What is Fulfillment by Amazon Donations? Fulfillment by Amazon Donations Review, Features

In August 2019, Amazon announced that it would launch a new program called Fulfillment by Amazon Donations: Starting September 1, 2019, sellers using Amazon Logistics (FBA) can choose to donate excess inventory in the United States to select American charities.

About FBA Donations

When sellers choose to dispose of excess inventory, returns, and other unwanted merchandise, Amazon will automatically donate eligible inventory to charities. The donation option will apply to inventory that sellers manually choose to dispose of as well as inventory that is disposed of through the automatic disposal setting. You can opt out of this donation program at any time by disabling FBA Donations in your FBA settings.

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Amazon's handling of discarded products has been criticized. It is understood that in 2018, Amazon France destroyed as many as 3 million items. Among them, the smallest Amazon warehouse in France sent nearly 300,000 items to the centralized destruction site in nine months.

Target customers

The program is currently available to third-party sellers who store inventory in Amazon warehouses in the U.S. and the U.K. When the donation program is selected to process unsold or unwanted products stored in Amazon warehouses in these two countries, the donation program will become the default option for all sellers.

In addition, the program will be distributed to a network of U.S. nonprofits through a group called Good360 and U.K. charities such as Newlife and Barnardo’s.

The purpose of launching the FBA donation program

The program is designed to reduce the amount of product sent to landfills, help protect the environment, and repurpose products that would otherwise go to waste and donate them to those in need. The donation option will apply to inventory that sellers choose to process manually or through the automatic processing settings.

Another reason is that Amazon has been investigated and exposed for discarding a large amount of unsold and unwanted inventory before. Amazon's sales in the United States account for the majority of its total sales, so the amount of inventory destroyed in its warehouses in the United States is far greater than that in other countries.

In addition, there are many reasons why sellers destroy inventory, including returns or safety issues. Before the launch of the FBA donation program, simply destroying unsold products was a cheaper option for third-party sellers, costing only 15 cents per product, while returns cost 50 cents. The launch of the FBA donation program will reduce the cost for sellers to donate excess inventory. Amazon's fee for returning unsold inventory to sellers is 50 cents, which is much higher than the 15 cents charged for disposing of inventory.

Joining and leaving

1. By default, sellers have registered for the Logistics Donation Program. Sellers can check their registration status in Settings > Amazon Logistics > Amazon Logistics Donation Program.

2. Similarly, sellers can also opt out of the program at any time by disabling the Amazon Logistics Donation Program in the Amazon Logistics settings.

Amazon Donation Check Status

Sellers can track donated items in the Removal Shipment Detail Report. Download the report and look for items marked with Donate in the Carrier Name field.

Cost

Amazon can arrange shipping on your behalf at no extra charge. Sellers only have to pay regular disposal costs.