– 8 steps show how to prep a kit, with a prep center in China who offers kitting service.
*
- Tips 1:
If you can handle everything by yourself in amount and time, we suggest you do it yourself for the first time. There are many reasons for this. You can have everything shipped to you. Inspect them all. Bundle them. Put FBA barcodes on them. Ship them to Amazon. Once you know how to do every part yourself, then you can consider outsourcing it.
- Tips 2:
You can also consider shipping everything to one of your suppliers, and let them do all the kitting work, if you don’t care about disclose your product and product package details. Plus your supplier is willing, and is able to do a good job.
Step 1: contact a prep center in China, send them your requirements, let them know your quantity, get prices.
There is saying go like “you can outsource everything but not responsibility”, you can use this as the first priority to select a Prep center. this prep center should have some expertise and basic knowledge of how Amazon system works, they should also have basic facility and personnel to handle your project.
there are many way to check these information. you can also do video calls with them to get the direct feeling. Spend more time at this stage will save you lots of time in the future. Because a good Prep Center can work for you for long time and help you save costs and boost sales.
for sure you need to get an estimate cost before you move forward, however, in many cases, it’s not possible for the prep center or your supplier to quote you precisely, because there will be many things uncertain on the way. So, a rough estimate will do. An experienced prep center should not give out an estimate price that is too off.
Step 2: give it a go if all looks good to you.
If this estimate is not too much out of your budget, you can give it a go. But always prepare some extra space there for the uncertainties. Usually a Prep center doesn’t give you an estimate that is much bigger than the final cost.
Step 3: get your Prep center address and contact, then let your supplier/s send products to them.
You need to ask for address of your prep center and contact, then give to your different suppliers.
It’s always good to have shipping marks to let your prep center know what’s inside and the quantity, so they can easily sort out the shipment upon receiving. a clear simple side mark will do the job. but no worries, this is usually sorted out between prep center and your supplier.
let your supplier send products out to your prep center once production finished. It always helps if you can do video check, or at least pictures check to see your final products before they leave factory. you can update your package requirements accordingly in case of any changes, or you can get supplier fix problems inside factory.
Step 4: get reported of what’s received and inspected.
your products are then shipped to your prep center. in most cases, it only takes 1 to 3 days for your prep center to receive shipments.
You prep center usually random inspect and report to you when they receive each shipment, or they inspect after they receive all your products.
Inspect upon receiving is suggested, so you can either return to supplier or fix problems when there is still time. This random inspection can go to a full inspection if more problems pop out.
Step 5: change packing requirements if necessary.
you may need to change your bundle requirements from time to time, based on what’s going in reality. so working with a prep center which offers easy and effective communication is a must. Because you don’t feel and inspect products yourself, you need to work closely with prep center, to have the best possible solutions.
Step 6: let prep center make kitting sample for you to approve.
after all pieces get together, your prep center should make a video of how to kit and what this kit will look like, for you to approval. Here is an example.
Step 7: prep center kits everything up.
After your approval, the real kitting work begin. This is actually the easiest part. Here is an example:
The prep center usually don’t stop for small problems during bundling, because most of the final kitting is done by teamwork.
What they do is, they can usually pick out defects when they kit. But this can not be guaranteed. Inspection should be done upon receiving. Most of products problems should already being fixed before this stage.
Step 8: kit finished
Congratulations, your kit is done. But your prep center should still go on to pack into master cartons, label cartons, then ship out for you.
