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Fulfill via Amazon FBA or MCF

Some orders ship from Amazon's warehouses instead of your own. When a line sits in an Amazon FBA warehouse, SKU.io doesn't pick and pack it — you hand it to Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) service and Amazon ships it from Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) stock. This guide covers the two ways that happens: submitting a SKU.io order to Amazon so Amazon creates the outbound fulfillment, and linking an outbound order Amazon already has.

Because Amazon holds the stock and does the picking, an Amazon fulfillment behaves differently from an in-house shipment — most importantly, it doesn't move your local inventory or realize COGS. For the full picture of how these orders differ, see Amazon FBA, MCF, and externally fulfilled orders.

Before you begin​

RequirementWhy it's needed
Fulfill sales orders permissionThe Submit, Edit details, and Link MCF actions on the fulfillment card only appear when you have it.
A connected Amazon integration with MCF enabledAmazon is the fulfiller. SKU.io talks to your Amazon account to create or read the outbound order.
An Amazon FBA warehouseThe order lines must sit in a warehouse of type Amazon FBA (tied to your Amazon integration). That warehouse is what routes fulfillment to Amazon instead of your own dock.
Products with Amazon listingsAmazon fulfills against a listing, so each line needs a mapped Amazon listing ID. Lines that don't resolve to a product block fulfillment — see Map an unmatched line.
The order is approved (Open)You can't submit a Draft or a Closed order. Approve the order first.
These examples

The examples use order SO-DOCS-0001 for customer Blue Bottle Retail with a Stainless Water Bottle 750ml line routed to your Amazon FBA warehouse.

Amazon fulfillment runs on production only

Creating an Amazon outbound order calls Amazon's live service, so it's available on your production site only. On a demo or sandbox environment the action is blocked and returns "Only available on production." The live preview and the on-screen controls still render, but no order reaches Amazon.

Send an order to Amazon (FBA / MCF)​

For an FBA warehouse, SKU.io ships through a fulfillment order — the plannable per-warehouse intent — which you then Submit to Amazon. Amazon MCF is the "provider" the order is submitted to, exactly as a 3PL would be. To learn how the fulfillment order (intent) and the resulting shipment (execution) relate, see Two-tier fulfillment.

Step 1: Open the order's fulfillment card​

  1. Open the order, for example SO-DOCS-0001.
  2. Go to the Fulfillment tab.
  3. Find the card for your Amazon FBA warehouse. Its fulfillment-order band reads Will submit to Amazon MCF.

Step 2: Set the shipping speed and packing-slip comment​

Amazon MCF ships at a fixed service level — this is the only "shipping method" that applies to an FBA order. Set it before you submit.

  1. On the fulfillment-order band, click Edit details.
  2. Under Shipping method, choose the Amazon service level. The Amazon fulfillment preview lists each speed with Amazon's live fee, delivery window, and whether it's fulfillable. The offered speeds are Standard, Expedited, and Priority (some orders also offer ScheduledDelivery).
  3. Click a preview row to select that speed. A Selected chip marks your choice; a row marked Not fulfillable can't be chosen. Click Refresh to re-pull Amazon's estimates, or expand a row for the full fee breakdown, weight, ship window, and shipment count.
  4. (Optional) In Packing slip comment, type the note Amazon prints on the packing slip. It defaults to "Thank you for your order!" and accepts up to 1000 characters.
  5. Save the details.
The preview creates nothing

The Amazon fulfillment preview is a read-only estimate from Amazon. Viewing or refreshing it doesn't create an order or commit you to a speed — only Submit does.

Step 3: Submit the order to Amazon​

  1. Back on the fulfillment card, click Submit. The Submit to Amazon MCF dialog opens.
  2. Review the recap: the shipping method (your chosen speed), the items, and the Amazon fulfillment preview with your chosen speed marked Submitting.
  3. To send only part of the order, click Submit partial… and set the Units to submit now per line. To send everything, leave it on Submit all.
  4. Click the Submit button in the dialog.

What you'll see: SKU.io hands the fulfillment order to Amazon and records a shipment on the order. Until Amazon actually ships, the shipment sits at Awaiting Tracking (the fulfilled_awaiting_info status), and the order's fulfillment status reads awaiting tracking. Amazon may return one or several shipments; tracking flows back onto the order as it ships.

No local stock movement or COGS

FBA units live in Amazon's warehouse, so submitting to Amazon does not deduct your on-hand inventory, write inventory movements, or realize COGS — it only records that Amazon is fulfilling the units and bumps the line's fulfilled quantity. In-house shipments do the opposite; see How fulfilling moves inventory and realizes COGS.

A merged fulfillment order submits together

If the FBA fulfillment order is part of a merge group, Submit dispatches the whole group to Amazon at once — the dialog lists the other orders under "Included via merge". See Split, move, and merge fulfillments.

Sometimes Amazon already has an outbound order for a shipment — for example, one created directly in Seller Central — and you want to attach it to the SKU.io order so its tracking and status flow back. Use Link MCF instead of submitting a new one.

  1. On the order's Fulfillment tab, find the Amazon FBA warehouse card.
  2. Click Link MCF (or choose Link MCF from the card's overflow menu). The Link Amazon MCF Fulfillment dialog opens.
When Link MCF is unavailable
  • On a Draft order the button is disabled with the hint "Approve the order before linking MCF." Approve the order first.
  • When the warehouse is already linked to a matched Amazon order, the button collapses to a passive Linked chip — the linked provider order shows in the Shipping Provider Order section below.

Step 2: Find and select the Amazon order​

  1. In the dialog, browse the list of unlinked MCF orders Amazon returned. Each card shows the Amazon fulfillment order ID, its status (for example Complete, Processing, Received), the shipping speed, destination, item SKUs, and any tracking numbers.
  2. (Optional) Type a fulfillment order ID or SKU into the search box to narrow the list.
  3. (Optional) Click Refresh to re-pull the latest orders from Amazon.
  4. Pick the matching order. An Address matches chip flags orders whose destination city or postal code matches this sales order's shipping address — a helpful confirmation you've picked the right one.
  1. With an order selected, click Link Fulfillment.

What you'll see: SKU.io attaches the Amazon outbound order to SO-DOCS-0001, and the linked order surfaces in the Shipping Provider Order section of the fulfillment card. As with a submitted order, no local inventory moves — Amazon owns the stock and the shipping.

Empty list?

If no cards appear, either every Amazon MCF order is already linked, or Amazon hasn't returned one yet. Click Refresh to pull again.

Next steps​

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