Frequently Asked Questions
Getting Started
What is US Direct and how is it different from Inventory Source?
US Direct is an offering from Inventory Source allowing you to gain instant access to over 100,000 dropship products from our favorite suppliers. You don’t have to go through a supplier approval process, we do all that for you! You simply integrate with US Direct as a supplier within Inventory Source and can immediately began selling products from our partnered dropship suppliers without the lengthy approval process, hidden fees or unpredictable shipping rates.
Our mission is to provide the lowest price possible and break even on sales transactions to empower small businesses to sell profitable products at predictable costs. You integrate US Direct like any other supplier and still utilize Inventory Source’s tools to customize your product feed. Read more about how it works here.
Inventory Source is simply the funnel through which US Direct works. US Direct is integrated to your store like any other supplier, and you utilize Inventory Source’s Catalog Manager tools in order to customize your product feed.
Why, and for what reason should I reach out to the supplier?
With Inventory Source, due to us being strictly a software company, we don’t act as the middleman between you and your supplier like some of our competitors do. So we do encourage you to form your relationships with your suppliers and figure out what is involved in working with them from a B2B standpoint. We encourage this because anything that is involving their policies or procedures must be taken up with them since we don’t regulate nor have say over them. Forming this relationship ensures you are not sourcing products with a markup from a middleman, as well as you the opportunity to qualify for possible volume discounts, seasonal discounts, or any other dealer specials that they may offer. You can view the contact information for each of our suppliers in our Supplier Directory.
Here’s a checklist of what to discuss with them:
- Ordering Processing Procedures: How do they want you do place an order once it comes in? Do they charge an order processing fee (this also may be referred to as a dropshipping fee)? Do they have a order limit (whether it’s price or quantity) on the amount required to place an order?
- Shipping Policies: Do they have any restrictions on where they won’t ship to? Do they use UPS, FedEx, or USPS? What is their processing turnover rate for shipping an order once it’s placed? What are their shipping fees?
- Returns/ Refund Polices: How do they want you to place a return request or a refund request?
- Additional Fees: Are there any additional fees that you should be aware of? Monthly subscription costs? Yearly subscription costs?
- Brand Approval: Are there any brands that are included within their feed that you will need additional brand approval for to sell their items? If so: Do they have the applications for those brands? Or do they have contact information in order for you to reach out to get those brand applications?
However, with US Direct, you don’t have to worry about being approved by the suppliers, we do it for you! You can automatically load their products into your store without having to go through any supplier approval processes.
What is Inventory Source’s role in the dropshipping process?
Here at Inventory Source, we are strictly a software company that focuses on helping you sell more products while spending less time managing them. What we mean by that is we help you manage data in your dropship suppliers‘ feeds, such as adjusting the prices to best fit your business model and pricing strategy, mapping the products to categories that best fit your store’s category structure and by allowing you to filter products that don’t fit your ecommerce business plan all within our Catalog Manager tool. We try to help you manage all of this with using our tools for a low cost, and in turn, it’ll take less time and fewer headaches in the future.
With US Direct, we provide you an easy solution to get dropship products up on your store quickly through our partner suppliers with no lengthy approval processes and flat-rate shipping. Our mission is to provide the lowest price possible and break even on sales transactions to empower small businesses to sell profitable products at predictable costs. You integrate US Direct like any other supplier and still utilize Inventory Source’s tools to customize your product feed.
How does your system sync with my store’s products?
When we set up the integration we to your system, we place a unique prefix on every SKU so our system knows which SKU goes to which supplier this makes having multiple suppliers never an issue.
You can see a diagram below that shows the process and why we do so.
How does your service work?
Inventory Source is an inventory management software company that specializes in the monitoring, integrating and updating product data from your dropship suppliers to your sales platform.
