How to add a product on Amazon without a UPC

Amazon is one of the easiest platforms to use… as a customer. As a seller, the story is quite different. If you have ever listed a product on the Amazon marketplace, you know how frustrating it can be. Waiting 15 minutes for inventory updates to show, pictures not uploading correctly and cryptic error messages. These are problems you will run into constantly if you use Amazon’s selling platform. However, the worst experience is when you are trying to do something that’s non-standard. Today we will do run through one of these activities by creating a new fashion jewelry listing without a UPC.

The problem

Amazon expects you to list an item by looking for an existing universal identifier such as a UPC or their own Amazon identifier ASIN. They do this to provide a better experience to end users since it would reduce the number of repeat listings. This is great for customers but what about new items that do not have a UPC, like jewelry.

Amazon does allow items to be listed without a UPC but often an exemption is required. For some products, like unbranded jewelry, Amazon gives a blanket exception and allows you to list against an ASIN that they generate for you. However, at the time of this writing, the Amazon Seller web interface no longer lets you do that.

Trying to add an item without an existing ASIN does not allow you to save.
The same problem occurs when trying to add a variation, which is all but necessary for items that require sizes such as jewelry.
As long as a section up here stays red, you can’t save your new product.

In the past, when you listed an item, like jewelry, without a UPC, you can choose to use an ASIN and the system would generate an ASIN for you. You could then add the product under the newly generated ASIN. As you can see in the screenshot above, this is no longer true.

Even reverting back to the original interface also does not work.

You still have the option to return to the old interface.
Still can’t save in the old interface.

So officially, you can still apply for an exemption or you can use a third party ASIN generator to get the ASIN to input into these forms, but that can be very costly and time-consuming.

The Workaround

Fortunately, we still have a workaround. We can still use upload templates to create new listings without having to use UPCs. Today we will walk through how to upload a new fashion ring listing with multiple size variations into the Amazon Marketplace using a template.

1. Download a template file

First, download the correct template from Seller Central.

Choose the appropriate category.

Since we are going to want to create a product with a size variation, make sure to select the “Advanced” template.

Choose the Advanced option if you are uploading a product with variations. If you do not have variations then you can choose the Lite option.

2. Fill in the necessary fields in the template

The first row will be the “parent” listing. The parent listing won’t have a price or quantity but the “child” listing underneath it will. In our case each child will be a different size variation.

Each child should have a different seller SKU. These can be anything you want since it will only be visible to you but it would be useful for you to name them so you can easily track your products. In this example, I will make each child SKU the parent SKU with the size appended at the end. You don’t have to have a different Product Name for each item, but it would be a good idea to add the size to each title to make it easier for customers differentiate your listings and for yourself when it is time to fulfill the item. Choose “ASIN” for the Product ID Type and leave the Product ID field blank.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is fill-out-template-without-asin.png
You can leave this field blank.
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is fill-out-template-without-asin.png
You can leave this field blank.

3. Add image links

Be sure to add an image link in the Main Image URL field, even for the Parent listing.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is remember-to-add-image-links.png
The Main Image URL needs to be set for the Parent listing as well

This URL should be a publicly accessible link, so if you are using Google Drive or Dropbox, make sure that the link has the proper permissions set. If you are uploading an Alamode product, you can find our image links on the product page. You can also find all image links in our inventory list.

Our product page links are publicly accessible so they can be used directly on the upload template.

4. Fill in the parent child relationships

Not all fields need to be filled out, but make sure to fill in the “Variation” section and mark the first row as “Parent” and the following rows as “Child”. Each child will need a Parent SKU. In this case, the parent SKU will be the value of the “Seller SKU” field of the first row. Note that the Parent SKU and Relationship Type fields of the parent row should be left blank.

5. Check your file

After filling out any other optional fields, such as the bullet point descriptions, size, and quantity you can check your file. Although optional, it is recommended that you check your file for errors before you formally upload it. While this does add an extra step in your workflow, it is a lot easier to fix errors before your official upload than to try to fix errors after the fact.

It is recommended that you check your file before final submission.

The results of your check will be available on the next tab. It might take a few minutes to generate your results.

If you have a very large file, you might want to use the email alert feature to be monitored when the report is complete.

6. Upload your final file

Once everything looks good, perform your final upload in the section below the file check section on the first tab.

And that’s it! You can monitor the upload on the third tab. If there are no errors, the final tab will show you if your listings have uploaded successfully. Be aware that it can take up to 15 to 30 minutes before your listings show completely. Very often listings will appear without images. Give it a few minutes, if the images do not show up then you can edit the listing manually.

Conclusion

I hope this guide helps you list your products on Amazon more easily. If you have any questions, be sure to leave a comment below or send an email to service@alamodeonline.com and we will try to get back to you as soon as possible!

Amazon third-party sellers may be forced to pay California sales tax even if they don’t operate in California

What you need to know and what you can do about it.

In a letter on Friday, March 8, 2019, California State Treasurer Fiona Ma urged California Governor Gavin Newsom to help Amazon third-party sellers against an unjustified sales tax burden by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA).

Background of the issue

Third party sellers that use Amazon’s FBA, or Fulfillment by Amazon, service have been able to reach more customers and have helped many sellers simplify their logistics and inventory management. However, using FBA comes with the cost of losing control over customer information, direct marketing, shipping, and returns. Since Amazon handles all payment, inventory, and logistics, third-party sellers fundamentally do not have control over where the product is stored and how the product is processed. In addition, third-party sellers do not have the ability to calculate or collect sales tax.

