Increase Amazon Sales with Seller Fulfilled Prime

Amazon recently announced the Seller Fulfilled Prime program, which allows sellers all of the benefits associated with displaying a shiny Prime badge on items they directly fulfill.

What does this mean for you? If you qualify to participate, you'll likely see a significant increase in sales. In fact, Amazon.com, Inc. ("Amazon") reports that listings fulfilled by merchants who became Prime-eligible through a trial run of this program saw an average sales increase of over 50 percent.

In this post, we'll take a look at what it takes to add the coveted Prime badge to your seller fulfilled orders.

How to Qualify

The Amazon Prime program is very successful, due in part to the fast and free shipping that buyers receive. Merchants interested in enrolling in the seller fulfilled program must complete a trial period to demonstrate that they are capable of meeting Amazon’s requirements for excellent service and customer satisfaction. In order to be eligible for the program as an FBA seller, your account needs to be in good standing with a feedback rating of 4.7 or greater. Amazon also requires that your FBA account has been active for three or more months.

Sellers must maintain a cancellation rate of less than 1.5% and have an order count of ten or more in 30 days across all shipping options in order to be eligible for the program. Those orders must be filled with an on-time shipment rate of at least 94%. Merchants are required to purchase shipping through Amazon’s Buy Shipping services for a minimum of 95% of the trial orders.

Customer satisfaction is a key performance indicator for program qualification. Managing feedback quickly can positively impact customer relations and keep your business running smoothly. Our FeedbackFive tool automates your feedback solicitation process and offers text/email notifications about negative feedback so you can take action quickly.

Benefits of the Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime Program

Due to fees, large and/or bulky items often don’t make sense for FBA sales. The Seller Fulfilled Prime program offers merchants an opportunity to directly fulfill orders for these and many other types of products while benefiting from Amazon’s negotiated shipping rates. For example, some hazardous materials (which includes items with lithium ion and lithium metal batteries) do not qualify for FBA inclusion, but could be fulfilled with this program.

Eligible sellers who enroll in the program will be able to use Amazon’s Marketplace Web Service Buy Shipping API to purchase postage for their shipping. This means that sellers will have access to the negotiated rates and service levels that Amazon receives, including two-day delivery and Sunday delivery. Sellers must maintain their eligibility for Premium Shipping in order to enjoy these benefits.

For non-FBA sellers, the program offers access to the same benefits without increased fees for fulfillment and storage. The program allows Amazon to offer more Prime-eligible products, allows buyers to get a wider selection of items within two days of ordering and gives sellers increased visibility on the marketplace. The potential for increased sales is high, making this program a win for the company as well as for third-party sellers.