How Amazon's Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) Program Works
Wednesday, July 10, 2019Eric Zegarski
Here's How Fulfilled by Amazon Works
When it comes to selling on Amazon, you have a
few options when it comes to your vendor status. Amazon’s vendor relations can be split into two categories, Vendor Central and Seller Central. With Vendor Central, Amazon buys the product directly from you and sells it on their own behalf. For smaller merchants, Seller Central is a more appealing approach. The merchant has their products listed on Amazon, but Amazon does not own the inventory. When it comes to Seller Central fulfillment, Amazon offers two options, FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) and FBM (fulfilled by merchant). If you’re looking to lighten your order fulfillment load, then applying to be a part of Amazon’s FBA program is highly recommended. Here is a breakdown of how the Fulfilled by Amazon process works and some of its key features:
Send Your Stuff to Amazon
There are only a handful of companies that can rival Amazon’s fulfillment logistics. With their two-day Prime guarantee, you can bet they have a large network of warehouses in strategic locations. As it stands right now, Amazon has over 100 active warehouses in the USA alone. Due to this large network, Amazon will provide you with specific instructions as to which warehouses you must ship your products too.
Amazon Will Sort and Store Your Products
Since some of these warehouses are over one million square feet in size, Amazon has their own logistics process to sort and store products. Once your product is received by Amazon you can rest assured that it will be kept safe in their facilities. In addition, as a Fulfilled by Amazon vendor, should anything happen to your inventory that is housed at one of Amazon’s warehouses, Amazon will reimburse you for your losses.
Amazon Handles Sales and Shipping
Amazon manages the entire sales and transaction process for you! This means they process the transaction and update your inventory in your Amazon portal. In addition, all picking, and packaging is done by Amazon’s human and non-human (robot) staff. The purchaser of your product will receive fulfillment and shipping updates in their Amazon account as well.
Amazon Handles the Majority of Customer Inquiries
Since Amazon is taking charge when it comes to fulfillment, any questions related to shipping are handled by the Amazon customer care team. Amazon will ensure that the customer is satisfied with the fulfillment process. In addition, should for some reason the customer not be happy with the product, Amazon will handle the return and refund process. However, if the customer decides to leave any feedback on your product listing, be it positive or negative, addressing that remains the merchant’s responsibility.
Amazon Pays You!
It’s that simple! Every two weeks Amazon totals your sales and deposits what you are owed directly into your bank account. Amazon also automatically deducts all associated seller fees from the associated sales as well.
Integration Supercharges Your Fulfilled By Amazon Sales Channel
As a merchant on Amazon, it’s your responsibility to make sure Amazon always has ample stock of your products on hand at your designated warehouses. If Amazon is a part of your omni-channel or multi-channel, then integration solution is right for you. An integration via an iPaaS (integration platform as a service) can save you time by eliminating the need for manual data entry, ensure data integrity, and update order/inventory information almost instantaneously between Amazon and your
ERP of choice.
We also have a pre-built
Amazon connector! That means that we can get you integration up and running quickly. In addition, we are hosted on Microsoft Azure, therefore ensuring an almost 99.99% uptime and industry leading security. With an integration solution, you can ensure that your commerce network is connected and communicating data bi-directionally. If you’re looking to join the Fulfilled by Amazon program, you can get more information from Amazon
here.