Navigating Amazon: A Guide to Shipping Your Stock

What Are My Options?

The first choice you will have to make is whether to use the Amazon Partnered Carrier Program (PCP), or whether to ship independently. 

You should choose the correct one for the volume of shipping that you are doing, and weigh up each time whether you’ll be better off with an Amazon partnered service, or a third party logistics provider.

TL;DR: Use SPD for urgent small stock, LTL via 3PLs for better control, FTL for large shipments — but always weigh cost vs. control. Follow Amazon’s labeling and appointment rules to avoid delays or rejected shipments.

• Amazon SPD – Small Parcel Delivery

SPD, or small parcel delivery, is both your fastest and also your most expensive (per lb) option. It is quite simply sending a parcel by UPS or Fedex, to be received by the Amazon Fulfillment Center. 

Use this option when you have inventory of an item that is really low in stock, but in very high demand. If you’re sure it will sell really quickly and net you a good profit, it’s worth it to spend that extra on shipping.

Amazon have much better agreed-upon rates with UPS and Fedex than what you can get independently. Always go with them for a small parcel drop – unless you ship Hazmat products that Amazon will not handle.

When you use the Amazon-partnered UPS or Fedex account, you’ll need just one shipping label that will be provided by the system. 

If you do ship small parcels into Amazon independently, for example with Hazmat products like fireworks or hand sanitizer, you will need both a shipping label and an Amazon identification label.

Each box must weigh 150 lbs or less, so they can be handled by a single worker. 

• LTL – Less than Truck Load

This is your best option when you have more than just a couple of boxes, and your merchandise is enough to fill a pallet or two. Your pallets will be carefully packed in the truck along with another few people’s cargo. 

When you use the Amazon partnered truckers, the price may be cheaper than what a 3PL can offer you. They get offered cheaper deals due to their large buying power. In most circumstances, it will be a small price difference of $50-$100. On some rare occasions you will find a significant price difference – Amazon may be half the price of what you get quoted from 3PLs. You can check prices online at Seller Central, and also request a quote from a third party, to compare.

But there are other extremely important aspects for you to consider apart from the cost of the trucking alone.

Here are some example scenarios which will illustrate the difference between Amazon’s LTL service versus a good 3PL such as Simple Forwarding. 

You head over to Amazon Seller Central and book your LTL for the following day into Brooklyn Fulfillment Center DBK6. The next day, no driver shows up at the allotted time. You try to contact Amazon, but get a stock response. A few more days go by, until your driver finally arrives 8 days late. 

Here is what happened: You made a booking for 3 pallets from East New York into Amazon DBK6. Amazon received your booking, and they have a truck waiting to drive your route – but it’s not full up yet. They are waiting for a further 8 pallets. They don’t dispatch the truck until it’s fully booked. They want to maximize the profitability for themselves.

Your Amazon-partnered trucker delivers to DBK6, and you get delivery confirmation. However, your items are not showing as ‘received’ in your Seller account. You try contacting them again to troubleshoot, but don’t get through to a real person who will tell you exactly what’s going on. It takes 3 nerve-wracking weeks until your items are stocked, received, and showing as for sale in your Amazon store.

Without you having known about it, your chosen Amazon location was backed up for two weeks. They had a backlog of deliveries and were unable to process yours in a timely manner.

Another scenario you can expect from backlogged fulfillment centers is Amazon simply not dispatching a truck, even though you booked one. You try to redispatch and contact them, without success – the reason being, they will not dispatch the truck until they have caught up with the backlog. But there is no one there to communicate with you about the issue.

When shipping with Amazon, you do not have much control over the process, you are not fully informed, and your communication channels are limited – leading to your store not being restocked in a timely manner.

The longer your shipment is sitting around at Amazon waiting to be received, the higher the chances are that it gets lost. 

Here’s a second example illustrating what you can expect when booking through a reputable 3PL who specializes in Amazon shipping:

You call up your logistics provider to book a transit for 3 pallets into Brooklyn DBK6. On the phone, he immediately informs you that he happens to know the Amazon location you are requesting is backlogged for a couple of weeks. He has seen that on the system when checking their appointment availability. He asks you if you can check if Amazon Location DYY4, a neighboring facility, would accept your shipment instead. He then says he will get back to you very shortly with a price, and with the trucking company that he recommends.

Your logistics provider then calls around a few different trucking companies, checking which has a truck leaving soonest with space for your cargo. He finds that R&L drives your route – but would only likely be full in 3 days time. However, T-Force has a truck leaving today.

He calls you back with your pricing offers, and you choose T-Force. He dispatches the driver, who turns up right on time, that very same day. If they would have been a few minutes late, that’s not a problem at all – you would have called up the driver directly, as you were supplied with full contact details. Or, if preferable, you could call up your trusted logistics provider at any time who would be on the case for you. 

Your merchandise is quickly and smoothly delivered to the fulfillment center, where it is processed and received, and ready on sale for your Amazon customers within the week.

You can always weigh up if it is the correct time and place for booking LTL with Amazon Partnered Carriers. There are those rare occasions where they offer a price so much cheaper than a 3PL can provide that it is apparent Amazon are making a loss on the transit. It depends how important your Amazon store stock levels are, and how important that merch drop is to your company. In the majority of cases, the services of a good 3PL is extremely valuable to companies. 

• FTL – Full Truck Load

When you have enough cargo going into one Amazon location to fill a whole truck, then it’s time to book FTL. If you have 10 or more pallets, you’ll be booking out the entire truck.

Amazon does not have a good track record with FTL. Their prices are usually very high. They also do not have much management in place over their FTL drivers, so the service and reliability level is very low. You can expect the same delays and lack of communication as in the examples given when booking LTL as above. You will also experience the same aspect of not knowing which fulfillment centers have available receiving appointments sooner or later. 

You will almost certainly receive a better price from a third party logistics provider. It can even be half the price of what Amazon offers you. Of course, you also get a highly superior service offering from a good 3PL, with advice tailored to your needs. They can research multiple options for costs, timings, and trucking providers. And if there are any issues at all, you have a professional willing to step in on your behalf.

However, one advantage of using Amazon-partnered FTL is that they always accept the shipment. If there is a chance your product is questionable in any way (for example, if it’s very bulky) it may be rejected by Amazon if sent via regular trucking. If you suspect or have prior experience of this happening with your items, then use the Amazon partnered carrier whatever the cost, as it’s your only option.