In this blog, we will talk about what is Fulfillment by Amazon. The procedure of fba which helps in fulfilling the orders from the online sale without any physical store. It also helps in managing inventory and the shipping process efficiently. Since it’s one of the largest global commerce giants, Amazon FBA has a large number of sellers on its platform which help in driving down prices for consumers at a more rapid rate. This is an informative article for all the beginners who are interested to know what amazon fba is and how it actually works.
What is Amazon FBA ?
Amazon FBA is a program which helps in fulfilling orders from the customers who order from Amazon directly. Normally, Amazon has a team of sellers to fulfill their orders but as today’s internet marketing technologies are evolving rapidly and more pages are being added on the Amazon, it has become required to have an efficient fulfillment model so that any product can be delivered at the doorstep of a customer before time.
Now you might be confused and ask “Do I need an online store to fulfill my order? “. The answer is, no! You can use FBA as a way to fulfill your product orders by yourself or by hiring some professionals. Actually, this is not the purpose of FBA at all.
In order to understand Amazon FBA better, let’s look into another product from Amazon named “Amazon Seller”.
It’s not an easy task to manage an inventory of your own. You may think it is simple and can be handled easily by yourself. But that’s the biggest mistake you are making. It requires hours of data entry and other cumbersome tasks which you might not like to do or you may have a lack of time or expertise which results in low sales and the creation of your inventory is not easy at all.
But don’t worry! There are various ways such as Fulfilled By Merchant (FBM), Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA), and merchant fulfilled (MF) to sell products online.
Fulfilled By Merchant
This is the simplest and easiest way to sell products. All you need to do is to list your products on Amazon and let Amazon do the rest such as receiving the order, shipping it, packaging it, updating inventory data, and more.
Amazon Seller – This is an entry-level seller account that was introduced in May 2014 by Amazon in order for people who are willing to start selling products online without having a significant investment on their side. You can list up to 20 items per month on this account without any monthly fee.
Fulfilled by Amazon – This is the main seller account you need to have if you want to run a business by selling products on Amazon. It’s a monthly fee-based account that allows you to list unlimited items in Amazon without any restrictions.
Merchant Fulfilled (MF) – This is the most unique feature of selling online on Amazon which comes with no additional FBA fees. You need to set up a Merchant Fulfilled account to sell on Amazon and that’s it. There are no additional fees for it.
Now, you might be wondering if you can use this service for wholesale products. Yes! You can. All you need is to buy from the Wholesale sellers on Amazon and resell it to your customers in your own online store or offline store. There will be no markups or profit margin and it stays the same as the original MSRP as far as the product is concerned where consumers pay the identical price which they would when buying directly from Amazon’s site.
*Note – All these above accounts are perfect for those who want to start selling today (on-demand sellers). However, if you are planning to start selling on behalf of a third-party seller or if your inventory is more than 80 products then you will be required to have a professional seller account like ‘Professional seller’.
Now that you have understood what is Amazon FBA, let’s move on and talk about how does it actually work?
Let us assume that a customer orders your product XYZ from Amazon and at the same time, you have listed the same product XYZ on Amazon. Now as soon as the customer places his order. You will receive an email from Amazon informing you that “Your order XYZ has been placed on Amazon”.
It will be shipped to the customers by Amazon FBA and as soon as it reaches the destination, Amazon will notify you about it and inform you about how much time is left for them to deliver your product.
Once it reaches the destination, you need to check out whether the product has arrived or not. If not then contact your supplier immediately to find out where is the issue and take immediate steps to ship it back.
If your customer has provided information such as name, address, phone number, etc. then you will be informed about it by Amazon. And when the product arrives at his doorstep, he will be notified via email that your product has been delivered successfully.
The charge for all these services is calculated on a per per-item basis or a per case basis whereas this charge will be added to the shipping cost of your product.
Amazon FBA is one of the most efficient and effective ways to sell your product online. By following these simple steps, you will be able to fulfil orders on Amazon with no hassle at all.
Moreover, there are several advantages of selling products on the Amazon FBA platform such as:
1) Huge Traffic – Almost every customer wants to buy something from Amazon and that’s why it gets huge traffic on their site if you are listing your product there then you are giving it a huge advantage by leveraging their traffic.
2) No Investment Required – You don’t have to invest any money on the initial level if you want to start selling in smaller quantities.
Conclusion
Amazon FBA is best suited if you want to sell your product online and focus on growing your business by selling huge volumes. It is Cheap And Effective Marketing. This is another unique benefit of selling on the Amazon platform. As your product will be stored in Amazon’s warehouse, it will be available for shipping to all US states with Free shipping, which makes it a perfect way for those who want to sell their products at low cost but at the same time make some decent amount of profit from it as well whereas it will save a lot of money on marketing.
