To ship to Amazon FBA you build a shipping plan in Send to Amazon (Seller Central → Inventory → Send to Amazon), set quantities per SKU, choose how the units are packed, prep and label them, attach box content information, pick a carrier and shipping mode, then confirm the shipment and print the box labels before handing it to the carrier. That is the whole mechanical sequence, and most of it is clerical work.
The parts that cost money are not in that list. They sit in three decisions the step-by-step walkthroughs skip: whether you declare box contents properly, whether you use Amazon’s Partner Carrier program or your own freight, and what you do when the boxes are delivered and the shipment simply stops moving. This guide covers the workflow end to end, then spends its second half on those failure modes. Where a single stage deserves its own deep dive — prep, barcodes, pallets, placement fees, forwarders — this page links out rather than repeating it.
The Send to Amazon workflow, step by step
Send to Amazon is the shipment-creation workflow inside Seller Central, and sellers are right to call its output a shipping plan: a list of SKUs, quantities, packing details and a destination, which Amazon converts into one or more shipment IDs. One plan often becomes several shipments, because Amazon decides where each portion of your inventory goes — you do not pick the fulfillment center.
| Step | What you do | Where it usually goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Select SKUs and quantities | Enter units per SKU | A restricted or non-FBA SKU silently never appears in the list |
| 2. Choose packing type | Individual units, or case-packed | Declaring case-packed, then shipping a mixed box |
| 3. Prep and label | Poly-bag, wrap, FNSKU on every unit | Prep done to the wrong standard for the category |
| 4. Confirm shipping | Ship-from address, ship date, placement option | Accepting the default split without pricing the alternative |
| 5. Box content information | Declare what is in each box | Skipping it — a paid mistake, covered below |
| 6. Carrier and mode | Small parcel or LTL; partnered or your own | Choosing partnered by reflex on pallet-sized freight |
| 7. Print and apply labels | One box label per box, pallet labels for LTL | Reusing one label across boxes |
| 8. Hand off and track | Give the carrier the boxes, then watch check-in | Marking it shipped and never opening it again |
Two structural things trip up first-time senders. The plan is not the shipment: until you confirm, nothing exists on Amazon’s side. And quantities are a commitment — confirm 200 units, ship 180, and the shipment reconciles as short with you filing the paperwork.
Prep and labels: settle these before you open Send to Amazon
Prep and labeling are upstream of the workflow, not part of it. Send to Amazon will happily accept a plan for units prepped wrong; you find out weeks later, when they are received as unsellable or hit with prep-service charges.
Two things must be true before you start a plan. Every unit needs a scannable FNSKU or manufacturer barcode, applied without covering existing barcodes — that choice, and when a manufacturer barcode is not allowed, is laid out in the Amazon barcode requirements guide. And every unit needs the physical prep its category demands, which is category-by-category in FBA prep requirements. Neither is repeated here: getting them wrong is a per-unit charge no care in the shipping plan will undo.
Box content information: the step that quietly costs the most
When you tell Amazon what is inside each box, you are giving the receiving warehouse a scan-level map: this box holds 24 of FNSKU X and 12 of FNSKU Y. Amazon receives against that map. If the map is missing, the warehouse has to open, sort and count by hand.
That manual work is billed. Amazon applies a manual processing fee to shipments arriving without valid box content information. No rate is quoted here on purpose: Amazon’s FBA fee schedule sits behind the Seller Central login, third-party guides disagree on whether the charge lands per unit or per carton, and a stale number is worse than none. Read the schedule in your own account on the day you build the plan, and treat any figure in a blog post as unverified (checked 2026-08-27).
Three practical rules:
- Declare at the box level, not the shipment level. “This shipment contains 300 units” is not box content information.
- Type it for small plans, upload it for large ones. Send to Amazon takes contents typed in or uploaded on Amazon’s spreadsheet template; above roughly a dozen boxes the upload is faster and far less error-prone.
- Case-packed is the shortcut. If every box holds the same SKU in the same quantity, you declare it once. That is the strongest argument for case-packing when your supplier can do it.
A missing declaration also degrades everything downstream: partial receipt is harder to prove, and your records no longer match Amazon’s.
