If you’re selling your products on Amazon through Vendor Central, you may find yourself wanting more autonomy. Making the switch from Vendor Central to Seller Central can be a strategic move for brands seeking more control, flexibility, and profitability on Amazon.
Vendor Central vs. Seller Central
Vendor Central is an invitation-only platform where brands sell their products directly to Amazon at wholesale prices. Amazon then manages fulfillment, retail pricing, and inventory. On the other hand, Seller Central is a third-party platform where brands can sell directly to the consumer on Amazon’s marketplace. Seller Central is more accessible as it does not require an invitation from Amazon.
While there are advantages to selling to Amazon through Vendor Central, there are certain drawbacks that have many vendors considering making the switch to Seller Central. Amazon’s first-party vendors cannot set their own prices, and their ability to make more inventory available to the consumer is dependent on what Amazon’s algorithm determines it should request via weekly purchase orders.
Vendors must also renegotiate their terms with Amazon every year, which seems less like negotiations and more like being told what Amazon wants. If the cost of a Vendor’s products needs to increase for any reason, it is incredibly difficult to get Amazon to accept them. For cost increases and other issues, some Vendors are assigned an Amazon Vendor Manager who can help them. However, Vendor Managers have a large workload and may be limited in their responses and the scope of what they’re able to do. Having a Vendor Manager is not guaranteed, however, so many Vendors simply must get by without one and try to resolve issues via Amazon Support tickets.
Bearing all of this in mind, the flexibility of Seller Central is appealing. When selling through Seller Central, brands can set their own prices and have much greater control over their inventory and fulfillment. There are multiple fulfillment programs, each with its own benefits, that a seller can choose from. Brands have better access to marketing and merchandising tools, such as Amazon A+ content, than their Vendor Central counterparts. At this time of writing, Seller Central users with a Professional Selling Account can create premium A+ content at no extra cost, while Vendor Central users still have to pay for the premium modules.
Additionally, if a product’s cost must increase, sellers can simply increase their prices. However, this must be done carefully and with the expectation that this may impact whether or not they keep the Buy Box on their listing.
Making the Switch to Seller Central
If an Amazon first-party Vendor is interested in switching over to Seller Central, then there are a few things to keep in mind. The amount of inventory either sent in to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) or made available through Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) is under the seller’s control — not Amazon. The seller is then responsible for any fees associated with the fulfillment programs they choose. They must also make sure that order processing, product compliance, and customer experience meet Amazon’s standards, or risk having an unhealthy account.
If a vendor making the switch to Seller Central is not registered with Amazon Brand Registry, doing so through their new Seller Central account is advisable. This will help with any potential conflicts with content published during the time the products were set up on Vendor Central, versus new content pushed through Seller Central. Otherwise, if the brand already registered with Amazon Brand Registry when they were a 1P vendor, they will need to work with Amazon Brand Registry’s team to make sure that branded content and features, such as their Brand Store, are properly linked to their Seller account.
Considerations and Advice
Moving from Vendor Central to Seller Central is a serious project in and of itself. Brands need to keep themselves fully informed of the benefits and resource costs associated with Seller Central, including how much this will impact their warehouse’s workload and if their fulfillment program choice will allow them to have the Amazon Prime badge. More control over your brand and product on Amazon means more responsibility. It is important to become familiar with the tools that help their products rank higher in the Amazon ecosystem.
The requirements for shipping purchase orders to Amazon versus FBA or FBM are different, so it is imperative to ensure that whoever handles the order processing is familiar with these. Companies will need to note the differences between dealing with chargebacks on Vendor Central versus the fees associated with Seller Central.
One of the most important considerations is whether or not the company wants to switch completely from Vendor to Seller, or if they want to adopt a hybrid model. Either way, making this change will impact the revenue coming in from Amazon. A decision must be made to stop fulfilling Vendor purchase orders (POs) in order for Seller Central offers to stand a chance to gain sales history, which means that revenue from Amazon may be interrupted.
As long as Amazon has inventory of a brand’s product, their own offer will likely win the Buy Box over any third-party competitors. This can impact whether or not the company can advertise their own product as well, as sellers must have the Featured Offer in order to be eligible to run Sponsored Product ads. Vendors making a complete switch to Seller Central will need to keep this in mind, and watch the inventory levels of what they’ve sent to Amazon in the past to determine when they have a better chance of winning the Buy Box.
Vendors who switch to a hybrid model can get around this, sort of. Depending on the size of their catalog and which products they want to sell on Amazon’s marketplace, they can choose to sell different SKUs through each platform. Selling a different product than what Amazon offers, regardless of it being a product you sold to them as a 1P vendor, eliminates the headache of competing against Amazon for control over your own listing.
If Vendors do not have new products that they can and want to sell on Amazon, they can instead choose which SKUs they’ll continue to sell to Amazon through Vendor Central, and which SKUs they will sell through Seller Central. They must, at some point, stop accepting and filling PO requests for the products they want to sell on Seller Central, or they’ll have a very difficult time getting their listing to appear to shoppers.
The Most Important Piece of Advice
When it comes to making the switch, if you, as a Vendor, have any communication with Amazon regarding your account, listings, or products, get everything that you can in writing. If complications from listing suppression or account conflicts arise, having documentation on your side can help resolve such issues. Working with Amazon Brand Registry is also a key way to protect your brand. Always be honest, of course, but be careful what you wish to share with your Vendor Manager (if you have one) or Seller Support when you make the switch. It is, after all, your business.
