What a prep centre does
Amazon has specific requirements for how FBA stock arrives: FNSKU labelling that fully covers the original barcode, suffocation-warning poly bagging, correct carton weights and dimensions, and shipment plans that match what you actually sent. Get any of it wrong and stock gets held, rejected, or charged for at Amazon's own prep rates.
Precision Prep receives your stock, inspects it, preps it to spec and ships it into Amazon on your behalf. You never handle the boxes.
The workflow
- Order stock to their address. Every parcel or pallet is scanned into their system on arrival.
- Stock is checked against your prep sheet, with any issues flagged to you before they continue.
- They build the Amazon shipment plan using access to your Seller Central account.
- DPD collects daily.
Damaged or short deliveries are photographed on arrival and reported the same day, with CCTV footage available on request. That matters when you need to resolve something with a supplier and need evidence the shortfall happened before the stock reached the prep centre.
Services
- Receiving and inspection. Carton count and condition checked against your PO, with random-sample quality inspection.
- FNSKU labelling. Applied and scan-verified unit by unit, plus expiry and lot labelling for perishables.
- Poly bagging, bundling and kitting. Suffocation-warning compliant bagging, multi-pack bundles and custom kits built to your listing spec.
- Storage. Climate-controlled pallet and bin storage, pull and ship on demand. Useful while you are waiting on ungating.
- Dangerous goods. DG products handled and documented to Amazon's requirements, which many prep centres will not take on.
- Pallets. Inbound and outbound handled in-house, loaded with their own forklift.
The pricing, and how it actually works out
Two charges: a flat £25 per month account fee whatever your volume, and 45p per unit covering receiving, inspection and FNSKU labelling. Bulky units are 85p, bundled units 80p, and those replace the standard rate rather than sitting on top of it.
Volume discounts unlock automatically on unit cost: 5% at 1,500 units a month, 10% at 2,500.
Other rates: £2 for a new box where they cannot reuse yours, £2 plus shipping per DG shipment, £10 plus shipping per pallet, and a fixed £3.90 per parcel to Amazon on their direct DPD contract regardless of size or DG status.
All prices exclude VAT at 20%, and invoices are issued on the 1st with payment due within five days.
Work out your effective per-unit cost including the monthly fee before deciding. At 100 units a month the £25 works out at 25p on top of every unit, so your real cost is nearer 70p. At 1,000 units it is 2.5p, so you are close to the headline rate. The flat fee is what makes this expensive at low volume and cheap at high volume.
Who it suits
Anyone running FBA where prep has become the bottleneck rather than sourcing. Anyone buying in bulk where a pallet arriving at your house is not practical. And anyone sourcing from liquidation or returns, where stock arrives in mixed condition and needs checking before it can be listed.
Against doing it yourself: prepping fifty units is an evening. At 45p that is £22.50 to get the evening back, before VAT and the monthly fee. Whether that is worth it depends on what else you would do with the time and how often a prep mistake has cost you a held shipment.
Getting started
Send them your product type and monthly volume through the intake form and they quote within one business day. There is no minimum volume and no setup fee.