Amazon is several businesses wearing one logo. AIMS360 connects Vendor Central over EDI, Seller Central and FBM through the marketplace, and FBA through the API, all against one stock record.
Vendor Central, Seller Central, FBA, FBM and Direct Fulfillment behave nothing like each other. Different owner of the inventory, different owner of the price, different documents, different penalties. This page sorts out which door you are walking through, and how AIMS360 runs all of them against one stock record.
Across the programs, not as one connection. Vendor Central runs over EDI as part of the ERP. Fulfilled by Merchant orders arrive through the Shopify integration or the EasyShop API. Fulfillment by Amazon connects by API and pulls shipped FBA orders back into AIMS360 automatically. AIMS360 is a listed app in the Amazon Selling Partner Appstore.
The reason that matters is that Amazon is not one relationship. A brand can be a wholesale supplier, a marketplace merchant and a consignor of FBA stock at the same time, to the same company, under three different sets of rules. The mistake is treating them as one integration and discovering later that the same units were promised twice.
Almost every argument about Amazon programs comes from flattening these into a single list. They are a grid.
The first axis is the commercial relationship: who owns the goods and who sets the price. That is Vendor Central versus Seller Central. The second axis is fulfillment: who actually picks and ships the parcel. That is Amazon versus you. Every Amazon program is one cell in that grid.
| Amazon fulfills | You fulfill | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor Central (1P) Amazon owns the goods and the price |
Bulk purchase order shipped into Amazon fulfillment centers | Direct Fulfillment, Amazon's 1P dropship program |
| Seller Central (3P) You own the goods and the price |
FBA, Fulfillment by Amazon | FBM, Fulfilled by Merchant, or Seller Fulfilled Prime for the Prime badge |
No, although the warehouse work is identical. In both cases you hold the stock and ship a parcel to a consumer. The difference is the commercial relationship. Direct Fulfillment is a Vendor Central 1P program: Amazon is the seller of record, Amazon sets the retail price, you ship on Amazon's prepaid label and you are paid wholesale on vendor terms. FBM is Seller Central 3P: you are the seller of record, you set the price, you pay your own freight and you receive the retail price less Amazon's referral fee.
Same operation on the packing bench. Opposite economics on the profit and loss.
| Direct Fulfillment | FBM | |
|---|---|---|
| Account type | Vendor Central, 1P | Seller Central, 3P |
| Seller of record | Amazon | You |
| Who sets the retail price | Amazon | You |
| Who owns the inventory | You | You |
| Who picks and ships | You | You |
| Freight | Amazon's prepaid label | Yours |
| What you receive | Wholesale cost on vendor payment terms | Retail price less the referral fee |
| Who owns the customer | Amazon | Amazon, but you hold the listing |
| How you get in | Invite only, through Vendor Central | Open registration |
1P means Amazon buys from you and resells. You get a purchase order, predictable volume and Net 60 to 90 terms, and you give up retail pricing, PDP control and a chargeback surface. 3P means you sell direct on the marketplace. You keep price and margin, and you take on fulfillment economics and the fee structure that goes with them.
For most apparel brands under enterprise scale, this is no longer a free choice. Vendor Central is invite only, and in late 2024 Amazon terminated a set of wholesale vendor accounts, reported as largely in the one to five million dollar annual band, and pointed those brands at third party selling. Practitioners widely report invitations have slowed since. Amazon has not published a policy change, so treat that as the market's read rather than a rule.
| Question | Vendor Central (1P) | Seller Central (3P) |
|---|---|---|
| Seller of record | Amazon | You |
| Sets retail price | Amazon | You |
| Access | Invite only | Open registration |
| Revenue shape | Wholesale cost, less allowances and chargebacks | Retail price, less referral and fulfillment fees |
| Payment terms | Commonly Net 60 to 90 | Disbursement cycles, now held seven days past confirmed delivery |
| Fulfillment options | Bulk into Amazon FCs, or Direct Fulfillment from your warehouse | FBA, FBM, or Seller Fulfilled Prime |
| Main operational risk | Chargebacks and shortage claims | Fee stack and fulfillment performance metrics |
| Protects a wholesale channel | Harder, Amazon prices it | Easier, you hold MAP |
The common shape is not one or the other. Predictable, high velocity core styles go through 1P, where Amazon's own forecasting and merchandising do useful work and a purchase order is a purchase order. Launches, exclusives, higher margin items and the long tail of sizes go through 3P, where you keep the price, the PDP and the data.
