Amazon FBA Shuts Down New Seller Accounts in 4th Quarter
Updated on February 29, 2020
Amazon FBA is an amazing business model, if you’re unfamiliar with it you can learn more about it here. However, this year Amazon has decided to close its doors to new sellers during the holidays.
Their decision was made effective on October 10th, 2016, and will continue through the end of the year. In other words, if you have not completed your first order before now, you won’t be eligible for the Amazon FBA program until after December.
What is the reasoning for this? Simple logistics.
In order for Amazon to meet the inevitable holiday rush that is just around the corner, they have decided to focus delivering to their customers with 100% success, and avoiding the complications that can arise with a new retailer on their website.
In addition, this move helps get rid of the holiday opportunists who set up low quality goods to sell on Amazon, specifically for the holiday rush.
A posting from a new Amazon FBA seller in the Amazon Services Seller Forum indicates they received the following message when attempting to send their first shipment:
“We are restricting shipments from new-to-FBA sellers to ensure we have the capacity necessary to receive and store inventory and to ship products to customers quickly. If you have not completed your first shipment to Amazon before October 10, 2016, we encourage you to start shipping to Amazon after December 19, 2016. We encourage you to continue selling on Amazon and fulfilling orders directly to customers. We apologize for any inconvenience. If the situation changes before December 19, 2016, we will notify you by e-mail.”
The real question is…
What Does This Mean For You?
That answer…it depends.
If you already have an established FBA store, things should run predictably normal for you.
In fact, you might even get a sales bump this holiday season because there will be less of those opportunists around to compete with you. So in many ways, this is actually GOOD news for you!
If you were looking to start an Amazon FBA business, you’re going have to wait.
Though there ARE ways for you to get around this, if you are serious about selling this holiday season. One of the most common is buying an already established Amazon FBA business, that comes with the seller central account.
We currently have several Amazon FBA listings on our marketplace, if you are in the market and want to get in before the holiday rush begins.
It is very likely this will become a permanent rule that Amazon uses to help with their quality control. The Amazon FBA program has been wildly successful, with many first-time entrepreneurs making a sizable income online, and many investors buying up these opportunities to get in on the action.
Knowing this going forward will help new Amazon FBA owners establish themselves earlier, while getting rid of the low quality opportunists. The rule will probably make the Amazon ecosystem a lot cleaner, and bring in a higher quality overall, which is something every FBA owner should look forward to.
Looking to the Future
Amazon has added 20 new factories this year alone. Even still, their FBA program keeps exceeding expectations, as it continues to grow by leaps and bounds. It is definitely a great business model to look into, if you are interested in starting or expanding your online empire.
As the program grows, other opportunities have been popping up.
For instance, Amazon FBA has become so successful that the amount of people looking for research tools has created entire software companies that base their products around market research.
One of these companies is Greg Mercer’s Jungle Scout, you can check out a podcast we did with him here talking about his story of transitioning from an Amazon FBA seller to a successful SaaS business owner, serving the FBA space.
If you’re ready to get started with an Amazon FBA business, but don’t want to wait till the end of the holidays to do it (or if you just want to buy an FBA business with a proven profit producing product), then check out our marketplace for our current listings.
Discussion
What about singing up Amazon merch accounts?
Merch accounts are still invite only from what I understand. At the moment, the Merch accounts are still in beta from what I’ve been hearing from other people in the space. Though it is worth it to start requesting access to the merch program now rather than later, as the process can take up to several months before approval is given.