Fast FBA Prep UK – Frequently Asked Questions

Running Amazon FBA at scale comes with a lot of moving parts.
This page gives you clear, straight answers to the questions sellers ask most often before partnering with Fast Prep Center UK.

If you don’t see your specific situation here, just contact us – we’re happy to clarify details before you send a single box.

Getting started with Fast Prep Center UK

Yes. You can use our warehouse as the shipping / delivery address for your suppliers.

Your registered company address and billing address stay the same (usually your accountant or office). Only the delivery address on the PO and shipping label changes to our warehouse.

We recommend that every shipment to us clearly shows:

  • Your company name / Amazon store name

  • A reference (PO number or shipment name)

  • Our full warehouse address (as provided in your onboarding pack)

This way, when a lorry arrives with multiple loads, we can quickly match your cartons to your account and update your shared spreadsheet.

No long-term contract and no rigid minimum to start.

You can work with us whether you’re testing your first shipments or already sending thousands of units per month. We do not lock you into 6–12 month agreements and we do not charge onboarding or setup fees.

What we do ask for during onboarding:

Your estimated monthly volume band (e.g. 0–500, 500–1,000, 1,000–2,000, 2,000+ units)

The types of products you sell (categories, fragility, special handling)

This helps us plan capacity and give you realistic expectations on processing times as you scale.

Getting started is simple:

  1. Fill in our online form with your contact and business details – it takes less than 2 minutes.
  2. Your account is created automatically – you’ll receive your personal shared spreadsheet and the welcome pack pdf instantly via email.
  3. Connect Fast Prep as Amazon SPN Authorised Partner in your Amazon Seller Central based on welcome pack help (for shipping plans and labels).
  4. Start shipping! Send your goods directly from your suppliers to our warehouse.

You don’t have to email us every time you send stock.

Here’s how it works:

  • You add new POs / SKUs and quantities into your shared spreadsheet

  • The spreadsheet is configured to notify us automatically when you make changes

  • Our team checks new entries and gets ready to receive and prep those products

If you know an approximate arrival date or have tracking details, adding that to the sheet helps us plan capacity – but it’s not mandatory.

The only thing that’s essential is that you add SKUs and quantities before the goods arrive, and that your Amazon listings are correctly set up (so we can label and build shipping plans without delays.

Storage, product limits and risk management

Yes, we offer storage, but we differentiate between:

  1. Short-term staging (no storage fee)

    • Example: stock arrives on Monday, you’re waiting for another delivery on Friday so you can ship together under one plan

    • Example: inventory sits a few days while you fix a listing or barcode issue
      In these cases, the intention is to ship to Amazon as soon as possible, so we do not charge storage. We’re flexible about a few days of staging while you get everything aligned.

  2. Real storage (storage fee applies)

    • Example: you send stock with the intention to keep it with us for 2–3 weeks or longer

    • Example: you deliberately use our warehouse to hold buffer inventory and drip-feed it to Amazon over time
      In these cases, storage is charged per cubic metre, per month, according to our published storage rates.

This policy keeps the service fast and fair for everyone:
short-term staging to optimise shipments is free, but long-term warehousing is billed like any other storage service.

Yes, to keep operations safe, predictable and cost-effective, we work within a few clear limits under our standard service:

  • Maximum purchase value:
    Up to ~£100 per unit (your buy price from the distributor/manufacturer).
    This limits financial risk if compensation is needed in rare cases of damage or loss.

  • Maximum dimension:
    Up to ~100 cm on the largest side.
    Oversized goods create handling and safety constraints that slow operations and increase costs.

Items that fall outside these limits – for example:

  • Very high-value units

  • Very large or heavy items

  • Temperature-sensitive products

…are reviewed case by case. Where possible, we’ll confirm feasibility and pricing before accepting them into the warehouse.

Operations, prep and shipping to Amazon FBA

Our standard target is around 24 hours for regular FBA prep shipments once the goods are fully received and all instructions are clear.
Larger volumes (full containers, big pallet projects) or custom prep may take longer, but we agree the timeline with you in advance. In all cases, you can see the live status of each SKU and shipment in your shared spreadsheet.

We can work in both ways:

  1. Full-service mode (standard and preferred)

    • We create the Amazon FBA shipping plans in your Seller Central

    • We generate FNSKU labels and box / pallet labels

    • We prepare cartons/pallets and book carriers

  2. You create the shipping plans, we follow your labels

    • You create the shipments in Seller Central

    • You send us the FNSKU labels and box labels

    • We apply them and dispatch according to your plan

For most sellers, the full-service mode is faster and creates fewer errors.
If sending labels back and forth or adjusting your plans adds significant extra handling time, we may agree a small extra fee per shipment to cover the additional admin – always discussed and agreed in advance, never as a surprise.

Yes, we can handle Amazon removal orders and returned stock and it’s a standard service at Fast Prep UK.

We manage:

  • Amazon removal orders delivered to our warehouse

  • Customer returns you want us to inspect, rework, and prep back into FBA (or route elsewhere)

Typical steps can include:

  • Receiving and logging returned units

  • Visual inspection (and basic checks where possible)

  • Sorting resellable vs non-resellable stock

  • Repacking and re-labelling resellable units for FBA

  • Preparing unsellable stock for supplier return, disposal, or your preferred action

Pricing: In most cases, removals and returns are charged using our standard pricing, which you can verify in our Pricing Calculator here:
https://fastprep.co.uk/fba-prep-calculator/

Exceptions: Only in unusual cases (for example, complex testing, heavy rework, mixed conditions requiring extra handling, or non-standard workflows) we may quote separately based on the actual time and complexity.

Our core business is Amazon FBA prep and inbound handling.

We’re not a D2C pick-and-pack fulfilment centre for individual Shopify or eBay orders. However:

  • We can receive and store inventory that you later send to another fulfilment partner

  • We can forward bulk stock (cartons or pallets) to other warehouses, distributors or partners

If you have a more complex, multi-channel setup and want to see whether we can support part of it, send us the details and we’ll let you know what’s feasible.

Pricing, billing and contracts

No. We keep pricing simple and transparent:

  • No onboarding / setup fees

  • No monthly subscription

  • No “account admin” charges

  • No surprise receiving fees added at the end

Every chargeable operation (receiving, labelling, polybagging, bundling, pallet prep, storage, etc.) is:

  • Listed clearly in our FBA Prep Cost Calculator

  • Explained in plain English on our Services page

  • Tracked in your live shared spreadsheet as we work

Your monthly invoice is simply the sum of what you already see in the sheet – not a new set of numbers that appears out of nowhere.

We use a per-operation, per-unit model – what we call the Profit-Grid.

Here’s how you get full visibility:

  1. Use the online FBA Prep Calculator

    • Select your monthly volume band

    • Add the services you typically need (receiving, FNSKU labelling, polybagging, bundling, pallets, storage, etc.)

    • See your effective cost per unit and per batch before you ship

  2. Track everything in your live spreadsheet

    • Every time we perform an operation, it’s logged against the relevant SKU or shipment

    • You can see running totals and status in real time

    • No waiting for the invoice to know where your money went

This gives you exact landed prep cost per SKU, so you can:

  • Set safe repricer floors

  • Identify high-cost, low-margin SKUs

  • Make pricing and sourcing decisions based on real numbers, not averages.

We invoice once per month:

  • Invoice is issued on the 1st of each month

  • It covers all work completed in the previous month

  • You have 7 days to settle the invoice

This setup keeps your cash flow predictable and lines up well with typical Amazon payout cycles, so you’re not constantly juggling dozens of small invoices.