The seller’s guide to importing to Amazon Europe: BREXIT (Part 3/3)

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27 November, 2018
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5 minute read
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Guest blog from Shypple | A three-part series on shipping solutions for Amazon EU | part three

Selling in Amazon Europe is a bit more complicated than simply shipping your products to a European warehouse and watching the sales roll in. For this series, we welcome Shypple, a company whose “shipping made simple” vision is to make global trade virtually frictionless. Shypple is a digital forwarder offering all services from A to Z: door pickups, custom brokerage, ocean/air/rail freight services, on-demand storage options, and more. Shypple makes selling in Europe much easier, but handling shipping or catering shipping options specifically to your business.

To break down the process, our third installment will discuss the services offered by Shypple, as well as a label, shipping and routing guide for businesses sending goods to the European Union.

Shypple: Digital freight forwarder of choice

As a digital forwarder, Shypple offers customs brokerage and freight forwarding services. Shypple offers importing and exporting enterprises in a central and digital web app that acts as a supply chain dashboard for all in transit, planned and delivered shipments.

Shypple’s web app helps importers and exporters because it forecasts in a variety of booking, planning, delivery and communication possibilities. Multiple users from a company can access this tool and are in direct contact with Shypple’s operations coordinators. When a shipment is booked within the web app, users within the company are automatically updated via a milestone overview that sends automated updates with regards to ETA adjustments and milestone achievements (for instance: booking confirmed, shipment departed, customs clearance completed, planned delivery date).

Shippers can easily select the services they need, add weights and dimensions, and request (when door-to-door/ExWorks) or book a shipment (when port-to-door/FOB) directly from the easy-to-use web app. Several shipping possibilities will be shown for sea freight, whereas airfreight can be easily requested via the search tool. By offering direct insight into shipping tariffs and sailing schedules from and to Rotterdam and Antwerp (Hamburg is also possible as request) Shypple can offer cheaper rates and the possibility to directly arrange a shipment via the web app, instead of hassling over phone and email.

Shypple offers an app to select shipping possibilities and customers can select between airfreight and sea freight.

After booking a shipment, a central overview is created, with several tabs that offer all the required information. Both Shypple’s shippers and operations managers can upload and download information, documentation, and add comments. Whenever you or your colleagues add information, documentation or comments notifications will be triggered. This foresees very fast communication, limits errors and offers more insight and control over shipments.

Shypple's app offers integrated track and trace.

Another great tool for shippers is Shypple’s integrated track and trace plugin, which predicts with live insight the current location of your shipment (for both sea and airfreight shipments). Is your shipments’ estimated time of arrival delayed? You will be notified within 15 minutes. This helps you to better inform clients in time and enables Shypple to work toward possible solutions faster.

Notifications allow you to work faster when problems arrive.

 

Labeling and shipping routing guide

In the last year, Shypple has experienced an ever-increasing demand from European based Amazon buyers and sellers to have more visibility, insights and control over their shipments and have helped out a wide variety of businesses from purchase, collection and labeling of goods up to warehousing or delivery.

Are you looking for new ways of organizing your freight shipments from or to Europe? Or are you planning to start buying or selling goods via Amazon in Europe? Shypple is in position to offer freight forwarding and customs brokerage service via major European seaports such as Hamburg, Bremen, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

When it comes to sending goods to Amazon warehouses, the most important requirements are those related to labeling, shipping and routing. Shypple brings you an insight into all of these tiny details important for flawless process.  

Labeling

FBA uses barcodes to identify and track inventory throughout the fulfillment process. Each product sent to an Amazon fulfillment center requires a barcode. There are two kinds of barcodes that are used to identify products:

  • Manufacturer barcodes (eligible barcodes include GCID, UPC, EAN, JAN, or ISBN)
  • Amazon barcodes (ASIN, FNSKU, or MSKU)

Products that do not use the manufacturer barcode for tracking require an Amazon barcode. A seller can print Amazon barcodes from within the seller account and apply the barcodes. If a seller does not want to apply the barcodes, they can sign up for the FBA Label Service and have Amazon apply the labels for a per-item fee ($.20).

A seller can print Amazon barcodes

Each box or pallet shipped to an Amazon fulfillment center must be properly identified with a shipping label.

Guidelines for labeling boxes:

  • Labels supported measure 3-1/3 x 4 inches.
  • Don’t place labels on a seam on the box where they will get cut by a box cutter.
  • The FBA shipment label should be placed next to the carrier (UPS, Fedex or other) label.
  • Both the FBA shipment label and the carrier label (UPS, Fedex, or other) must remain uncovered so they are scannable and readable.
  • Each box you include in the shipment must have its own label. Each pallet needs four labels, one in the top center of each side.

Example of an FBA shipping label.

Besides product barcode and shipping label, there is a question of a shipping mark. A shipping mark is simply a mark on the outside of the exterior shipping carton of an item being exported. At the minimum, shipping mark should include weight and dimension of a single carton, the number of the carton and total number of cartons (such as 1/50, 2/50, 3/50), the number of units in carton and information on actual product (content), country of origin (“Made in China”), and manufacturer’s information.

Shipping and routing

There are standard requirements that apply to all boxes shipped to Amazon fulfillment centers, whether by small parcel delivery, less than truckload (LTL), or full truckload (FTL). These requirements are related to box content information, box dimension (“Boxes containing multiple standard-size items must not exceed 25 inches on any side”), box weight (“Boxes must not exceed the standard weight limit of 50 lbs, unless they contain one single oversized item that exceeds 50 lbs”), approved containers and even approved dunnage!

For more detailed information on these matters, see Amazon’s info on Small Parcel Shipment.

Based on the shipping method used, there are additional requirements:

We’ve already discussed briefly and shared valuable guidelines for small parcel delivery requirements. As for LTL or Full Truckload shipments, including wrapped pallets, these require additional preparations. The seller and chosen carrier are responsible for meeting these when sending large-volume shipments to Amazon. Some of these requirements are related to:

  • Using acceptable pallets.
  • Building pallet shipments.
  • Adhering to pallet label requirements.
  • Providing the bill of lading (BOL).
  • Scheduling a delivery.
  • Providing your carrier with Amazon reference IDs, shipment IDs, and tracking (PRO) numbers.

There are even carrier related requirements. So, what does a carrier need to do?

  • Has Amazon Reference IDs, Shipment IDs, and tracking (PRO) numbers.
  • Schedules advanced delivery appointments.
  • Adheres to the vehicle condition requirements.

For more detailed information on these matters, please visit Shipping Requirements: LTL and FTL.

Are you looking for new ways of organizing your freight shipments from or to Europe or are you planning to start buying or selling goods via Amazon in Europe? Get in touch with Shypple’s e-commerce expert, Milan, at m.borkovic@shypple.com, who would be glad to help you.

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Milan Borkovic

Customs Inspector for the matters of customs regulations, international trade, import - export procedures and customs law. I am controlling documentation (customs entry forms, invoices & packing lists, B/L, preferential origin documents EUR.1) filed by the customs brokers on the behalf of their clients, traditional importers and exporters. I am a University degree holder (The Faculty of Economics) with proven record of Customs Administration engagement.

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