Reactive transfers

Programme overview

Currently, when a customer places an order for multiple products and when all or any of these ordered products are stored at different Amazon Fulfilment Centres (FCs), each of these products is separately shipped from the respective FCs to your customers. Reactive transfers are FC-to-FC transfers that take place after your customer places an order, before they are fulfilled by Amazon. We accomplish this by attempting to consolidate ASINs ordered together but stored across multiple FCs to ensure that we ship the minimum possible number of packages to your customers.

Through the Reactive Transfer programme, we offer consolidated shipping of your products in the least number of packages possible, by enabling the trans-shipping inventory feature across your registered FCs, in line with the customer’s order address.

Programme benefits

The programme has the following benefits:

• Estimated to improve the customer’s experience by consolidating deliveries of all products in their order.
• Estimated to reduce weight handling fees through item consolidation. In cases where the ordered products are in different region FCs, Amazon will be able to consolidate them at the FC nearest to your customer if promised delivery date can be fulfilled. This might help you save on the weight handling fees as the order will henceforth be fulfilled locally/regionally versus nationally, which was the case till now. Savings depend on the local/regional/national criteria defined by Amazon here. You will not see any savings in the case of same city FC-to-FC item consolidation since there is no considerable reduction in shipping distance. Same city movement is done purely to enhance customer experience by reducing the number of shipments delivered to the customer.

  For example, two products ordered together are in BOM1 (MH) and BLR5 (KA) FCs and the customer is from Bangalore. These products are consolidated at FC BLR5 (if APOB registered) which is nearest to the customer’s address. Eventually, you will only pay the local (28 INR for 500gms) or regional (36 INR for 500gms) charges depending on the customer delivery location instead of paying national charges (56 INR) for the unit trans-shipped from BOM1. The above-mentioned savings are prevalent to fees criteria defined here.

Programme features

• You are enabled for intrastate trans-shipments by default. However, interstate reactive transfers is enabled after receiving an approval from your end.
• After opting in, we assist you in shipping the products from one FC to another (both of which should be registered as your additional place of business). They are then consolidated/distributed and fulfilled from the destination FC and shipped to your customers.
• Trans-shipments that happen between the FCs are not charged separately to you – so you do not have to bear any additional cost.

Opting for the programme

To opt for the programme, complete this form: https://survey-az.tfaforms.net/1707

For further queries, write to: in-fba-reactives@amazon.com

Frequently asked questions

Will I need to register for all FCs in a region to be eligible for consolidated packaging?

You are eligible for consolidated packaging only if you have your additional place of business registered at the FC where the shipment is consolidated. Currently, if a customer orders multiple units and if all units are in the same building, we ship them together in a single package. You just need to approve this service offering, which enables you to transfer inventory between your different places of business.

If there is damage to my goods, what will be the reimbursement policy?

Any units damaged during trans-shipment are classified as Warehouse Damaged and the relevant policy on reimbursement applies. All other stages are similar to the current shipping process and the relevant damage classification and reimbursement policies apply.

Since I have to show stock transfer in my books, for reporting compliance, what details can Amazon provide me with?

A detailed stock transfer report covering FC-to-FC transfers will be available in your seller account on a monthly basis listing out all transfers made during the month.

You can click here to download the Stock Transfer Report.

Stock transfer documents are also provided to you upon request to the Seller Support team. Furthermore, you can download an inventory event detail report at any time from your seller account. This report provides the following information regarding transfers:

snapshot-date

transaction-type (warehouse transfers)

sku

FC

quantity

disposition

Can the products of two different sellers be consolidated in one package or is it only for one seller?

Yes, products from two different sellers can be consolidated in one package as long as the items are ordered by the customer together and are fulfilled from the same FC.

If one of my units is shipped with that of another seller, how can I reconcile this for accounting and reporting such transactions?

In case multiple items are shipped in a single box, there is one tracking (AWB) ID for the box. However, there are different invoices for each seller who is fulfilling their orders. Each of the participating sellers will receive a detailed stock report in their seller account. Therefore, there will be no challenges in reconciling details for your reporting obligations.

What if the customer order is cancelled after initiation of the trans-shipment?

In this case, the inventory would move to the destination FC and be stored there, and would be available to other customers for purchase. Inventory and accounting record details are listed in FAQ #3.

Still have concerns/ queries? You can write to in-fba-reactives@amazon.com and we will arrange a call back within 3 business days.