I first heard about SKUdrop in Sep 2022 when it was launched at Southern Seller Fest in Sydney.
I was so blown away by the benefits SKUdrop provided that I stood up in the conference of over 400 people and exclaimed, "This is a GAME-CHANGER!"
New sellers might not appreciate the multiple benefits that SKUdrop provides, but as a seller who has sent thousands of shipments to Amazon since 2013, I could immediately see the numerous advantages that SKUdrop has innovated to optimize the entire supply chain from China to Amazon FBA in the US (and now UK as well).
SKUdrop is not just a shipping service, it's an entire supply chain logistics solution to easily and efficiently store, ship from China, clear customs, and deliver shipments to multiple Amazon fulfilment centers anywhere in the US or UK. And to do it all through a really intuitive and simple to use system that is so much easier than dealing with Amazon's Seller Central system and freight forwarders.
I was so blown away by the benefits SKUdrop provided that I stood up in the conference of over 400 people and exclaimed, "This is a GAME-CHANGER!"
New sellers might not appreciate the multiple benefits that SKUdrop provides, but as a seller who has sent thousands of shipments to Amazon since 2013, I could immediately see the numerous advantages that SKUdrop has innovated to optimize the entire supply chain from China to Amazon FBA in the US (and now UK as well).
SKUdrop is not just a shipping service, it's an entire supply chain logistics solution to easily and efficiently store, ship from China, clear customs, and deliver shipments to multiple Amazon fulfilment centers anywhere in the US or UK. And to do it all through a really intuitive and simple to use system that is so much easier than dealing with Amazon's Seller Central system and freight forwarders.
Key Benefits of SKUdrop
StorageSave on Storage
SKUdrop has a warehouse in Yiwu, China. By storing your inventory with SKUdrop, you save 52% and 83% compared to Amazon's US FBA storage fees in Jan-Sep and Oct-Dec respectively. If you store 58 cubic metres (equivalent to the volume in a 40 foot container), you will save USD20,550 per year in storage fees by using SKUdrop compared to Amazon FBA! |
ShippingOptimize your Shipping
With your inventory stored in SKUdrop's warehouse in China, you can drip-feed many small shipments to Amazon instead of sending many months of inventory in large shipments. This has several advantages such as no more expensive US 3PLs, lowered risk if any shipment is lost or delayed, better cash flow, and improved Amazon Inventory Performance Index (IPI) score. |
SoftwareEasy as 1-2-3
Shipping to Amazon is confusing for new sellers and tedious for experienced ones. SKUdrop is much more user-friendly and is integrated with Amazon Seller Central. You no longer have to create Amazon shipping plans, download and send Amazon shipping labels to your shipping provider, compile and upload tracking numbers for each carton. A few clicks and everything is done! |
Benefits of SKUdrop in Detail
1. STORAGE
Storing your inventory with SKUdrop is much cheaper compared to storing with Amazon. SKUdrop has an extremely well setup warehouse in Yiwu, China that is very well organized and maximizes efficiency with their software system that is integrated with Amazon Seller Central.
SKUdrop |
Amazon FBA (Jan-Sep) |
Amazon FBA (Oct-Dec) |
$14.70 per cbm, per month |
$30.72 per cbm, per month |
$84.74 per cbm, per month |
$0.49 per cbm, per day |
$0.87 per cubic foot, per month |
$2.40 per cubic foot, per month |
SKUdrop's storage rate is USD0.49 per cubic meter (cbm) daily, whilst Amazon's storage rate for standard-size items is USD0.87 per cubic foot (cbft) monthly from January to September, and USD2.40 per cubic foot monthly from October to December.
Based on 1 cbm = 35.31 cbft, and 30 days per month, we can calculate the storage fees per cbm monthly as shown in the table above.
Based on 1 cbm = 35.31 cbft, and 30 days per month, we can calculate the storage fees per cbm monthly as shown in the table above.
For example, if you stored 58 cbm (the equivalent of a 40ft container) over a year, SKUdrop storage will save USD20,550! That's a huge price difference!
What if you had smaller volumes, such as 10 cbm? You will save over $3500 per year in storage fees with SKUdrop vs Amazon FBA.
There is a huge difference in storage rates and you can cut down on storage costs significantly by storing inventory with SKUdrop rather than storing large volumes with Amazon.
What if you had smaller volumes, such as 10 cbm? You will save over $3500 per year in storage fees with SKUdrop vs Amazon FBA.
There is a huge difference in storage rates and you can cut down on storage costs significantly by storing inventory with SKUdrop rather than storing large volumes with Amazon.
2. SHIPPING
SKUdrop works for both new, small sellers as well as experienced sellers with high-volumes.
