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Freight Forwarder for Shipping direct to FBA?

QDF

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I'm planning out my next inventory order right now and am most likely going to be shipping sea freight.

I would prefer to handle and send my product to FBA myself, but I'm on the east coast right now, so I'm thinking it would be more economical and save time to just have it shipped to the west coast and have a freight forwarder send it to FBA.

By having my freight delivered to California and having a freight forwarder sort it and ship it to FBA from there, I know I can save 2 weeks (21 days at sea vs 35 days), and possibly some money.

I've found a few freight forwarders who have done this, and plan to call them up to get quotes, but I thought I'd ask for recommendations first.

I know a few people on here use FBA and live abroad, so I figure you'd have to use some type of service like this.

What is your experience? Any recommended companies to deal with?
 
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Walter Hay

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I'm planning out my next inventory order right now and am most likely going to be shipping sea freight.

I would prefer to handle and send my product to FBA myself, but I'm on the east coast right now, so I'm thinking it would be more economical and save time to just have it shipped to the west coast and have a freight forwarder send it to FBA.

By having my freight delivered to California and having a freight forwarder sort it and ship it to FBA from there, I know I can save 2 weeks (21 days at sea vs 35 days), and possibly some money.

I've found a few freight forwarders who have done this, and plan to call them up to get quotes, but I thought I'd ask for recommendations first.

I know a few people on here use FBA and live abroad, so I figure you'd have to use some type of service like this.

What is your experience? Any recommended companies to deal with?
Just be aware that Amazon have been known to dump successful sellers by going direct to the suppliers in China and marketing the product themselves. On the other side of the picture, some China suppliers have begun to compete with their own customers by selling on Amazon.

By shipping direct to FBA you are giving both parties the opportunity to leave you out of the picture. You might consider using an independent fulfillment center who will ship to FBA.

Walter
 

QDF

Gold Contributor
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401%
Jan 1, 2014
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Just be aware that Amazon have been known to dump successful sellers by going direct to the suppliers in China and marketing the product themselves. On the other side of the picture, some China suppliers have begun to compete with their own customers by selling on Amazon.

By shipping direct to FBA you are giving both parties the opportunity to leave you out of the picture. You might consider using an independent fulfillment center who will ship to FBA.

Walter

I'm certainly aware of this possibility, but with my new product, I'm not very worried about them doing this - I don't think they could. I'm even less worried about the manufacturer doing the same thing for basically the same reason.

Manufacturers are already selling this product directly on Amazon, but are doing such a shitty job that they are struggling at a much lower price even.

Besides, if Amazon wants to figure out a manufacturer of a successful seller, they could do that no matter how hard you tried.

I've actually seen freight forwarding companies who will repackage all of your products, do QC control, split shipments up, etc. (basically everything I would be doing in person) and ship them to FBA. So the manufacturer wouldn't know how much of my inventory is going to Amazon, or where its going.

I've considered this before, but it will not be an issue in this situation.
 

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