So to answer this main question with the above information in mind, we have access to your supplier’s feed and our systems monitor and update it by default 2x/day. However, we also provide a solution called optimized sync, available on Pro and Enterprise plans, which will monitor and update your feed as many times as the supplier updates their own. When we first integrate your supplier’s feed to your sales platform, we do a full image push to your site. This push includes all of the product details that can be found in the supplier’s feed. This includes the product’s prices, descriptions, images, categories, UPC and any other information that may be associated with that product. If any changes are done to the feed from the supplier throughout the day whether it’s price, quantity, status or new products, we will push that data to your site if your settings are set to allow this.
We also have services that we offer that can help you manage the feed with our Catalog Manager to give yourself and your customers more convenience. With Order Automation, variant and attribute mapping and custom files, we can manipulate the feed to best fit you and your customers.
Learn more about how our services work here.
Inventory Automation
What’s the difference between Inventory Automation and Full Automation?
Our Inventory Automation service allows you to automatically sync your dropship supplier’s (or 3PL warehouse) inventory and product data to your ecommerce website or marketplace account.
Read more about how Inventory Automation works here.
Our Full Automation service includes all the benefits of Inventory Automation PLUS the ability to automatically route orders to your dropship suppliers and automatically sync back shipment tracking to your store and customer.
Read more about how Full Automation works here.
What are the inventory management tools?
Our bulk inventory management tools have been included in our Catalog Manager as the “Catalog Rules”. You can learn more about using the Catalog Manager and the rules that help you automate your product listings with the links below.
What is optimized sync?
Optimized sync pulls new data as often as it appears in the dropship supplier’s feed, to then be pushed as soon as possible to your store. How often the data is updated is dictated by how often the supplier updates their feed with new data. However, with optimized sync, you can be sure you are pulling this data as often possible.
Can I add my own supplier?
Yes! We can integrate with just about any supplier that provides the inventory data you need. Custom/Private integrations may have additional fees associated with the integration.
What is an integration?
An “integration” is the connection between a product source (dropship supplier) and your sales channel or ecommerce platform (Shopify, Amazon, Stitch Labs, etc.). Each connection made between 1 Source & 1 Channel = 1 Integration.
Does Inventory Source markup the product prices?
No, absolutely not! We are not “middlemen” like some other sites you might have reviewed. We help you find suppliers and manage their product information in the exact format you need for your website or marketplace listings. The profits from every sale are yours to keep. We do help you to control your own price markups with your automation and custom file account features, but we do not add any additional fees.
Why is it important to keep updated price, quantity and status for dropship products?
If you are asking this question, you might be new to selling wholesale dropship products, or you have not sold products in large volume. We often hear from people who have struggled for years selling products online. Then they find us, use our services and they realize how much real value our services add to their business. If you do not physically possess the items that you sell in your own warehouse, such as with dropship products, then what you are really selling is the product information to your customer and the sales and service you provide. Without accurate and high quality product information presented on your site, you do not have anything to offer your clients. The accuracy of the data on your site becomes part of your brand image.
Also, dropship suppliers can change their price for multiple reasons. If you put a product on your site at $50 with a $10 mark-up and they raise the price to $60, you just lost all profit. However, if you use Inventory Source, you set your price settings. As your suppliers raise or lower the prices they charge you, we can raise or lower your prices on your site with your price setting to protect your profit margin. Also, your site will be one of the FIRST online to offer the new price or new products that are added to their catalogs. This gives you the traffic when people search for this product. Let all of the other resellers try to succeed with less accurate information or spend hours every day updating price and quantity lists while you promote your site and process your orders.
Quantity and status updates are needed because there are few things that are more irritating for suppliers, resellers and most importantly customers then trying to complete a sale for an out-of-stock product. Your feedback on marketplaces and even customer retention will be severely damaged when a custom tries to complete an order for a product that you have listed as available, but the supplier has as out-of stock. That is why we update this field and can do this for you with the automation service or give you the daily details in a file download service.
Do I need to customize my website to use your service?
No. If you have an existing website and would like to use our services to load/update your product catalog we simply need administrative access to push the product data feed to your site. There are no other code changes to your site, just a simple XML push of product data into your product catalog.
