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Creating and Managing FBA Shipments from Zentail
Creating and Managing FBA Shipments from Zentail

An overview of managing FBA Shipping plans from your Inbound Shipments page.

Michael Goldmeier avatar
Written by Michael Goldmeier
Updated over a week ago

Zentail users can create, edit, and track FBA shipments! These are shipments that you are shipping to an FBA fulfillment center. By creating the shipment in Zentail, you'll be able to move inventory from one warehouse to another with a few clicks of your mouse!

Create an FBA shipment


Note: before creating the inbound shipment, the products must be marked as FBA and have package dimensions entered in Zentail.  If you just entered this information, it may take up to 15 minutes for Amazon to process it and accept your request to send products.  Assuming you've already done this, then you can continue with the steps below!

  1. Navigate to your Inbound Shipments page on Zentail.

  2. Click pencil icon on the Inbound Shipments page.

  3. Go through the same steps of creating a regular inbound shipment.
    - You'll notice the experience will change once you set the receiving warehouse as your FBA warehouse.

  4. *Set your Source Warehouse (optional but recommended!)*
    - Setting a source warehouse enables accounting for inventory. This means, Zentail will keep track of inventory leaving your source warehouse for this shipment. The inventory is deducted from the source warehouse as soon as you create the FBA shipment.

  5. Fill in your Label Preparation Preference
    - Seller Label: This is the most common setting.
    - Amazon: Use this for creating instructions for Amazon and may incur an additional cost from Amazon.
    - Both: This is used situationally.

  6. Create your PO Identifier.
    - This is an identifier for your "plan". After a shipping plan is generated, you can keep track of the multiple shipments by the PO Identifier.

  7. Add SKUs to your shipment.
    - Advanced Options allows you to specify how many products are in each case AND set any additional prep instructions.
    - You can import a csv of "SKU" (Column A) and "Quantity" (Column B) to add products to a shipment in bulk.  A column header should be included in this file.
    - Note: if you're using merged SKUs with an FBA SKU Override, Zentail will know to use the FBA SKU when communicating to Amazon.

  8. Click Create!

At this point, the Shipment goes into Processing Status and inventory is deducted from your Source Warehouse. This is done to make sure the appropriate level of inventory is reserved for this FBA shipment.

Please note that Amazon may split up your plan into multiple shipments going to different Amazon Fulfillment Centers.

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Editing an Inbound Shipment

You can edit the quantity of a shipment. This includes adding quantity for specific SKUs, decreasing quantity, or removing altogether! Please note that Zentail will still need to ask Amazon for approval when adding quantity to a shipment.

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Add a Package to your Shipping Plan

  1. Add package

  2. Enter Dimensions, quantity of SKUs in the package
    - This will show remaining quantity of SKUs for this shipment

  3. Ask for an estimate.

After asking for an estimate, your shipment goes into "quoting" status. Once Amazon provides the estimate, your shipment will then go into "quoted" status.

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Generate Item Labels

You can generate product labels or "item labels" on Zentail. Right now, Zentail creates a PDF of "30 Up" labels. This includes the required info from Amazon (FN SKU, bar code, title, Condition) plus the SKU.
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From here, you can also generate a "SKU list", which is a csv that includes a summary of the plan.

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Generate Shipping Label

Follow the button to Retrieve all Labels. This generates your shipping label and 2D barcode.

Important:  you must opt-in to use 2D barcode if you have not done so already. For more information, see https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/202049090

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Track Your Shipment

Zentail gets an update from Amazon of how many products have been received. So you'll be able to see when your FBA shipments are "received"  as well as "partially received".

Open Shipment ID

Summary of Steps:

  1. Create a Plan -> (deducts inventory) -> status: Processing 

  2. Pack the packages -> status: Quoting -> (receives quotes) ->status: Quoted

  3. Confirm the shipment -> (buys labels from Amazon) -> status: Awaiting Shipment

  4. Mark As Shipped -> (Relays status to Amazon)

  5. Print Shipping Labels, Item Labels 

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Important takeaways

  • This is a great way to keep track of inventory! Auto-deduct from your source warehouse and simplify your workflow.

  • Label Prep Preference- You'll need to set this up on Seller Central to do something other than Seller Label.

  • Case Packing- You can find this in advanced Options if needed.

  • Zentail does not yet support sending info about Pallets yet! Let us know if you would like to use this.

  • Editing Quantity - Add new products to existing shipment, edit quantity of existing products, remove products from shipment.

  • Missing Dimensions - SKUs MUST have package dimensions already filled in on Zentail. Otherwise, Amazon won't let you create a plan.

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Other notes:

  • Once the shipment is created, the user can manage the rest directly on Seller Central if desired (printing labels, marking as shipped). Zentail will receive the shipped status from Amazon after the fact.

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