Being part of Amazon Vendor gives us significant advantages in promoting our products and achieving expansion as a brand. Amazon Vendor has many programs that can help us reach our highest goals. Sometimes we know our product has excellent growth potential, but Amazon doesn’t order enough of it (or anything at all), so we can’t keep up with demand.
What is Born to Run?
Born to Run is a recent invite-only program that allows you to place orders telling Amazon how many products you expect to sell over a 10-week period.
This program allows you to encourage Amazon to increase inventory for your products. By creating your own purchase orders with suggested inventory levels, you can meet the demand for your products and combat the risk of stock-outs.
Before Born To Run
After Born To Run
If your purchase order is approved, this won’t be the only buy order you get for these goods during those first 10 weeks. Amazon may issue another purchase order if they notice significant demand and performance for your products.
The Born to Run program is made to assist you in boosting sales so that Amazon can begin placing consistent orders for your goods to keep up with demand.
Please be aware that the shipping window for the Born to Run program will not be extended beyond that for your regular orders.
Conditions
The primary condition on the part of Amazon is that you manage to sell the proposed inventory within 10 weeks. If products are not sold during this period, Amazon will give you two options of what to do with this inventory:
- Amazon will keep unsold units. You will provide Amazon a ‘retention fee’ equal to 25% of the cost of the unsold units. If you choose this option, any retention fee will be automatically deducted from your accounts payable under an automatically generated agreement in their CooP system, which can be viewed in the Completed Offers tab. Note that Amazon’s standard terms for returning defective or damaged units still apply.
- Amazon may return unsold units, taking into account weeks of cover and sell-through. In case any such unsold units are returned by Amazon, you will refund 100% of the product cost for any units so returned, plus 10% shipping and handling fees.
How to submit your Born to Run order (if you have this option on your Vendor Central Account)
Go to Orders > Vendor-initiated Orders and click on Go to the Program.
Go to Create a New Offer on your right.
In the next step, you will select one of the two options available if the inventory is not sold during the first 10 weeks. Read the detail and choose the best option for you. Review the Program Policy, and FAQs for Born To Run to learn more about this.
On the next page, you will be prompted to add the ASINs for which you want to ship inventory. You can submit new or existing products to Born to Run. If your product is not already on Vendor Central, add it first. Find more information on how to add products to Vendor Central here.
Be sure to add the amount that you are sure will sell during the first 10 weeks. Try to set a realistic goal so that your inventory can be sold during the trial period, and Amazon can start making more purchase orders for this product on its own.
Once you’ve finished adding your products, click Continue to Next. On the next page, review your order again and check that everything is correct, such as the cost of the products and the ASIN offer value. If you agree, click the small box to confirm to Amazon that you have reviewed this request, and finally click on Submit Offer.
If an offer has been accepted for an ASIN, you can find the approved quantity by searching for ‘Active Offers,’ and you will also receive a purchase order for the quantity of that ASIN. Make sure you accept the purchase orders and submit the quantity within the shipping window.
Top tips to completely sell your inventory during the 10-week period
- Build a good advertising strategy
This is the best approach to get more traffic to your ASINs and enhance visibility. It is also the best way to attract new customers for your products.
All Amazon businesses must have a successful PPC advertising strategy regardless of size. Listings can quickly get buried in the Amazon noise, where over 350 million options are available.
Aside from the fact that your organic ranking—the position in which your product naturally shows in search results—is significant, advertising also assists you in expanding your audience on the platform.
- Improve your product reviews
Any business can benefit from positive customer reviews of products or services, but this is especially true for your Amazon store. Consumers use reviews to guide them in selecting the ideal product. A genuine review can assist consumers in finding a product or service they are looking for.
Apply to Amazon’s Vine program if you don’t have enough reviews. You qualify for the Vine program if your listing has fewer than 30 reviews and your products have an Amazon Brand Registry.
- Optimize your listings
To achieve a better organic position, increase traffic and boost conversion, ensure your listing contains the best content possible. Include highly relevant keywords to your product page, ensure that the title, description, and bullet points adhere to Amazon’s guidelines, and don’t forget to include eye-catching and informative images that will encourage your audience to purchase your products.
Conclusion
Utilizing Amazon’s Born to Run program is a great way to keep up with demand for your goods and prevent running out of inventory. With the right strategy, Amazon will eventually increase the number of POs for this product, which will increase its profits.
If you have any questions about this program or how to use Vendor Central, please get in touch with Bellavix. We are here to help.
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