What Are the Risks of Shipping Directly to Amazon?

It may seem like a good idea to cut out the 3PL services and send your cartons or items directly to Amazon. Afterall, Amazon offers prep services, sometimes at a less expensive rate. Is it a good idea?

So why not? 

Here are a few risks associated with shipping directly to Amazon:

• Your supplier may have case-packed your units incorrectly, leading to Amazon receiving the wrong number of units, which will result in a warning on your account.
• Your supplier may forget a crucial element such as suffocation warnings on your poly-bags
• Your units may be mislabeled, or the units may not be scannable
• Your units may become damaged in transit, leading Amazon to receive a bunch of damaged merchandise.
• Amazon has high storage fees that will eat away at your revenue if your units do not sell
• Amazon may misunderstand your skus and relabel your units with the wrong sku- we’ve seen this happen quite a few times. For example, a client sent red and green plates to Amazon. Amazon thought they were labeled with the wrong skus, so they labeled the red plate with the green skus, and the green plate with the red skus. They then issued a warning to the client for their own mistake! See below to see how we helped fix that. 
• You will have no way to prove what Amazon received if they say they received the incorrect amount of units.
• Without a relationship with a prep center, you will have no home base to send removals, a container, or test products. 

Here is how we as a prep center mitigate those risks: 

• For Carton Forwarding clients, we will only open your cartons if you ask us to. If you’d like, we are happy to spot check your cartons and make sure everything is accounted for and prepared to Amazon’s standards.
• At your prompting, we can scan a few units, spot checking to make sure that the barcodes your supplier labeled your products with is scannable. 
• When we receive your cartons, if we notice any damage to the outer cartons, we will repair it. If we believe there is damage to the inner units, we will investigate and report to you with our findings so you are informed and aware
• Our storage fees are less expensive than Amazon’s and we have plenty of room to store your cartons and items
• We always label your units with the correct label – however, if Amazon receives them and relabels them, then issues you a warning, we will walk you through requesting a bin check and photos. We can help determine and prove that Amazon was the culprit, and you will be reimbursed. 
• For our OA and wholesale clients, we can provide you with packaging reports to aid you in any disputes with Amazon over what was supposed to be received versus what was actually received.
• We are able to receive and process your removals, containers, and test products.

We are available by contact us form to answer any questions you may have about working with us to ensure your products make it safely and properly prepped to Amazon FBA.