For New or Small Sellers
Competitive Shipping Rates
Many new sellers want to ship smaller initial quantities for a start, and they are often shocked to discover that the shipping cost is higher than expected; sometimes even higher than the product cost!
This is because small sellers don't always have the economies of scale to ship cost-effectively.
SKUdrop solves this as it send multiple shipments every week for 600 brands who use their service. Therefore all their clients shipments can be consolidated to achieve competitive economies of scale. Therefore even a small seller shipping 1 or 2 cartons is able to get the rate of bulk shipments.
For Experienced Sellers
If you compare SKUdrop's shipping rate, it might not be as low as what you are using. However it is competitive and reasonable. But that is missing out on the big picture.
Your total supply chain logistics cost is offset by the storage rates that are much lower compared to sending an FCL or LCL shipment of several pallets and storing large quantities of inventory with Amazon or a 3rd party logistics provider (3PL) in the US. As shown in the storage section, storing an FCL worth of stock in Amazon will cost USD20,550 more compared to storing with SKUdrop.
Furthermore, many big sellers use US 3PLs due to Amazon inventory storage limits and other reasons. But US 3PLs are expensive. Not only do you have to pay them storage fees, they charge receiving fees, pick and pack fees, and on top of that you have to pay additional shipping fees to ship from the 3PL to Amazon.
All these steps cost money and takes up lots of time to coordinate inventory between multiple parties.
With SKUdrop you can eliminate all that, saving you time and money, with simple shipments direct to Amazon fulfillment centers.
Better Cash Flow
When shipping in bulk, you are paying thousands of dollars upfront. Using SKUdrop, you can store the bulk of your inventory in their China warehouse with low storage fees, then drip-feed small shipments to Amazon.
I used to ship up to 6 months of stock to Amazon from China and endure Amazon's storage fees, or for some products, I would send 12 months of stock to a US 3PL and then drip-feed monthly into Amazon, which added a lot of 3rd party fees.
However, since using SKUdrop, I have been able to avoid the above scenarios. I now send all my Made-in-China products to store with SKUdrop in China, maintain slightly over 2 months of inventory in Amazon, and then restock from SKUdrop to Amazon weekly using the cheapest shipping option (you could also choose to restock fortnightly, monthly or whatever suits you).
What's the advantage of this? There are two big benefits:
a) Improved cash flow - instead of paying a large sum upfront for you shipment, you only pay small amounts at a time as you send small shipments. It's like shipping and paying in installments.
b) Lower risks - I have had entire shipments lost or delayed at the port for months. One seller I know lost 6-figures worth of inventory from a shipment that was lost. This is the risk of shipping all your eggs in one basket. It can literally kill your business overnight. By shipping small quantities weekly, I avoid this risk. Even if one of my shipments is lost or delayed, I always have another shipment that will arrive the next week!
Furthermore all shipments by SKUdrop are fully insured. I am thankful for this as there was a UPS strike in 2023 and several of my shipments worth a few thousand dollars was lost by UPS. Before I even knew my cartons were missing, SKUdrop contacted me with a report of all the missing shipments and reimbursed me for them. That's 1st-class customer service!
For New or Small Sellers
Competitive Shipping Rates
Many new sellers want to ship smaller initial quantities for a start, and they are often shocked to discover that the shipping cost is higher than expected; sometimes even higher than the product cost!
This is because small sellers don't always have the economies of scale to ship cost-effectively.
SKUdrop solves this as it send multiple shipments every week for 600 brands who use their service. Therefore all their clients shipments can be consolidated to achieve competitive economies of scale. Therefore even a small seller shipping 1 or 2 cartons is able to get the rate of bulk shipments.
For Experienced Sellers
If you compare SKUdrop's shipping rate, it might not be as low as what you are using. However it is competitive and reasonable. But that is missing out on the big picture.
Your total supply chain logistics cost is offset by the storage rates that are much lower compared to sending an FCL or LCL shipment of several pallets and storing large quantities of inventory with Amazon or a 3rd party logistics provider (3PL) in the US. As shown in the storage section, storing an FCL worth of stock in Amazon will cost USD20,550 more compared to storing with SKUdrop.
Furthermore, many big sellers use US 3PLs due to Amazon inventory storage limits and other reasons. But US 3PLs are expensive. Not only do you have to pay them storage fees, they charge receiving fees, pick and pack fees, and on top of that you have to pay additional shipping fees to ship from the 3PL to Amazon.
All these steps cost money and takes up lots of time to coordinate inventory between multiple parties.
With SKUdrop you can eliminate all that, saving you time and money, with simple shipments direct to Amazon fulfillment centers.