Even with all control belonging to Amazon, the CDTFA has taken the argument that the third party seller is the party responsible for collecting and paying California sales tax, not Amazon. By the reasoning of the CDTFA, if a product was stored by Amazon in a California warehouse, the seller is responsible for collecting California sales tax, even if the seller operates in another state and has no control over which warehouse Amazon uses. This situation has led the CDTFA to claim that out of state sellers that fail to collect California sales tax are “guilty of a felony” with each offense carrying a fine of $5000 to $20,000 or “imprisonment for 16 months, two years, or three years, or both”. The CDTFA has further claimed that out of state FBA sellers that have used Amazon’s California warehouses “may be guilty of a misdemeanor” if operating without a permit.

The CDTFA has already sent notices demanding some out of state Amazon Marketplace sellers to comply with CA sales tax and permit laws. Some sellers have even been told to pay back taxes going as far back as 8 years, which have amounted to tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Ma further argues against the practicality of the enforcement by noting that 38% of FBA sellers are located in China, well out of the reach of enforcement. All the while, the American small business owners who are within reach might be forced into bankruptcy if required to pay decade old back taxes.

What you can do to help

The most direct action available is the call the office of Gavin Newsom and urge him to help third-party sellers and to voice your support for Treasurer Fiona Ma. You can also participate in letter writing campaigns such as the campaign organized by the Online Merchant’s Guild. More information on the campaign as well as a template letter can be found at their website here.

Starting your Fashion Brand on Amazon: A Step by Step Introduction

Starting an Amazon Fashion Jewelry brand doesn’t have to be difficult!

There’s no getting around it, e-commerce is Amazon. Because of Amazon, a significant amount of retail consumers expect 2-day shipping and free returns. Some customers won’t even purchase anything online without 2-day shipping. If you are an Amazon Prime member, this situation has probably happened to you! Many times, when you are purchasing something off of Amazon, you are actually purchasing from a third-party Amazon Marketplace seller. In this guide, we will go through the high-level steps on getting started with selling on the Amazon marketplace. Then, click through the detail links to get the illustrated how-to for each step.

Learn to sell on Amazon


Key terms in this section:

  • Amazon Prime: The Amazon service where customers can receive, among other things, free 2-day shipping.
  • Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): The shipping plan where you send your products to Amazon and they send it to the end customer. This is the most common way to receive Prime shipping
  • Merchant Fulfillment/ Fulfillment by Merchant: The shipping plan where the seller sends the product to the customer themselves without using Amazon’s fulfillment infrastructure.  
  • Seller Fulfillment Prime: The option to fulfill 2-day shipping as the merchant and bypass Amazon’s fulfillment service
  • Buy Box: The box on the screen on the product page that has the buy button. Only one merchant can have the Buy Box at one time. Beating out other sellers to get the Buy Box is often called “winning the Buy Box”.
  1. Purchase an Amazon Professional Selling Plan

There are two types of Amazon selling accounts, an Individual account, and a Professional account. The individual account is free but has an additional cost per unit when selling and has a monthly sales volume limit. The professional account has no limit but costs $39.99 a month. The idea is that individual accounts are targeted for regular people just selling things they have lying around the house, a few times a month. The professional account is geared toward business owners that want to establish a sales channel on Amazon. While it would be great to start with an individual account and then work up to a professional account, unbranded or self-branded jewelry is one of the restricted categories of products that requires a professional account. So in the journey of starting a jewelry brand on Amazon, a professional selling account is required.

2. List your product

While listing on other e-commerce platforms like eBay or Shopify is as straightforward as just adding pictures and descriptions to a page, Amazon has a few more steps. More specifically, Amazon is only expecting only one product page for every unique product. For example, say you’re listing a brand new iPhone X on eBay. You would simply create your own listing with your own descriptions and your own pictures and set your price. In search results, your listing would show up alongside thousands of other similar listings written by thousands of other people. Amazon does not allow these repeat listings. Instead, if you want to sell your iPhone X on the Amazon marketplace, you will find the existing master listing and simply list yourself as an available seller of that item. You will not be able to edit the listing unless you have “page control” and for a popular product like the iPhone X, it will likely be impossible for an individual seller to get that control. In our case, since we are establishing our own brand, we will not be looking to list as an available seller on an existing item but rather we will create a completely new listing with our own branding.

Find out Amazon product listing guide here.

3. Ship your product

There are two main ways products are fulfilled to end consumers: merchant fulfillment or fulfillment by Amazon. Merchant fulfilled is probably what you are used to. In this plan, you physically box up your own item, buy shipping, add labels and send the package via UPS or another shipping company. Fulfillment by Amazon, more commonly referred to as FBA, is a little different. If your product is registered to be fulfilled using FBA, you will first send your product to Amazon and they store it in their warehouse. When the item is purchased, they will package it and send it to the customer without you having to do anything. The catch, of course, is that they will charge you an additional fee for the service. Also, note that FBA is the most common way for the customer to receive Amazon Prime shipping, Amazon’s free 2-day shipping plan. Yes, there are options for Seller Fulfilled Prime but that is a more advanced topic for another date.

While it may seem easier to first dip your toe into the Amazon Marketplace by using merchant fulfillment, there are many considerations that new sellers will have to contemplate when choosing these shipping options. Because you will have no reviews, it will be difficult to get visibility in the search rankings. Even worse, even when your product page shows up, you will not show up in the “Buy Box” on the right-hand side of the main product page. You will instead only be listed as an additional seller, even if you are the only seller! Using FBA can mitigate these problems to a certain extent. We will do a deep dive into this topic in our Amazon fulfillment section.


While this can be a lot of information to absorb, this is just a brief overview of the Amazon selling process. The process can be difficult but you will find it rewarding once you make that first sale and well on your way to building a sustainable fashion brand. If you have any questions, be sure to leave us a comment below and we will try to answer as soon as possible!