Amazon FBA vs. FBM Checklist

What are the pros and cons of FBA and FBM for Amazon sellers?

If you elect to participate in the Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) program, you pay Amazon to handle order fulfillment on your behalf. One of the biggest benefits of being an FBA seller is the ability to offer free Prime shipping for your products. With Amazon handling the bulk of the logistics, this option can be a real timesaver for many sellers. However, you'll also need to consider FBA fees when making profit calculations.

On the other hand, fulfilling your own orders with FBM (which stands for Fulfillment By Merchant on Amazon) can work well if you have a workflow in place to do so quickly. Amazon customers expect fast shipping, so it’s important to get orders out quickly and accurately. While automatically enrolling products in the Prime program is one of the main advantages to fulfilling via FBA, FBM sellers can also offer Prime-eligible products through the Seller Fulfilled Prime program.

Some sellers prefer to focus solely on fulfilling orders via FBA or directly from their own warehouse, while others find themselves adopting a hybrid approach. Every Amazon business is different, so it’s important to find what works best for you. Your selling and fulfillment model may change over time, depending on your products and business focus. It's always a good idea to have at least one backup option for fulfillment. Even if you plan to fulfill mostly via FBA, you should have an Amazon FBM process or a relationship with a 3PL just in case.

We’ve created a quick checklist that details the pros and cons of fulfilling products via FBA and FBM. You can also dive deeper into the differences between the programs in this blog post by Liz Adamson. Fill out the form on the right to download the checklist.