Here are some of the ways Excelsior can help you:

Amazon Vendor Direct Fulfillment: Amazon Vendors can utilize the Direct Fulfillment option for some or all of their products, which is essentially drop shipping from your 3PL. The key is to hit operational targets that make your products eligible for Prime and Guaranteed Delivery. In some cases, such as highly seasonal products, or with product lines that have lots of slow moving SKU’s, FBA can be more expensive than Vendor Direct Fulfillment. We have clients who keep some high moving products with FBA, while other products utilize Direct Fulfillment – allowing our client to offer a larger catalog on Amazon while controlling costs.

Amazon’s Vendor Direct Fulfillment requires EDI integration. Excelsior has partnered with SPS Commerce as its preferred EDI solution, and we have a plug-and-play integration that will expedite the setup process. When vendors first start using direct fulfillment, Amazon will track their metrics to evaluate lead time and qualification for the Guaranteed Delivery program. Amazon will start you with a lead time (time before required ship date) of over 100 hours, but as you build history Amazon will gradually lower the lead time if you consistently beat it. Amazon tracks you on several metrics: Percent of orders hitting the expected ship date, percent of orders hitting expected delivery date, percent of orders that receiving a first carrier scan on time, percent of orders shipped with correct ship method, the return/refund rate, and more. Exceeding the target on all of these metrics consistently will eventually qualify you for Guaranteed Delivery and lower your lead time to less than 24 hours. This in turns will boost your sales, because Amazon will elevate your product listings and be more likely to award them the buy box.

With Vendor Direct Fulfillment, all shipments made are billed third party to Amazon’s accounts (Amazon also handles all returns and customer service). So having multiple distributed warehouses will also improve your product listings because it will lower Amazon’s cost to deliver orders within the promised two day window.

Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime: SFP is not for everyone and sellers should evaluate the costs and benefits of merchant fulfilled versus FBA. We have found that the merchant fulfilled option is preferable if any of these factors apply: merchant has larger bulky products that are expensive with FBA; amazon is applying long term storage fees, merchant wants more control over returns or order splitting. While FBA guarantees Prime eligibility, only sellers with the best fulfillment operations qualify for the Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime program. Sellers who choose to do their own fulfillment must undergo a trial period and maintain targets on several metrics. Excelsior will help ensure a seller qualifies for Seller Fulfilled Prime.

Here’s what you’ll need to do to become eligible for Seller Fulfilled Prime:

To be eligible for Seller Fulfilled Prime, sellers must maintain a professional selling plan, be enrolled in Premium Shipping, Purchase Shipping from “Buy Shipping Services” (Amazon shipping labels), and have carrier pickup times at or after 4pm local. The trailing 30-day eligibility requirements for Premium Shipping are:

• On time delivery rate of at least 92% for Premium Shipping Orders.
• Valid tracking for at least 94% of Premium Shipping Orders.
• A cancellation rate of less than 1.5% for Premium Shipping Orders.

Additionally, sellers must meet or exceed these requirements:

• On-Time shipment rate of 99%
• Use Buy Shipping Services for 95% of Prime orders.
• A cancellation rate of no more than 1%.

Excelsior will help you hit these targets. Here’s how it works:

We have a pre-built integration with Amazon that utilizes the Amazon merchant webservices API (documentation link below). Our integration will pull in new orders at regular intervals throughout the day. Each incoming order will have key properties: IsPrime and LatestShipDate. Excelsior’s order processing system will identify prime orders based on IsPrime, and ensure shipments are made with services that will arrive on or before the LatestShipDate. All shipments must be made with Amazon’s Buy Shipping Services, so Excelsior will purchase shipping labels for seller orders from Amazon. When doing so, Excelsior will automatically choose the cheapest shipping service option that guarantees delivery by the MustArriveByDate. The act of purchasing a shipping label from Amazon is Amazon’s queue that the order is confirmed.

Here’s a link to more information on Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime. And here’s the Amazon Documentation on How to fulfill Seller Fulfilled Prime Orders – by which Excelsior’s system abides.

Amazon Seller/Vendor FBA: For many sellers and vendors, FBA is the best fulfillment option. Excelsior can help you meet Amazon’s strict requirements and avoid chargebacks and stock outs. On the seller side, you can utilize Excelsior reports to plan replenishments to FBA. Ask us about how we can help you automate this process! On the vendor side, we can streamline the workflow through EDI partners such as SPS Commerce to handle order acknowledgement, carton label import, and ASN notification. Or you can manage the process through the order entry tool in the Excelsior portal.