Full analysis of Amazon logistics methods: Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of FBA, self-delivery and overseas warehouses

1. FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)

Advantages

• Fast logistics: The delivery time is shortened, usually 2-3 days, which helps improve customer experience.
• Increase customer trust: Amazon’s brand endorsement makes it easier for FBA products to gain the trust of buyers.
• Improve product ranking: Products using FBA usually rank higher in search results.
• Negative review processing mechanism: If you receive negative reviews due to logistics issues, Amazon will help sellers remove these negative reviews.

Disadvantages

• High overall costs: Using FBA services means having to bear higher warehousing fees, delivery fees, etc.
• The first leg operation is complex: you need to handle customs clearance by yourself.
• Increased return rate: It is easier for buyers to return products, which increases sellers’ costs.
• Return address restrictions: Only shipped to FBA warehouses in specific regions.

2. Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM – Fulfillment by Merchant)

Advantages

• Reduce inventory costs: No need to invest large amounts of money up front for inventory.
• Low storage costs: Save on the cost of storing in Amazon warehouses.
• Flexible operation: Shipping strategies can be adjusted according to actual conditions.

Disadvantages

• Lower exposure and ranking: Compared with FBA, self-shipped products have fewer opportunities to be displayed in search results.
• Risk of bad logistics reviews: If logistics performance is poor, it can easily lead to customer dissatisfaction.
• Lack of Prime logo: Difficulty attracting Prime users.

3. Third-party overseas warehouse

Advantages

• Reduce logistics costs: More economical and affordable than FBA.
• Speed ​​up logistics: Reduce cross-border transportation time.
• Conducive to local market development: Facilitate processing of local returns and secondary sales.

Disadvantages

• High inventory pressure: A certain amount of inventory needs to be reserved in advance.
• Overstock risk: Poor sales may lead to inventory overstock.
• Various management levels: The service quality of different overseas warehouses varies greatly.

Summary

Choose a logistics method that suits your products, which can not only increase delivery speed, but also effectively reduce operating costs, providing more flexibility and competitive advantages for Amazon sales. Whether it is FBA, self-delivery or a third-party overseas warehouse, sellers need to make trade-offs based on their actual situation to find the optimal solution.

The above content integrates information from multiple reference articles and aims to comprehensively introduce several common logistics methods on the Amazon platform and their respective characteristics.