A seller asked us this last week, and it is a fair question: “My factory says they ship to Amazon all the time. Can they just send the goods to my warehouse instead of going through you?” The short answer is yes, and for a lot of sellers in their second or third year it is the simplest and cheapest first leg there is. The longer answer is that the factory can only do it safely once four things are decided — and all four are decided by you, not by them.
First: who is the importer at destination?
This is the one that stops shipments. Your warehouse can receive all day long, but somebody has to clear the goods into the country first. If you ship DDP, our side acts as importer and pays duty and tax, and the warehouse just receives a domestic delivery. If you ship DAP, you or your own company has to be the importer, which means an EORI or equivalent registration, a VAT number where one applies, and a broker. A warehouse will not do it for you, and a factory certainly will not.
Most sellers we work with start on DDP precisely because that question is already answered, then move to their own importer status once volume justifies it. There is no prize for doing it the hard way first.
Second: whose barcode is on the carton?
Amazon wants FNSKU labels and an FBA box label. A third-party warehouse wants your own SKU code, and often a specific carton label with quantity and batch. Ship one set of labels to the other place and the pallet sits in quarantine while somebody reprints and relabels it — at destination, per unit, which is the most expensive place in the world to stick a sticker.
The practical rule: decide the final destination before the factory prints anything. If part of the batch may go to FBA later, have the factory apply your warehouse SKU label and leave a clear area for the FNSKU, so the relabel is a two-minute job rather than a repack.
Third: who books the receiving slot?
Warehouses work on appointments. Your factory does not have your account, does not know the slot system, and will usually just tell the truck driver to turn up. A missed slot is a wasted day and, at most warehouses, a fee per pallet or per hour that nobody warned you about.
Two workable arrangements: you book the slot and pass the confirmation to the factory with the delivery address and contact number; or your forwarder books it as part of the delivery, which is what we do on DDP files. Either way, the confirmation should exist before the container is loaded, not after it lands.
Fourth: who looks at the cartons before they leave?
A factory that ships “as usual” ships what it always ships. If the count is short, the labels are wrong or the cartons are crushed, you find out at the far end, after freight and duty have been paid on the problem. A short inspection before loading — photos of the pallet, the label, the carton count, the seal — costs very little and settles most arguments later.
Where returns fit into the same picture
The nice side effect of shipping direct into a warehouse is that returns can come back to the same place. Instead of paying freight home, units are received, graded, relabelled and either sent back to FBA or sold through another channel. Two questions worth asking your warehouse before you rely on it: do they accept returns at all, and how do they charge for grading and relabelling? The answer changes the economics more than the storage rate does.
The mistake we see most often
It is almost always the same one: the factory ships with Amazon labels to a third-party warehouse, mixes SKUs in one carton, and sends a packing list that does not match the pallet. The goods arrive, nobody can receive them cleanly, and the first invoice of the relationship is a relabelling charge. None of that is a shipping problem — it is a five-line email that did not get sent.
Before the factory books anything
- Confirm the term and who is the importer of record at destination.
- Decide the final channel for this batch, then issue the label artwork to the factory.
- Get the warehouse’s receiving requirements in writing — pallet height, carton marks, label placement, appointment system.
- Book the receiving slot, or confirm who will.
- Agree the pre-shipment photo check and who pays for it.
- Send one packing list that both the factory and the warehouse will use, with the same SKU codes.
And if you would rather not run any of it
Plenty of sellers do exactly this themselves, and it works. Others hand the whole first leg over: we book the space, clear the goods, deliver against the appointment and send you the receiving report. There is no wrong answer at the start — there is only a wrong answer after a pallet has been rejected. If you are setting this up for the first time, send us the SKUs, the carton count and the warehouse address, and we will tell you which of the four items above usually goes wrong on that lane. WhatsApp the operations desk: +86 135 0963 1114.