As a continuation of Amazon’s multiyear investment in its warehousing and distribution network to support sellers and better serve customers, we are introducing a new solution that enables sellers to use new, purpose-built facilities for bulk inventory storage and automated distribution. Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD) addresses critical supply chain challenges and helps sellers grow and manage their business while significantly cutting costs. AWD is also one of the many new offerings we will be sharing more about at Amazon Accelerate, our annual seller conference taking place September 14-15.
For many businesses, managing logistics and operations—such as inventory storage, distribution and order fulfillment—is a source of complexity and cost. These challenges have only been amplified in recent years as constrained supply chains caused global inventory backups and fulfillment challenges. In fact, a recent survey of U.S. Amazon sellers showed the three biggest pain points for sellers in upstream warehousing and distribution operations are high prices for storage, complicated fee structures, and insufficient storage capacity.
With this simple pay-as-you-go service, sellers are free from the time-consuming, cumbersome process of moving inventory from upstream facilities to Amazon fulfillment centers. AWD makes the promise of supply chain as a service a reality and is specifically designed to solve inventory management challenges and deliver operational efficiencies.
Enrollment is easy, and with one click sellers can send their inventory to Amazon Distribution Centers and significantly reduce storage costs, while eliminating complex pricing schemes and long-term contracts that are common throughout the industry. Sellers can integrate their upstream inventory storage operations with the Amazon Fulfillment Network, ensuring they always have the right amount of inventory in stock, in the right places and at the right times.
“As an Amazon seller for over 10 years, we are super excited about the Amazon Warehousing & Distribution service as it's something that sellers have been seeking for a very long time,” said Harris Chan, senior business manager at AmaMax. “Automated replenishment and master case handling is the key of the program.”
Sellers using AWD can also consolidate their global inventory, which they can then view and manage on Seller Central, simplifying their operations with one pool of inventory. In 2023, sellers will be able to use AWD to send their inventory to any location, including to wholesale customers or brick-and-mortar stores.
Through Amazon’s iterative innovation, we are solving common challenges for sellers—streamlining complex operations and liberating them from storage concerns or gaps in inventory.
