From 8 hours to 10 seconds: how we automated Amazon FBA shipment prep
Preparing one FBA shipment used to take 8 hours and 10 spreadsheets. Now it takes 10 seconds, with zero manual errors. What we automated, step by step.
With a large catalog, Amazon FBA has a hidden cost: the paperwork. At Pro Industrial Equipment, preparing a single FBA shipment took more than 8 hours and 10 different spreadsheets. Today it takes 10 seconds. Here’s what changed.
The 7 steps of sending inventory to FBA
- Find the products to send
- Order them from suppliers in the ERP
- Set the products up in Seller Central
- Create the shipment: boxes, labels, manifests
- Do the bookkeeping: missing SKUs, invoices
- Manage returns and FBA inventory
- Watch the metrics
Steps 2 to 4 took the most time, and they’re almost pure data work, with the same steps every time. That makes them perfect for automation. Today they’re 90% automated.
What the old process looked like
For one FBA order, someone had to:
- Check which items had been received and which hadn’t
- Find the products with no FNSKU (Amazon’s barcode)
- Build one Amazon file to delete bad FBA listings and another to create new ones
- Build an update file for the ERP
- Make a label sheet for the warehouse
- Build the customs manifest for the US
- Calculate the true cost (fees and tariffs) to set the price
- Create the shipment in Seller Central
Every one of those steps was copy-paste between spreadsheets, and every copy-paste is a chance for an error.
What it looks like now
You give the workflow the order, meaning the SKUs and quantities. In about 10 seconds, it:
- Separates received items from items not yet received
- Flags products with no FNSKU
- Generates the Amazon delete and create files
- Generates the ERP update file
- Generates the warehouse label sheet
- Creates the US customs manifest
- Calculates the true cost and the pricing strategy
- Creates the FBA shipment in Amazon
How we built it
- An automation platform (n8n) connects everything.
- The ERP database and the marketplace APIs are the sources of truth, instead of exported spreadsheets that are already out of date.
- A simple form is the entry point: upload the order, get the files and the shipment.
Tip
Automate the boring middle first: the files and the data moving between systems. Keep the judgment calls, like which products to send, with people until the data is clean.
What it changed
More than 8 hours back on every shipment. Stock reaches FBA sooner. And testing new products no longer hits a paperwork bottleneck: we shortlisted more than 200 potential winning products and launched an FBA program on top of this system, including cross-border shipments to the US.
What’s next: replenishment on autopilot
The next step is to analyze, order and send products automatically, building replenishment plans from sales velocity and supplier lead times, while watching Buy Box competition, prices, tariffs and fees. The goal: an FBA business with no bottlenecks.