Amazon fulfilment, also known as Fulfilment by Amazon, or FBA for short, is a service provided by the e-commerce giant that takes care of warehousing, picking and packing, shipping and returns for online retailers.

Amazon has offered third party selling through Amazon Marketplace for several years, but it is also possible for brands to sell on their own website and still use Amazon to take care of fulfilment.

When smaller e-tailers use Amazon’s resources, their products are listed on Amazon’s website as part of the deal, too.

In this article, we’re going to look at the benefits of Amazon fulfilment and explore how it works.

How does Amazon fulfilment benefit e-commerce brands?

Outsourcing storage, shipping and customer service to a big player like Amazon can feel like an intimidating step for some brands, but it can be a smart business growth strategy. Let’s take a look at the benefits:

• Increased audience: When products are listed on Amazon in addition to a retailer’s own site, they can achieve much greater brand visibility. With millions of Amazon customers able to find products from brands they hadn’t previously encountered, it opens up new markets for many smaller businesses.
• Cost saving: It can be extremely cost effective to outsource warehousing and dispatch to Amazon Fulfilment. E-commerce retailers benefit from Amazon’s tech, experience and economies of scale, all on a pay-as-you-go basis. 
• Time saving: Fulfilling customer orders takes a lot of time, particularly for businesses selling high volumes, so outsourcing operations can free up hours of capacity in house. This can give brand owners time to develop their businesses in other ways.
• Social proof: Customer reviews are a powerful tool for building trust. Amazon’s review feature helps customers to see genuine experiences before they purchase. The customer feedback can be a mine of information for an e-comm business, too — it gives plenty of material to inform future product improvements.
• Free next day delivery: Eligible products are available for Amazon Prime customers to buy with free next day delivery and other benefits, making your brand more attractive to shoppers.
• Tailored options: FBA offers different programmes for shipment of hazardous goods, oversized products, and smaller products with low value. This enables every business to choose a package that suits their offering.

What types of business does FBA help?

Fulfilment by Amazon can help anyone from new entrants to the online retail scene through to large organisations with high volumes and plenty of experience. The platform’s pay-as-you-go system makes it a cost effective option for all kinds of brands to get started and benefit from the savings and visibility.

How does Amazon fulfilment work?

There are a raft of benefits to customer orders being fulfilled by Amazon UK, but how does it work in practice?

1. Setting up Amazon fulfilment

Setting up Amazon fulfilment services for your e-commerce site is simple; existing Shopify or WooCommerce sites can be combined seamlessly with Amazon for an effortless integration process.

Shopify users

Businesses based outside North America have to use third party apps to integrate Shopify and Amazon. There are plenty of options readily available to get your stock managed by Amazon, so you’re sure to find one that suits your business.

WooCommerce users

The WooCommerce platform offers an extension that will connect to any Amazon region worldwide. As a result, combining your existing WooCommerce website with Amazon FBA is quick and easy.

2. Registering for FBA

Registration is a straightforward process for most brands, but it’s important to know that fulfilled by Amazon UK has a list of information that any businesses must provide, namely:

• Business email address or Amazon customer account
• Credit card
• Valid passport or national ID
• Company registration details
• Phone number
• Bank details

3. Listing products on Amazon

Success on Amazon depends on your ability to tempt customers to buy. Product descriptions have to be clear and compelling. This means displaying the right images and information. So, the next step for businesses using FBA is to ensure their products have:

• A catchy title
• High quality images
• A clear list of the most important product information
• A description and keywords to help your product show up in search results. 

Amazon has plenty of guidelines and videos to show brands how to do this effectively.

4. Sending products to fulfilment centres

Amazon has strict criteria for businesses using its fulfilment services. These are to ensure that the product arrives safely with the customer, just as you’d want them to receive it.

There are specifications concerning box type, how to send sets, which barcodes should be visible and where other ISBN numbers should be covered. Once all the criteria are met, it’s time to send products to the designated warehouse, following Amazon’s packing guidelines, ready for storage and fulfilment.

5. Order fulfilment with Amazon

From this point on, Amazon takes care of everything. When a shopper places an order, Amazon’s operations pick, pack and ship the customer’s order. They even take care of returns and customer services. It makes everything a lot easier for the vendor.