Why doesn't everyone use FBA?
I was just wondering why some sellers don’t use Amazon FBA and choose to fulfill themselves. I’m really interested to know the benefits of not using FBA. Do people find it cheaper to do self fulfillment because I can’t see how that is possible especially if your item is tracked and dealing with the Hassel of packing and sending out items 
Also having to deal with unhappy customers or customers who claim not to receive their order must be so frustrating.
10 replies
Seller_Rkf2znCXtSZpI
You’re assuming the seller doesn’t already have staff/warehouse.
More control over stock+dispatch+refunds+complaints
Cheaper if items are ‘oversize’
FBA delivery fees are expensive if your not a prime customer
Seller_j4qOx3FnSoENm
Also having to deal with unhappy customers or customers who claim not to receive their order must be so frustrating.
Lets count up how many customers who have claimed non delivery between selling on our own site and Amazon seller fulfilled in the past month (both using same shipping method and dispatched from the same location)
Our site: 0
Amazon Seller fulfilled: 12
Why do we not do FBA?? Because there is a much higher percentage of Amazon customer who are used to getting stuff for free and are willing to try it on than there is by fulfilling it yourself. Now of course doing seller fulfilled doesn’t protect you from that but sure as hell im not passing that sort of control over to Amazon.
Seller_sxu7tg1ecQ5ps
Cost
- There is a cost associated with sending in items to Amazon, unless you send to Amazon direct from the manufacturer.
- There are storage fees and long term storage fees if you send too much.
- Amazon shipping fees are not necessarily competitive.
- Amazon charges a fee for every item, you can consolidate several items into a single shipping cost when shipping yourself to the same customer.
Risk
- Amazon are not known for careful handling of your stock, losing it when it arrives, breaking it while handling it, badly packaging it when shipping.
- Mistakes happen, especially on small and light, where the wrong item is sent or a whole pack instead of a single item.
- When (not if) your account is suspended your inventory will be stuck until you get re-instated. If your account is barred you may never get your stock back.
- You will have to pay to have unsold items returned to you or ‘destroyed’.
Control
- Your items may randomly go out of stock while Amazon moves them around the country to suit their needs.
- Amazon often put used and broken items back into your inventory.
- By using FBA you hand over full control of customer service to Amazon, they will issue full refunds for anything, many months or years after purchase.
- Amazon will add themselves as seller to your listing for popular items and fulfil from your stock.
- Amazon will often not destroy your product when paid to do so, but simply sell it themselves.
Principle
- The idea of giving Amazon an even greater cut of each sale, just doesn’t sit well with some people.
Practicalities
- If you are sensible enough to have more sales channels than just Amazon, then you will need to fulfil those orders, you can do that from Amazon stock, but it doesn’t look very good when someone orders from your site or ebay and gets an Amazon parcel.
Branding
- All of our orders go out in our own branded packaging, it makes more of an impact on the buyer than an Amazon box in helping them to remember our brand.
Seller_EJIX7rqDNQJi2
Some sellers don’t know how to do FBA, are based abroad without being VAT registered, sell items which wouldn’t generate any profit due to FBA fees or attract fraudulent buyers and too many returns.
Personally, I only sell items FBA with a very low initial purchase price and high profit, which will absorb all fees, returns and customer damages.
Seller_amUAzjvL5uIzu
Ive been 95% FBA for about 4/5 years,sales have risen every year since.Refunds are higher than for FBM but I accept that & its not a problem.Its just suits me not to pick/pack/label/box my items go to PO etc,FBA saves a huge amount of time over
FBM & as a result my profit for each hour I work are way higher with FBA. No A-Z’s,most - feedback is removed is another factor.
Probably the 2 biggest advantage’s are that I get the Buy Box most of the time on every one of my listings & at a higher price & the huge number of Prime buyers that a FBM seller will never see on their listings,except for SFP sellers.
I would never get anywhere close to my current sales level with FBM.
Seller_DZN91J2W23FWV
Using FBA used to get an advantage over the buy box but it seems to be less and less now against Seller fulfilled prime or even 2 day delivery (at additional +cost).
For example at times, your products FBA at £13.99 can be beaten by FBM £13.95 if there is a 2 day option at an additional cost
