In the Process of Find It, List It, Ship It, Repeat, it’s time to share how we do our Ship It.
We have developed a couple of processes to make it go faster.
I build a “Ship List” of things to ship this week. It’s a Word doc with a table to organize our shipping.
I include the quantity, whether we need to label it, the item, # of boxes and weights and dimensions for case-pack.
My wife pulls products and preps those requiring it. She will do this in advance for most of our inventory.
I manage creating the Shipping Plans and doing all the Pack and Ship portions.
I weigh and measure the case-pack cases and note it on my list.
I save the individual weights for later.
When creating the Shipping Plan, I do the case-packs first by selecting them in my Manage Inventory and ticking the selection box. Then using the “Action on X Items” menu, I choose to Send/Replenish Inventory.
I enter all the required sizes and weights. When Amazon finishes creating the Plan, I edit the Shipping ID to replace the time with something descriptive about the contents.
I then Work on the Shipments, complete all the required entries, calculate and accept the charges, then Print the shipping labels.
Amazon will include the SKU for the items in each case. If you have some appropriate readable text as your SKU, it’s easy to get them on the right boxes. If you’ve let Amazon create your SKU for you, the random text won’t be any help, and you’ll have to find some other way to keep track of which box gets which label.
I have a laser printer and use the labels of 2-up half sheets like UPS can provide.
After completing the case-pack shipments, I proceed to the individuals, again finding them in Manage Inventory and ticking the selection box.
Amazon will present the destinations and I edit the ID. If there are more than one destination, I “View Shipment Contents” and print those pages out for my Pick and Pack lists.
I then stage the various destinations, find boxes to fit, weigh and measure, and mark the boxes for destination. (I can forget which box goes where.) I note these on my Pick and Pack sheets for working on the shipments.
Then back to the PC to Work on Shipments where I enter the proper required data, purchase shipping, then print box labels.
There are 2 labels created for each box, one for UPS and one for Amazon. They are a set and both must be applied to the same correct box. The Amazon label has a barcode that refers the warehouse to your shipping plan quantities.
I then label all the boxes with the proper label, notify UPS for a pickup, then stage the boxes in my designated pickup spot. I bought a large-wheel hand cart from Harbor Freight to make it easier for me to get shipments up and down the stairs to our basement.
DONE!
Take a Nap!