Amazon’s Partner Carrier program, or your own carrier?
Amazon’s inbound freight offering is now branded the Amazon Partner Carrier program (PCP); sellers and search results still say partnered carrier, and mean the same thing. You buy the freight inside Send to Amazon: enter box dimensions and weights, Amazon quotes a rate, generates the labels, and deducts the charge from your seller account. Amazon’s program page says it covers “small-parcel deliveries (SPD) and less-than-truckload (LTL), full-truckload (FTL), and intermodal (IM) shipments” for FBA, MCF and AWD sellers in the 48 contiguous US states, at costs “up to 25% lower compared to alternatives” (sell.amazon.com/programs/partner-carrier, data checked 2026-08-27) — a vendor claim, not an audited one, so check it against a real quote.
Using your own carrier means booking the freight yourself, entering carrier and tracking numbers into the shipment, and printing Amazon’s box labels separately from the carrier’s.
| Partner Carrier program | Your own carrier | |
|---|---|---|
| Rate | Amazon’s negotiated rate, quoted in the workflow | Whatever you or your forwarder negotiated |
| Labels | Generated in Send to Amazon, carrier label included | Amazon box labels plus separate carrier labels |
| Tracking | Attached to the shipment automatically | You enter tracking manually, and errors here cause phantom “not delivered” states |
| Lost-in-transit claims | Handled through Amazon | You file with the carrier |
| Fits best | Small parcel from a US ship-from address; sellers without freight relationships | Consolidated freight, imports, anything already on a forwarder’s bill of lading |
The decision rule: PCP wins on small parcel and on convenience; your own carrier wins once volume gives you freight leverage, or the goods arrive from overseas. On an import, the partnered program is irrelevant to the long leg — that freight is already contracted, and the only question is who moves goods from port or prep center to the fulfillment center. That path is its own discipline, covered in the FBA freight forwarders guide.
The best way to ship to Amazon FBA: small parcel, LTL, or pallets
Shipping mode is a weight-and-volume decision, not a preference.
Small parcel (SPD) means individual boxes moving as parcels — the default for most sellers, and right for anything up to a handful of boxes. Each box is scanned separately, so one lost box does not stall the shipment.
Less-than-truckload (LTL) means palletized freight. Once you ship enough boxes that palletizing beats parcel rates you switch — and inherit a new rulebook: pallet type, stacking height, shrink-wrap, pallet labels, appointment scheduling. Those specs are strict and set out in Amazon’s FBA pallet requirements; freight refused at the dock for a non-compliant pallet is an expensive way to learn them.
One cost catches parcel shippers off guard: carriers bill on dimensional weight when a box is bulky relative to its actual weight, so a light, oversized carton is priced as if it were far heavier. Understand how dimensional weight is calculated before you buy cartons.
Placement: one warehouse or several
At the “confirm shipping” step, Send to Amazon presents placement options. The Amazon-optimised split — inventory spread across several fulfillment centers, closer to buyers — carries no placement charge. Asking for fewer destinations (a partial split, or a minimal split down to one or two centers) triggers an inbound placement service fee, priced per unit and rising the more consolidation you request; Amazon last revised the rate card in January 2026 (checked 2026-08-27).
The trade-off runs both ways: consolidating buys one shipment, one carrier booking, one set of labels and less handling, and you pay a fee for it; splitting costs nothing but multiplies shipments, bookings and things to track. Which side wins depends on your box count, freight cost per shipment and your own labour — the rate structure and that comparison are worked through in shipping to one Amazon warehouse.
Where shipments actually get stuck
This is the part AI answers and step-by-step posts leave out. The workflow ends when you hand the boxes to a carrier; the problems start after delivery.
Delivered, but the shipment stays “Shipped.” Delivery to the warehouse door and receipt into inventory are different events, and the gap is normal — receiving is a queue that lengthens in Q4. Before opening a case, confirm three things: proof of delivery shows a completed delivery, the tracking number on the shipment matches what the carrier actually used, and the shipment ID label was on every box. A tracking mismatch is the most common self-inflicted cause of a shipment that looks like it never arrived. The status codes are decoded in tracking FBA shipments.
