05 Dec What is the Fulfilled Prime seller and what are its advantages?

Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) is a fulfillment mechanism that allows Amazon sellers (who have professional seller accounts) to display the Amazon Prime badge on orders placed through their own fulfillment center or through third-party fulfillment providers.

In this post we will tell you everything you need about Fulfilled Prime sellers, and what are the advantages offered by this mechanism implemented by Amazon for potential sellers who offer their products on this marketplace.

To be considered eligible and maintain that eligibility status for Seller Fulfilled Prime, the supplier must always be eligible for the Premium Shipping program. There are some eligibility criteria that are 30 days for an article to be accepted into this program:

• A demonstrable on-time delivery capability of at least 92% for Premium shipping orders.
• A form of tracking identification that is valid for at least 94% of Premium shipping orders.
• A cancellation rate of less than 1.5% for Premium shipping orders.

The trial period is between five and 90 days, depending on when the seller meets the performance requirements on a minimum of 200 Prime trial orders. But if the seller fails to meet the requirements of 200 trial orders to qualify for the Prime program within 90 days, there’s no need to worry because the trial period will automatically reset and you can try again.

Considerations to Keep in Mind if Using the Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) Program

Pay close attention to Amazon’s FBA rates, and check them periodically as they frequently change without notice.

Know who’s buying your items. Identify and drill down into the top geographic regions your customers are in so you can decide which areas you’ll benefit from selling through SFP. This will vary depending on your warehouse location and local shipping rates.

Identify your competitors who are selling through SFPs and see where they are located.

How to Subscribe to Seller Fulfilled Prime

Qualifying for and acceptance into Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime program requires you to demonstrate your capabilities of fulfillment excellence and customer satisfaction throughout the trial period, but how can you speed up your trial time to be prepared for the fourth quarter? Amazon recommends assigning Prime templates to its highest-moving SKUs so you can get 50 orders at the most opportune time.

You can also list most of your ASINs, or as many as possible, without increasing the cost of shipping.

Monitor specific Seller Fulfilled Prime SFP performance metrics on a daily basis to ensure you’re meeting program requirements.

When deciding where in the region you are going to locate the SFP, the decision will be greatly affected by the business model and size of your company. And a pretty good recommendation that Amazon has is to put high-margin SKUs in a national Prime template where you can mix ground and air shipments to cover the entire country, and put your low-margin items in a regional Prime template.

In Seller Central, there’s a regional Prime assignments workflow where you can log in and select regions, states, or even sub-sectors of states to maximize your Prime exposure and make sure you’re covering major metropolitan areas. You can break down your territory according to one-day and two-day deliveries to maximize your reach.

If you check your SFP performance metrics every day over the course of the trial period and adhere to the requirements, you should be well on your way to diversifying your compliance model for the holiday season.

What are the benefits of Seller Fulfilled Prime?

The truth is, there are several reasons why sellers are transitioning to specific ASINs to be fulfilled through Seller-Fulfilled Prime and doing so to:

• Gain access to the Prime customer base. Increased product exposure and discovery in the market will lead to more sales conversions.
• Being able to gain complete control over your inventory, which will eliminate the need to send stock to Amazon.
• Being able to experience the same Buy Box privileges as Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) sellers.
• Eliminate FBA shipping costs.
• So as not to incur long-term storage costs if not necessary.
• To increase profits from bulky and heavy goods that are subject to high FBA fees.
• Sell certain products that are not eligible for FBA.
• Implement a more transparent returns process.
• With SFP, sellers can directly handle returns for Prime purchases, helping them track and identify returns for their products.

Why Do Amazon Sellers Choose to Use Seller Fulfilled Prime?

About 70% of sellers on Amazon have reported a more than 20% increase in sales with the use of Prime. SFP is ideal for a wide range of products, typically those that aren’t good for FBA or where you already have a significant compliance investment, such as items such as furniture that is heavy and bulky, high-value items, appliances, fragile items, items that don’t sell quickly, and seasonal items.

To apply for SFPs, sellers need to go to ‘Seller Fulfilled Prime’ in Seller Central and generate Prime shipping templates based on whether they will be shipping regionally or domestically. Then, they need to choose the products they want to add to Prime orders and ship them with Buy Shipping.

In order for a seller to apply for Seller Fulfilled Prime, the first thing they will need to do is complete the Seller Fulfilled Prime test based on the aforementioned performance metrics. If a seller finishes the trial, Amazon will notify them two days in advance so they can prepare to participate in the SFP.

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If you still have doubts about the benefits of selling on Amazon and the tools it has at your disposal, don’t worry, at Nozama Soluciones we are here to answer all your questions by offering you personalized advice focused on your business on Amazon. For more information on how to sell on Amazon, click here.