When listing inventory in AccelerList, you may notice fields for Supplier and Scout. While these fields do not affect your Amazon listings, they can provide valuable insights into your sourcing operations and help you make better business decisions.
By tracking where your inventory comes from and who sourced it, you can gain a clearer understanding of your business performance.
What Is a Supplier?
A Supplier is the source from which you purchased an item.
Suppliers can include:
Thrift stores
Library sales
Retail stores
Wholesalers
Liquidation companies
Bookstores
Online marketplaces
Distributors
Examples
Item | Supplier |
Used Book | Goodwill |
Textbook | Library Sale |
New Product | Wholesale Distributor |
Retail Arbitrage Item | Target |
Tracking suppliers helps you understand which sourcing locations consistently provide profitable inventory.
Why Track Suppliers?
Recording supplier information can help you:
Identify your most profitable sourcing locations
Analyze inventory performance by source
Track purchasing trends
Improve sourcing decisions
Monitor spending across multiple suppliers
Over time, supplier reporting can reveal which locations produce the highest profits and best inventory.
What Is a Scout?
A Scout is the person responsible for finding or sourcing inventory.
This feature is especially useful for businesses with multiple employees, family members, or contractors involved in sourcing products.
Examples
Item | Scout |
Used Book | John |
DVD | Sarah |
Wholesale Purchase | Mike |
The scout field allows businesses to track who sourced specific inventory items.
Why Track Scouts?
Tracking scouts can help businesses:
Measure sourcing performance
Evaluate profitability by scout
Monitor productivity
Reward top performers
Analyze sourcing efficiency
For businesses with multiple team members, scout reporting provides valuable insight into sourcing contributions.
How Suppliers and Scouts Work Together
Supplier and Scout data can be used together to create detailed sourcing reports.
Example
Field | Value |
Supplier | Goodwill |
Scout | John |
Buy Cost | $2.00 |
Sale Price | $18.99 |
In this example:
The inventory was purchased from Goodwill.
John sourced the item.
The data can later be used to evaluate both supplier and scout performance.
Do Suppliers and Scouts Affect Amazon Listings?
No. Supplier and Scout information is used for internal tracking and reporting only.
These fields do not affect:
Amazon search rankings
Buy Box eligibility
Product visibility
Listing quality
Marketplace performance
They exist solely to help sellers better manage and analyze their sourcing operations.
Best Practices
When using Suppliers and Scouts, consider:
Creating consistent supplier names
Tracking all sourcing locations
Recording scout information whenever possible
Reviewing sourcing reports regularly
Using data to improve purchasing decisions
Consistent tracking provides the most accurate reporting and insights over time.
Final Thoughts
Suppliers and Scouts are powerful organizational tools that help sellers understand where inventory comes from and who sourced it. By consistently tracking this information, you can gain valuable insights into sourcing performance, identify profitable opportunities, and make more informed business decisions.