Fulfilled by Amazon

Under Fulfilled by Amazon, you send your products in bulk to an Amazon fulfilment centre. Amazon stores them, and when a customer orders, Amazon's staff and systems pick the item, pack it, ship it and provide tracking. Amazon also fields customer-service enquiries and processes returns for those orders.

You still own the inventory and set the price; you are effectively outsourcing the warehousing and delivery. This is what makes FBA orders eligible for Prime, since they ship from Amazon's own network with Amazon's delivery promise. Prime eligibility is a strong driver of conversion and a major factor in winning the Buy Box.

In Europe, Amazon offers programmes such as Pan-European FBA and the European Fulfilment Network that let you store stock in one or more countries and have Amazon fulfil orders across multiple EU marketplaces, which can shorten delivery times and reduce cross-border friction.

FBA charges two main fee types: storage fees, billed by the volume your stock occupies and the length of time it stays (with higher rates for long-term or slow-moving inventory), and fulfilment fees, charged per unit based on the item's size and weight. These are separate from the marketplace referral (commission) fee you pay on every sale.

The trade-off is convenience and reach versus cost and control. FBA removes the logistics workload, unlocks Prime, and improves Buy Box odds, but the fees eat into margin, and slow sellers can rack up long-term storage charges. You also hand over the unboxing experience and have less direct control over how returns are processed.

Many sellers run a hybrid model: high-velocity, Prime-sensitive products go through FBA, while bulky, slow or low-margin items are fulfilled by the merchant. Calculating the landed cost per item under each method is the only reliable way to decide which products belong in FBA.