Reasons to Ship through Merchant fulfillment on Amazon
Have you ever wondered why one would sign up for merchant fulfillment on Amazon rather than using FBA which is way faster and of course, convenient?
Working with FBA allows us to maximize sales and profits for most of the items we offer on Amazon. However, in some cases, Amazon sellers who fulfill their orders get the lead and earn more sales. The key is to not limit yourself and go with one option; instead, choose the one that will allow you to increase profit and bring in more money.
Every year, according to various seasons and trends on Amazon, sellers offer millions of dollars worth of items to their customers. However, there are a few situations where fulfilling your own orders would be more beneficial than counting on Amazon FBA. This blog post will highlight why you should consider FBM over FBA at times.
What is Fulfillment by Merchant?
Amazon gives you two choices when it comes to fulfillment methods: either you go with FBA and let Amazon handle the storing, shipping, and packaging of your products- or choose FBM and become a third-party seller to ship directly to the customers. In short, any Amazon seller who doesn’t choose FBA to ship orders is merchant fulfilling.
FBA vs. FBM has always been the center of the debate. However, here’s when FBM takes the lead and when you must choose FBM over FBA:
1. To meet the deadlines during Q4:
Most of the merchant fulfillment happens during Q4. To ship items during Q4, Amazon always announces a cutoff date for sellers to send their inventory to the Amazon warehouses to ensure that the inventory is available for the holiday season. However, most of the sellers fail to send their inventory on time and FBA doesn’t accept the inventory later. But you know what to do; shift to FBM! Don’t let the mistake get to you. You can always choose to fulfill your own orders and offer fast shipping.
In addition, there comes a point where the demand from customers for holiday gifts remains high but there is not enough time for sellers to transfer and send more inventory to the Amazon warehouses and have it approved, processed, and cleared in time to get them shipped to the customers before the holidays. All of this chaos occurs during December and that’s when sellers switch to merchant fulfillment.
While you can choose to ship your items to the FBA warehouse, it won’t be available for the customers to buy until the period of the highest demand comes to an end. The only solution during such situations is to sign up with merchant fulfillment on Amazon so that your products are available during an increase in demand. There’s no use in offering the best product prices by using an Amazon repricing tool when you can’t get your stock processed on time.
Don’t compromise on your sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and other important seasons, just switch to FBM and make sure your products are available during all seasons, at all times!
2. When FBA stock is not available
Another reason why FBA sellers choose to go for merchant fulfillment is when they look at the listing and notice that FBA stock is nowhere to be found.
This issue usually occurs more frequently around Q4 than any other season during the year; however, it can emerge at any moment when the typical FBA vendors run out of goods and you get a chance to shine.
It is quite rare that a product will stay unavailable for FBA for a longer period of time if you are trying to target products with a higher sales rank. However, if you succeed in noticing that the FBA units are out of stock at the moment, you can take advantage of the situation and start selling some of your units through merchant fulfillment on Amazon till the FBA stock becomes available.
The best advice would be to divide your units and offer some through merchant fulfillment while sending the rest of the remaining stock to FBA. This is the best tactic to enjoy selling continuously and not let the time taken by FBA affect your sales. If the stock you sent to FBA becomes available sooner, you can ship your remaining units to the FBA warehouse that you held back for merchant fulfillment.
3. When FBA is not even an option to consider
The last reason why merchants decide to fulfill their orders by themselves is when FBA doesn’t take in a particular item or product. It is a very rare occurrence, but it does occur.
The most prevalent example is when a product is supposed to expire within ninety days of arriving at the FBA warehouse. Amazon is quite tight about the expiration dates of the products and doesn’t take in items that don’t have enough shelf life. Read about the expiration date policy of Amazon by clicking here. Such items can easily be shipped through FBM.
Moreover, Amazon also doesn’t allow sellers to send meltable products to the fulfillment centers during the summer months. All such meltable items will be accepted via FBA from the 16th of October till the 14th of April.
In short, all those items that FBA doesn’t accept due to several reasons can be sold through fulfillment by Merchant. If a product is classified as a potential hazard by Amazon, most of the sellers shift to FBM and make it work.
In conclusion,
If you are investing your money in sourcing the best products, as well as keeping your product prices competitive by using a repricing tool, then you wouldn’t want FBA to come in your way. While FBA can be a great option to go forward with, there are times when choosing to ship directly to your consumers is a lot more beneficial. Let us know what you think about FBM in the comments!
