FAQ

Do you support FBA? Do you support Wholesale?

• • Absolutely, more than half of our customers use FBA and/or Wholesale in full or as part of their sales strategy.
  • The days of shipping an MOQ from the factory to Amazon are so 2020.
  • With the increase in FBA storage fees, using FBMFulfillment to minimize your replenishment lead time is a great way to minimize storage fees.
  • We work with clients to determine optimal stock levels at Amazon

How is FBMFulfillment different than other 3PL companies?

• • FBMFulfillment was created for sellers by sellers.  We have 11 years of ecommerce selling experience in marketplaces like Amazon and webstores like Shopify and Magento.  We created FBMFulfillment due to the bad experiences with other 3PLs.
  • We support large clients and small clients wishing to be large clients.
  • We do not charge a start up fee.  We intent to be your partner long term and we are willing to invest in the relationship.
  • We do not require a contract.  We earn your business every month
  • Senior Managment and Owners are always availble to you.
  • We feature a post pay system and do not require an up front deposit.
  • We do not play games with hidden charges.  [Beware of this issue with researching 3PLs]

How does your system integrate with channels and webstores like Amazon, Shopify etc?

• • The FBMFulfillment system offers an advanced set of APIs than quickly and easily connect your channel or webstore to our system.  This can be done yourself, or our staff can assist.
  • The D2C order process:
    • Orders automatically flow from the channel/webstore to our system.
    • We pick, pack and ship the orders.
    • Tracking is uploaded to the originating channel automatically real time.
    • The inventories in our system are synchronized to your channel/webstore BY SKU real time to
      • Insure when products are received, they are immediately available to sell.
      • Insure you to not sell products that have gone out of stock, resulting in cancellations.
  • The FBA/Wholesale Process:  (Typically case quantities)
    • A manual order is placed in our system (very quick and easy)
      • You can provide the labels (ie Amazon FBA) or
      • We can provide the labels.
    • Do you already know the Weights and Dims?
      • If you already know the weights and dims, prepare the order and provide the labels as an attachment to the order
      • If you do not know the weights and dims, we will pick, provide and pause pending receipt of labels.

What are Channels, Marketplaces and Webstores?

• • Channels are marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Ebay, Etsy, TikTok to name a few
  • Webstores are websites like Shopify, Magento, WordPress/WooCommerce, Big Commerce.

What webstores and Channels (Marketplaces) do you support?

• • Marketplaces we support: Amazon , Walmart, Etsy, Ebay, TikTok, Pinterest, Faire and others.
  • Webstores we support: Shopify, Magento, WordPress/WooCommerce, Bigcommerce
  • We also support ChannelAdvisor, Google Store, MyStoreNo
  • If you have a Marketplace or Webstore not included above, let’s discuss.

How quickly do you ship?

• • Very quickly.   Orders received by 2:00 pm ship the same day 100% of the time.

Do you offer a Client Portal?

• • Yes – Our techology is “State of the art”.
  • We actually offer 2 versions of a client portal.
    • Our basic version is used by most of our clients.  It has a very easy to use interface and provide most of the information and functionality that clients desire without being overwhelmed.  You can:
      • Check orders,
      • Check Shipments
      • View Inventory
      • Create manual orders
      • Create wholesale/FBA orders
      • Create RMAs
      • Create Inbound ship plans
      • Plus much more (happy to provide a demo).
    • Our PowerUser version is valuable to our advanced clients.  This gives you almost all the functionality that we have.
      • Creating items
      • Creating Kits, Casepacks, Alternate Skus
      • Creating work orders
      • Advanced Reporting and Export
      • Plus much more

How do you add items (products) to the FBMFulfillment system?

• • Items are automatically created when your connect to your API, ie Amazon, Shopify, Woo…  Once added, they can be edited.
  • You can also manually create/edit items, casepacks, assemblies and kits
  • You can upload items, casepacks, assemblies and kits via CSV upload.

Is Florida a good place for a 3PL?

• • While you do not want a 3PL on a peninsula because it extends your shipping distance because you have to go north off the peninsula to go east or west.  Jacksonville is a popular distribution hub because it is not actually on the Florida penisula.
  • FBMFulfillment is located near the border of Florida and Georgia at the intersection of I-10 (going to Los Angeles) and I-95 (running from Miami to Maine)
  • Jacksonville is a terrific port city (USJAX).   None of the hassels and complications experienced in Miami or NYC.  Great for FCL and LCL.
  • Suprisingly Jacksonville is due south of Cleveland, OH.
  • Florida is the third most populated state in the USA and neighboring Texas is the second.  Both are growing rapidly.  4th-10th most populated states are: New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia (adjacent), North Carolina, and Michigan and are all within a day’s drive.
  • Florida is the best state to start an e-commerce business

How Many Warehouse Locations do you have?  Pros and Cons of Multiple Warehouses.

• • While having multiple warehouses storing goods  close to your customer sounds good theoretically, in practice it adds significant cost and complexity.
    • What happens if you have an order from California but you are out of stock on that sku in the west coast warehouse?
    • How much are you willing to pay to transport goods between warehouses to balance?
    • How much management resources does it take to forcast demand by location and distribute to the locations?
    • The more skus you have, the more complex it gets.
    • If this means dealing with a mega corporate warehouse, you will lose the personal touch.
    • From a taxation perspective, how many states do you want to be domicled in?  (consult your tax attorney for details)
    • The major benefit of multi-location is for few skus delivering in 1-2 days.
  • Florida is the third most populated state in the USA and neighboring Texas is the second.  Both are growing rapidly.  4th-10th most populated states are: New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia (adjacent), North Carolina, and Michigan and are all within a day’s drive.
  • Our negotiated rate mitigate any extra distance.
  • Our Economy shipping options deliver in 2-5 days and our surprisingly affordable express option deliver in 1-2 days.
  • Our quick ship operations, get the products out the door often 1-2 days quicker that competitors.

What are your barcoding requirements?

• • Barcodes are integral to our system.  They insure the cost efficiency, integrity and accuracy of all of our processes.  Some of the operations that rely heavily on the barcode are:
    • Receiving
    • Putaway
    • Order Pick (scanned onto the cart)
    • Order Pack (scanned again to insure the item matches the order)
  • Our system is very flexible with barcodes.  We support both Code 128, UPC, EAN and QR codes.  Your barcoding scheme is totally up to you.
    (It does not have to be GS1 for our needs.  Some customers simply barcode the SKU, FNSKU or other.  Any questions please ask)
  • One of the very imporant features of our system is the ability to manage full and broken cases.  This allows you to sell/ship case quantities (FBA or Wholesale) or eaches D2C.  This requires a sku for the master carton as well as the individual item.  Our system associates the master carton to the individual item (Casepack) and allow you to view the total possible inventory included in both full and broken cases.
  • Barcode Specificatons
    • Master Carton label must include the 1.) Master Carton Barcode minimum 2″ x 3″ the product name (including size and color) and case quantity
    • Master Cartons that contain multiple skus must have a label for each sku.
    • Unit label must include 1.) Unit barcode, Product Name.  Standard FNSKU labels are satisfactory
  • Products received that do not meet the specifications are relabeled and there will be a charge.