Can I sell my own products as well?
Absolutely! Your business should be YOUR business. Our wholesale drop ship data services can integrate with your site or sales channels without impacting your existing products. We have resellers who make products, offer services and sell from small suppliers not in our network while letting us help them grow their catalog.
What do I need to get started?
In order to get started with us you will first need to create a free account here.
Full (Order) Automation
What’s the difference between Inventory Automation and Full Automation?
Our Inventory Automation service allows you to automatically sync your dropship supplier’s (or 3PL warehouse) inventory and product data to your ecommerce website or marketplace account.
Read more about how Inventory Automation works here.
Our Full Automation service includes all the benefits of Inventory Automation PLUS the ability to automatically route orders to your dropship suppliers and automatically sync back shipment tracking to your store and customer.
Read more about how Full Automation works here.
Can I process refunds or cancellations through the dashboard?
No. Refunds will be processed through your sales channel or marketplace and any returns or exchanges will be handled directly through the supplier. All cancellations must be communicated directly to your supplier. Simply marking an order as “canceled” in Order Manager will not cancel the order.
Will my customers receive shipping confirmation or invoices from Inventory Source or my supplier?
No. Most sales channels and marketplaces allow you to create confirmation email templates that will trigger once the supplier sends the tracking information to your store.
Can I edit orders before I submit them?
Yes, by default we automatically set your service up to ensure that you check, verify, and correct anything needed before sending it off to your supplier. Here if anything needs to be resolved, edited, or changed you can do it before sending it off.
Let’s say you received an order for three of one product but then you’ve received an e-mail from your customer that says they’ve accidentally ordered three but meant to order two. You can visit your “Processed Orders” tab and edit the quantity ordered to what it needs to be. From there, if everything looks correct, you can process the order and send it to your supplier.
Who determines the shipping method?
When using our Order Automation service, you will want to configure “shipping mappings” to automatically send the preferred shipping method to your supplier (e.g. UPS Ground) for the Store Shipping Rate that is selected by your customer (e.g. “Free Shipping”).
You will first want to consult with your supplier to understand which shipping methods they offer and then build your shipping store rates. When creating your shipping store options they can often be based on weight, order value, or other factors, but regardless they all have a name in your store. To find out more please read Order Automation Shipping Mapping.
Does Inventory Source pass the tracking back to our store/marketplace?
Yes! Once your supplier has shipped the products to your customer, they will add the tracking information to the associated order. This information you can see on your dashboard when you go to “Order History” and find that order.
This information will also be accessible to your customers on your website when the tracking information is given. They can then plug that information into the given shipping methods of choices website and see where the order is.
If you would like to view any information associated with an order you can simply click the icon that looks like a blue book, you can find this next to the associated SKU for that order, and once you click that the Order Audit Trail will show up. As shown above.
I use my own carrier account, does it still work?
Yes, we can pull shipment tracking from your dropship supplier or from your own UPS, Fedex or USPS account. Some integration and setup fees may apply.
Can I do Full Automation with any supplier?
In order to send automated orders to suppliers, they must accept orders in an automated way – meaning they must accept orders via email, FTP, API, EDI, or some other method that is not manually placing an order via a dealer portal or website.
Suppliers must also provide shipment tracking in a way that is accessible. Shipment tracking is typically provided the same way orders are sent, either through email, FTP, API, EDI or other methods other than posting to a website or portal.
How does it work? Does it send emails?
It can, but typically as a last option. Unlike the competition, our Full Automation service is built to directly place orders into your dropship supplier’s order management system and auto-pull shipment tracking once updated. This method increases turn around time, and avoids order entry errors by limiting human entry errors, weekend/after hour emails and manual shipment tracking updates.
Does Full Automation send dropship orders automatically?
It can if you want. We give you the option to set your dropship ordering to “auto-process”. You also have the option to “verify & process” in which you can review each order as it comes in and then easily “1 Click” or bulk process orders.
How do I send a split order?