Better Cash Flow
When shipping in bulk, you are paying thousands of dollars upfront. Using SKUdrop, you can store the bulk of your inventory in their China warehouse with low storage fees, then drip-feed small shipments to Amazon.
I used to ship up to 6 months of stock to Amazon from China and endure Amazon's storage fees, or for some products, I would send 12 months of stock to a US 3PL and then drip-feed monthly into Amazon, which added a lot of 3rd party fees.
However, since using SKUdrop, I have been able to avoid the above scenarios. I now send all my Made-in-China products to store with SKUdrop in China, maintain slightly over 2 months of inventory in Amazon, and then restock from SKUdrop to Amazon weekly using the cheapest shipping option (you could also choose to restock fortnightly, monthly or whatever suits you).
What's the advantage of this? There are two big benefits:
a) Improved cash flow - instead of paying a large sum upfront for you shipment, you only pay small amounts at a time as you send small shipments. It's like shipping and paying in installments.
b) Lower risks - I have had entire shipments lost or delayed at the port for months. One seller I know lost 6-figures worth of inventory from a shipment that was lost. This is the risk of shipping all your eggs in one basket. It can literally kill your business overnight. By shipping small quantities weekly, I avoid this risk. Even if one of my shipments is lost or delayed, I always have another shipment that will arrive the next week!
Furthermore all shipments by SKUdrop are fully insured. I am thankful for this as there was a UPS strike in 2023 and several of my shipments worth a few thousand dollars was lost by UPS. Before I even knew my cartons were missing, SKUdrop contacted me with a report of all the missing shipments and reimbursed me for them. That's 1st-class customer service!
3. SOFTWARE
Many new sellers struggle to even figure out how to ship for the first time to Amazon. They can't figure out how Seller Central works and working with a freight forwarder or supplier to arrange shipping can be tricky. You are not sure if they are reliable, cheating you, declaring falsely, insuring your goods, etc.
For experienced sellers, we waste time creating shipments in Seller Central, downloading and emailing Amazon shipping carton labels, arranging shipping, then uploading tracking details to Amazon.
With SKUdrop, everything becomes so simple. It's a joy to use.
SKUdrop's software is integrated with Amazon. This means your SKUs (product listings) are synced into your SKUdrop account.
To send your product to SKUdrop, you simply download the carton labels and send them to your supplier. Then arange shipping to SKUdrop's warehouse in Yiwu. Many suppliers will do this for free as it's even cheaper than FOB for them (delivering to and loading at the port). Or if you are quoted EX-WORKS, they might charge just a minimal fee for domestic delivery.
Once your goods are at SKUdrop, it is super-easy to send to Amazon.
You simply enter the number of cartons for each SKU you want to ship, click "Create Shipments" and the system instantly creates the shipments in Amazon Seller Central, downloads the labels, prints them in their Yiwu warehouse, and your cartons then get labeled and loaded into a container, loaded on to a ship/plane, customs cleared, tracking numbers are automatically uploaded to Seller Central and shipments delivered to Amazon. All that with just a couple of clicks!
And you can even track the location of every single carton on the map interface.
It makes a very time-consuming and complex process as easy as ABC!
For experienced sellers, we waste time creating shipments in Seller Central, downloading and emailing Amazon shipping carton labels, arranging shipping, then uploading tracking details to Amazon.
With SKUdrop, everything becomes so simple. It's a joy to use.
SKUdrop's software is integrated with Amazon. This means your SKUs (product listings) are synced into your SKUdrop account.
To send your product to SKUdrop, you simply download the carton labels and send them to your supplier. Then arange shipping to SKUdrop's warehouse in Yiwu. Many suppliers will do this for free as it's even cheaper than FOB for them (delivering to and loading at the port). Or if you are quoted EX-WORKS, they might charge just a minimal fee for domestic delivery.
Once your goods are at SKUdrop, it is super-easy to send to Amazon.
You simply enter the number of cartons for each SKU you want to ship, click "Create Shipments" and the system instantly creates the shipments in Amazon Seller Central, downloads the labels, prints them in their Yiwu warehouse, and your cartons then get labeled and loaded into a container, loaded on to a ship/plane, customs cleared, tracking numbers are automatically uploaded to Seller Central and shipments delivered to Amazon. All that with just a couple of clicks!
And you can even track the location of every single carton on the map interface.
It makes a very time-consuming and complex process as easy as ABC!
How to Get Started with SKUdrop
Use coupon code: AGSS2023
This code provides:
- FREE Lifetime off the $9.99 monthly subscription
- 30% off the $2.75 pick and pack fee per carton for 6 months
- US$500 shipping credit, meaning your first $500 of shipping fees are free!
This offer makes it a no-brainer to try out SKUdrop for your storage and shipping from China to Amazon.