FBA prep now that it's the seller's job

For years, plenty of sellers sent inventory into FBA unlabelled and let Amazon put the stickers on for a per-unit fee. Prep is now the seller's job, or the job of whoever the seller pays to do it.

If your inventory arrives without proper prep, Amazon can refuse it, charge you to fix it, or hold it. None of that is cheap and all of it is slow.

What "prep" means

Prep is everything that has to happen to a unit before Amazon will accept it into stock. For most sellers, that's some mix of these:

FNSKU labels. The FNSKU is Amazon's barcode for your listing. Most sellers' units need one, applied so it's flat, readable and not wrapped around a corner. Any other scannable barcode on the unit, like the manufacturer's UPC, usually has to be covered so the scanner can only find one.

Polybagging. Loose items, fabric, anything that could get dusty or snag goes in a clear polybag. If the bag's opening is 5 inches or more, it needs a suffocation warning printed on it or a label applied.

Bundling. If two or more items are sold together as one unit, they have to be bundled so they can't come apart, and marked so the fulfillment center doesn't split them. A common way is a bag or shrink-wrap with a "Sold as set, do not separate" label.

Box content information. Amazon needs to know what's in each carton. That's provided through your shipment plan and the box labels it generates.

Carton limits. Boxes have weight and size limits. At the time of writing, standard boxes are limited to 50 lb and 25 inches on any side, with exceptions for single items that are oversized themselves. Heavy cartons also need a label saying so.

Some products have extra rules: anything sharp, glass, liquids, products with expiry dates, and anything Amazon classes as dangerous goods. If yours fall into one of those, read the specific requirements before you do anything else.

Your three options

1. Your supplier preps at the factory. Often the cheapest per unit, because labour costs less at origin and the units only get touched once. The downsides: you're trusting a factory to apply labels exactly right on thousands of units you can't see, and the labels need to be generated well in advance. A mistake is discovered at the fulfillment center, an ocean away from the people who made it.

2. You do it yourself. Fine for a few hundred units in a garage. It gets old quickly, and it means your inventory comes to you first and then goes back out, so you pay for an extra delivery and you need the space.

3. A prep center does it. Inventory lands at a warehouse near the port, gets checked, prepped and sent to Amazon in cases. You pay per unit, and you don't touch the goods. It also gives you somewhere to hold stock when Amazon limits how much you can send in.

There's no single right answer. Plenty of sellers mix them: the factory labels the simple products, a prep center handles bundles and anything fragile.

How it works with us

Our prep runs in partner warehouses. The route usually looks like this:

1. Your goods arrive by container or LCL, with ISF and customs entry filed by our licensed customs broker partners.
2. They're devanned or received at a partner warehouse and counted against your packing list.
3. Units are labelled, bagged and bundled to your instructions.
4. Cartons are packed with box content labels and your shipment plan labels.
5. Cases are forwarded to the Amazon fulfillment center your shipment plan names.

We're an independent prep service. We're not affiliated with Amazon or approved by it, and you keep full control of your Seller Central account.

Before you send inventory

General information, not legal, customs or tax advice. Rules change; check the official source or a licensed customs broker before you rely on it.