How to Ship Products to Amazon FBA: Ultimate Guide to Save Money and Time

This post about how to ship products to Amazon FBA came from a question one of my readers asked. She wanted more information about exactly how to send your first shipment to Amazon FBA. Once you have the process down of how to send shipment to Amazon FBA, you’re golden! (Or orange! Amazon orange, that is.)

There can be a lot of confusing steps when you are just starting out selling on Amazon FBA. This post will give you clarity on how does Amazon FBA shipping work, and give you tips on finding the cheapest way to ship to Amazon FBA.

Let’s get to it!

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

How to Ship Products to Amazon FBA

There are three different types of Amazon FBA shipments:

SPDs: Small Parcel Deliveries (SPDs) consist of items packed in individual boxes and individually labeled for delivery.
LTL: Less-Than Truckload is used when the shipment is over 150 lbs and you are sending pallets of products. A single LTL shipment can be up to a maximum of 5,000 boxes. You are sharing a truck with other orders.
FTL: Full Truckload is exactly that. Your items in boxes on pallets are taking up an entire truck. FTL is for high-volume sellers or for very large items and costs more because you are taking up more space in a truck.

If you’re new to Amazon FBA, you might want to start here: How Does Amazon FBA Work: Everything You Need to Know to Run Your Business.

And also check out this essential guide for beginners: How to Sell on Amazon for Beginners: Your All-In-One Guide to Success.

The majority of Amazon FBA sellers will be using SPDs.

For small parcel deliveries, there is no minimum requirement of number of boxes for shipment. You can literally send one box of items to an Amazon warehouse if that’s what you want.

There is a 1kg minimum fee for partnered carrier shipments. For shipments that weigh less than 1 kg, the minimum fee applies.

If you are working on how to send your first shipment to amazon fba, you might want to do a test delivery where you send one box of items. This way you can get familiar with the process of shipping products to Amazon FBA without dealing with a larger volume at first.

How Does Amazon FBA Shipping Work

There are huge advantages with selling on Amazon FBA instead of Amazon fulfilled by merchant (Amazon FBM).

If you are using Amazon FBA, once you create a shipment in your Amazon Sellers portal, you can ship all kinds of items in the same box, and multiple boxes in one shipment.

Amazon FBA will process everything at their end. You don’t have to send just books in one box, just t-shirts in another box, etc.

All kinds of items you are selling on Amazon can go into the same shipment, and even the same box.

In contrast, if you are selling on Amazon FBM (fulfilled by merchant), you will be sending out shipments all the time. At least that is the goal, with lots of people ordering from you!

This means that if someone orders a single book, you have to put that book in a box, and send it along to the post office, to go directly to that person.

Each time someone orders from you, that is another box and another trip to the post office, if you are selling on Amazon FBM.

I absolutely hate the shipping part of selling on Amazon. I find it so tedious. It was well worth a bit of extra fees to sell on Amazon FBA instead of shipping each individual order out myself.

The Best Amazon FBA Course

If you need help on how to make your Amazon FBA business profitable, I want to introduce you to a group of people who are the experts on selling on Amazon.

They are called Jungle Scout and they have been teaching people online how to sell on Amazon since 2015.

If you are serious about making money selling on Amazon, Jungle Scout’s membership is the best choice to help you do that. Their Amazon membership and courses come with a money back guarantee so you can feel confident about your purchase.

Next I’ll share a step-by-step guide on how to ship products to Amazon FBA. It will go through all the steps you need to take in your Amazon Seller account, right through the boxes leaving your hands and going to an Amazon warehouse.

Let’s go!

How to Send a Shipment to Amazon FBA

Let’s get into the exact steps for how to ship products to Amazon FBA.

Log in to your Amazon Seller Central account on your laptop or phone.
Under the Inventory tab, click on Manage Inventory to set up a new shipment.
Select the items from your inventory that you will be shipping to Amazon FBA.
On the right side of the items, click on Edit, and then Send/Replenish Inventory.
Select between individual products or case-packed products.
Click on continue to shipping plan.
Enter the number of units of products you’re shipping to Amazon FBA.
Next you’ll have to choose the type of products you’re sending. There are special prep considerations for some products (i.e. bubble wrap, labeling, etc.). Amazon will tell you what you need to add (if anything) once you choose the type of products you’re shipping from the drop-down menu. Either you can add the extra prep yourself or you can choose to have Amazon FBA do it for you.
The next step is labeling: you can either label your products yourself or have Amazon label for a fee ($0.30/unit).
Next Amazon will tell you what warehouse (or warehouses) they want you to send this shipment to. If you see that they want you to split up your shipment and send some product to say, a California warehouse and some to an Arizona warehouse, this might be a pain if everything is already packaged up. There is a way around this. You can go back to your Amazon seller account settings and under Fulfillment by Amazon, select Inventory Placement Service. This will ensure all your items for an Amazon shipment won’t be broken up and you just have to send them to one warehouse.
Choose your shipping method: SPD (small parcel delivery) or LTL (less-than truckload) for pallets.
Enter the number of units per box, number of boxes, box weight, and box dimensions.
Amazon will then calculate the shipping charges, which you have to check and accept to move forward.
Choose your shipping date.
Print your labels and label your boxes.
Take your boxes to a UPS/postal outlet (I share the cheapest way to ship to Amazon FBA below), or arrange for a pickup from your carrier.

How to Find Products to Ship to Amazon FBA

Before you need to know how to ship products to Amazon FBA, you have to know how to find profitable products to sell on Amazon FBA.

If you need help in how to find and source profitable products online to sell on Amazon FBA, the best tool I have found that does this is Jungle Scout.

Jungle Scout gives you everything you need to find a product, source it from a supplier, list it on Amazon, and start selling. It’s seriously amazing! They also offer private trainings so your Amazon business will be successful.

Jungle Scout even offers a risk-free 7-day money-back guarantee so there is zero risk to try it out! My link here even gives you a special discount if you want to continue past the 7 days.

Cheapest Way to Ship to Amazon FBA

You have different options for how to ship products to Amazon FBA:

DHL
UPS
FedEx, or
local postal services

The cheapest way to ship to Amazon FBA is usually by using an Amazon-Partnered Carrier.

As of now, UPS is the main Amazon-Partnered Carrier.

Amazon has developed this partnership with UPS to offer discounts on shipping if you use UPS.

After you enter your shipment into your Amazon FBA seller account, you either give your box to your scheduled UPS pick-up driver or take the package to a local UPS location.