I’ve been considering selling some stuff through Amazon but am a little confused y the fulfillment thing. Can somebody explain fulfillment by Amazon? Basically, what is it? How does it work? That kind of stuff.

The new fulfillment by Amazon is actually a pretty neat thing that Amazon is trying to do. It serves a couple purposes: It gives Amazon more inventory, which draws in more customers and it not only helps sellers sell more, but gives them an incentive to use it. However, let me try to explain exactly what it is for you.

Fulfillment by Amazon is a way for sellers to let Amazon do all the hard work for them…at least this is how I see it. This is why:

• As a seller, you will send your products to one of the fulfillments centers that Amazon has and when an order is placed, Amazon sends it out for you.
• This eliminates the hassle of you having to go out and immediately ship items once they sell through Amazon because Amazon does it all.
• Using fulfillment by Amazon will actually help you sell more items because when customers purchase products that Amazon has in stock (regardless of if they are sold by Amazon or by an individual seller) they are usually able to take advantage of free shipping through Amazon Prime. This means, they’ll be more likely to order your product rather than someone else’s that’s going to charge them shipping fees…and take longer to get them the product.

Now, how does it work? I’m going to try to explain this in the simplest way:

• First you will ship your products (both used and new) to one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
• Next, Amazon takes your products and stores them with their “ready-to-ship” inventory.
• When an order is placed, Amazon fulfills it for you.

Hi,
If i'm not in USA, i'm in Astralia, how can i register as a seller of Amazon.
Look forward to your information.

So, does this only work for orders that are placed through Amazon then? Like, will I need to keep some of my products at the house in case someone orders from me personally?

No, you don’t have to worry about keeping a separate inventory for the outside-of-Amazon buyers. Amazon will ship to those buyers as well, you just need to submit a fulfillment request to Amazon for the sales made outside of Amazon.

K – I get that this sounds like a cool thing to do, but I know nothing is free. So, what’s the scoop with how much this costs? Is it reasonable?

I was skeptical about it to, but it’s really not that bad of a deal. I’ve been doing it for a while now. The way it works is Amazon measures the products you ship to them once they get to the fulfillment center – down to the 1/10”…they do this because they charge you per cubic foot each month.

Last I checked the fees were something like .45 per cubic foot from like January to September. Then for the holidays the fee goes up to .60 from October to December.

Can u be a tad bit more specific about the cost?

The example listed on the website shows that if you have enough products to take up a 4’x4’x5’ pallet, then you will be charged $36 each month for the storage at the fulfillement center. Does that make sense?

Thx for clarifying that. Ya, it makes sense but what about the “fulfillment” fees – I know they don’t ship it for free. Do u know about those?