So you're an Amazon seller watching your competitors effortlessly reap the benefits of Prime membership. Their products have the coveted Prime badge, meaning more customers, better visibility, and boosted sales.
You want the same success, but you aren’t qualified for Amazon FBA. Even worse—you’re FBA-approved, but the Amazon FBA fulfillment process is too expensive and it can’t cater to the specific needs of your products.
What if there was a way to get the Prime badge on your products while shipping your products directly from your warehouse?
Seller Fulfilled Prime is an Amazon program that lets sellers do their own fulfillment while having the Prime badge on all their products.
What is Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP)?
Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) allows qualified sellers to offer Prime-level shipping benefits, even if they aren’t using Amazon's fulfillment centers (FBA).
This means SFP sellers can display the coveted Prime badge on their products and get access to Prime customers.
To enroll in the SFP program, sellers need to pass a pre-qualification criteria that’s measured over the last 90 days. If your seller metrics pass, then sellers enroll into a 30-day trial period where they have to maintain the Amazon SFP metric requirements for the whole trial period.
Should I Join the Amazon SFP Program?
If you’re already doing well on Amazon FBA, should you still join the SFP program?
Here’s what Manish Chowdhary, Founder & CEO at Cahoot, has to say in the Smartest Amazon Seller podcast:
“Now that the program is reopened, sellers should be enrolling into it right now. Even if you're 100% FBA, one thing on Amazon is you cannot keep all your eggs in one basket.“
It’s no question that online selling has become more and more monopolized by Amazon. In fact, most sellers on Amazon use FBA, completely relinquishing control on their customer service and fulfillment processes.
The online retail space will always evolve and you need to understand how to sell products without relying on FBA.
Amazon SFP Requirements
Becoming an SFP seller and having the Prime badge on your products means your fulfillment process must be fast and reliable. This is why the SFP trial process tests how equipped your fulfillment process is against Amazon’s Prime-shipping standards. SFP sellers are required to perform as fast, reliable, and responsive as FBA centers.
Before joining the 30-day trial period, you need these pre-qualification requirements:
- Your default shipping address must be a domestic US address
- You must have an Amazon Professional selling account
- Your account metrics over the last 90 days must be:
- Cancellation rate less than 2.5%
- Valid tracking rate greater than 99%
- Late shipment rate less than 4% over the past 90 days
- Self-fulfilled at least 100 packages
Note: During this trial process, you won’t have the Prime badge on your products. Access to Prime customers and the badge only come after successfully joining the SFP program.
If you have all of these ready, you can start registering for the trial. There is no longer a waitlist to join the SFP trial as of writing this article, so if you can get past the pre-qualification requirements, we recommend enrolling as soon as you can.
How to Join the Amazon SFP program
Once you’re on the SFP trial you need to fulfill and maintain these requirements for the full 30-days:
- Ship 100+ packages from the Prime trial orders
- Have a 93.5% on-time delivery rate (OTDR)
- Have a 99% valid tracking rate
- Less than 0.5% seller-initiated cancellation rate (OCR)
- Hit the minimum thresholds for 1-day and 2-day delivery speeds as rated by Prime customer detail page views
The “minimum thresholds” for Standard-size packages require you to deliver 30% of orders during day 1, and up to 70% of the orders on day 2. For oversized orders, the challenge is delivering 10% of all orders on day 1 and 45% of orders on day 2.
Amazon has outlined general shipping requirements and dimensions to differentiate products between Standard-size, Oversize, and Extra large.
What Happens if I Fail the Metrics as an SFP Seller?
While Amazon’s SFP requirements are strict, they do allow for a three-strike policy for vendors who dip below the required metrics. SFP sellers will receive an email alert from Amazon as the 1st warning, a temporary pause on their Prime listing for the 2nd warning, then they’re removed from the program after the 3rd strike.
Bonus Tip: Optimize Your Product Listings for SFP Success
Did you finally complete the SFP trial process and get the Prime badges on all your products? Then it’s time to optimize your product listings as an SFP seller.
While the listing differences with or without the Prime badge are minor, adding these changes is a must for your Prime products. So, make sure to roll out all of these updates to your product listings:
- Emphasize fast and free shipping on all your Prime products.
- Mention “Prime shipping” somewhere in the description to help filter your products for search results that are looking for Prime products.
These two minor changes to your products will go a long way in leveraging the Prime badge and getting more sales.
Amazon SFP: Pros and Cons
Amazon SFP is the dream destination for Amazon sellers with their own fulfillment who are looking to break into the Prime market. But, is there a catch?
Amazon SFP Pros
The quality of life improvements to being an SFP seller is straightforward:
- More visibility, bigger audience, and increased sales: As of 2020, there are an estimated 200 million Amazon Prime members. It’s been several years since Amazon last released a report on their membership, but based on the rate of growth between 2016 to 2020, it’s reasonable to assume that the Amazon Prime audience has increased to around 250 to 275 million members.
- Prime benefits but with custom logistics: SFP allows sellers to manage their own inventory or employ a 3PL service for their own products. Sellers have greater control over their own fulfillment process this way, potentially optimizing costs, packaging, and more.
- Amazon customer service: All SFP sellers waive their customer service operations to Amazon. While this can be both a pro and a con, most sellers will appreciate waiving off the business expense of customer service. However, it is worth noting that some brands or companies make a reputation off of stellar customer service, and for those cases moving to Amazon customer service is a big con.
These are the powerful reasons to join the SFP program and why 3PL or self-fulfillment sellers are eager to break into the Prime market.
Amazon SFP Cons
So here’s the catch and the problems:
Higher shipping or delivery rates: Amazon has perfected the delivery service and they do it cheaply. This is why Amazon FBA is considerably cheap considering buyers are getting their products within 1 or 2 days of buying. Other 3PL services will have a hard time competing with Amazon, especially at the Amazon price point, so delivery rates and shipping costs are higher with most 3PLs or if you’re doing fulfillment yourself.
This is why most SFP sellers sell high-cost products with big earnings, so they can compensate for the more expensive shipping costs. These products are also considered “slow-moving.” Inventory in 3PL services or your own warehouse is cheaper than Amazon FBA, so slow-moving products like refrigerators, appliances, or furniture, are perfect for SFP sellers.
Strict requirements: SFP is a very exclusive program and keeping your metrics on par with Amazon’s standards is difficult. New sellers will often have a hard time aiming for the SFP metrics that Amazon is looking for, much less maintaining them consistently.
Amazon SFP standards are high, but if you can get these numbers and consistently keep them up there, your business is bound to perform well.
You can think of it as a two-way street, yes you become eligible to register for the SFP trial. But also, your metrics are so good that you’ve already succeeded as an Amazon seller. Now, just maintaining those standards and inevitably joining the SFP program is next.
Is The Seller Fulfilled Prime Program for You?
So, even if you aren’t using Amazon's fulfillment centers (FBA), you can still get the Prime badge on your products if you’re an SFP seller.
The SFP program is a great opportunity for sellers who are looking to grow their business and reach a wider audience. However, the SFP program is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The SFP program is best for:
- Sellers with established fulfillment capabilities
- Sellers with high-value, low-volume products
- Sellers who focus on brand control and packaging customization
- Sellers with large or bulky products that are slow-moving
- Sellers with products that require special handling or assembly during delivery
The best way to determine whether or not SFP is right for you is to carefully consider your individual business needs and goals. If you’re trying to build a reputation, nurture direct customer relationships, or simply want to sell large, slow-moving products, then the SFP route is definitely worth checking out.
