Amazon 3PL

FBA ships every order in an Amazon-branded box with Amazon-branded packaging. If your brand depends on a custom unboxing experience (apparel, beauty, supplements, premium goods) the FBA experience flattens your brand into Amazon's brand. We build to your packaging spec: custom boxes, tissue paper, insert cards, sample sachets, hand-written thank-you notes. Same operational cost per order as standard FBM; the unboxing reads as your brand, not Amazon's.

Amazon Business is the wholesale side of Amazon. Orders trend larger (24-pack to 100-pack quantities), customers expect freight or pallet delivery, and the pack-out is closer to a B2B pallet build than a parcel ship. FBA cannot handle this workflow. We run Amazon Business orders through our B2B pick workflow with shrink-wrap, dunnage, customer-specific BOLs, and carrier-specific palletization. Same operational floor, different pack-out rules.

FBA inventory is locked inside Amazon's system. To sell the same SKU on Shopify, you either duplicate the inventory in a second 3PL or run Amazon MCF (Multi-Channel Fulfillment) at a per-order cost that typically runs meaningfully higher than equivalent third-party fulfillment. Brands above 500 DTC orders per month almost always come out ahead by pooling inventory in our warehouse and fulfilling all channels from one record.

FBA charges punitive fees on items over 1 lb and increasingly punitive fees over 5 lbs and over 18 inches on the longest side. Hazmat items (anything with a flash point under 200°F, aerosols, lithium batteries above the FBA threshold) often cannot enter FBA at all. We handle hazmat-eligible items inside DOT-compliant storage zones, weight-and-dim every order at pack-out, and use ground freight LTL for oversize where FBA would force you into FedEx Smartpost economy.

FBA charges escalating long-term storage fees on inventory held past their threshold. The escalator can push the storage fee well past our ambient-storage rate. Slow-moving stock (catalog SKUs, replacement parts, accessory items that sell at low velocity) almost always prices better in our warehouse than in FBA. We coordinate the move from FBA to Vertex through FBA Removal Orders.

Amazon flags sellers with a late shipment rate above 4% measured against the seller-set handling time. Repeat offenders lose buy-box eligibility on affected ASINs. We honor your handling-time settings to the day, run pre-flight stock checks before order acceptance, and ship to the promised handling window.

ODR combines A-to-z claims, negative feedback, and chargebacks against your total order count. Above 1% triggers Amazon account warnings; above 2% can suspend the account. We process Amazon returns promptly, refund quickly to keep A-to-z claims off the table, and surface tracking issues to your team before buyers escalate.

Seller-initiated cancellations (out of stock, prep failure, address issue) above 2.5% trigger Amazon account flags. We hold buffer stock on active FBM SKUs, validate addresses through the USPS API before pick, and confirm prep state before order acceptance.

Amazon requires a tracking number uploaded against every shipment within the seller-set handling time. Below 95% valid tracking triggers performance flags. We upload tracking promptly after carrier scan, well inside Amazon's 24-hour window, and we route a carrier exception report back to your team for any shipment that fails to scan.

Amazon requires sellers respond to buyer-seller messages within 24 hours, weekends included. Slow response times count against your seller performance score. We route Amazon buyer messages through your team's shared inbox with the 24-hour SLA flagged, and we provide ops-related responses (tracking updates, address changes, return RMAs) directly when buyers contact through Amazon's system.