Orders that have products from two different suppliers will automatically be sent as separate POs to each supplier. Product shipments are then managed at the SKU level and tracking is synced as each individual product is shipped. For channels that support this, we will mark the order as partially packed/shipped for orders that have products that are fulfilled at separate times.
Catalog Manager
If I change my pricing rules, how long does it take to change on my store?
For customers on the Basic Plan, we typically update twice per day and your pricing will be updated on the next update. You also have the option to run an “on-demand sync” from your inventory feeds dashboard one time per day for Basic Plan users. Plus and Enterprise plan customers that have optimized sync can expect much more frequent updates through out the day as well the ability to run multiple on-demand syncs.
I’ve renamed and customized my categories, why do my products say “not customized”?
The “customized” and “not customized” labels are used to denote when you have changed a title, image, description, and other data found when clicking on a individual product and selecting “customize”.
To confirm if a category for a product has been updated you can click on it to see the custom categories (as seen below).
If my feed is already active and I rename a category, when will it update?
After you have set your feed to active and your first initial upload has run, any category name that was loaded at that time will not be overwritten with any changes you have made. This obviously does not apply to any categories that did not upload to your store in the first upload (because no products were set to load from that category).
Basically, the rule of thumb is that if you have loaded a category to your store once, no changes in the category mapping tool will overwrite that initial upload on the next syncs. You can request a “Full Upload” by emailing our support team in which we will overwrite all product data for all products including category names.
Why does Inventory Source recommend the Catalog Builder mode?
Catalog Builder mode allows you to…
- Easily select only the products you want to sell and quickly move them to your queue/catalog with the advanced search and bulk selection capabilities.
- Use the “queue” to move products in batches that you would like to eventually add to your catalog (and upload to your store) but would like to review and or customize the products prior to doing so.
- Customize product data before uploading to your store. It is a best practice as a retailer to modify and upgrade the supplier provided product data. Our Catalog Builder mode allows you to do this with each product individually or in bulk using our Bulk Product Customization File, found in the “Bulk” section of your Catalog Rules.
What happens when I switch modes?
Your catalog rules, product selections, customizations, and tags will not be lost if you choose to switch between the two different modes. You are fine to switch back and forth without losing settings however please note this will affect what products do or do not display on your store (if your feed is active).
If you switch from the Filter mode to the Builder mode, you will notice that your catalog will likely not have any products in it. In “Builder mode” you will need to populate your catalog by moving products from your “feed view” to your catalog.
Since switching modes has such a high impact on the products that will appear on your store we will automatically set your feed to paused. This will give you time to ensure that your catalog is populated with the products you want to sell before you set your feed back to active and your next sync runs.Please note that any products previously loaded to your store that are no longer in your catalog will be deactivated on the next sync.
How do I switch from Builder mode to Filter mode and vice versa?
You can switch by going to your “Catalog Rules” and clicking the “Controls” section and then the “switch” button at the bottom.
You will be presented with a warning message when switching modes explaining the effects it will have on your catalog.
When switching from Filter mode to Builder mode you will be presented with this message:
When switching from Builder mode to Filter mode you will be presented with this message:
Why does it take so long to load “Store Catalog”?
After switching to the Catalog Manager for the first time, it can take a minute or two for your Catalog to load all your existing products. You can navigate away from this screen and it will continue to upload. The second time you navigate to your Catalog, it will load much quicker.
Why does it seem that a lot of the product images are missing when viewing “Supplier Feed”?
You will notice that the Feed is sorted by “newest” products by default. These are the “newest” products added into the feed by the supplier. Many suppliers add in products to their feed before they have uploaded the images for them. As soon as images become available in the supplier’s feed we will pull them into your “Feed View” within a 24 hour period.
Amazon
I already have an Amazon Seller Central account, but I can’t get my developer/API auth token. What do I do?
Amazon has different levels of accounts. The individual plan and the professional plan. You need to access the professional plan.
Can’t I just load all the products and deal with the issues later when they arise?
