If you are a business owner who sells items on Amazon, it is incredibly important to make the right choice for your Amazon store fulfillment services. You have likely heard of the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program as one of your options. You might have also heard of FBA Alternatives as another
option available to you and that these programs can save you money. You may be wondering if that is, indeed, the case, however, and how an FBA Alternative can save you money.
So, can using an FBA Alternative really save you and your business money? Let’s take a look at whether an FBA Alternative actually can save you money, and if so, how.
Save Money on Storage Fees
One of the quickest ways the cost of Amazon’s FBA program adds up is through its storage pricing. By storing your product inventory at an Amazon Fulfillment Center, you can potentially find yourself subject to a variety of hefty fees, seasonal fluctuation, and rapidly-escalating pricing the longer items remain stored at the fulfillment center.
By using an FBA Alternative, however, you can save money on storage fees. This is due to avoiding these complicated storage fees associated with the fulfillment by Amazon program. Here at Specialty Fulfillment Center, we have a more customized approach to our storage pricing, which means our FBA Alternative program can save you money by creating a storage plan that is perfect for you and your inventory.
Save Money on Sales Tax
Did you know that storing your inventory in Amazon Fulfillment Centers as part of the FBA program may potentially cost you additional money in sales tax for states your business is not even located in?
It’s true. Due to Amazon Fulfillment Centers being located across multiple states, you can find yourself obligated to comply with state sales tax regulations that differ from those in the state your business is based in. Not only can this be confusing for you as a business owner, but could also cost you money on each item you sell that is stored at an Amazon fulfillment center in a state whose sales tax regulations require it. This means slimmer profit margins for each of these sales made.
By using an FBA Alternative, you can simplify this process for yourself while also saving money by avoiding these extra sales tax requirements from having your inventory stored across multiple states. No longer do you have to worry about your margins shrinking based on the luck of the draw of which Amazon fulfillment center an item was stored in.
Save Money on Shipping
Even before these sales tax or storage considerations, using an FBA Alternative can save you money compared to Fulfillment by Amazon. In fact, an FBA Alternative can save you money even before a single item of your inventory enters a warehouse for storage.
As mentioned previously, Amazon has many fulfillment centers…
You cannot guarantee that Amazon will have you ship all of your inventory to their fulfillment center that is most convenient, cost-efficient, or closest to you. Instead, it is likely that you will have to send your items to various fulfillment centers. This unfortunately can require you make multiple smaller and less cost-efficient shipments, even of the same item.
With an FBA Alternative, however, you do not have to worry about inefficiently shipping your inventory to multiple fulfillment center locations. Instead, you can choose the best and most cost-efficient strategy for shipping your products to be stored. Instead of making multiple small shipments, with an FBA Alternative you have the freedom to utilize a wider variety of bulk shipping options. This is not only more convenient for you, but also means you will save money from the very beginning.
Now that you have seen how an FBA Alternative can save you money, you might hope to see these savings for your business. Our experts here at Specialty Fulfillment Center are here to help you make that a reality! Contact us today and one of our experts can help you get on the road to saving money!
