Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support: A woman-owned, full-service warehousing and manufacturing support company exceeding expectations since 1975
Amazon FBA prep services ended on January 1, 2026. As of that date, the company no longer poly bags, bubble wraps, or applies FNSKU labels to units that arrive bare — work it had done for more than a decade. Sellers who treated the deadline as a paperwork update now carry the cost of every unprepped shipment themselves.
Why Amazon FBA Prep Services Ended
The change covers every unit entering U.S. FBA — direct shipments plus anything routed through Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, Amazon Global Logistics, SEND, or the Supply Chain Portal. Everything must arrive fully prepped and labeled before it reaches the dock.
As Supply Chain Dive reported when the policy landed, Amazon attributed the decision to sellers’ improved packaging capabilities, saying the vast majority already handle prep themselves — through their own operations, their manufacturing partners, or third-party providers — which frees fulfillment centers to focus on fulfillment.
That logic is defensible. It’s also cold comfort to the sellers who were the minority.
The Reimbursement Clause Is the Real Story
The service ending is not the expensive part. What happens afterward is.
Shipments created before January 1 still received Amazon’s prep. Shipments created after that date and arriving without proper prep and labeling are no longer eligible for reimbursement if units are damaged or deemed untraceable. Read that twice. Amazon isn’t merely declining to prep your inventory — it’s declining to pay when unprepped inventory gets destroyed inside its own building.
For resellers, barcode requirements tightened again this spring, splitting brand owners and resellers onto separate tracks. We cover what that did to per-unit labeling costs in The FNSKU Mandate: What Ending Commingling Really Cost Resellers.
The Timing Is the Cruel Part
Amazon handed prep back at the exact moment volume is climbing. U.S. retail e-commerce sales hit $326.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — up 9.8 percent year over year, more than double the 3.9 percent growth of total retail, and now 16.9 percent of all retail sales.
More units. Tighter compliance. Less help. Sellers are absorbing a new operational step during a period of accelerating online growth.
Three Ways to Replace Amazon FBA Prep Services
In-house. Label printers are inexpensive, and equipment was never the real obstacle. Space, labor, and consistency are — and prep errors don’t announce themselves until a shipment gets refused.
Supplier prep. Cheap on paper. But overseas manufacturers rarely track Amazon’s current barcode and scanner specifications, and an error discovered after the container lands is expensive to correct at volume.
Third-party prep. Outsourced expertise and compliance risk at a per-unit cost, often bundled with warehousing so inventory doesn’t take an extra freight leg. The tradeoff is straightforward: you pay per unit instead of paying for the shipment that gets rejected.
The Cost of Waiting Went Up
Prep didn’t get harder in a vacuum. Amazon raised FBA fees by an average of $0.08 per unit effective January 15, framing the increase as modest against inflation and pointing sellers toward packaging changes, lower-cost inbound options, and healthy inventory levels to offset it.
Fair enough. But stack that on top of the prep work Amazon just handed back, and the all-in number moves more than eight cents. We break the full stack down in Amazon’s 2026 Fee Stack: Why Prep Mistakes Cost More Than They Used To.
Where you prep matters too, since inbound placement rewards routing decisions most sellers make by default — the subject of Prep Moved South: Placement Fees, Cross-Docks, and the I-85 Advantage.
What This Actually Signals
Amazon’s message was simple: prep is not our job anymore. This is a structural change to how inventory enters FBA, not an enforcement wave that quiets down. Sellers who build a documented prep step into standard operating procedure stop thinking about it. Sellers who improvise pay for it one rejected shipment at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Amazon still offer FBA prep services?
No. Amazon FBA prep services and item labeling ended for U.S. shipments on January 1, 2026. Poly bagging, bubble wrapping, boxing, and FNSKU labeling are now the seller’s responsibility before inventory ships.
What happens if I send unprepped inventory to Amazon now?
Shipments created on or after January 1, 2026 that arrive without proper prep and labeling are not eligible for reimbursement if units are damaged or deemed untraceable. You absorb the loss.
Does this apply to AWD and Amazon Global Logistics?
Yes. The requirement covers all inventory entering U.S. FBA, whether sent directly or routed through Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, Amazon Global Logistics, SEND, or the Supply Chain Portal.
Can my overseas supplier handle Amazon prep instead?
Sometimes, and it’s often the cheapest option on paper. The risk is that manufacturers abroad rarely track Amazon’s current barcode and scanner specifications. A labeling error found after the container lands is expensive to fix at volume.
Is this policy temporary?
Nothing indicates it is. Amazon framed the decision around a lasting shift in how sellers operate rather than a short-term capacity issue, and no reversal has been announced.
About the Author
Ada Wallace is President of Piedmont Storage and Repack, LLC, operating as Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She brings more than 24 years in the warehousing and manufacturing support industries and leads the second generation of Wallace family ownership of a business founded in 1975. Under her leadership, Piedmont holds ISO 9001:2015 certification and Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) designation, serving clients across Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson, Cherokee, Laurens, and Union counties. She can be reached at awallace@piedmontwarehousing.com.
Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support
Piedmont has run warehousing and manufacturing support from Spartanburg, South Carolina since 1975. The operation is ISO 9001:2015 certified, woman-owned, and built for the documented, repeatable prep work Amazon now requires sellers to handle themselves.
Our Services Include:
- Amazon Prep Services — FNSKU labeling, poly bagging, date labels, kitting, and shipment builds to Amazon’s current spec
- Warehousing Services — Short- and long-term storage under the same roof as prep, with no extra freight leg
Ready to fix your prep step? Contact Piedmont to talk through your volume and turnaround needs.
Works Cited
Garland, Max. “Amazon to End FBA Prep, Labeling Services in US.” Supply Chain Dive, Informa TechTarget, 1 Aug. 2025, www.supplychaindive.com/news/amazon-fba-prep-item-labeling-services-end/756289/. Accessed 16 July 2026.
Mehta, Dharmesh. “Update to U.S. Referral and Fulfillment by Amazon Fees for 2026.” Amazon Selling Partners, Amazon.com, 15 Oct. 2025, sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com/update-to-u-s-referral-and-fulfillment-by-amazon-fees-for-2026. Accessed 16 July 2026.
“Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales: 1st Quarter 2026.” U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, 18 May 2026, www.census.gov/retail/ecommerce.html. Accessed 16 July 2026.