Whether that is a strategy or a mess depends entirely on one thing: whether the two draw from the same inventory. If Vendor Central and Seller Central are looking at separate stock numbers, the first sold out size run on the marketplace becomes a shortage claim on the wholesale side.
Steady sellers with a forecastable curve. Amazon buys them, holds them, and merchandises them. You ship pallets and invoice against a PO.
New drops, limited runs, higher margin pieces and anything you need to control the price of. You stay the seller of record.
The sizes that would age in FBA storage are usually better shipped from your own warehouse, where your economics apply rather than Amazon's fee ladder.
Every cell in the grid allocating from the same available to sell number, with rules deciding which one wins when they compete.
Amazon punishes the same failure on both sides, in two different currencies. On 1P it is a shortage claim or an on time shipment defect. On 3P it is a cancellation, a performance metric hit, and eventually a suppressed listing. Both come from the same root cause, which is a unit that two systems each believed they could sell.
In AIMS360 the Amazon programs draw from the same style, color and size record as your EDI retailers, your wholesale accounts and your direct to consumer channels. Allocation rules decide deliberately when a marketplace order and a retailer purchase order want the same units, rather than whoever happened to sync last.
What apparel brands ask before committing to a program.
Vendor Central is first party, or 1P. Amazon buys your goods wholesale on a purchase order, owns the inventory, sets the retail price and is the seller of record. Seller Central is third party, or 3P. You own the inventory, you set the price, you are the seller of record, and Amazon takes a referral fee. Vendor Central is invite only. Seller Central has open registration.
No, although the warehouse work is identical. In both cases you hold the stock and ship a parcel to the consumer. The difference is the commercial relationship. Direct Fulfillment is a Vendor Central 1P program: Amazon is the seller of record, Amazon sets the retail price, you ship on Amazon's prepaid label and you are paid wholesale on vendor terms. FBM, or Fulfilled by Merchant, is Seller Central 3P: you are the seller of record, you set the price, you pay your own freight and you receive the retail price less Amazon's referral fee. Same operation on the packing bench, opposite economics on the P and L.
FBM stands for Fulfilled by Merchant, sometimes called the Merchant Fulfilled Network. It is the Seller Central option where you keep the inventory in your own warehouse or 3PL and ship marketplace orders yourself, rather than sending stock into Amazon's fulfillment centers as you would with FBA. There is no Prime badge by default, though Seller Fulfilled Prime can add one if you meet Amazon's delivery speed requirements.
Yes, across the different Amazon programs. Vendor Central connects over EDI as part of the ERP. Fulfilled by Merchant orders come in through the Shopify integration or through the EasyShop API. Fulfillment by Amazon connects by API to pull shipped FBA orders back into AIMS360 automatically. AIMS360 is listed in the Amazon Selling Partner Appstore.
Yes, and hybrid is increasingly the normal shape. The usual split routes predictable high volume core styles through 1P, where Amazon's forecasting works well, while launches, exclusives, higher margin items and long tail sizes run through 3P where the brand keeps price control. The operational requirement is that both draw on one inventory record rather than two.
Yes. There is no public signup for Vendor Central. Invitations come from Amazon's vendor recruitment teams. Trade press reported that in late 2024 Amazon terminated a set of wholesale vendor accounts, largely in the one to five million dollar annual band, and invited those brands to move to third party selling. Practitioners widely report that new invitations have slowed since then, though Amazon has not announced a policy change.
On Vendor Central, Amazon does. This is the single most common reason apparel brands with wholesale partners run into MAP conflict on Amazon. On Seller Central the brand sets its own price, which is why brands protecting a wholesale channel usually prefer 3P.
By keeping one available to sell number rather than one per channel. Amazon orders draw from the same style, color and size record as wholesale, EDI retailers and direct to consumer, so a unit committed to a retailer purchase order is not still showing as sellable on the marketplace.
Last reviewed 17 August 2026. Amazon program structures described here reflect publicly reported information as of August 2026. Amazon changes program terms, fees and requirements frequently, and Vendor Central terms are set per vendor under agreement, so confirm current specifics against Vendor Central, Seller Central or your Amazon contact rather than against any summary, including this one.
Bring your Amazon setup to a demo, whichever doors you are selling through, and we will walk the order flow and the inventory math end to end.
