If you plan to start e-commerce business, then it can be safely assumed that you will start operating on Amazon at some point of time. Amazon is such a big e-commerce platform that no body can ignore.
Now that you may want to start operating your business on Amazon it is important that you understand the various options you have, to run your business online through Amazon India.
Amazon provides 3 options to sellers to operate their online store. These are : FBA, Easy ship and Self ship. Let us understand key differences between these 3 options.
FBA stands by Fulfilled by Amazon. As the name suggests, all the operations wrt your store is managed by Amazon. You just need to ensure that your inventory is sent to Amazon warehouse. Post that when you get orders, all operating activities like Order Labels, Packaging, Shipping, Delivery, Customer Support is provided by Amazon to buyer.
Easy ship is a delivery service by Amazon. You as a seller are required to generate labels, pack your orders and when orders are ready Amazon will come to pick the orders for delivery to buyer.
And, Self ship is where everything is required to be done by buyer. You as a buyer need to print order labels, pack your orders and then send goods through a courier company. So, end to end order processing is handled by you as a seller.
You may be wondering which one you should choose. Each of these 3 options has merits and demerits. Below we list them.
FBA
+ Almost everything handled by Amazon, so that you are free to do other work
– Higher Costs than other two options
So, choose FBA as your chosen option if you have better margin and you have a winning product that will generate high volumes.
Easy Ship
+ Easy to get started as you dont need to worry on delivering goods
– Higher delivery costs compared to Self Ship option
Start with Easy ship option and then start using FBA as you get better understanding of Amazon system. Do note that you can add Self Ship as an option along with Easy ship. In this case you may get self ship orders where Amazon is unable to deliver. e., Battery based products (Amazon normally avoids such products through Easy ship)
Self Ship
+ Lower costs
+ More Flexibility
– Cant do Easy ship if you opt for Self ship
If you have cheap products and low margins, you may consider Self Ship as your costs will be also lower.
Do note there are additional options within Amazon, eg., Seller Flex. This is a FBA variation option that is offered to only certain sellers.
Now that you had read the complete article, we are sure you are now clear about the differences between the three main options.