It’s your business, you’re free to do what you’d like. We suggest loading the products slowly, or at least as carefully as possible to avoid issues.
What are Amazon UPC/ASIN mismatches?
When products are loaded to Amazon, they are loaded by UPC and Amazon then assigns product details to the loaded product. No matter what data we send to Amazon they will load their own data if they have the UPC stored in their database. In some cases Amazon “assigns” the product you’ve loaded to the wrong Amazon ASIN. An Amazon ASIN is the unique identifier number that Amazon has created for internally identifying products.
This is more common in products that come in different sizes and variations of the products. For example, Amazon can often have the same UPC stored for a pair of standard binoculars, the XL binoculars that are more expensive, and the combo pack that is much more expensive. More specifically, Amazon will take the UPC and choose an ASIN that it has determined to be most fitting.
How many UPC/ASIN’s mismatches can I expect to find?
Usually, we find about 1% of items or less have ASIN mismatches. The number is very low. However, if you are listing tens of thousands of products on your store, then 1% can seem like a lot!
Imagine if you load 5,000 products to your Amazon account and only 0.5% (a half of one percent) of the products have ASIN mismatches. That’s still 25 products that will have ASIN issues and if Amazon customers purchase these products, then you will have issues to deal with.
Why doesn’t my supplier fix this issue?
Most suppliers have little incentive to take on the hefty task to managing and maintaining accurate ASINs, they leave this job up to the retailer. The retailers that put in the time and effort have all the incentive to do so as they can sell more and retain a better seller rating than their competitors.
Why doesn’t Amazon fix this issue?
This issue stems from a number of other issues. Namely, sometimes sellers create their own product listings and incorrectly use UPC’s and ASIN’s to identify products they sell. Amazon is big, but it takes an incredible amount of oversight to ensure every product is assigned correctly. To extend that, at Inventory Source, we get the product data from the supplier – so if the supplier doesn’t provide ASINs by default in their product data, then we are at the mercy of Amazon to assign the product UPC’s to the correct ASIN. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen as we hope.
What is the difference between a UPC and an ASIN?
A UPC is a “Universal Product Code”, which is essentially a universal product identification number used across the entire world. The purpose of the UPC is to ensure that every product in the world has it’s own unique number, and therefore can be identified by businesses in different industries, different countries and different marketplaces. However, Amazon ASINS, or “Amazon Standard Identification Number” is specific to Amazon. Companies other than Amazon don’t use ASIN’s as unique identifiers, because UPC’s already exist. Additionally, Amazons ASIN system isn’t perfect. New products are created by people all the time and Amazon doesn’t have the best grasp on which products are assigned which ASIN. However, due to Amazon’s popularity, many people and businesses are forced to deal with Amazon’s ASIN issues.
How do I overcome this ASIN/UPC Mismatch Issue?
Follow our recommend product uploading process. Follow this process BEFORE you set your feed to active and load ANY products.
Recommended Product Uploading Process:
- Login to Inventory Source Dashboard (link here) to access Catalog Manager
- Add a small batch of products from your feed to your catalog- we recommend adding 100-200 products at a time
- Set your feed to active. We will run an update to load the products in your catalog to your store
- Review the products on your store. Check the titles, descriptions, etc. and identify any ASIN mismatches
- For products with mismatched ASINs, update them directly in each product’s “customize” section in Catalog Manager.
- Repeat! Any ASIN changes made will be reflected after your next scheduled update
Now, the goal is to keep adding products. Eventually your store will have thousands of products, but it takes a while. The best thing you can do is take your time but also commit to building your product list. If you wait, your list won’t grow and you won’t get sales.
Why are there different prices for the same UPC?
After all, a UPC is a Unique identifier right? How can the same product have wildly varying prices? Well, if you look closely, you’ll see it’s because there are different quantities in each product listing. Notice how some are a 2 packs? This is where the issue is. Sometimes products sold in different quantities have the same UPC. So a 2 Pack will have the same UPC as a 1-pack.
