Amazon FBA

What is FBA?

The meaning of “FBA” is a network that allows Amazon sellers to send stock into Amazon’s warehouses for them to sell it directly to the customer. This gives the customer benefits including 7 days a week next day delivery in the UK and our products to have the coveted prime badge.

How Does It Work?

You create a shipment inside your seller central account of what you want to send to Amazon, you can then use your own courier to send it to them or have Amazons partnered carrier come and collect your parcels.

How Much Does It Cost?

Typically the fees may look more expensive than fulfilling it yourself, but, if your selling volume the fees can be more cost effective that sending customers an items yourself. See more about FBA costs here

What Are The Requirements Of FBA?

In order to sell products on Amazon through FBA you must be able to send stock into their Fulfilment centres and maintain good inventory levels with them, you do not want to overstock or indeed, understock your items.

What Does Sold and Fulfilled By Amazon Mean?

If you see an item that is sold by amazon and fulfilled by amazon, this is NOT an FBA product but is actually a product sold directly by amazon from one of its vendor retailers, this is something else we can assist with but this is not an FBA product.

Understanding Amazon FBA UK Fees

Amazon’s fee structure can get quite complicated, so we have provided some simplied costs by each packaging group.

Simplifying the UK FBA dimensions to give you the “FBA Fulfilment fee”

correct as of 17th January 2022

	Cheapest	Most Expensive	Max Dimensions	Max Weight
Standard Envelope	£1.56	£1.77	< 33cm x 23cm x 2.5cm	460g
Standard Parcel	£2.19	£6.30	< 45cm x 34cm x 26cm	11,9kg
Small oversize	£4.16	£5.16	< 61cm x 46cm x 46cm	1.7kg
Standard Oversize	£5.07	£8.30	< 120cm x 60cm x 60m	29.7kg
Large oversize	£8.43	£12.43	> 120cm x 50cm x 60cm	31.5kg

What about inventory storage fees, damages etc?

Amazons storage fees are calculated by something called the IPI which is Amazon’s “credit score” to determine how much stock you can put in and how much they will charge you.

This credit score is calculated by how you currently work with Amazon and their fulfilment centres. If you put too much stock in and don’t sell enough or indeed don’t refill your stock when your running out, Amazon will penalise you by lowering your score and charging you more for the storage you have available. During peak times such as during Christmas they may also stop you from stocking your items all together by lowering your storage limits.

In terms of damages, if a customer claims they have recieved an item damaged, Amazon will in most cases allow the customer to keep the item and refund them, remember to work this into your budgets.

How Do I Make FBA Cost Effective?

FBA may look more expensive but if your selling in good volume it may work out cheaper using FBA because you can offset your postage costs against FBA.

An example:

You send 20 customers a month an item that costs you £6 to send with valid tracking DPD.
You can send the same 20 products to Amazons FBA centre for £6 with DPD using one shipment

This means your actual postage costs to Amazon 0.30p per unit (20 units divided by £6)
Your FBA fulfilment fee costs £3
Your fulfilment fee now costs £3.30 rather than £6 per unit.

If you are getting high sales figures or you have items that fit onto “large oversize” these margins can be made even greater sending in pallets rather than regular box cartons.

For more about the cost to ship Amazon FBA click here

How Do I Get Stock Sent To Amazon, Do Amazon Pick It Up?

you can choose to use Amazons courier programme, at the time of writing that is UPS and their fees are negotiated when you sign up, they will then arrange to collect from you.

You can use a range of valid tracking couriers such as DPD, UPS, Fedex, Parcelforce and Royal mail. just be aware that your courier must be a regular shipper to Amazons centres as some dont and would need to call Amazon to book a shipment in.

You must have a regular courier account to be able to ship these items.

Shipping Pallets to Amazon FBA

If your sending in pallets – your pallet company MUST book these in with Amazon prior to sending.

How Do I Deal With Suppressed Listings?

See our guide all about dealing with amazon fba suppressed listings here.

Does Amazon FBA Increase Sales?

Using FBA allows you to get the “prime” badge giving customers 7 days a week next day delivery if they are prime members. this will give huge improvements to your capabilities in search and improved conversion rates on all your listings.

How We Can Help

We have years of amazon fba experience from prep to packaging, selling to optimising inventory scores and its performance.