Shipping is one of the most critical operations to keep an eye on in Amazon FBA. And Amazon has remained quiet about split shipments, which has surprised a lot of new merchants.
You must understand every stage of the process, whether it is shipping from your suppliers to Amazon or from Amazon to your clients, because this is greatly affects the total expenditure made towards your product.
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What are split shipments?
When sending inventory to an Amazon FBA warehouse by purchase order or stock transfer, Amazon can divide the inbound order amongst various Amazon FBA warehouses. This is a standard policy followed by Amazon in order to spread out your inventory so that it gets easier to reach customers in different areas.
When you establish a shipment plan, Amazon may distribute units of a single product/ASIN to various Amazon fulfilment centres using the “Distributed Inventory Placement” function, which is set as the default FBA service.
When your shipment is split by Amazon, you will be required to transport a part of your shipment to two or more different Amazon warehouses. Needless to say, this results in you having to bear a significant hike in shipping costs to multiple warehouses.
Can you choose which fulfilment centre your shipment goes to?
No. Amazon does not allow you to even select the fulfilment centre for your shipment to arrive at as per your convenience.
How can you avoid split shipments in Amazon FBA?
Having your shipments split can be quite a hassle. Not only do you have to pay the extra shipping fee to multiple warehouses for the same consignment, but you may also need to keep track of your products that have ended up in remote areas.
Even though almost every Amazon seller agrees to this agreement, there is a way that you can avoid split shipments. Read on to know more.
Go for Inventory Placement Service
There are two sorts of inventory placement choices available on Amazon FBA:
- Distributed Inventory Placement and
- Inventory Placement Service.
You need to choose the second option in order to avoid split shipments.
For this, select Inventory Placement Service from your Amazon FBA account’s Inbound Setting.
The Inventory Placement Service, according to Amazon, is used to send all of a single seller’s inventory to a single fulfilment centre. The seller will next be assisted by Amazon in distributing it to the several distribution facilities located around the country. You will avoid paying additional delivery rates if you use this service.
This implies that instead of sending your shipment to numerous separate fulfilment centres, you can just send it to the one. However, as part of the inventory placement service, you can’t choose which fulfilment centre your items are sent to – Amazon decides this.
Is the Inventory Placement Service free of cost?
The Inventory Placement Service is unfortunately not free. There is a charge for unit servicing. The usual unit size might be anything between $0.30 and $0.50.
Since this is not a default service offered by Amazon FBA, and it requires Amazon extra labour for all your shipment to arrive at one fulfilment centre, it does charge you extra for this feature.
Does the Inventory Placement Service guarantee that your products will be delivered to the same facility?
Again, no. Your shipment may be divided up and routed to different fulfilment locations even after using the Inventory Placement Service.
When your package arrives at the designated fulfilment centre, Amazon may split it up and send it to several fulfilment centres on your behalf. The same is true if you’re selling a single item with a range of variations, such as different sizes or colours.
The Fulfilled by Amazon service’s default shipping setting is Distributed Inventory Placement, which means that when you create your shipment plan, Amazon may allocate differing amounts of any one product or ASIN to numerous fulfilment centres.
Considering the extra fee, should you just go for the default FBA service?
Even if the Inventory Placement Service allows you to get your shipment at a particular fulfilment centre, Amazon does charge you an extra amount for this. Plus, even after you choose this option, there is no guarantee that your shipment might still not be split at a later stage.
At this juncture, some sellers just end up going for the default Distributed Inventory Placement option offered by Amazon FBA.
Make sure you evaluate all of your options when selecting the best shipping option.
Because both solutions will cost you money, you must decide which is best based on the amount of shipping costs you will incur.
When choosing between inventory placement service and distributed inventory placement, you can inquire about expected fees. Asking for a free quotation from the forwarded is the greatest method to find out which is better.
With the money saved from Amazon delivery, you may change the prices of your items, giving you an advantage over your competition.
Just remember to include in this expense when pricing your goods so you don’t end up with a loss in the future. Sell wisely and take use of all the options available to you as an Amazon seller.
It’s either this, or you can try creating and deleting shipments until all of it is supposed to arrive at one fulfilment centre. You can change quantities by clicking on ‘Review and Modify Units’ after your shipment has reached a different fulfilment centre, in order to avoid splitting them. But make note that you cannot add products with new ASINs using this method.
This is not a safe or reliable option as it’s just a loophole around Amazon’s policies. If you are found to be exploiting this loophole, Amazon might levy a hefty penalty on you for it.
