FBA uses barcodes to identify and track inventory throughout the fulfilment process. Each item that you send to an Amazon fulfilment centre requires a barcode.
There are three kinds of barcodes for identifying products:
Amazon will always use the Manufacturer barcode to track inventory throughout the fulfilment process, unless you change your barcode setting. If more than one seller has inventory with the same Manufacturer barcode, then Amazon fulfils orders with inventory that is closest to the customer. We do this to facilitate faster delivery.
If you do not have an eligible barcode for your product, then an Amazon barcode can be used in place of the Manufacturer barcode.
For more information, please see Using the Manufacturer barcode to track inventory.
Amazon barcodes must be applied to all products that are not tracked using Manufacturer barcodes. This category is comprised of:
You can print Amazon barcodes and apply them to your products yourself, or Amazon can print and apply them for a per-item fee. For more information, please see Use an Amazon barcode to track inventory and FBA Label Service .
Transparency codes are item-level authentication 2D Barcodes that help to protect brand owners and customers from counterfeit. Transparency codes are accompanied by a Transparency “T” logo and must not be covered by any other label. In case of products labelled with Label 4 (amazon barcode (FNSKU/ASIN code) + Transparency code) as illustrated below, the seller is required to cover only the amazon barcode (FNSKU) on the label with their own identifier (FNSKU) to ensure that there are no multiple scannable barcodes on the product. To learn more, please see the Transparency page.
In the below section, you will learn about the requirements for labelling your units for Labelled Inventory, as well as which products are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory and FBA Label Service.
Labelled Inventory | Learn about the requirements for printing Amazon product labels, labelling your products, ensuring accurate scanning of your labels, and common errors to avoid when labelling your products. |
Stickerless, Commingled Inventory | Learn about the eligibility requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory. |
Each unit that you send to Amazon fulfilment centre for fulfilment needs, should contain FNSKU label printed from your Seller Central account.
Please watch this brief video for examples of how to label your products to ensure appropriate receipt and storage in Amazon fulfilment centres.
Packaging and Shipping Inventory to Amazon fulfilment centre: Download and print this manual for Packaging and Shipping Inventory to Amazon fulfilment centre, or share with your distributor or supplier when they send directly to Amazon fulfilment centre. Check back periodically for updated versions.
Product Labels: Download and print this quick reference guide for FBA product label requirements. Check back periodically for updated versions. Click here to see the quick reference guide for FBA product label requirements.
Each unit that you send to Amazon for fulfilment, needs a scannable barcode to enable storage at a fulfilment centre. Please follow these guidelines to ensure prompt and accurate labelling of your units.
When shipping inventory that requires labelling, you can print labels within the shipping workflow. If you have already created your shipment, then you can access the shipping workflow from the Shipping Queue.
When you print your labels, please make sure that your print settings do not scale the image or make it smaller to fit within the printable area. By default, many printers will try to scale PDF files to fit within the printable margins. This will cause the labels to be misaligned when printed. Depending on your printer and the software that you are using, you should be able to set the scaling to "none" or 100%. Some printers might refer to this as "size to fit" or "print to fit". If you are unable to locate printer settings and the labels are misaligning, then we recommend contacting the printer manufacturer's technical support department or seeking support locally for additional assistance.
To print your labels off from a spool, we encourage you to use our Scan & Ship program. Scan & Ship eliminates the task of searching through an entire sheet of labels for the correct one, or clicking through pages in your Seller Account to find the products that you want to ship.
Please visit the help page for Scan and Ship for more information.
Printing barcodes directly on the units: If you would like to print barcodes directly on the units, then please use the UCC128 barcode. The UCC128 barcode standards are available on the Internet. Amazon uses the UCC128 barcode (font) to encode the FNSKU or the Shipment ID in the barcode. We do not use any leading or trailing digits (application identifiers or checksum digits). The full specification is UCC128 code set A (this is the code set that supports alphanumeric data). If you are building the barcode from scratch, then you can review the standards or purchase software (there are many barcode applications available for free or at reasonable prices).
The following errors / receiving problems will slow down the process by which Amazon fulfilment centre can receive your inventory and make it available for sale. Amazon may temporarily suspend your shipment creation privileges if the following problems are found:
Please see Inbound Performance Feedback for more information about receiving problems.
Below are other common errors that will delay the receipt of your shipment:
If the products that you sell are registered through Amazon Brand Registry, then labelling still has to be done for all the items.
On this page, you will learn about the eligibility requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory.
All products that enter Amazon fulfilment centres require a means of identifying the product and its ownership. A product is identified with either a UPC or EAN barcode, or an FBA label that you print from your Seller Central Account. For some products sold by multiple sellers, you can select to "commingle" your inventory by enabling the Stickerless, Commingled Inventory setting. When you choose to commingle inventory, your products become interchangeable with the same products from other sellers for both order fulfilment and removals
To summarise the differences:
Stickerless, Commingled Inventory eliminates the need for you to label your eligible products with FBA labels.
Although products sent to Amazon fulfilment centre as Stickerless, Commingled Inventory may be virtually pooled with those of other sellers, we track which seller shipped the units to our fulfilment centres from the time it enters our Fulfilment Centre through shipment till the time it reaches the customer, which allows us to know which seller sourced the item received by the customer and helps us to minimise any disruption to customers and other sellers if there is an issue with the inventory sourced from a specific seller.
In order to change your current setting from stickered to commingled or vice versa, please contact seller support team.
Not all products are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory. Only books are eligible for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory, all other categories must be labelled with the FBA labels. Most notably in grocery, health and beauty, and media products must always be labelled with FBA Labels. Amazon is always evaluating categories and products, and may change the eligibility for products at any time.
Technical Requirements for Stickerless, Commingled Inventory
If the products that you sell are registered through the Amazon Brand Registry, then labelling still has to be done for all the items.
The following receiving problems will slow down the process by which Amazon can receive your inventory and make it available for sale. Amazon may temporarily suspend your shipment creation privileges if the following problems are found:
Please see Inbound Performance Feedback for more information about receiving problems.
Below are other common errors that will delay the receipt of your shipment:
When you enable Stickerless, Commingled Inventory, your eligible units will be treated as Stickerless, Commingled Inventory for both customer order fulfilment and 'Pick up removals'. If you choose to remove a Stickerless, Commingled Inventory unit, by placing a 'Pick up removals' request, then the unit that you receive may be sourced from another seller's inventory.