Amazon Fulfillment

[BGray]

Curious if anyone here (especially Chris) has used Amazon Fulfillment or has known anyone who has.

I'm looking into a physical product and this seems like a decent option piggy backing on the efficiencies of Amazon's massive supply chain.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200229160#HHIW

[Chris]

I actually have started using it quite heavy this year, it works well.

It is actually cheaper than selling normally on Amazon I've found, because you can charge more. If another third party seller is selling a widget for $50, with $10 shipping, he pays 15% on the $50 to Amazon, or 7.50, and makes say 42.50. You can charge $60, the customer gets free shipping, the actual cost for shipping comes out of Amazon's 15%, which is $9. So you bring home $51, minus any fulfillment fees which are usually say $2 (depending on item weight, etc). So your actual profit is say $48 or $49, and you're listed above the merchant making only $42.50 on the buy page.

Plus, around christmas, the free expedited shipping should be big (though, this'll be my first christmas with the program).

Using them for third party fulfillment, where you still do the selling and send the order to them for shipping, also works, shipping rates are very very competitive. Storage rates can get you though if you don't have good turnover. It is like 40 cents a cubic foot, at my local storage unit I pay 13 cents a cubic foot.

[BGray]

Thanks for the reply Chris. I was wondering if there was a catch. It looks pretty attractive, especially considering my product is relatively small.

I could do it myself fairly easily but I think the opportunity cost of my time sides with Amazon.