Amazon FBA has halted inbound shipments for non-essential categories from third party sellers until April 5th, 2020. If you are in this affected group and need fulfillment service, Deliverr supports Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) to ensure your Amazon listings stay active and buyers can continue to purchase your goods.
Sellers who leverage FBM don’t need to rely on Amazon’s fulfillment network, and can continue to get orders out in a timely manner.
How to connect Deliverr for your FBM Amazon orders
1) Create secondary SKUs for FBM
FBA merchants looking to shift Amazon orders into Deliverr need to create new SKUs in either Amazon Seller Central or their listing tool that will appear as another offer on the same ASIN. Merchants should not have both an FBA and FBM offer live with inventory at the same time as this could be viewed as an Amazon policy violation.
We advise against converting an FBA offer into FBM, especially if inventory is still present at Amazon. The better alternative is to create a secondary SKU that is FBM.
To create a new SKU in your Amazon catalogue, you should:
- Add individual products using Amazon’s “Add a Product” Tool, or;
- Add multiple products in bulk using Amazon’s “Add Products via Upload” Tool.
Watch this video to learn how to use inventory files to upload products in bulk.
Note: If a seller is creating a brand new SKU that has never been in FBA, FBM likely may not win the buy box immediately as there is typically a 30-day waiting window for new offers not in FBA.
Converting FBA listings into FBM
If you do want to convert FBA listings into FBM (not recommended), here’s how to do it.
- In your Amazon Seller Central, go to Inventory > Manage FBA Inventory.
- Select the items you want to convert, then use the drop-down menu to the right of the items, then select Change to Fulfilled by Merchant.
- You’ll see a page titled “Convert to ‘Fulfilled by Merchant’” where you can confirm your items before you convert them. When you’re ready, hit Convert on the bottom right.
It could take around 24 hours for the inventory to update in Seller Central. Please note that after you convert your listing, you won’t get your items back until you request a return order.
If a merchant converts an existing FBA offer that has inventory into FBM, the FBA inventory may become stranded and this would also apply to inventory received back from any Amazon customer order that was returned.
2) Make sure you are using an integration that integrates with Amazon and Deliverr
You can use these tools to centrally manage listings. This means you can add Amazon, amongst other sales channels, and multiple fulfillment partners such as Deliverr.
These are the integrations we support:
- SellerActive
- GeekSeller
- SellerCloud
- Ecomdash
- Listing Mirror
- Sellbrite
- ChannelAdvisor – (only login required)
- Skubana
- Zentail
- Linnworks
How does Deliverr interact with these tools? Deliverr reads all product catalog data provided by the integration. Ensure that your Amazon catalog and listings are connected to each integration so that we pull that data into Deliverr inventory.
What happens after connecting my tool? You will know your inventory is imported into our catalog when you see a list of your SKUs from your integration on the Deliverr inventory page.
3) Set up Deliverr to fulfill your orders
Once you are ready for Deliverr to start fulfilling your Amazon orders, simply use your tool to route orders to the Deliverr fulfillment service.
Below is an example of what that looks like for merchants using SellerActive.
As long as your item is marked as FBM on Amazon directly before reaching SellerActive, you may prioritize Deliverr as your Fulfillment Center (FC).
If FBA appears as one of your Fulfillment Centers at the top and Deliverr is marked as priority 2, SellerActive will prioritize your Deliverr FC if your item is marked as FBM on Amazon directly.
Learn how to do the same for our other integration partners in our help center.
Why is this important?
1) Continue serving shoppers online and maintain sales
eCommerce is in a unique position today to serve buyers who are quarantined or self-isolating at home. We don’t recommend halting all sales, particularly if your products include necessities and essentials such as toiletries, baby products, and health supplies.
Note: If you are a merchant who sells health or nutrition items, you may be eligible for some extra support from Deliverr. Please get in touch to learn more.
2) Help support buyer demand during this crisis
With so much happening in so many communities around the world, things can feel a little hectic. Consumers feel like items are scarce, availability isn’t reliable, and delivery channels are up in the air.
Help ensure your items get to your customers reliably, and on time, by using Deliverr. For 2-day deliveries, we’re committed to a 95% on-time rate nationwide.
3) Use one network for all channels
Using Deliverr helps you maintain inventory efficiency across all channels, not just Amazon. By having stock in one place, it helps you keep better track of your stock, which is even more important in a shortage.
Deliverr merchants get pre-approved access to programs like Walmart 2-day Delivery, eBay Fast ‘N Free, and we also support Shopify 2-day delivery.
What are the next steps?
Once you are ready to ship inventory into Deliverr, create your inbound shipping plan in the Deliverr portal using the SKU designated as your FBM offer.
Note that if this product’s inventory already exists in our FC network under an existing SKU, this new SKU for the the FBM offer will require a different barcode value when shipping into Deliverr. Our suggestion is to select the FNSKU as your barcode value and the label will need to be physically put onto each unit or case pack.
Once FBA inventory is depleted, that offer will automatically be inactive on Amazon. At that time, merchants should turn on the FBM offer and assign warehouse priorities in the listing tool to Deliverr for order fulfillment assuming stock has arrived at Deliverr.
Pro Tip: Many customers are weary of paying additional shipping costs, so be sure to adjust your Amazon retail price to include shipping cost. By implementing this trick, your Amazon FBM offer will reflect “Free Shipping” and this messaging could improve conversion.
You can preview our fulfillment fee by navigating to the “Inventory” tab of the Deliverr portal and selecting “Standard” from the “Fulfillment Service” drop down menu, or by visiting our cost calculator.
Read more in our latest blog: Why to outsource Amazon FBM orders to Deliverr
