A Few Things Every Marketplace Seller Needs to Know about Amazon's FBA Small and Light (SnL) Fulfillment Service

Recently, Amazon launched a Fulfillment service for their marketplaces sellers whose products are typically not ideal for standard Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).  These items are typically small, light weight, and generally lower priced items. 

 

For example, a tooth brush, an inexpensive iPhone case, a paint brush, a deck of playing cards, a pencil set,… you get the picture. These are items that due to their low sale price often end up as an “Add-on Item” (meaning that the Prime member will need to spend at least $25 in order to be able to purchase the item with their Prime membership). 

 

Also, FBA Prime and Amazon Fees will absorb most of the sale anyway.  For a 2 ounce item that sells for $5, FBA Prime fees plus Amazon Referral fees would cost approximately $3.70.  Given the same scenario for FBA SnL, FBA SnL Fees + Amazon Referral fees would only be about $2.90 or so.  May not seem like a big difference at first, but it is about a 20% savings. 

 

 

OK, here is what you need to know about Amazon FBA multi channel fulfillment:

 

The Upside:

1.  FBA SnL is about 20% cheaper than FBA Prime

2.  FBA SnL will win the Buy Box over a non-FBA seller (provided that both listings are eligible for the Buy Box).

3.  If you are not a Featured Seller (perhaps you are a new seller or have been hit with a bad ODR), using FBA SnL will make you featured (eligible for the Buy Box) for that particular ASIN.

4.  Free Shipping will apply even to customers who do not have an Amazon Prime subscription.

5.  Amazon will handle the customer service (this could be looked at as a negative, depending on your view of Amazon’s acting on your behalf for customer service)

 

The Downside :

1.  Because your listing is not Prime, it is not eligible for Same Day and 2 Day shipping, which may be a big turn off for some customers.

2.  The minimum pieces of product per SKU that you can send is between 30 and 50 pieces. 

3.  You may have to sticker your products, even if they already contain a bar code (pretty redundant, inefficient, and unnecessary if you ask me).

4.  Fulfillment to other marketplaces like eBay, NewEgg, Rakuten, your own website, etc… is $5.95. Ouch!

Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment Order Fees

 

5. Long Term Storage fees just went up for the Amazon SnL program:

 

Marketplace Valet  will not only beat Amazon’s price, but we will list your products, fulfill your orders, and handle the customer service too. And not just Amazon, but eBay, international Amazon sites, Rakuten, Sears.com, Newegg.com, and more. If you need ecommerce fulfillment for your website, we can take care of that, too.

 

We can also manager your Amazon Advertising, Translate your listings to another language, create professional images for your products, protect your brand on Amazon,  write SEO copy for your title, features, descriptions, etc. You also get a dedicated Account Manager, too (see our home page for more details). No customer is too small and we love working with emerging brands!

 

Fun Fact: Amazon currently uses only one SnL Fulfillment Center, located in Hebron, Kentucky. They opened this facility in Q4 of 2015. In Q2 of 2015, Amazon’s FBA SnL team toured our warehouse and took pictures and notes of our Small and Light logistics facility. Just saying…

 

Final thoughts: Amazon SnL is a great, cost effective service if you only sell your products on Amazon.com. If you are thinking omni-channel, diversification, and selling way beyond Amazon.com, you really need to consider Marketplace Valet. 

 

You do what you are best at, whether it is creating a brand, sourcing goods, or E-Commerce, and leave the rest to Marketplace Valet. We make sure your brand of products are available on all top marketplaces, we fulfill the orders, we handle the customer service, and we send you the profits. 

 

We are like the intersection of services you’d get from Channel Advisor and FBA, except an all in one solution at a lower cost. Contact us today for an evaluation.  Give us a few minutes, and we promise it will be worth your time.