Selling products on Amazon is becoming more common these days. Amazon is the best way to sell products and make profits by capitalizing on the trust that consumers place on Amazon shipping. Thus, today, we are sharing a guide on Amazon shipping for entrepreneurs, startups, and small-to-medium enterprises that are planning to enter the Amazon marketplace but don’t have any idea of how it works.
Methods of Shipping
In general, there are two ways to deliver your products to consumers in the Amazon marketplace.
- Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
- Fulfillment By Merchant (FBA)
Businesses (or sellers) can choose to deliver their products by one or both methods.
Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
When you choose to ship through FBA, you are able to provide additional benefits to your customers. Customers who buy products from sellers that use FBA are eligible for Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime. As a result, by choosing FBA, you will be able to get a more competitive edge in the marketplace where there are already thousands of sellers like you.
Super Saver Shipping method provides the benefit of free shipping on eligible items with a minimum purchase ($25) and products available are shipped within 5 to 8 business days. On the other hand, Amazon Prime provides the benefits of two-day free shipping, no minimum order size, unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, and even a free Kindle book rental each month to its customers.
Fulfillment By Merchant (FBM)
Also known as Amazon Seller Self Shipping, this cost-effective method comes with its own unique advantages. Since you will be the one responsible for hands-on fulfillment, you will enjoy more control over your inventory and can access products whenever you need or want. You will carry out the order fulfillment process right from start to finish.
However, it also has some downsides, for instance, it involves more shipping time because the seller takes care of storing, picking, packing, and shipping products to its customers.
When you choose the FBM option, as a seller, you will need to coordinate packing slips, shipping labels, and shipment confirmations.
Which Shipping Label Printer Is Best for Amazon Shipping?
Since Amazon marketplace is a renowned and big platform, you will need to make sure that you have the right shipping labels and printers.
If you are using general-purpose printers like inkjet printers, we would recommend you to buy a thermal printer that is especially meant for printing shipping labels to save your time, effort, and money. Here are the two most common and highly reliable printers that you can use as an Amazon seller.
Dymo LabelWriter450 / Dymo Label Writer 4XL
While Dymo LabelWriter450 can be used to print name tags, stamps, and address labels, it cannot be used to print large shipping labels of size 4” x 6”. Its maximum supported width is 2.2”. For printing 4” x 6” shipping labels, you will need to use Dymo LabelWriter 4XL as it comes with the ability to print extra-large 4” wide labels.
Brother P-Touch Label Printer
The series of Brother P-Touch Label Printer is great for printing shipping labels. For address labels, you can buy compatible Brother DK 1202 labels or compatible Brother DK 1201 labels to save cost without compromising quality printing and properties that a branded label would have.
Now, you can easily decide on which shipping methods, printers, and labels you can use when selling on the Amazon platform.
