FBA stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon” and is Amazon’s fulfillment arm.

Amazon has more than 100 fulfillment centers in the US, enabling them to achieve fast delivery speeds all across the nation. Amazon merchants like you can tap into that speed by sending SKUs into the FBA network. Then, when someone orders your item on Amazon, the FBA network kicks in to get it to your buyer as quickly as possible.

However, Amazon FBA has a few requirements to keep their operations running so efficiently. For example, all items must be labeled and packaged appropriately. If you send something non-compliant into the FBA (for example, multiple labels, or on their restricted products list), you risk losing time and money with penalties, back-shipping, and more.

So, let’s discuss your options for prepping items to go into the Amazon FBA network. You can do it yourself, following their extensive guidelines, but this is hard to scale as you grow ( more on that later). Another popular option is to send your items to an FBA prep service.