Amazon UK Shipping for Small Sellers: FBM, Buy Shipping and the Rules

Amazon has two selling plans. The Individual plan costs 75p (excluding VAT) per item sold with no monthly fee, which suits someone listing a few items; the Professional plan is £25 a month excluding VAT and is required for bulk tools, advertising and some restricted categories. On top of either plan Amazon takes a referral fee on each sale, mostly 8–15% with a 25p minimum; from December 2025 and early 2026 Amazon cut the rate on cheaper items in clothing (to 5% under £15 and 10% between £15 and £20), home, pet and grocery.

Second-hand selling is category-dependent. Amazon's condition guidelines allow Used grades in Books, Music, DVDs, Video Games, Electronics & Photo, Home & Garden, Office, Toys, Automotive and a few more; Clothing, Shoes & Bags, Sports, Baby, Pet, Grocery and anything consumable or topical (beauty, health, vitamins) must be new. That makes Amazon a natural home for used books, media, games and tech, and the wrong place for pre-owned clothing, which belongs on Vinted or Depop.

Fulfilment by Amazon means you send stock into Amazon's warehouses and Amazon picks, packs, posts and handles customer service and returns, with Prime eligibility included. Fees on the February 2026 rate card start around £1.83 for a light envelope under 20 g and £2.91–£3.00 for a small parcel up to 400 g, plus storage at £0.76 per cubic foot per month (£1.51 in October to December) and a 1.5% surcharge on fulfilment fees from April 2026; a Low-Price FBA rate applies to items under £20. FBA suits multiples of the same item; for one-off used books and games the inbound shipment and fees rarely make sense.

Fulfilled by Merchant means the order lands in Seller Central and you post it. You set a handling time, Amazon shows the buyer a delivery date built from it plus a transit time, and you are judged on hitting that date. Since 15 July 2026 the default handling time for new listings is 0 or 1 day, and the standard UK transit promise was cut to 4 days in January 2026. Turn on Shipping Settings Automation so Amazon calculates transit times from your address and the carrier, rather than guessing them yourself.

Buy Shipping is Seller Central's postage shop. Pick the order, choose a service from Royal Mail (1st and 2nd Class, Tracked 24 and 48, Special Delivery), Evri, DPD or Amazon Shipping, and Amazon produces a label as a PDF — A4 with a packing slip, or 4 × 6 for a thermal printer — and uploads the tracking number to the order. There is no QR-code or print-in-shop option, so an FBM seller needs a printer, and InPost is not offered (nor is Yodel, which became InPost in July 2026).

The protection is the reason to use it. A Buy Shipping label that gets its first carrier scan by the promised dispatch date is 'claims protected': if the buyer files an A-to-z claim that the item did not arrive, Amazon funds it and it does not count against your order defect rate. A label bought elsewhere carries no such protection, and any tracking has to be typed in by hand.

Two carrier quirks catch people out. Amazon's Evri labels come as a 'drop off' service and as Standard or Next Day collection services — ParcelShops and Evri lockers only accept the drop-off one, so choose that if you plan to walk the parcel in (Evri's Buy Shipping prices rose on 2 March 2026). Royal Mail Buy Shipping parcels can go to a Post Office, a Collect+ shop, a Royal Mail locker or, if barcoded and under 44 × 35 × 16 cm and 2 kg, a parcel postbox; Special Delivery has to go over a counter. Amazon Shipping is collection-only, with next-day and two-day services seven days a week.

• Carriers: Royal Mail, Evri, DPD, Amazon Shipping — not InPost
• PDF labels (A4 or 4 × 6); no QR code
• On-time first scan = A-to-z 'not received' claims funded by Amazon
• Evri: buy the 'drop off' service for ParcelShops and lockers

Amazon's order performance policy sets the lines: Order Defect Rate under 1%, pre-fulfilment cancellations under 2.5%, Late Dispatch Rate under 4%, Valid Tracking Rate above 95% for each category over 30 days, and On-Time Delivery Rate of at least 90%, with 97% recommended. OTDR enforcement began on 2 February 2026, and from 30 October 2026 Amazon Business sellers also face deactivation for a business-hour delivery rate under 90%. Breaches start with listing suppression and warnings and end with the account deactivated until you appeal with a plan.

In practice three habits keep a small seller safe: post on the day of the order or the next, always through Buy Shipping so the scan is captured, and never confirm dispatch before the parcel is actually with the carrier. Untracked 1st and 2nd Class letters bought through Buy Shipping are generally reported by sellers to count towards VTR, but a Tracked 24 or 48 service removes the doubt for anything but the cheapest items. Sellers who cannot post daily should extend their handling time rather than miss dispatch dates — a longer promise kept is far better than a short one missed.

Since July 2021 merchant-fulfilled sellers on Amazon.co.uk have had to offer a tracked prepaid return label for domestic returns, or a returnless refund, in almost every category. The simplest way is to let Amazon issue the label through its integrated return carriers, Evri and Royal Mail; the cost is charged to you when the carrier scans the return, and since January 2026 an Amazon-issued label triggers a refund to the buyer at that first scan. You can upload your own prepaid label instead, but you cannot ask the buyer to pay up front.

Buyers have 30 days from delivery to start a return. Amazon's customer policy allows a seller to deduct the return postage from the refund when the buyer used a personalised prepaid return label for a change-of-mind return, and forbids restocking fees in the initial return period; if your return address is outside the UK you always pay. Returnless refunds — refunding without asking for the item back — are set in Return Settings and make sense for low-value items where the postage exceeds the value. From 26 January 2026, if you do not refund within four calendar days of a return arriving, Amazon refunds automatically and you lose the right to a SAFE-T claim except in limited cases.

Amazon publishes no packaging standard for merchant-fulfilled parcels beyond the carrier's own rules, but include the packing slip from Buy Shipping, pack to the carrier's limits (Royal Mail 20 kg and 61 × 46 × 46 cm; Evri 15 kg and 120 cm) and avoid reusing boxes with old barcodes uncovered. Products with lithium batteries or classed as dangerous goods go through Amazon's hazmat review before they can be listed, which needs a safety data sheet or exemption sheet and can hold a listing for several days.

Lockers are limited. InPost lockers are not a Buy Shipping option and have not accepted Evri parcels since March 2025; Evri lockers do accept an Amazon Evri drop-off label, scanned at the terminal. Royal Mail lockers take Tracked and 1st/2nd Class parcels but not Special Delivery. Amazon's own Hub lockers are for deliveries and returns, not for sellers posting orders.