Additionally, even though these products have the same UPC, Amazon will assign the UPC to two different ASIN’s based on the quantity in the bundle. Here is this example:
UPC: 010343829923 (1 Pack, 20 sheets each) -> ASIN: B005GQW0OW, Price: $48.29
UPC: 010343829923 (2 Pack, 20 sheets each) -> ASIN: B0032JWG1W, Price: $92.58
These items have the exact same UPC! This one is a case of 5, selling for $223.24 –
To make matters more challenging, when Inventory Source loads these products to Amazon, sometimes Amazon doesn’t know where to put the item. Amazon guesses whether the item is a 1 pack or a 2 pack. Occasionally, they guess wrong and as you can imagine, this leads to issues. When Amazon guesses the ASIN incorrectly, your 2 pack could easily be listed at the cheaper price of the 1 pack. See where I’m going with this? Now, Amazon customers are going to think they’ve found a great deal. They think “Wow, this guy is running a sale!! Buy everything!”. Then by the time you realize what happened, you have already received 30 orders for the incorrect price. Bummer.
This scenario is exactly why we suggest you load your products slowly. You need to manually review each product (after upload) individually to determine any mismatched ASINs Amazon matched for the UPC.
Yes, this is time-consuming… and it is unfortunate but it is very necessary given the current way Amazon matches UPCs… at least you didn’t miss 25 ASIN mismatches by loading them all at once.
Push to eBay
I’ve manually added my supplier products to my eBay account. Why are they not updating?
Manually adding products to your eBay account will make it so Inventory Source cannot update them. One of the key benefits of using the Push To Ebay Tool is that a connection is maintained between Inventory Source and your eBay account. This connection allows us to update your products and ensure that the products don’t run out of stock.
Is there a “Low Quantity Filter” for the Push to eBay software like there is with your other software?
Unfortunately, no. There is no way to automatically mark products out of stock once the quantity reaches a certain threshold in the supplier’s warehouse. We do offer this with our inventory automation software. However, with Push to eBay, even if the supplier only has one product left in stock, our system will claim that it is still in stock on your eBay account. In rare cases, this can lead to an issue with a customer purchasing an item that is now out of stock with the supplier. It isn’t common, but it happens. The best way to check this is to know which items are sold quickly – with those items, check the supplier inventory levels occasionally to ensure they’re still in stock.
How many images are on each product? Can I add my own images to my products?
Currently, we only load one image per product. Our software is not designed to load more than one image. However, once a listing is active on eBay, you may log in to your eBay account and manually add more images. This can be a good option for popular products that are sold frequently.
Can I adjust the product pricing below the MAP pricing that the supplier has set?
MAP pricing is the “Minimum Asking Price” that the supplier sets. The supplier sometimes sets a minimum allowable sales price in order to prevent unwanted behaviors, such as resellers selling items at very low rates which can sometimes lead to the brand’s perceived value being damaged. Suppliers and manufacturers are very careful about managing their brands.
You cannot set the price below the MAP price using the Push ro Ebay tool. If you attempt to do this, an alert will display.
Why are my product settings not updating when I change batch level settings?
In the last question (see above) we discussed the three different levels of settings that can be set for products: Default Settings, Batch Settings, and Product Settings. These are important to understand for this question.
Batch settings are applied to products when the products are newly added to the batch. If you add a product to a batch, it will “adopt” the parent level settings. However, if you then change the batch settings (parent level settings in this case), then the product settings will not change. Our system does not update child settings when parent settings are changed. This means that you will need to remove the items from the batch, change the batch level settings, then re-add the products to the batch again in order to see the new changes.
It helps to have consistent products in batches. For example, if you are selling watches with a 40% markup, don’t put them in the same batches as backpacks that have a 20% markup. You want to separate the products out by type, category, and markup. That way if you want to change your batch price markup settings, you can do so more easily.
What is the difference between Default Settings and Batch Settings?
