Amazon fulfilment UK: FBA prep and FBM

Amazon.co.uk is one of the busiest places UK shoppers buy, and third-party sellers compete for the same listing on many ASINs. There are two ways to get an order to the customer. With FBA, you send stock into Amazon's fulfilment centres and Amazon ships it. With FBM, the order stays with you: you ship it, and Amazon measures how well you do.

Few catalogues suit only one model. Fast-moving, compact lines often earn their place in FBA, while bulky, slow, seasonal or high-value SKUs frequently work better as FBM. FBM is also the safety net when an FBA inbound is delayed or a line sells out at the fulfilment centre. Because we hold one stock pool, you don't have to split inventory ahead of demand or guess how much to send in.

Amazon's product packaging requirements are specific. Every unit needs a scannable barcode, and each FNSKU must map to exactly one product, so a different size, colour or condition needs its own label. Old barcodes on outer boxes have to be covered. Sets must be sealed and labelled so they are received and sold as one unit, poly bags must be transparent and sealed, and boxed units must be six-sided and firm. Amazon may refuse, return or repackage stock that arrives non-compliant, and charge for the unplanned work.

We prep, label and carton FBA stock to Amazon's current requirements before it leaves our site, and schedule replenishment so restocks go in before a line runs dry rather than after.

For seller-fulfilled orders, Amazon defines handling time as the gap between the customer ordering and you handing the parcel to a carrier. It feeds the promised delivery date shown on the offer, and you can set it as an account default, per SKU, or let automated handling time learn it from your shipment history.

Amazon then tracks Late Shipment Rate, the share of orders confirmed as shipped after the expected ship date, and Valid Tracking Rate, the share of FBM shipments per category confirmed with a valid tracking ID. Both apply only to seller-fulfilled orders, and a poor late shipment record can put your seller-fulfilled offers at risk of deactivation.

Our job is to make those numbers boring. We pick with 99.9% pick and pack accuracy and ship Amazon orders received before 9pm on the same day (cut-offs vary by carrier, service and daily order profile), so the handling time you set is one you can actually hold.

FBM orders drop from Seller Central into our system on their own. We pick, pack and choose the carrier for each parcel, then the ship confirmation goes back with the carrier name and tracking number, which is exactly what Valid Tracking Rate looks for. Stock quantities from our shelves sync back to your FBM offers, so Amazon stops selling what we no longer hold.

FBA inbound shipments are prepared from the same inventory. Whatever stays in Scunthorpe keeps serving FBM, your own website and wholesale, and every movement is visible in the client portal.