Amazon’s new Send to Amazon workflow streamlines the shipping process, helping sellers get products to fulfillment centers more efficiently. All new shipments from sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) must be created using the Send to Amazon workflow, or through APIs.
Since 2014, Buttonsmith, an American manufacturer based in Redmond, Washington, has sent shipments of its products—buttons, magnets, lanyards, t-shirts, and badge reels—to Amazon warehouses a few times a week. That all changed when the Buttonsmith team tried the new Send to Amazon shipment creation workflow.
“It has become much easier, much faster, and much more frequent since we started using Send to Amazon because it makes it easier for us to start a shipment, finish it, and get it sent without having to fuss with it,” says Darcy Burner, CEO of Buttonsmith. “It used to be that preparing our shipments for Amazon would take us most of a day and multiple people, because we had to figure out how to sort all of the thousands of products we were sending into the appropriate boxes. Now it’s easy as: the products are ready to ship, we put them into the box, and check them in. And as soon as the box is full, we ship it. Piece of cake.”
What is Send to Amazon?
Send to Amazon is a new shipment creation workflow for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) selling partners that saves you time creating shipments by requiring fewer steps to replenish your FBA inventory. We set out to create a new workflow for sending products to Amazon, and through feedback we collected from seller surveys, usability studies, Forums discussions, etc., we built Send to Amazon. Send to Amazon provides a streamlined shipment workflow within a single page, unlike the old workflow which branched into separate pages for each shipment. Login to Seller Central to get started with Send to Amazon.
It used to be that preparing our shipments for Amazon would take us most of a day and multiple people…now it’s easy as: the products are ready to ship, we put them into the box, and check them in. And as soon as the box is full, we ship it.
Four benefits of using Send to Amazon
1. Create reusable case pack templates
You can save and reuse shipment details such as box content information, box weight and dimensions, and prep and labeling details for shipments of single-SKU boxes. Once a template is saved, you no longer have to re-enter this information every time you replenish inventory, saving you time.
2. Pack single-SKU and mixed-SKU boxes before you create shipments
When providing feedback about the previous shipping workflow, many of you said you’d like to start shipment creation by packing boxes to your own specifications and then adding content labels. Send to Amazon addressed this feedback and allows you to pack your box, update quantities as you pack, and finalize box content information prior to confirming the shipment destination (placement). This helps minimize the need to repack at the placement stage, and when you are ready to ship, you can complete your shipments. Then, Amazon will determine the optimal destination for your inventory.
For Darcy of Buttonsmith, this new experience is invaluable:
We actually manufacture products on site in response to customer demand. So as people buy things, we make more of them to ship up to Amazon. And over the course of a week, it means we might be making 150 or 200 different SKUs to ship to Amazon. And with the [Send] to Amazon process, it becomes possible for us, as we make things, to stick them in the box and know that we’re not going to have to pull them out again later and recount them to divvy them up. We can just put things in the box as we complete them. And then as soon as we get to the point in the day where we want to ship it, we close it up and send it. And that’s a huge, huge labor savings for us.
3. Use single-page layout to confirm shipments
A shipping plan can be split into multiple shipment destinations, and Send to Amazon enables you to work on all shipment splits at once, across multiple destinations, in a single page. Only one click is required to review your shipping charges, print labels, and confirm shipments for all shipment splits.
4. Choose the best option to ship your inventory
You can choose to ship products as small parcel delivery or in pallets with less than truckload delivery, or you can use both in multi-mode shipping.* Additionally, you can select an Amazon-partnered carrier and receive discounted shipping rates, plus purchase and print shipping labels, within the Send to Amazon workflow.
* A single workflow cannot include both partnered carriers and non-partnered carriers for your small parcel delivery shipments.
Recent updates to Send to Amazon
We continue to listen to seller feedback and are continuously working on updates to improve the Send to Amazon experience. Share your feedback and stay up to date with Send to Amazon features with “Asked Amazon” in the forums. Thanks to your feedback on Send to Amazon, we recently launched several new features:
- Merge your shipments and workflows. In the “Confirm shipping” step of Send to Amazon, you can now merge new workflows with existing workflows to make a single shipment. To merge workflows into a single shipment, each workflow must contain shipments that have the same “Less than truckload” mode, origin address, and fulfillment center destination. This helps you to optimize your shipping space, labeling efforts, and coordination process with your transportation partner.
- Edit box weight and dimensions. After confirming a shipment, you can now edit box weight and dimensions by clicking “View” or “Edit contents” in the shipment details box.
- Shipment-level ship date. In the “Confirm shipping” step of the Send to Amazon workflow, you can now enter a different ship date for each individual shipment in the workflow. To adjust shipping dates, uncheck the box that says “Shipping date will be the same for all shipments” and you’ll see a required date field for each shipment card.
- Edit API shipments: Within Send to Amazon, you can now view and edit FBA shipments created through Amazon Marketplace Web Service API (login required) or Selling Partner API. When you access your API-created shipment in “Working” status from the Shipping Queue in Seller Central, you will be presented with two options. You can view/edit the shipment either in Send to Amazon workflow or in the old Send/replenish inventory workflow.
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