Every product you post on eBay has certain settings, such as payment settings, shipping settings, selected categories, and so on. With our different levels of settings, you can more easily control your product settings.
There are three different levels of settings:
- Default Settings – applies to all batches and all products in all batches.
- Batch Settings – applies specifically to the specific batch.
- Product Settings – applies specifically to the selected product.
This setup is a more powerful way for you to manage your listings. Otherwise, you would need to set these things for each individual settings. So instead of doing that, you can simply set your Batch Settings, and those settings will apply to all of the products in your account.
What does the checkbox mean when categorizing my products?
When you are categorizing your products to be pushed to eBay, you’ll need to ensure that your product reaches the end category. eBay’s product categorization branches out into different category and subcategories. When you see the check box next to the category listing name that is the final category level.
What should I choose for my category?
The best way to choose a category for your product is to learn how similar products are categorized on eBay. By doing a quick eBay search for similar products to the item that you want to sell, you can see how they are categorized. Then, once you determine the best category, you can select that category for your product.
Using FileExchange, can I manually bulk load products to eBay?
Yes, definitely. We have a different service for this. This is called our “Custom File” service. In order to manually load products to eBay, we have a service where we can create a Custom File for you. We will build a file that you can download on a daily basis to upload your products. You will essentially login to your Inventory Source account, download a file that we generate for you and then upload it to your eBay account. In this file, all your specific product pricing will be updated daily to reflect the pricing settings you’ve put in place.
However, please know that our Custom File service is slightly less efficient and more time consuming out Push To Ebay Tool. We developed our Push To Ebay software to make things more manageable.
Does the Push to eBay software automatically load the MPN, UPC and Brand to eBay when I push a product?
When you push a product up to eBay, our software sends these three values. However, if these values are not available in the product data from the supplier, then the software automatically sends a “Does not Apply” value for these fields. We do this in accordance with eBay’s suggestion in their documentation. However, if you have special access to this product information from the supplier, you can manually add it to each individual product in the Push To eBay software.
Is it possible to change to a different eBay account?
Yes. Just re-authenticate your account and switch over to the other account. Be aware that if you switch over to a new account, our software will sever the connection with the original eBay account and will no longer update the products in that account. Be 100% certain that you want to do this. Additionally, it’s advisable to end all of the listings on your original eBay account prior to doing this – otherwise you risk customers ordering items that are out of stock with the supplier.
Just know if you try to edit the products on your other account or list the products that you already have listed on your other account, you can’t relist them on your newly added account. Basically, you can’t list the products on both sites, you can only list different products on each site.
Unfortunately, there is no way to have one Inventory Source account connected to multiple eBay accounts. To accomplish this, you would need to have more than one Inventory Source account connected to the separate eBay accounts.
Can I use more than one eBay account?
You can only have one eBay account per InventorySource.com account. The reason is that our system maintains a direct connection to your eBay account to update those listings on a daily basis. If you connect to a second account, our system loses the original connection and your products will no longer be updated.
The only way currently to connect to more than one eBay account is to setup different InventorySource.com accounts.
What is the difference between “default categories” vs “store categories”?
If you are a current eBay user and are assigned a “store front” through eBay. In your eBay account back end you can form categories to categorize your items to your liking, these are called “store categories”. Our Push To eBay tool fetches the categories that you manually set in our store and you can categorize your batches in your specific set batches.
As well you can list your products in eBay’s default categories that are just their general categories that you can see online.
So one is to organize them how you wish on your eBay’s “store front ” site how you’d like. The other is for you to categorize them in eBay’s general.
You can do both.
Can I change the quantity of items?
You can change the quantity to whatever you want. You can do so by clicking “Edit Product Details” then going to “Price, Duration, Weight, Quantity, Dimensions. If you decide to change the However, there are two considerations with this.
First, if the supplier only has one item in stock but you’ve changed the quantity in the listing and customer orders more items than the supplier has in stock, then you are going to have a problem. You will need to cancel the order or only partially fulfill the order. This could result in a bad review from a buyer on eBay and maybe even jeopardize your selling privileges.
