Tools of the Trade - Get Yourself a Scale for Your FBA Business

If the wind will not soar, take up the oars.

-Latin Proverb

If you haven't started your FBA journey, then you might not realize the importance of getting a good scale. You see, once you fill your shipping boxes, you have to weigh and measure your boxes, the enter the weight and dimensions into Amazon Seller Central. You have to do this before you can print the shipping label.

Guessing is not going to cut it. The weight you enter effects how much you pay in shipping your products to Amazon. The good news is that Amazon's partnered shipping rates with UPS are super low. There is no way that little 'ol me or little 'ol you could get the rates that Amazon gets for us. Amazon takes the shipping amount out of your payout, or whatever credit card (debit/bank) you enter as your back up payment (they will only take it out of your account if you don't have enough in sales to cover it). This happened to me when I sent in my first box. I was charged $11. Since then, my Amazon account balance has always covered my shipping charges. I like that I can drop off my boxes at UPS and go.

Back to the scale.

When I first began this adventure, I didn't have a scale. When I came to the part where I had to input the weight of my box, I had to stop what I was doing, load the box in the car, drive to the UPS office, get the box weighed, drive back home, enter the weight, print out my shipping label and attach it, then drive back to the UPS office to drop off the box.

Two times of that and I was done! I ordered my scale on Amazon using my Prime account. This is the one that I bought:

The current price on Amazon (as of this writing) for this scale is $26.99. Prime shipping is available. This has been an excellent scale. I love the fact that the display unit is remote. It makes it so much easier to see when you put a big, bulky box on the scale. This scale has 110-lb. capacity. Your Amazon shipping box weight limit is 50 lbs. (or else you will have to pay additional fees). Did I mention that I love this scale? It works great!

                                                                                 BUY ON AMAZON