Blog Posts Seller-Fulfilled Prime Gives Merchants More Control Over Cost, Service
More than 300,000 U.S.-based small- and medium-sized businesses sell through Amazon’s Marketplace, according to Forbes magazine. Amazon’s Prime program is a big draw for these merchants – promising ready access to the 51% of U.S. households that are Prime users.
Committing to fulfill orders with free, two-day delivery for Prime customers has its challenges, however. It can be costly to use Fulfillment by Amazon to store, pack and ship products. Also, third-party sellers often complain that they sacrifice quality, service, and/or reliability in the fulfillment and distribution process.
Want to participate in Amazon’s Prime program without using Fulfillment by Amazon? You’re in luck. Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) allows you to reach this growing member base by fulfilling your own orders – or having a 3PL fulfill them for you.
Our new ebook provides an overview of this fulfillment alternative. Following is an excerpt…
How Does SFP Work?
SFP is set up by the client on their “Seller Central Interface”, a dashboard where the merchant controls all aspect of their Amazon selling platform. Sellers must first be approved by Amazon for SFP and follow strict compliance and guidelines to maintain their SFP status.
Merchants can choose which states SFP is offered in.
Example: A 3PL fulfills a client’s items from their Fort Worth, Texas facility. The merchant can only activate Prime for states that can successfully receive 2 Business Day shipping via ground from Fort Worth, Texas.
Merchants can choose to limit the number of Prime orders in a day.
After the pre-set threshold has been reached (i.e., 100), all future orders for the item will not be considered Prime.
Not all of the merchant’s inventory is required to participate in Prime.
Example: Items that are commonly backordered or fulfilled through a Rapid Replenishment program can be excluded.
In order to retain SFP status, merchants must comply with several SFP Service Level Agreement Requirements and complete a 200-order trial period in which they meet the necessary metrics.
To learn more about SFP, download the Amazon Seller-Fulfilled Prime ebook.