Second, no matter what the quantity in stock is – when the supplier quantity reaches “0” then our software will take your eBay listing offline. The purpose is to prevent orders that cannot be fulfilled – so this saves you a lot of time and prevents potentially unfulfillable orders.
Last – it is generally suggested that you don’t change the quantity of items. If you change it, you risk encountering more potential issues than there are potential advantages to changing the quantity. Only under very specific situations should you consider changing the quantity.
On my new eBay account, I get some Free Listings. Why am I currently being charged $0.30 per listing? Shouldn’t this be free?
Your eBay account will not be charged for free listings, however, you will still see the “$0.30 Listing Fee” note in the software. Our eBay software has no way of identifying free listings, so it simply posts the same pricing for each listing, regardless of their true fees.
Additionally, these listing fee’s are charged by eBay. Inventory Source does not determine which listings are paid and which listings are free.
Why does the quantity in stock not accurately reflect that of the supplier?
The listing fee you pay to eBay depends on the quantity in stock, in addition to other factors surrounding the listing. For example, if there are 500 items in stock, you’re likely going to pay a higher eBay listing fee than if there are only 5 items in stock. To reduce this cost to you, we automatically mark products to a quantity of 1. If our software did not do this, then you would pay significantly more for your listings. You are able to change the quantity to something else but the amount must be lower than what the supplier has in stock.
Several of our suppliers have products with thousands of items in inventory. This would be expensive to you.
Note: You can not change the quantity of those the prices of those that are Auctioned.
How can I offer free shipping?
Free shipping is a popular option on eBay. To offer free shipping, you’ll essentially be putting $0 in for the price, similar to this.
Keep in mind – this does not mean the shipping is free to you, the seller. Your supplier is still going to charge you a shipping fee. So if you offer free shipping, make sure you mark up your product pricing enough to cover shipping – otherwise you may actually lose money!
Why is my shipping option not showing on the item page on eBay?
eBay takes any shipping option that you place on a listing and automatically re-categorizes that shipping into one of many shipping categories. Some examples of shipping options are “One-Day Shipping”, “Standard Shipping” and “Expedited Shipping”. So even if your shipping option is “UPS Ground”, eBay will display this as “Standard Shipping. More information can be found on this eBay information page.
It’s important that you contact your supplier directly to determine which shipping options they offer. Once this is determined, you will then be able to decide which options you prefer to offer to your eBay customers.
Can I still add my own products to eBay?
Absolutely! You can certainly offer your own products on eBay and our system will not disrupt them. Inventory Source only focusses on updating the products listed on eBay that was posted using the Push To Ebay Tool.
Does Inventory Source update the quantity of the products?
Yes, we update eBay 3 times a day. So we do mark the products “Out Of Stock” when the product goes out of stock in the supplier’s warehouse. We do this for a very specific reason: eBay charges you for holding a high quantity of items. If your product quantity hits a certain threshold (like 50 items), then eBay will charge you more because they realize that your account is acting more like a “Store” vs just an individual seller account.
Therefore, when our software loads the products to your eBay account, we load them with a low quantity, typically “1”. Then, our system will still check the actual quantity with the supplier each day. If the item quantity hits zero in the supplier’s warehouse, our system will automatically mark the item “out of stock” on your eBay account.
How do batches work?
Batches are groups of products that are similar in type such as “backpacks”, “women’s perfume” or “fishing reels”.
If you’re selling “outdoor” products, create a batch with “backpacks” and put only backpacks in the batch. This will make it easier to track products and categorize them in a more organized fashion. As well as put them in a specific category on eBay so your customers can find it easier.
What if eBay has given me some free listings because I have a new account?
If eBay has given you free listings on your account, then you will not be charged a listing fee for those listings. When we post the listing fee, we do so because this is the default setting that eBay has provided to us. However, this listing fee does not consider the promotions/offers that eBay has given to you. So do not worry about being charged a listing fee in this case.