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DO YOU HATE SHIPPING?

We know you’d rather be sourcing arbitrage or researching your next wholesale opportunity. You probably even prefer to answer customer service emails and phone calls than prep and ship yet another box of inventory!

LEAVE IT TO US

If getting your inventory out the door to Amazon’s warehouse is a bottleneck for you, let us help! We inspect, label, package and ship, all for one flat rate — no more nickel and diming. We also offer bulk discounts when you ship 50+ items of a single SKU.

ONLINE ARBITRAGE

PRIVATE LABEL

WHOLESALING

I knew if I wanted to make money selling books, I had to jump in and start buying.  However, I didn’t realize what a time-consuming hassle it was to prep the books, label them, list them, pack them and haul them to be shipped to Amazon! When I heard about Central Virginia Prep, it was a no-brainer! I happily pay them their small fee per book to do all that!  

 

I’ve now made over $1700 in net profit in just a couple of months and feel like this is a business I can actually grow. Finding this prep service was essential for me, and has made a huge difference.

Nancy A.

I run my US based business from overseas and thus totally rely on my prep companies to take care of the physical handling of inventory. CVAP is becoming my favorite. Their price is very reasonable and the cherry on top was when they didn’t even charge me for damaged books that needed to be returned, even though they had received, inspected, labeled separately and shipped. I highly recommend their services.

 

Yerachmiel W.

I wanted to send you comments on my experience with your company to date.  I have been working with your firm for approx. three months and I am very satisfied with the timeliness and professionalism of Central Virginia Prep.

The process has been easy to adopt to and the few issues that I have had have been handled quickly and efficiently. I looked at other prep services initially but I am very pleased I decided to work with Central Virginia Prep.

Marc B.

As a seller based in Thailand a prep service was a must for me, but having now used the service it would be a must for me even if I was based in the US due to the time and hassle it saves.

From the start Shanna has been nothing but helpful, and extremely approachable.  She replied to my ‘noob’ questions in depth and realising that I wasn’t based in the US took the time to explain the intricacies of a problem that came up that I wouldn’t have had a clue about having not dealt with the USPS before.

I was slightly concerned about getting my account set up as not everything is easy when you’re an international seller but it was all laid out for me in the first email and after that the process is very simple, all you have to do is copy and paste the details for the book into a spreadsheet and then wait for it to arrive at their warehouse.  The rest is all done for you.

Oliver C.

I decided to use a prep service because I am in the UK and need someone to receive, prepare, send and list my items to Amazon USA.

I have used Prep services before but it is very much a “suck it and see” situation and it is not possible to assess the quality of a service until a few months have passed, and mistakes can be expensive.

CVAP have a very logical system that is easy to follow, and unlike the previous Prep service I used which was very impersonal, there is someone there that answers your questions personally.

The staff at CVAP have taught me a few new things too.

Jeffrey L.

OUR SERVICES

We receive and inspect all shipments before packaging, labeling and forwarding to Amazon. We offer a FLAT RATE per piece and do not charge for boxes, dunnage, or destickering (except textbooks*)

  • Up to 1-9 of a single SKU: $1.50 ea
  • 10-49: $1.00
  • 50-499 of a single SKU: $.85 ea
  • 500+ of a single SKU: $.70 ea

(*we do not typically desticker textbooks but we do cover all previous barcodes.)

  • Add listing for $.50/item Ideal for Textbook Arbitagers!

 

WHO WE ARE

  • Direct-to-customer deliveries for 20+ years
  • B2B fulfilment services for 5+ years
  • 6 years on Amazon
  • Packing skills that are the envy of  all that see them!

After several years of chasing inventory, we decided that we preferred the satisfaction of organizing and packing shipments over the thrill of the hunt. For a certain mindset (of which we are), there’s nothing better than making order out of chaos and ending the day with a mountain of boxes ready for pickup. We maintain full confidentiality of our clientele.

We are a nearly silent and trouble-free addition to your FBA workflow– we aim to turn around shipments in 24 hours, although occasionally it can take up to 48 hours.

