Feeling Generous? Take Advantage of FBA Donations

‘Tis the season of giving! For Amazon vendors that sell any products that work as gifts, that means it’s the time of year for more holiday sales (and probably a nice boost in profits). Maybe that boost is making you feel more generous this year.

‘Tis also the season (or near to it) of dealing with end-of-year inventory issues. It’s a good time to consider what inventory you have now, what you want to keep, and what’s not worth continuing to pay to store. Products that didn’t sell well, are outdated, or are now out of season may be costing you more than keeping them is worth.

Why not solve that problem and indulge those generous feelings at the same time? Amazon makes it easy with the FBA Donations program.

What is the Amazon FBA Donations Program?

The Amazon FBA Donations program allows you to donate any unwanted inventory to charity without having to do any extra work. FBA sellers are automatically opted into the program, so all you have to do to participate is determine any items in an FBA warehouse you want to dispose of, let Amazon know, and pay the required fees.

3 Benefits of the FBA Donations Program

For Amazon, the FBA Donations program is a way to reduce waste and improve the company’s image. But that’s not the only benefit it offers.

1) Donations Help the Environment

If unsold stock and returns aren’t donated, they could end up in a landfill. With the scale of business Amazon does, that can create a lot of waste that contributes to environmental destruction. Some amount of waste in eCommerce is unavoidable, but for products that can still get some use, donation is a more environmentally friendly solution.

2) You Can Provide Items to Disadvantaged Individuals

Products you don’t intend to sell anyway can become gifts under the tree for kids whose parents couldn’t afford them otherwise or get put to use by families struggling to cover the basics. Without any real cost to you, you can make a difference for people for whom a little help means a lot.

3) You Can Solve the Problem of Excess Inventory (and the Costs that Come with it)

The longer you hang onto excess inventory (or have Amazon do so), the more you pay for the space they take up in a warehouse. When you’re convinced a product won’t sell or a return can’t be reused, donating that inventory is an easy solution to the problem.

5 Fast Facts About the FBA Donations Program

For sellers wanting to make sure they understand how the program works, here’s a summary of the main points to know.

1) If you’re an FBA seller in the US, you’re already enrolled. Amazon has the program turned on by default for all sellers with inventory stored in US facilities. When you request for Amazon to dispose of your items, they’ll automatically check to see which ones can be donated via the program.

If you don’t want to participate in the program, you can opt-out by disabling it in your FBA settings. But participating doesn’t cost you anything extra in work or fees, so there’s not much reason to do so.

2) It costs the same as FBA removal fees. Not costing extra in fees doesn’t mean it costs you nothing in this case. Amazon charges FBA sellers the same amount for donating these products as it does to dispose of them by any other means. Fees are primarily based on shipping weight, with products in the oversized category costing more than those considered standard size.

For standard-sized items, prices start at $0.25 for units under a half-pound and go up to $0.40 + $0.20 per pound for anything above two pounds. For oversized products or anything that requires special handling, they start at $0.60 for up to a pound and $1.90 + $0.20 per pound for anything above 10 pounds.

3) Only some products are eligible. Chances are, a lot of your products will be eligible for donation. But there are some limits on what Amazon includes in the program. If you sell any items that are considered hazardous or otherwise dangerous, products that have been recalled, those that have internal memory, anything counterfeit, and any other products that may be defective, those won’t make it into the donation program. Most other goods should be accepted though.

4) Amazon works with Good360 on distribution. The marketplace has partnered with the nonprofit organization Good360 to handle the distribution of the donated products. Good360 works with over 100,000 partner organizations that help to distribute goods locally in areas around the world. With their help, Amazon donated 20 million items to communities in need in 2020 alone.

5) Amazon doesn’t currently offer any reporting related to the program. If you like the idea of all this, but want some way to track which and how many of your items are getting donated, you’re out of luck. For now, Amazon doesn’t make any of this information available. You can only track how many total items you dispose of through the Amazon FBA program.

If that’s making you wonder about how to fill out your taxes, Amazon offers no recommendations on that subject. Talk to your accountant about how best to handle the items you choose to get rid of.

Doing Good Made Easy

Your role here is basically to sit back and keep doing what you would have done otherwise. Amazon has ensured that the FBA donation program works automatically for FBA sellers. You can trust that many of the products you won’t use or sell will still make it to good homes where they’re needed most without having to do anything special to make it happen.