Tools of the Trade

(Actual picture of basement about a month ago.  Nearly all gone to FBA now.  By the way, I spent 5 minutes deciding if I need to blur anything out.  Haha)

Introduction

Yesterday, I told you guys I loved my heat gun.  Well, today, let me explain the other tools I use now.  These are items you don’t REALLY need, but it makes packing and shipping so much faster, so once you start to do a certain volume, you’ll want to streamline your life.  Also, if you haven’t read my guide on how to start on FBA, here’s the link to it.  By the way, all the links are referral links.  I really do appreciate the support since I can’t push Chase Sapphire cards on you!

Heat Gun – $22

I went and bought a new one, but I guess a “like new” one from Amzn Warehouse for $18 works too.  I’d stay away from used in case it’s broken.  This help remove stickers easily and will blow dry your hair in a pinch.

Scotty Peelers – $8

You may think that paying $8 for something your fingernail can do is a waste of money.  Well, tell that to my wife who woudn’t remove any labels until I got one of these and the heat gun.

Dymo 450 Label Printer – $60

I actually bought the TURBO model, but it really doesn’t matter.   I think the turbo just prints faster; the bottleneck in your operation won’t be the speed of this printer.  I was using the 30 page sheet here, but I felt so bad wasting so many labels.  The 30 page sheet is 3000 labels for $10.43 currently, which means it costs you $0.0034 per label (1/3 of 1 penny.)  By having this Dymo printer, I can now use Amazon’s ‘Scan and Label’ feature, which allows me to print labels easily without going through the entire inventory process.  Trust me.  When you start getting 3 items here and 5 items there and throwing away 1/3 of your label sheet, you’ll wish you had one of these.

30334 Labels – $5 per 1000

These labels cost $5 per 1000 so per label is costing you $.0050 per label.  Due to all the waist on the 30 page sheet, in the long run, this will save you more on a per label basis.

Shipping Labels – FREE from UPS

You’ll need an account to get them.  I think the quantity of 50 resets every 30 days or 1 month.  I hear if you call or email them, they can ship you more.

110 lb shipping scale – $22

I JUST ORDERED this.  I should have done it a long time ago to be honest.  My current workflow is to weigh myself on a bathroom scale, then pick up a box, and subtract the weight difference.  As you can imagine, my back was hating me.  The reason I got this scale is because the LCD screen is detached.  DO NOT BUY THE ATTACHED LCD VERSION FOR CHEAPER.  How are you going to read the weight when a big box is on it?  Hahaha FML right?

Bar code scanner – $16

I originally bought this cheap $16 one, which was great for 2 weeks.  It was plug and play.  However, just last night, it stopped working so I’m going to return it.  I realized afterwards that the laser inside looks very fragile.  I thought it was a bit more industrial.  I never dropped the item and I work on carpet, so not sure why it broke.  Either way, I may go with this $19 one instead.

Tape Gun – $6

I use a cheap tape gun along with cheap tape.  I just tape it 3 times on the top and 3 times on the bottom.  Seems to be working fine.  A part of me wants to move to the 3″ heavy duty tape so I can only tape it once, but I’ve seen screwed up boxes from Amazon, Kohl’s, and Best Buy with their 1 x 3″ tape.  I’ll stick to my 2″ tape taped 3 times unless someone can convince me otherwise.

 

Conclusion

Like I said, if you are a casual re-seller, you probably don’t need half this stuff, but when you ramp up and want to speed up your packing and shipping, these are the tools of the trade.