Amazon Prime shoppers are attracted to offers that feature the Prime badge since they know they’ll get fast, free shipping on their orders. But the only way most sellers can get the badge is to participate in Amazon’s FBA fulfillment program. That way, since Amazon does the fulfillment, it can ensure Prime members get their items quickly. But this week, Amazon said it would reopen enrollment for the Seller Fulfilled Prime program (SFP) later this year.
“We first launched SFP in 2015,” Amazon explained in Monday’s announcement. “Our goal was to allow sellers to independently handle the fulfillment of their products while also making them available to Prime customers with the same fast, free delivery they have come to expect.”
In 2016, Amazon spokesperson Tom Cook told EcommerceBytes that the company envisioned a day when all items sold by Sellers on Amazon were eligible for Prime using FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime. He said at the time that both large and small sellers joined the program. “The common characteristic of Sellers using Seller Fulfilled Prime is that they have great operations and have access to a carrier – or their own delivery operations – that will reliably deliver in two-days or less,” he said.
But in this week’s announcement, Amazon said that as the program grew, it realized that SFP “was not providing the same high-quality experience that customers expect from Prime,” so it paused new seller enrollment while it worked to provide more support for sellers and clear standards in place to ensure it provided customers a great Prime experience. “We appreciate the sellers that have helped us work through this, and we are excited to be at the point where we will soon reopen enrollment,” Amazon said.
A seller commenting on Monday’s announcement said they had participated in the program and would reenroll but only if they could choose which areas they shipped to through the program: “We are located in Florida so we chose the south east part of the country. Amazon decided that this was not good enough and wanted us to guarantee two day shipping to the entire county. We had to cancel ourselves from the program as the expedited shipping cost to go to the West Coast ate up all the profits. Would love to do SFP IF we can choose our shipping locations. If not, forget it.”
Another seller agreed, writing in part, “When Regional SFP was shut down and the program demanded working Saturdays or Sundays, we were out. This sort of setup just further enslaves the 3P seller to standards that are even beyond what Amazon itself offers.”
Another seller who commented said the program worked well for certain products. However, they said Amazon eliminated many sellers from the program “by implementing new metrics that were not in a sellers control and, in a lot of examples, straight up not possible to maintain.”
In a post about the news on a post on LinkedIn, ecommerce expert Rick Watson said he had always believed it made sense to certify logistics services that merchants used:
“I always thought there would be 3PLs who want to dropship on behalf of Amazon customers who should be able to be “SFP-certified” — this would allow the certification to pass to the fulfillment provider itself (i.e., the one doing the hard work) as compared to the brand (i.e., the one who is paying the bill).”
Watson said certifying the providers and ensuring their compliance would also be easier than certifying each seller and could create a larger cottage industry focused on Prime standards.
Clearly Amazon SFP is not for every merchant – not every seller can guarantee one-day and two-day shipping. JungleScout spokesperson Cathryn Hurdle told EcommerceBytes that SFP is ideal for experienced Amazon sellers who sell high volumes through FBM. JungleScout has a guide to SFP with information including the pros and cons of the program; criteria to be considered for SFP; and how to join the waitlist.
