FBA Supplier Management: How to Organize Your Ever-Growing List

When you first started your FBA business, you probably only had a handful of supplier relationships to track. At the time, it was just easier to use a spreadsheet to manage all of the necessary contact information.

Now, however, things are starting to get out of control. The number of ASINs you keep in stock has more than doubled, which by default has also expanded the number of suppliers with whom you interact.

Surely there's a better way than using spreadsheets or an external contact management system, right?

In this post, we'll show you how RestockPro can streamline and simplify your FBA supplier management.

Your Suppliers, Accessible and Secure

You've worked hard to build supplier relationships that are both profitable and strategic. Without a reliable network of suppliers, your Amazon business wouldn't have much to sell. In fact, some industry gurus even go as far as to argue that effective supplier management is the most important building block for any successful eCommerce endeavor.

Spreadsheets limit your ability to effectively manage supplier relationships. Although basic contact information can easily be stored for quick reference, the file is not very useful for tracking operational activities, such as restocking or managing shipments.

RestockPro solves this problem by organizing all of your suppliers in an online portal. Each supplier has its own dedicated profile page, complete with your preferred restocking rules and purchase order settings. You can save a personal note for each supplier that appears on the purchase orders, helping you to personalize your relationship with the supplier. You can even add private notes, which are only visible to you or your staff.

As we'll discuss below, RestockPro uses all of this information to prioritize your restocking and shipping activities. When your FBA stock from a supplier begins to run low, our software uses data from the profile and alerts you when it's time to reorder.

Best of all, you can rest easy knowing all of your most sensitive supplier information is stored privately and securely. Our team at eComEngine (founded in 2007) has been helping Amazon merchants for more than a decade, and we make data security our top priority - just ask our customers.

Oh, and did we mention that you can manage unlimited suppliers with any RestockPro plan?

Build Supplier POs in a Flash

What's your current approach for generating purchase orders? If you're using spreadsheets, it probably goes something like this:

You notice inventory is running low for an item (hopefully, before it's too late!)
You look for the spreadsheet that contains your supplier contact information
You then search for your supplier's electronic catalog
You dig through your PO folder to find the most recent one you've sent
You make a duplicate of the last PO you created
You then update the new PO with the necessary information, cross-referencing the electronic catalog
You save the PO to PDF format
You launch your email account
You draft an email, attach the PDF, and send the message

Having followed this process for so long, you've probably got this down to five or ten minutes tops. Not bad, but RestockPro can cut the amount of time in half (or more).

RestockPro shows the suggested reorder total for each supplier, allowing you to see when that number is at or around a target order volume that qualifies you for free shipping or a discount incentive. Since all of your supplier information is already in RestockPro, building a PO is a matter of pointing and clicking. RestockPro guides you through the PO process step-by-step, saving you significant time and frustration.

At any point, you can refer back to your open orders in RestockPro. No more looking for a random PDF on your computer. You can see everything you've recently ordered from suppliers on RestockPro - and track trends in what you are paying them for repeat purchases of the same item.

Know exactly when you submitted your POs, build shipments with ease, and ensure suppliers hold up their end of the deal. You can even visualize which SKUs (by supplier) are contributing the most profit to your bottom line!