Fewer units check in than you sent. Partial receipt is common and often resolves itself as the remaining boxes clear receiving, which is why you cannot open an investigation immediately — Amazon displays the date a shipment becomes eligible for investigation once the boxes have been checked in. After that date, reconciliation is an evidence exercise: supplier invoice, carrier proof of delivery or bill of lading, and the box content declaration showing what was in which box. Sellers who skipped step 5 discover here that they cannot prove what they shipped.
Delivery refused at the dock. Almost always an LTL appointment or compliance issue — no booked appointment, non-compliant or over-height pallets, missing pallet labels. The fix sits with your carrier and Amazon’s pallet specifications, not with Seller Central.
Received, but unsellable. A prep or damage outcome, not a shipping one — it points back at packaging, category prep standard, or transit damage.
Discrepancies that survive reconciliation become reimbursement claims, which carry a filing deadline measured from the event date — file inside the window and keep the documentation. For a second pass over what Amazon already paid out, ReimburseOps reads an exported FBA reimbursements CSV and flags records that look under-reimbursed or inconsistently valued, on a flat subscription rather than a share of recoveries; it does not connect to Seller Central and does not file claims, so submission stays your job (checked 2026-08-27).
Pre-ship checklist
- Every unit carries a scannable FNSKU or approved manufacturer barcode
- Category prep matches the prep requirements
- Packing type in the plan matches how the boxes are actually packed
- Box contents declared for every box
- Placement option chosen deliberately, fee weighed against extra freight bookings
- Weights and dimensions accurate — carrier quotes and dimensional-weight charges ride on them
- One shipment ID label per box, applied flat, not over a seam or barcode
- Pallet labels applied and a delivery appointment booked, if LTL
- Tracking numbers entered before the boxes leave
- A reminder to check receipt status a week after delivery
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a shipping plan in Amazon FBA?
A shipping plan is the record you build in Send to Amazon: which SKUs you are sending, in what quantities, how they are packed, from where. Confirming it converts the plan into one or more shipment IDs — the plan is the draft, the shipment IDs are the live objects you track and reconcile against.
How long does it take Amazon to receive an FBA shipment?
There is no fixed number, and anyone quoting one is guessing. Receipt time depends on the fulfillment center’s queue, the season and the shipment type — palletized freight generally checks in slower than small parcel, because it has to be broken down first. Treat delivery and receipt as separate events, and escalate only after the investigation-eligibility date Amazon shows on the shipment.
Do I have to use Amazon’s partnered carrier?
No. The Partner Carrier program is optional. Its advantages are the negotiated rate, labels generated inside the workflow and tracking attached automatically. If you have your own freight relationships — or goods arriving from overseas on a forwarder’s booking — using your own carrier is entirely normal.
How do I ship to Amazon FBA from China?
The Amazon-side workflow is identical: build a Send to Amazon plan, declare box contents, print shipment labels. What changes is everything before the warehouse — customs clearance, importer of record, duties, air versus ocean freight. Amazon will not act as importer of record, so that leg needs a forwarder; see the FBA freight forwarders guide. Many sellers have units prepped and FNSKU-labeled at origin so goods move straight to the fulfillment center after clearance.
Can I send my whole shipment to a single warehouse?
Usually yes — choose a minimal-split option at the confirm-shipping step and pay the inbound placement service fee. Whether that beats booking several shipments is arithmetic specific to your box count and freight rates, worked through in shipping to one Amazon warehouse.
Conclusion
Shipping into FBA is mechanically simple and operationally unforgiving. Send to Amazon will accept a plan with mismatched packing, missing box contents and an unconsidered placement option — and each of those defects surfaces later as a fee or a stalled shipment, never as an error message.
The habits that keep shipments moving are unglamorous: prep and label before opening the workflow, declare box contents for every box, choose carrier and placement deliberately, enter accurate weights and tracking, and check receipt status a week after delivery. If you are still deciding whether FBA is the right model at all, start with what Amazon FBA is and the storage fee structure — inbound shipping is the cost of getting inventory in, not of keeping it there.