FBA prep and shipping, landed on time.

Amazon FBA prep services used to be something a seller could buy from Amazon itself. In the US that option ended on 1 January 2026, when Amazon’s own notice confirmed that FBA prep and item-labelling services were withdrawn. Every unit now has to arrive with its FNSKU barcode applied and any bagging or wrapping already done, or it attracts an inbound defect fee. Empowers Zone coordinates that work for sellers shipping from Pakistan, China, the UK and the US, as part of Amazon account management or on its own.

One thing to be clear about first: we are not a prep centre and we do not own a warehouse. What we do is sit between your supplier, a vetted prep partner where one is needed, your freight forwarder and Seller Central, so that the four of them agree on what is being shipped, how it is labelled and when it arrives. For most sellers that coordination is the part that goes wrong.

What changed on 1 January 2026, and what it costs to get wrong

Before 2026, a seller could send unlabelled units to a US fulfilment centre and pay Amazon to label them. That service no longer exists. Industry reporting of the 2026 fee changes puts inbound defect fees for non-compliant units in a range from roughly $0.32 to $5.72 per unit depending on the problem, and the units may also be delayed at receiving. On a 1,000-unit shipment, a labelling error is not a rounding error.

The practical consequence is that labelling has moved upstream, to the factory or to a prep centre near the port. We put it in the purchase agreement during sourcing, so the supplier knows before production starts who prints the FNSKU, where it goes and what the carton label must show.

What a compliant unit looks like

Amazon’s requirements vary by product type, so we build a prep sheet per SKU from the information shown for that SKU in Seller Central rather than from a generic checklist. The sheet covers the FNSKU label and its position (covering any other scannable barcode), whether the unit needs a polybag, bubble wrap or a suffocation warning, how sets are marked as a single unit, how expiry dates are formatted for applicable products, and the carton labels and weight and size limits for the boxes themselves.

• FNSKU label printed from Seller Central, one per sellable unit, covering the manufacturer barcode
• Bagging, wrapping or boxing according to the SKU’s prep category
• Sets and multipacks marked so they are received as one unit, not split
• Carton labels from the shipment plan on each box, with box contents uploaded
• Cartons within Amazon’s published weight and dimension limits for the destination

Before the goods leave the factory we ask for photographs of labelled units and packed cartons. It is cheaper to re-label in Sialkot or Shenzhen than in a US prep centre, and far cheaper than at an Amazon receiving dock.

How to ship products to Amazon FBA from Pakistan

For Pakistan-made goods the sequence is: supplier labels and packs to the prep sheet; we create the shipment plan in Seller Central so the destination fulfilment centres and carton labels are known; the forwarder collects, handles export documentation from Pakistan and books the sea or air leg; customs clearance happens in the US or UK through the forwarder’s broker; and the cartons are delivered to the fulfilment centres named in the plan, or to a prep centre first if anything still needs doing.

Sea freight is usually the cheaper option per unit and the slower one; air is faster and costs more, and the right answer depends on the product’s weight, its value and how much stock you already have in Amazon’s warehouses. A first order often goes by air to get selling, with the replenishment order following by sea once sell-through is known. We run both quotes and show you the cost per unit and the arrival date side by side, then let you choose.

Goods manufactured in China follow the same steps without the Pakistan leg: the factory labels and packs, and the forwarder ships from China straight to the fulfilment centre. We cover both routes in our guide to selling on Amazon from Pakistan.

UK and US inbound

For Amazon.co.uk, goods clear UK customs and are delivered to the fulfilment centres in the shipment plan, usually from a UK prep partner if labelling was not completed at origin. For Amazon.com, the same applies at a US port. Our Liverpool and Brooklyn offices work with prep centres and brokers in both countries; the choice of partner depends on where the forwarder lands the consignment and which fulfilment centres Amazon has assigned. We brief the prep centre, check their received count and defect report against the purchase order, and raise any shortfall with the supplier while the evidence is fresh.

What Amazon FBA shipping actually costs

There is no single FBA shipping cost, which is why we do not quote one on this page. The landed cost of a consignment is made up of the freight rate (sea or air, by volume or weight), origin charges and export documentation, destination port and customs charges, any duties and import taxes for the product category, delivery from the port to the fulfilment centre or prep centre, and prep-centre fees per unit where labelling is done there. Amazon’s own inbound placement and fulfilment fees apply on top and are shown in Seller Central for your SKU.

We put all of these on one landed-cost sheet per SKU before the order is placed, and update it with the real invoices once the goods are received, so your inventory and profit reporting uses actual figures rather than estimates.

What we need from you

Seller Central access with shipping permissions, your supplier’s contact details, the purchase order, and your forwarder’s details if you already have one. If you do not, we introduce forwarders we have shipped with from Pakistan and China, and you contract with them directly. From there, get in touch and we will scope the first consignment with you.