Seller Fulfilled Prime Costs & Process
Hi all,
I’m completely baffled with SFP. I’m about to start the trial but I just cant seem to get any concrete info about what I actually have to do. I submitted a case to Amazon asking them how it works and they came back with:
Dear Seller,
Thank you for contacting Amazon Seller Support, my name is Perrine and I will be assisting you today.
I am sending you this email regarding how to manage a Seller Fulfilled Prime order.
For each order you will have to :
1 - purchase the label from your carrier Royal Mail
2 - Print the packing slip
3 - Shipe the order
4 - Confirm dispatch.
This completely contradicts what it says on the help pages, as it sounds like I can just use click and drop with tracked 24. I asked them to clarify and got this response:
Dear seller,
This is Perrine again from Amazon Seller Support to assist you.
I am coming back to you regarding how to manage an order for Seller Fulfilled Prime.
As per the Help page you will have to click on " Buy Delivery " to purchase your to generate a Prime shipping label.
All the process is done on the Manage order Page on seller central Amazon. You will also have to make special arrangement with your prime carrier in order for you to keep the promise of delivery on time.
Two completely different sets of advice from the same person…
So I’m asking the community.
If I have to purchase delivery labels through Amazon, a) how much are they? (can’t seem to find a price anywhere!) and B) Will royal Mail still collect the sacks even though they won’t have any manifests with them? Or Do Amazon generate manifests?
Hope you can help!
5 replies
Seller_Ygl9fzAy7PiBO
I’ve had a good look into this over the last couple of days as am also doing the trail. I’ve struggles a bit with it also and with my products being low margin I’ve had to think of a low cost solution and still meet all the criteria.
To my knowledge you don’t need to use Amazon labels as long as your using a tracked one day service. I found using Royal Mail 24 would meet all the needs as this generates a tracking number. As long as you have your Click and Drop set to automatically dispatch orders on Amazon when you manifest it will also upload the tracking numbers also, which is really handy.
You need to make sure you get all your prime orders manifested just before 2pm as the system will think it’s a late delivery even if you do send it on time. I hope that helps slightly, but I’m still getting to grips with it myself.
Seller_OD408ZNiEUfUp
Yes, you have to use Amazon shipping or you will lose the prime badge. Shipping prices are the prices you have yourself with Royal mail, as you give Amazon your royal mail account details and Royal mail bill you not amazon
Seller_xsrgXB9SyT6WI
I’ve been doing it since Feb, you are right, it’s made overly complicated by Amazon, who then don’t help by giving some information but not everything to allow you to make decisions.
To start with, you need to use either Amazon Logisitics (But I think that might be a closed option to newcomers, I certainly didn’t have the option, but maybe someone can clarify) or Royal Mail Tracked 24/48 services.
If you don’t have a RM business account, I think Amazon will re-sell the RM service to you, on that one I’m not sure.
If you do have a RM Business account then you need to speak to your account manager to ask for a quote and then to set up the two services on your account. We can’t tell you a price as it depends on your volume.
No matter which route you go, you still need to use the Amazon Buy Delivery service. In the case of your RM Business account, it gets linked to Amazon so although you buy it through Amazon, it gets billed to your normal RM account. I think effectively what Amazon get is a given subset of tracking numbers for them to use on your behalf.
You have to send 95% using this method, so it leaves 5% open to your other couriers should you need to due to order weight/location etc.
As the Tracked 24 service is a bit more than the normal 24 service depending on volume you need to check your product mix to see whether it’s worth while. Some factors that will influence your decision will the size/weight of items, Hazmat, and lastly competitors (that was why I did it).
Manifests - actually, I haven’t got my head round that one, maybe someone can help on that. You certainly don’t need to do anything manually, so either Amazon SFP orders go on it’s own manifest, or somehow gets added to your normal one.
You need to enrol to SFP, and if accepted then you should get more info, and possible a SFP manager to help you with the process and guide you through RM setup. You then need to do a trial period (no prime badge) and after graduating, you go on the full version with the Prime badge.
I’ve not gone into too much detail on each, but ask away I’m sure the forum can help.
