long-term commitments required.

Start your free trial of RestockPro today!