Amazon Re-Opened Seller Fulfilled Prime Enrollments and Removed Program Fee

A couple of months ago, Amazon announced they would be re-opening Seller Fulfilled Prime enrollments. For years, the program was closed, and new sellers couldn’t get in. The wait is finally over – as of October 1^st, 2023, Seller Fulfilled Prime enrollments have officially opened!

Before you enroll in the 30-day trial, it’s a good idea to review the updated requirements and confirm if your team has the resources and capabilities to handle the increased sales and stricter metrics.

What is Seller Fulfilled Prime?

With Seller Fulfilled Prime, sellers can fulfill Prime offerings directly from their own facility. Anyone familiar with selling on Amazon knows that having a Prime badge next to your product is a make or break in terms of success. If you meet the requirements and have the capabilities, it’s a no-brainer to enroll in Seller Fulfilled Prime.

Originally, there was a program fee of 2% per order, which sellers voiced ate heavily into their profit margins and made it difficult to effectively utilize the Seller Fulfilled Prime program. Recently, Amazon announced that they have removed the previous program fee:

“The Seller Fulfilled Prime program fee has been removed from the set of program changes that went into effect on October 1. We're committed to supporting sellers' success, which includes listening to your feedback. The intent of the program fee was to cover Amazon's costs required to develop and run the program. After careful consideration, we've made the decision not to implement this fee to ensure sentiment related to the fee does not impact program participation.”

Seller Fulfilled Prime Requirements & Enrollment:

To enroll, sellers must have a professional selling account, and a US address as the default shipping address on the selling account. Enrolling in Seller Fulfilled Prime is somewhat of a lengthy process and it involves different sets of requirements, depending on which phase of enrollment you’re in.  

The first step is checking to see if you’re pre-qualified for the 30-day trial period. To be pre-qualified, for 90 days, sellers must maintain:

• Cancellation rate of less than 2.5%
• Valid tracking rate greater than 95%
• Shipment rate of less than 4%
• Ship at least 100 merchant-fulfilled orders

Pre-qualified sellers can enroll in the trial here. You must maintain the following requirements for each Seller Fulfilled Prime order to pass the 30-day trial period:

• Fulfill at least 100 SFP orders
• On-time delivery rate of 93.5% or higher
• Valid tracking rate of at least 99%
• Cancellation rate of less than 0.5%
• Ship orders on time and meet the Seller Fulfilled Prime performance dashboard metrics

If you pass the 30-day trial, you will become officially enrolled in Seller Fulfilled Prime. At that point, sellers must meet the final list of requirements to maintain enrollment:

• Free 1-day and 2-day delivery for Prime customers, and free nationwide standard shipping for all customers
• Ship orders on time and meet the Seller Fulfilled Prime performance dashboard metrics
• Offer free returns on items under 50 lbs.
• Maintain weekend operations to meet shipping deadlines
• On-time delivery rate of 93.5% or higher
• Valid tracking rate of at least 99%
• Cancellation rate of less than 0.5%

How to Add Your Products to the Seller Fulfilled Prime program:

Adding your products to the Seller Fulfilled Prime is relatively simple. It involves setting up your Prime shipping template and adding the desired ASINs to the template.  

To navigate to your shipping template, in Seller Central, go to Settings > Shipping Settings. If you’ve enrolled in the Seller Fulfilled Prime (or the 30-day trial), you should see the “Default Prime Shipping Template” appear.  

Products can be added to the Seller Fulfilled Prime program in two ways:

1. Individually: Enroll your product by searching for it on the Manage Inventory Page, check the box, click “Action on Selected” and choose “Change Shipping Template”. From there, choose the Default Prime Shipping Template.

2. In Bulk: Upload via category file. Assign your SKUs to the Default Prime Shipping template using a category-specific template.

Is the Seller Fulfilled Prime Program Right for My Business?

Amazon recommends that sellers enroll high-value items, items with variations, seasonal items, and slower-moving items in Seller Fulfilled Prime. Before you consider enrolling your products, we recommend putting a strategy in place first.  

It’s important to determine whether Seller Fulfilled Prime is right for your Amazon business before enrolling. There are a few critical points to consider:

• The shipping might be free to the customer, but unfortunately, it’s not free for the seller. Amazon is not covering shipping costs for Seller Fulfilled Prime orders – it's up to the seller to eat those costs.

• Sellers can’t offer “regular” fulfilled-by-merchant and Seller Fulfilled Prime on the same ASIN at once (it’s one or the other). This means an analysis should take place on each product you’re considering enrolling in SFP – to see which selling method results in the more profitable margin on a product level.
• Do you have weekend coverage? Amazon requires that you operate at least one of the weekend days (Saturday or Sunday) to ensure customers have a true Prime experience by receiving their orders within 2 days.

If you’re a client looking for more information, contact your account team! If you’re interested in learning more about how Blue Wheel can aid in your brand efforts in online marketplaces, schedule a consultation with our team, we would love to hear from you.