How Inbound Freight Coordination Works for Amazon FBA Sellers

Inbound freight coordination is everything between a finished FBA shipment plan and a checked-in shipment at Amazon. Amazon decides the destinations. The prep center makes two separate choices about how the plan ships: the placement (one destination with a placement fee, or a five-way split with none) and the method (LTL pallets or small parcel). Any combination of the two works. Then it books the carrier, builds the bill of lading, and stages the freight so labels, paperwork and the pickup all describe the same pallets.

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Amazon decides: Where the shipment goes
We decide: How the plan ships
Picked up from: Fort Worth, TX

The destinations are Amazon’s call. Placement and method are ours.

When we create a shipment to Amazon, Amazon determines where it needs to go. We still make two choices on every plan, and they are independent of each other.

Choice one is placement.

One destination, with a placement fee. The shipment goes to a national inbound cross-dock. Amazon distributes it to regional cross-docks, and those feed fulfillment centers. One destination from our side, plus the fee.

A five-way split, with no placement fee. The shipment skips the national cross-dock and goes straight to five regional cross-docks. Five destinations from our side.

Where your inventory sits across Amazon’s fulfillment centers after that is up to Amazon. It moves stock based on where it sells. You do not pick fulfillment centers, and a prep center’s address does not change which ones hold your units. What our location does change is the freight leg from Fort Worth to the cross-docks Amazon assigns, which is one leg of a longer chain.

Choice two is method. The boxes travel as LTL on pallets, or as small parcel (SPD). Method does not depend on placement. A single destination can go LTL or small parcel, and so can a five-way split. Our placement fee analysis covers the cost side of the first choice.

How shipment size steers both choices

There is no formula, but there is a rule of thumb. Bigger shipments make the call almost automatically. Small ones are the ones that can go several different ways.

01

Five pallets or more: a five-way split, on LTL

At that size each destination is likely getting a pallet or more, so the split avoids the placement fee and every leg still fills a pallet.

02

Very small shipments: small parcel

A few cartons on a pallet makes no sense, so the method is small parcel. Placement is still its own decision, made on what Amazon offers for that plan.

03

Around two pallets: single-destination LTL or small parcel

A two-pallet shipment usually takes the single-destination placement, and then goes as LTL or as small parcel. Which one depends on how full the second pallet is, the overall weight, and the number of boxes. A light second pallet or a manageable box count can tip it to parcel. A pile of tiny boxes makes parcel a bad idea.

The middle calls come down to those readings and experience across a lot of other clients’ shipments. We process 50,000+ units in a typical month, so most mixes have crossed our floor before.

Pallets go pack later. Parcel goes pack first.

In Send to Amazon there is a choice about when you declare what is in each box. We run it the same way every time: all of our LTL is pack later, and small parcel is pack first.

Pack first means box contents are declared up front, before Amazon returns the split. Pack later means you tell Amazon the item and the quantity, Amazon returns how it wants the shipment split, and then the boxes are packed to match the destinations.

This is a different question from whether a box is a case pack or individually packed units. It is only about when the contents get declared.

What the booking has to get right

Booking is a sequence, and each step depends on what the previous one returned.

01

Real pallet records

Each pallet gets its own height, weight and stackability. A default height prices the wrong freight, and most plans are not made of identical pallets.

02

One carrier path per plan

Within one placement we keep every shipment on the same path: Amazon Partnered Carrier on all of them, or your own carrier booked through Amazon Freight on all of them. Mixing the two breaks the placement confirmation and muddies the billing.

03

A rate comparison, partnered first

We look at the partnered options Amazon returns, then at an Amazon Freight quote, and compare. On some lanes there is no partnered option, and the comparison is skipped.

04

A bill of lading that matches the shipment

The BOL references the FBA shipment, so the pallet labels, the BOL and the appointment all point at the same freight.

05

Pallets staged before the truck

Pallets are wrapped and labeled for LTL handling and scanning at the destination, and they are ready when the carrier arrives.

Pickup is from our dock at 1925 Golden Heights Rd, Suite 200, Fort Worth. Semis up to 53 feet and 40-foot containers fit, a forklift is on site, and pallet and LTL pickups run by appointment. The service page covers the full sequence: Amazon freight booking service.

How this compares to consolidated truck programs

Some high-volume prep providers pool freight from many clients and send full, floor-loaded trucks to Amazon.

Filling those trucks takes a lot of inventory from every client, so the programs tend to come with requirements: several cases of each SKU per shipment (five cases is common), high monthly minimums, account fees, and terms that show up in the contract rather than in the marketing.

We build our LTL shipments pack later, so a SKU can go in with as few as five units. You send what is ready, when it is ready, without waiting to fill a case quota. Freight cost follows the pallets you actually send, and there is no consolidation program to buy on top of prep.

What to send before the freight is booked

Your SKU list, with units per case and cases per pallet where you have them.
Expected pallets per shipment and how often you send.
Whether your supplier ships to us palletized or in cartons. That leg is its own job: how to ship inventory to a prep center.
Anything oversized or otherwise unusual in the mix.

Questions we get

Who decides which Amazon fulfillment center my inventory goes to?

Amazon does. When a shipment plan is created, Amazon assigns the destinations, and afterward it moves inventory across its network based on where the product sells. Sellers do not choose fulfillment centers, and neither does the prep center.

Does a prep center’s location change where my inventory ends up?

No. Location changes the freight leg from the prep center to the cross-docks Amazon assigns. It does not change which fulfillment centers hold your inventory.

When do pallets make more sense than small parcel?

Very small shipments go small parcel and large ones go on pallets. In between, we weigh pallet weight, cubic volume and box count. A large number of tiny boxes pushes toward pallets, because parcel gets awkward.

What is the inbound placement fee?

It is an Amazon fee for sending a shipment to a single destination instead of splitting it across several. A five-way split to regional cross-docks carries no placement fee. Current amounts are on Amazon’s own pages, and our analysis is here: Amazon placement fees.

Do you book the freight, or do I?

We book it. LTL and pallet shipments go through the Amazon Freight portal or Amazon’s partnered carriers, depending on the lane. Prep is billed at the published per-unit tiers on prep pricing. Freight booking is scoped on a call after we see your pallet volume and shipment cadence.

How long does inbound freight take?

We do not quote one number, because it is several legs we do not all control: prep finishing on our floor, the routing and appointment Amazon returns, the carrier’s pickup schedule, and transit to the assigned destinations. We scope timing per engagement.

What volume do you work with?

We work with sellers sending 500 to 50,000 units a month. For wholesale and private label sellers in that range, wholesale FBA prep is where to start.

Planning your next inbound?

Send us the pallet count and the shipment plan details and we will tell you how we would ship it. You will work with a named account manager, and day-to-day questions run through a WhatsApp group with the people who handle the freight.

50,000+ units processed in a typical month
750,000+ glass items handled through a long-running Amazon FBA engagement
Fulfillment for hundreds of Amazon, Walmart and DTC sellers
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