FBA vs FBM comes down to one question: should Amazon fulfill your orders, or should you? With FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), you send inventory to Amazon and they pick, pack, ship, and handle customer service. With FBM (Fulfillment by Merchant), you keep the inventory — or hand it to a 3PL — and fulfill orders yourself. Neither is universally "better." The right choice depends on your margins, product size and weight, how much you rely on Prime, and how much control you want. Here's how to decide.

What is FBA?

With Fulfillment by Amazon, your prepped inventory lives in Amazon's warehouses. When an order comes in, Amazon handles everything — picking, packing, shipping, returns, and customer service — and your listings get the Prime badge.

FBA strengths:

• Automatic Prime eligibility and higher conversion.
• Amazon handles fulfillment and customer service.
• Great for small, light, fast-moving products.

FBA trade-offs:

• Storage fees add up — especially long-term fees on slow movers.
• Strict prep and labeling requirements (or the shipment gets rejected).
• Less control over packaging and the customer experience.

What is FBM?

With Fulfillment by Merchant, you're responsible for shipping each order — but you don't have to do it from your garage. Most serious sellers use a third-party prep and fulfillment center that stores inventory and ships orders on their behalf.

FBM strengths:

• No Amazon storage fees — cheaper for large, heavy, or slow-selling items.
• Full control over packaging, inserts, and branding.
• Sell across multiple channels from one inventory pool.

FBM trade-offs:

• You (or your 3PL) are responsible for on-time shipping and metrics.
• No automatic Prime badge (unless you qualify for Seller-Fulfilled Prime).
• Requires a reliable fulfillment partner to protect your seller health.

The cost angle

FBA fees include fulfillment plus storage, and storage costs climb the longer inventory sits — especially with long-term storage surcharges. FBM shifts you to per-order fulfillment (from about $2.25/order at a prep center) plus your own shipping. For bulky or slow items, FBM is often dramatically cheaper. For small, fast sellers, FBA's convenience and Prime lift usually justify the fees. Run your real numbers before committing either way.

When to choose FBA

Choose FBA if your products are small and light, they sell quickly, and Prime eligibility meaningfully lifts your conversion. Just make sure everything arrives fully prepped and compliant — now that Amazon has ended its own prep service, that's on you or your FBA prep partner.

When to choose FBM

Choose FBM if your products are large, heavy, low-margin, or slow-moving, if you want control over branding, or if you sell across multiple marketplaces. A dependable FBM fulfillment partner ships your orders fast — protecting your metrics without you touching a packing table.

Why not both?

Many growing sellers run a hybrid: FBA for their fast, small bestsellers, and FBM for bulky, seasonal, or slower SKUs. A prep center that handles both under one roof lets you split your catalog intelligently — and shift inventory between models as demand changes — from a single stock pool.

How a prep center helps either way

Whichever model you pick, the operational work is similar: receive inventory, inspect and count it, label and pack to spec, store what isn't shipping yet, and get orders out fast. 3PL Planet does all of it — FBA prep and shipment to Amazon, or FBM fulfillment straight to your customers — with transparent per-unit and per-order pricing, same-day dispatch, and no setup fees. That means you can choose the model that's right for each product, not the one your logistics force you into.