OUR PROCESS

 

  1. We receive your inventory (simply send us the email of the manifest if we need to inspect it at delivery).
  2. If you are listing yourself, you create a shipment in Amazon
  3. You send us an email with the subject SEND SHIPMENT. If you did the listing, you will include the FBA shipment ID(s) so we can print the FBA labels and prepare the inventory. If we are doing the listing, then we create the listings and Amazon shipment IDs ourselves.
  4. We print the FNSKU labels and prep the shipment.
  5. After boxing and weighing, we log into Amazon and print your box labels.
  6. We ship!
  7. We invoice for the shipment, payable on receipt. As a courtesy for your prompt payment, we ship immediately without waiting for payment confirmation. This is ideal if you are out and about during the day.

ACCESS

All you need to do is add us as a user in your FBA account with a set of permissions that we provide. All this allows us to do is print labels and/or on your behalf. You must have a Professional Seller account to set up a subuser account.

We will need a credit card on file, safely stored in Xero, our payment processor.

If you need polybags, we must know ahead of time what size is required so that we can be sure to have enough in stock when your items arrive.

Other services we offer:

Bundles

Contact us for your bundling needs and we’ll discuss packaging and pricing details

FBA Removals and Returns Inspection

We can receive your returns and removals, inspect and reship or dispose for you, reducing administration time for you.

Oversize

Please send us an email if you are interested in shipping oversize inventory and we’ll see if we can accommodate.

Long-Term Storage

We can accept pallets or case lots and ship them in to Amazon on an As Needed basis, and you won’t have to worry about the ruinous Amazon penalty fees!

WE DO NOT HANDLE LIQUIDATION LOTS, FRAGILES, HAZMAT or PERISHABLES

 

Want to chat?

5 + 6 =

Located in friendly Waynesboro, VA, nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge.

 

Hours: 

Mon-Fri: 8-4

Sat-Sun: Closed

FAQ

Do you accept pallets?
We can accept pallets if the truck delivering it has a lift gate. We do not have a loading dock.

If you are shipping UPS Freight (these are the semi-trucks, separate from UPS Ground) we can arrange pickup from their yard. This is the most widely used freight shipper in our area.

What is your turnaround time?
From the time we receive the shipment ID, we aim to have the inventory out the door in less than 24 hours, although on occasion it may take 48 hours.

If we are also listing for you, the whole process takes longer, but we still rarely exceed two working days.

However, if it is important to you that your shipment go out promptly, please get your “create shipment” order to us no later than close of business on Wednesday, because we can’t control when the UPS truck arrives. If it picks up at noon on Friday, that’s the last shipment until Monday.

Do you work with new sellers? International?
We are happy to help new and international sellers with their FBA prep needs. We’ll walk you through the process as necessary.

We LOVE our international sellers. We are proud to have clients from all six continents! (Now we just need someone to sign up in Antarctica and we’ll REALLY have bragging rights!)

 

Are there any sign up fees?
We have no signup fees and no monthly membership fees. With our straightforward fee structure it’s easy to figure out your per item margins.
What do you mean by “processing” inventory?
We receive your shipment (even shipments of individual items as in the case of textbooks) and let you know what has arrived. We then inspect the shipment to ensure that we received the correct quantity and condition.

After you create your shipments, we will do everything involved in putting together the shipment— all the required prep (labels as well as polybagging and bundling if necessary). We will also provide the per-box contents to Amazon, then tape, weigh, slap on the shipping labels and put it on the truck. You know, all the stuff you spend hours per day doing right now?

Do you do sticker and price tag removal?
Except for textbooks, reasonable sticker removal is included in our flat rate. We reserve the right to charge a small fee for excessive sticker removal.

An average textbook, covered in labels and barcodes from previous vendors, is definitely excessive, and is generally unnecessary, as buyers understand that used textbooks have stickers. But we know that excess barcodes can cause problems in Amazon warehouses, so all previous barcodes will be removed or covered.

What is included in the flat rate?
It is easier to list what we do not charge for:

  • Shipping boxes
  • FNSKU labels
  • Shipping labels
  • Sticker labels (suffocation, sold as a set, etc)
  • Standard size polybags
  • Dunnage (bubble wrap, kraft paper)
  • Destickering, as detailed above
Do you offer storage for items?
Yes! We know that Amazon’s Long-Term Storage Fees are a real concern for our clients. We can store pallets or caselots of goods and ship them into Amazon as needed. Please contact us for details.
What DON'T you do?
We do not handle liquidation lots, fragiles, hazmat, or perishables. We also cannot offer climate controlled storage. Our ability to customize services is limited by our high volume– for our sake and yours, it’s best if everything is done the same way, to the same high standard, every time. We appreciate your understanding.